Clerics (outdated concept)

[Hide and Seek]

Not sure if this is related to the topic, but I'll give it a try.

 

Would battleclerics (since they should need to battle without spells too) not have at least 1 extra attack without calling to their God? Granted, their thaco and attack speed would never reach close to a fighter of the same level, but.

[SixOfSpades]

Disadvantages:

- Can memorize one spell less per day at each spell level.

English Grammar: It should be "fewer," not "less."

Infinity Engine: Spellslot penalties are impossible to implement without bugs.

 

The game calculates how many spellslots of each level you should have in this order: Class, Kit (CLAB file), Stats, Items, Spells. Let's say you're a Level 14 Morninglord of Lathander with 17 WIS and the Ring of Holiness. So your number of Level 3 spellslots should be 6 (Level 14 Cleric) minus 1 (Kit) plus 1 (17 WIS) plus 1 (Ring), for a total of 7. When you Saved the game, you had a spell memorized in all 7 of those slots, but when you Reload, the game applies the Kit penalty before the WIS and Ring bonuses. The result is that the game drops your available spellslots down to 6, and bumps it back to 7 an instant later: That 7th memorized spell you had is now just an empty spellslot. The worst part is that this happens every time you Reload. As far as I know, nobody can find a way around this.

 

Or are you simply giving trueclass Clerics a bonus spellslot per level, making that paragraph above just a waste of my time?

 

Mecklem is a Dawnbringer of Lathander with a difference

I'd like to echo the idea that "A Firewalker of Kossuth without Fire Resistance is not a Firewalker of Kossuth." In my mind, if all the Cleric kits are just cookie-cutter patterns (1 kit-specific spell, 1 kit-specific weapon that is just like all the others in all but name, and a few "extra" spells), then that quickly gets really boring. SO! If there's to be any changes going on around here, I for one would like to see them be more than just largely cosmetic. Give the Painbearer of Ilmater some permanent Regeneration, and replace all of his Healing spells with spells that transfer the target's wounds to his own body. The Watcher of Helm should be immune to Blindness and Backstab, or at least become so at later levels. Make the "Tendril of Flame" spiritual weapon do some flippin' Fire damage, for crying out loud. I realize of course that we're not going to be changing any of Divine Remix, but we can at least set an example for them.

 

Differing Usabilities

Important question: yarpen's Battlepriest/Pilgrim/Scholar idea is a good one, and we can hijack the Helm/Talos/Lathander (respectively) usability flags for this purpose--but only at the risk of conflicting with every other Cleric mod there is. Are we going to try to implement real restrictions for these kits, or simply say that "This kit is not allowed to wear anything heavier than Studded Leather" and leave it to the players to police their own game?

 

Holy Symbols

Personally, I think that not only should they be available right from the start of the game (not magically granted at Level 25), but they're practically welded to their owners: Without your conduit to your deity, your Spellcasting button is greyed out. They should all have certain enchantments, of course, to balance out not being able to equip a different item in that slot, but that could also be a benefit: The "Special Abilities" menu is frequently rather crowded, so casting your kit-based spells through the "Use Item" menu instead would be a bit more convenient.

And no, they should not ALL be Rings, should not ALL grant +1 STR and +1 6th- & 7th-level spellslot, etc.

A side effect of the Holy Symbols being (practically) nonremovable would be that maybe we could have spellslot penalties after all, as the game would apply the penalty (granted by an item) only after the bonus (granted from the high WIS) was already in place. We would only have to worry about conflicts with other items, like the Ring Holiness (which is almost never obtained) and the Axe of Hrothgar (which is hardly appealing, even if we allowed Clerics to use it).

[Demivrgvs]

Disadvantages:

- Can memorize one spell less per day at each spell level.

English Grammar: It should be "fewer," not "less."

Infinity Engine: Spellslot penalties are impossible to implement without bugs.

 

...

 

Or are you simply giving trueclass Clerics a bonus spellslot per level, making that paragraph above just a waste of my time?

Yeah, I'm just giving True Cleric an additional spell slot.

