Clerics and Good Bye Bonus Actions
Added 2024-12-27 00:02:55 +0000 UTCToday, as a Boxing Day treat, I have the first draft of the cleric class. A few notes on it:
I've recast all of the cleric's spell as effectively bonus actions in 5e terms, but I don't use the bonus action mechanic. Instead, this design steals a piece from my earlier fighter. The class grants a special action. When you use it, it gives you multiple picks from a list. You can bash someone with your mace and invoke a prayer, invoke a prayer and invoke an orison, and so on.
Bundled options as actions avoids multiclass overlapping. If you are a fighter/cleric, each round you can use the fighter's action OR the cleric's. There is some mixing - you could throw a cleric buff on yourself, then go all out with attacks next turn - but hopefully this path minimizes the issues in a more elegant way.
This mechanic addresses my main concern with bonus actions. They were supposed to police the ability to stack actions on top of each other, but they do a bad job of it. Some stuff is a bonus action when it shouldn't be. Other stuff should have been a bonus action but was not made one.
I hope that apprentice levels help make a smooth on-ramp for new players. You start by learning the basic actions of the game, then graduate to your funky action once you start gaining numbered levels.
I really wanted to lean into the old school idea of cleric as armored priest. To make it different from a fighter, I'm adding in prayers that allow the cleric to act as a party tank. When I get to spells, you'll see what I mean.
I toyed with a much different cast mechanic, but I think the blend of casting and weapon fighting is enough.
Domains, and other subclass options, are still up in the air. I'd like them to add to this basic structure in a flavorful way.
Comments
This sorta makes them like the exact opposite of a tank, but I've always adored the mechanics of the spell Sanctuary. Best representation of prayer protecting you. And I think it'd be a fun dichotomy to have Clerics who survive via Armor and Clerics who survive via Never Being Targeted By Attacks. Since these are two different fantasies within the same class that I know each have their own dedicated fan bases.
Cloux
2025-01-01 01:26:38 +0000 UTCI like the direction of making the Cleric feel a little more like semi-tanks they used to be. I don't think giving them heavy armor is the way to go for it though. Maybe for a war cleric, but I would prefer they got a armor bonus from prayer, or even just a bonus from their wisdom mod to make up for things and give a feeling that their god is protecting them. On one of the other comments you were mentioning the buff to 5.5 Healing. I think it is trying to solve a problem that the game system doesn't want solved anymore because of action econ. I think just accepting that "small healing for downed characters" is default, lets you buff/add out of combat healing prayers in the vein of Prayer of Healing. But like whether the math adds up or not 1d4 just straight feels bad to roll for healing.
Swiss Calavera
2024-12-29 02:10:43 +0000 UTCThere's merit to the idea of removing bonus actions but the "bundled actions" thing (like divine zeal) seems awkward. At that point there are nominally fewer actions but someone is still taking all the actions they would formerly, and in exchange for looking cleaner on paper gameplay depth has been removed by limiting the choice of which actions to combine. (For example, bundling rage with an attack may seem like the obvious choice, but what if there's a situation where someone wants to disarm a trap and then rage, or double move and rage? Aren't those sorts of unusual circumstances exactly what makes combat dynamic and interesting?) I think if you go this route, bundled actions are cheating and doing it right will mean giving up on the way certain effects work currently. Maybe rage becomes a stacking buff that applies with each of a barbarian's attacks, or a resource, or a reckless attack type combat option, etc.
d20fanclub
2024-12-28 09:50:10 +0000 UTC
