Talk:Priest (3.5e Class)

Comments and Concerns

Now that I'm not distracted, I've had a chance to take a closer look. Some things stood out -

Spells - Why no bonus spells from high attribute?

Gate to the Heavens - Would restricting it to opening somewhere in the deity's demesne instead of just their plane (which could wind up on a different layer) be a reasonable thing to add?

I still need to look over the domains proper before I have more than a "that looks interesting, and could be done really well" feel about the spellcasting,, since this relies on them pretty heavily, but I'll add any concerns on that front to the relevant domains. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 21:31, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

On the no bonus spells from a high attribute - I'm actually not sure anymore. Consider this section amended, mostly out of my own weirdness/stupidity.

As far as Gate to the Heavens is concerned - agreed, although the added 'scatter' that I gave to it somewhat mitigates for this. Consider it changed to match your suggestion, though. - MisterSinister 21:50, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed that they get crap BAB, only good Will saves, and only light armor proficiency. This makes me extremely happy, and I wanted to share that with you :-D. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 03:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Spell assignment concerns -

• Refuge - This is an additional note about this spell, since it shows up in the base list and the Good domain. I think the domain is the better call here.
• Binding - It's not traditionally a cleric spell, and doesn't seem to do anything that soul bind doesn't already do. Why the inclusion?

- Tarkisflux ^Talk 04:30, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Missing Spells

I'm just going to drop a list of spells here that are somewhat central to my conception of "priestness" but missing from both the base list and domains. I don't have suggestions for where to put most of these, but they probably should go somewhere. Will add to list as I run across things. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 06:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

List:

• Remove Disease
• Remove Blindness/Deafness (I'd be pretty happy rolling this in with remove disease and putting the new "remove affliction" in as the healing 3rd level)
• Remove Curse
• Water Breathing (appears in water domain power, but nowhere else)
• Freedom of Movement
• Zone of Truth
• Atonement
• Break Enchantment
• Hallow / Unhallow (though parts of the unhallow effect should arguably die in a fire)
• Banishment
• Word of Recall
• Holy Word / Blasphemy
• Refuge
• Soul Bind (it's a less nasty trap the soul [which does show up in a domain], but I'm pretty comfortable giving clerics this sort of dominion over the eternal souls of people)

I actually have no issues giving this whole list to priests. Most of these are quite situational, but I object to a few of these being on the general list. Specifically Water Breathing and Holy Word/Blasphemy. The former I actually think should be reserved for priests of water deities, and the latter is a bit tricky, because I don't want to give them all out. That being said, I need to rewrite the alignment domains anyway, assuming I haven't done so already, so I think that solves the issue. - MisterSinister 19:44, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit: Same goes for Hallow/Unhallow, really. Otherwise, all added. - MisterSinister 19:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I have now added domains for all of the alignments, which should close the circle on the stuff you've asked to be included. I hope. - MisterSinister 00:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

The stuff I've found anyway :-p. Mind answering some leveling questions? Why are commune and zone of truth level 2 instead of some other level? Full disclosure - level 2 looks pretty full compared to other levels and those are spells I could see moving up or down to spread things out a bit, but I don't want to actually ask for that sort of thing until I know why they're there in the first place. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 02:04, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Zone of Truth is a relatively weak spell when you think about it - it has a small area in a very close range, and can be avoided by simply leaving the area (which is hardly a challenge). When you compare it to its higher-level brother (discern lies), it targets specific creatures, which makes simply wandering off something you cannot do. Additionally, discern lies does not signal to the creature that you know that it's lying or not, whereas zone of truth will - immediately. Lastly, this is where it was before, and I could think of no good reason for changing it.

Commune is a trickier question. As a 5th level spell, commune was ridiculous in terms of what it supplied you with, which was essentially almost nothing. You are only allowed yes-no questions, the deity may well not know what you're seeking to learn (and have their own agendas anyway), and has a fairly explicit statement effectively saying 'the GM will only give you what they think is appropriate'. I like to compare it with augury, which has precise, defined results (albeit in a much narrower range), with a very real measure of how precise its answers will be. And that is a 1st level spell by my reckoning, due to its extremely narrow application and short timeframe. While I believe that commune is better, it's not four spell levels better, which is why I think putting it there is most sensible.

Really, the way I see it is "how useful is this spell compared to others of its level?". For both of these, I consider them to be useful on a level relative to 2nd level utility spells people swear by, such as resist energy, desecrate and shatter. - MisterSinister 02:37, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I actually think Commune is more useful that your reference spells as well as significantly more useful than Augury due to having actual scaling and known non-random biases, enough that I would only drop it to 3rd personally. Admittedly, this also includes a personal bias to not have 3rd level clerics actually talking to their deities and reserving that for "mid-level" clerics (5-9 range, for campaign fluff and available story reasons), so take that as you will. Zone of Truth I think reasonably useful, if limited in all the ways you mentioned and more since you can play "evade the question" until the duration ends. I have actually wasted minutes in games talking around this spell (seriously - this is not an exaggeration) with things that are technically truthful answers to the questions I was asked if not actual return questions for clarification. You can get around that sort of thing with extremely direct questions, sometimes, but in those situations it's as useful to a 1st level cleric as a 3rd level one. Since I'm also pretty comfortable with courts (such as they exist in the campaign setting) using this spell and the priests/clerics who cast it as a failsafe against perjury, I wouldn't mind dropping it to 1. Your call though, I'll adjust my divine classes appropriately in any case. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 06:30, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

--Break for new spells--

• Protection from <Alignment>
• Consecrate (no [Good] desc) - This does everything that desecrate does except it's only hostile to undead. Seems a suitably priestly thing.
• Magic Circle Against <Alignment>
• <Stuff from the Spell Comp> - I'm not actually sure what your feelings on this one are, but felt like including it since the templar uses it.
• Delay Poison - Yeah, neutralize is in the healing domain, but that's the only place it is and priests don't have access to the heal skill to fix it otherwise. Dropping this in at 2 seems like it would be a decent compromise without stepping on the healing domain's toes, since they'll never cast it anyway.
• Death Ward

Class Skills

Healing and Dowsing definitively seem like priest skills to me. Why didn't they get onto the class skill list?--Parakee^Talk 22:21, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

The skills for this were taken from the Cleric, and they don't have the skills because they already have spells to cover those bases. You could make an argument that priests should get the skills since they don't have the same default access to healing and divination spells (subject to spell concerns detailed above), but it devalues clerics who take those domains somewhat since they get similar abilities from two sources. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 04:11, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Request

Would you mind if I used this class for my Emerald Sun setting? Paleomancer (talk) 21:30, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Not in the slightest. - MisterSinister (talk) 08:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)