 

More unique kits

I'd like to echo the idea that "A Firewalker of Kossuth without Fire Resistance is not a Firewalker of Kossuth." ... The Watcher of Helm should be immune to Blindness and Backstab, or at least become so at later levels. Make the "Tendril of Flame" spiritual weapon do some flippin' Fire damage, for crying out loud. I realize of course that we're not going to be changing any of Divine Remix, but we can at least set an example for them.

Haven't I already said that I'm all for it? Each kit has two granted powers, and thus Stormlords can have electrical resistance as one of them, Watchers may have a sort of blindsight, and so on. Keep in mind that only the three original kits are KR priority, and probably Nightcloak of Shar because of Viconia, but I won't embark myself into 20 cleric kits before finishing fighter/mage/druid/thieves/rangers kits.

 

Differing Usabilities

Important question: yarpen's Battlepriest/Pilgrim/Scholar idea is a good one, and we can hijack the Helm/Talos/Lathander (respectively) usability flags for this purpose--but only at the risk of conflicting with every other Cleric mod there is. Are we going to try to implement real restrictions for these kits, or simply say that "This kit is not allowed to wear anything heavier than Studded Leather" and leave it to the players to police their own game?

I was actually thinking of using Helm/Talos/Lathander usabilities to effectively have real restrictions. Helm is surely the warrior-type and I'd like to let this kit use almost all weapons and armors, but I haven't decided about Talos/Lathander, though the former may be fine in light armors (Nightcloak too), and the latter could be restricted to medium armors. I know some (like Mike) would like clerics with robes, but I don't want a kit to be so heavily restricted as I would have to personally add tons of cleric robes, and it would be a pain to balance imo. Anyway, if I had to introduce something like the Dweomerkeeper of Mystra than robes would be almost mandatory.

 

Holy Symbols

Personally, I think that not only should they be available right from the start of the game (not magically granted at Level 25), but they're practically welded to their owners: Without your conduit to your deity, your Spellcasting button is greyed out. They should all have certain enchantments, of course, to balance out not being able to equip a different item in that slot, but that could also be a benefit: The "Special Abilities" menu is frequently rather crowded, so casting your kit-based spells through the "Use Item" menu instead would be a bit more convenient.

Actually I usually have much more Use Item headers.

 

And no, they should not ALL be Rings, should not ALL grant +1 STR and +1 6th- & 7th-level spellslot, etc.

A side effect of the Holy Symbols being (practically) nonremovable would be that maybe we could have spellslot penalties after all, as the game would apply the penalty (granted by an item) only after the bonus (granted from the high WIS) was already in place. We would only have to worry about conflicts with other items, like the Ring Holiness (which is almost never obtained) and the Axe of Hrothgar (which is hardly appealing, even if we allowed Clerics to use it).

I haven't thought much about Holy Symbols, but yeah, we can make them different from each other, and yeah, having them from the start instead of obtaining them later on seems more appropriate, though that means we have to make them upgradable. I'm not sure about making them unremoveable though...

[yarpen]

I haven't thought much about Holy Symbols, but yeah, we can make them different from each other, and yeah, having them from the start instead of obtaining them later on seems more appropriate, though that means we have to make them upgradable. I'm not sure about making them unremoveable though...

Long time ago I was writing about similiar idea, but quite improved. So... I wanted to change cleric kits into Battlepriest/Pilgrim/Adept trio and make decision about player's faith being made via buying a holy symbol from a sort of strange merchant (it could be Oghma Cleric in Candlekeep, some strange gypsy-like guy at Waukeen Promenade or at Saradush) and this Holy symbol allows cleric to cast spells and turn undead, adds to his list domain spells (there is a group of universal cleric's spells - but rest is added via item) and grants some special abilities.

 

I think that item upgrades should be available at SoA and ToB beginings.

[SixOfSpades]

Yeah, I'm just giving True Cleric an additional spell slot.

Okay then. I'm pretty sure the spell can be run through an EFF file, to ensure that Dual- and Multi-Classes don't get the bonus spell.

 

More unique kits

Haven't I already said that I'm all for it?

Yes you did, I just didn't read through the whole thread all that carefully--late at night and so on. Anyway, yeah: Making the kits very unlike each other (and the plain Cleric) makes me a happy panda.

 

Differing Usabilities

As I said, I don't really like the idea of messing with the main Cleric/Lathander/Helm/Talos flags too much, as there are too many other mods that use them. So I'd rather try to approximate, using existing restrictions. For Priest kits built on the Adept/Scholar template, we can give them the Shapeshifter's usability flag and simply make the lesser Mage Robes wearable by Clerics (and make more interesting, Cleric-flavored Robes later). For the Pilgrims, we could give them either the Archer flag (Note: At least one mod allows Archers to wear Elven Chain) or the Barbarian flag (and then apply appropriate hitpoint penalties to counteract the hardcoded D12 Hit Dice). Battlepriests would obviously have no flag but Trueclass.

As for weapon selection, I would rather influence that through proficiency points than actual Usability. For one thing, Priests of each faith should be able to attain 1 more proficiency point in their deity's favored weapon than any other type of weapon.

 

Holy Symbols

yeah, having them from the start instead of obtaining them later on seems more appropriate, though that means we have to make them upgradable. I'm not sure about making them unremoveable though...

Upgradable items aren't that scary . . . if they grant additional spellslots, though, we'd have issues with those slots being erased at each upgrade. I didn't say I wanted the Holy Symbols nonremovable, only that the Priest should never really want to remove it, as without it he's completely unable to cast spells (or Turn Undead, good catch yarpen). Dual-, Multi-, and Trueclassed Clerics wouldn't have a Holy Symbol . . . and now it strikes me as awkward if we do this for Cleric kits but not Druids. Hmm.

 

If a Cleric without a Priest kit completes a Cleric stronghold, should he be automatically given the appropriate kit, complete with Holy Symbol? If so, should Gnomish Cleric/Illusionists be able to use this method to negate their Illusionist kit?

 

I don't like the idea of buying one's Holy Symbol, you should simply start with it at Level 1, although certain merchants could be given dialog options by which they can change the Symbol from one type of item to another, such as turning your ring into a belt buckle or something like that. Upgrades should only occur based on level and/or Stronghold quests, not what section of the game you're in.

[Ardanis]

I wanted to change cleric kits into Battlepriest/Pilgrim/Adept trio and make decision about player's faith being made via buying a holy symbol from a sort of strange merchant

That would effectively be three new classes, not priest kits.

[Demivrgvs]

I wanted to change cleric kits into Battlepriest/Pilgrim/Adept trio and make decision about player's faith being made via buying a holy symbol from a sort of strange merchant

That would effectively be three new classes, not priest kits.

I'm sorry I can't partecipate too much to this discussion right now, but I'd like to point out what Ardanis may be already saying: Kit Revisions is not going to radically change the system to the point where you don't feel anymore these kits as BG2 kits. One things I've always tried to achieve within the Revisions serie is to add many changes yes, sometimes even radical, but always striving to integrate everything with the original game/system as much as possible. I hope it's clear what I'm trying to say.

[yarpen]

Of course, just mumbling about my old idea - maybe there was something good in it and could be used in SR. If not - there's no problem. If I'll find some time maybe am gonna even work on it. About ideas which IMO could be used in Kit Revision: as said earlier, three types of item restriction (Scholar-like, standard cleric and battlepriest-like) are IMO good. You'll not find so many additional cleric kits (there is DR which is conceptually incompatible and Sune cleric's kit from Adul - that's all) that's why I think that there could be a possibility to make them more interesting.

 

Also I think that Kit Revision should even add other popular deities to make it similiar to wizard's specialisation. If not, there should be an add-on with it.

 

What about kit restrictions:

Helm, Tempus, Torm, Iyachtu Xwim: should be able to use all weapons with exception of exotic ones (katana/wakizashi/ninja-to/scimitar) and also all armors&shields.

Lathander, Ilmater, Sune: as standard cleric with exception of not being capable of using tower shields. (but IMO that's the change which should be made for all clerics)

Talos, Malar: I think that he should share restrictions with... druids. Most of PnP sources are close to tell that.

Mystra, Selune, Shar, Azuth: ...but if you want to create a place for additional kits, there should be scholar type - so restrictions very similiar to wizard's but with addition of bucklers, maces and clubs.

[SixOfSpades]

[EDIT: This entire post now sounds 38% less snooty than it did before. Yay!]

 

I preferred the Battlepriest/Pilgrim/Scholar archetypes to the original Cleric because they offered more variety; for the same reasons, I now feel we should break away from even that much similarity--by all means, keep these general designs, but treat them as individual kits, not "templates" for multiple kits to be based on.

 

About item restrictions: As I said, weapons are easy. Every kit allows you to dictate how many proficiency points the kit may place in each weapon or weapon style--and if you don't allow any proficiency points at all, it's a pretty safe bet that the player will never try to use it. (Weapons with uber-powerful equipping effects, like vanilla Carsomyr and SotM, must still be considered, but happily these are almost completely irrelevant to Clerics.)

 

Armor, however, is not so forgiving. Most of what you describe is easily doable, except for two things.

Talos, Malar: I think that he should share restrictions with... druids. Most of PnP sources are close to tell that.

You cannot give a kit the item restrictions of a class, you can only apply the restrictions of another (vanilla) kit or combination of kits. To accomplish Druid-like rules, you need to apply the restrictions of either Archer or Avenger, and also fudge a rule for shields (see below).

 

Lathander, Ilmater, Sune: as standard cleric with exception of not being capable of using tower shields.

Mystra, Selune, Shar, Azuth: ...but if you want to create a place for additional kits, there should be scholar type - so restrictions very similiar to wizard's but with addition of bucklers, maces and clubs.

Shield restrictions can be done, but only by a bit of cheating: The Bard kits don't apply any item restrictions (that the base Bard class does not already set), so we can hijack those 3 kit flags and use them to set rules for items that Bards can't use anyway--items like Small, Medium, and Large Shields. If we flag Large Shields as being unusable by, say, Skalds, and all 3 sizes of Shield as being unusable by Jesters, then people playing Skalds & Jesters won't notice any difference at all, a Priest of Lathander could use the Skald flag and be unable to use Large Shields, and a Priest of Mystra could use the Shapeshifter + Jester flags and be able to use nothing heavier than Robes and Bucklers. (I checked--Shapeshifters can indeed use Bucklers).

Some people might want to make Shields usable by Bards . . . I've had some thoughts in this vein myself. But since we don't touch the main Bard flag, or the Blade flag (the most combat-oriented Bard), this setup still leaves room for future modders.

[yarpen]

Within Forgotten Realms lore there couldn't be an "unkitted" cleric.

Demi, you're very, very wrong. Clerics as any normal class has their kits such as Battlepriest or something else. Also there exist trueclass cleric who just choose his faith in-game. Without faith, there's no spells or powers - the only one exception is Ur-Priest who's draining faith from other clerics (but that's 3rd editional guy).

 

At this forum you're talking about Specialist Priest, who thanks to greater devotion to selected god, has access to greater powers of his god - and he's just deeper in it. One of their biggest disadvantage was fact that they had to present their faith and follow their ethos codex. Also their domain access was just selected. Kitless priests used buying points system.

 

Six

I was always such a little puss when it was about combining item restrictions for kits.

[Demivrgvs]

Within Forgotten Realms lore there couldn't be an "unkitted" cleric.

Demi, you're very, very wrong. Clerics as any normal class has their kits such as Battlepriest or something else. Also there exist trueclass cleric who just choose his faith in-game. Without faith, there's no spells or powers - the only one exception is Ur-Priest who's draining faith from other clerics (but that's 3rd editional guy).

It' quite difficult for me to be 'very, very wrong' about PnP lore. Anyway, what I was saying and is still absolutely true is that unkitted clerics as represented within BG don't exist within FR lore. The true cleric within FR is exactly the kitted cleric of BG, with a selected god, two granted powers and spell domains. Prestige Classes for FR clerics with additional restrictions and abilities were introduced for example by 'Faith & Pantheons', but they are a little different than "normal" kits.

[yarpen]

But I think that you're talking about 3rd edition of D&D. In AD&D clerics were buying spheres and additional abilities such as fighter's HP/thac0 progression, better spellcasting etc. And kits were just a sort of "templates" of this selection with additional abilities and spells. that's how I remember this.

 

Clerics of various deities in the Realms have long reveived special fabours, abilities and powers from their devotion to a particular divinity. These "Speciality Priest" are more in tune with the needs and aims of their gods and to reflect more of their gods' basic temperament than the standard cleric. The cleric is better known and hs spells and abilities are common knowledge among the followers of the various gods. Homever, the specialty priest reflects more of the god's philosophy and the areas the god watches over or represents.

- Skills & Powers for the Forgotten Realms

[SixOfSpades]

I was always such a little puss when it was about combining item restrictions for kits.

Well, this is one of the few areas in which I have actual experience, so I guess I was rather eager to jump right in.

 

Trueclass Clerics

I'd rather not turn this thread into a debate over the difference between a "Cleric of Helm" is the same thing as a "Specialty Priest of Helm." For one thing, that quote from "Skills & Powers for the Forgotten Realms" is somewhat unclear on whether or not the basic cleric has, in fact, chosen a god to serve. Either way, as far as BG is concerned I'd like to keep the unkitted Cleric--not as an Ur-Priest or other follower of no specific faith, but rather as a Priest of some diety that there simply isn't a kit for (yet). This argument would seem to go against the idea of unkitted Clerics becoming Priests of Helm/Lathander/Talos upon completion of the Cleric Stronghold.

 

yarpen, I may be wrong, but you seem to be arguing for something like this setup:

At Character Creation, the player chooses from the 3 Cleric kits [battlepriest, Pilgrim, Scholar], but does not specify a god to follow.

After starting the game (usually when talking to a priest or merchant), the character discovers/announces his faith, either through dialogue or purchasing a Holy Symbol. Now the Cleric is associated with a specific god(dess), and the name of his kit changes to Priest of (Whoever).

This is a worthy and interesting idea, but I'd argue against it simply because it's fundamentally different from the way all the other classes are handled. Besides, it makes much more sense for a Priest to be defined by his faith rather than what he "can and can't" wear, so I'd much rather fill all 9 slots at Character Creation with the names of deities.

 

If you want to point out that choosing your kit in-game leaves room for more than the hardcoded limit of 9 kits available during Character Creation, you'd be right--but it would still be more fluid to have the 9 most well-known kits available at the start of the game, and relegate all other kits to be applied during a dialogue that only happens for pureclassed Clerics. Besides, it's actually possible to have more than 9 kits selectable during Character Creation: We could make as many as nine kits per race, for a total of 63 Cleric kits.

[yarpen]

Nope, am not insisting in that. That's for the mod which involves serious in-game changes. So not for anyone what is an opposition to Kit Revision. I've just wanted to say that kitless Priest isn't a cleric of nothing. He's just a sort of generalist who isn't such a fierce believer of Lathander to get this cool shiny mace as a domain weapon. He can choose his destiny on his own.

 

I was just talking about the possibility of addition to Kit Revision. With all of these cool options of Selune, Sune, Iyachtu Xwim, Tyr, Mask and the rest of deities. If Demi wants to give a proper basis for something like this, these templates (not real kits, but just edited Usability Flags) would be really welcome.

 

Damn, I think I'll really start to work on this mod. Deciding about faith via item is cool, because you can be a priest of Mask as cleric/thief and got bonus to hide in shadows. Or get it as priest of Melikki. That's nice.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Damn, I think I'll really start to work on this mod. Deciding about faith via item is cool, because you can be a priest of Mask as cleric/thief and got bonus to hide in shadows. Or get it as priest of Melikki. That's nice.

Or you can undeprecate the PC options from the Level 1 NPCs once you have an exported Cleric/Thief and make the character to have a kit...

 

Now, what I got from your idea is that each cleric kit would allow different things, different items and weapons but still keep most of the spell types available, and using the Demivrgvs's special spells for each so they have some unique things of their own, and I like it.

What I do not like is the Kit=Mage-Priest-Warrior "(Scholar-like, standard cleric and battlepriest-like)" -type contemplation, but-and-because that can be done after the fact too as an additional modification... after all, it's easy to remove and add spells and restrictions once the basic type is clear for each deity devoted Kit. The mage-type could just use few weapons and armor, but have more spells, the warrior-type could have more weapons skills and better proficiency allocation and not so many spells, while the Priest-type is the normal Kit. So the 2 specializations can be acquired during the game at the start or near it.