Cleric Kits

[Meira]

Here's a consolidated list of all 25 (!) kit requests so far. Ones marked with stars have clunky item restrictions and therefore are more diffcult to implement, if they're even possible.

 

Item restrictions are really shortcut to drive yourself nuts while coding aren't they?

 

I would really love to see cleric of Mielikki - with the item restrictions mentioned earlier. At least they are existing restrictions (druid for arms, bard for armour) if I have understood correctly they should be easier to implement than restrictions that are not already present in the game?  Or am I just confused?

 

-Meira

[Andyr]

Doing kit choice through dialogue would mean you can have more than the 9 kits...

[Grim Squeaker]

Doing kit choice through dialogue would mean you can have more than the 9 kits...

Yeah but thats gonna be making more of a chance to the game then simply adding some kits...

[CamDawg]

Item restrictions have many irritatingly hardcoded features about them; even ones that mimic existing restrictions cause complications. A perfect example is that using a barbarians's unusability flag to restrict a cleric from plate mail also means the cleric can not use the Amulet of Power. It's actually harder to allow a kit to use more items than to take them away. Mielikki in particular is probably out, since there is no way to give the kit access to druid weapons without giving them to vanilla clerics. I had to go through this dance with the SP kit conversion and I'd like to avoid it a second time. You could try and script a workaround, but then it just gets ugly, complicated and very prone to bugs.

 

In regards to kit choice through dialogue... ugh. I would really rather not. Many complications, not the least of which is that the player can not see kit descriptions and race/alignment restrictions before starting the game, short of a readme. More importantly, I really have no desire to develop 25 cleric kits.

[Andyr]

Heh, I do. You could display descriptions through dialogue, though I agree it is not a very elegant solution.

 

I've had some thoughts on a possible 'standardised' approach, which combines most people's thoughts. I'll post it here in a minute.

[Andyr]

Cleric Kits:

 

Alignments allowed: One step from the Deity's alignment in every direction. Additionally only TN gods can have TN kitted priests. Some gods, for example Oghma, Mystra and Kossuth, have special alignment rules.

 

Races allowed: Most of the well-known gods are human ones, so at least humans, half-elves and half-orcs should be able to worship them. Some should allow other races too (for example Kossuth could be worshipped by anyone, and Mielikki by elves too). Note I think it'd be nice to give nonhuman deities kits too, like Yondalla and Garl Glittergold.

 

Advantages and Disadvantages:

 

Weapon and item uses and restrictions (eg Frosttouches of Auril tending to wear only robes, and Authlims of Xvim using scimitars) are hard or impossible to do cleanly. So perhaps this should be dropped? Instead of this, perhaps Clerics could be given an innate like Spiritual Weapon that creates a magic version of their deity's weapon of choice?

 

Differing spell selections would also be good. Grim Squeaker and CamDawg have had the idea of adding innates similar to 3E domains, ie one free spell per spell level but at the cost of one normal spell per spell level. I have thought, and think this is a good idea. It should not be too hard to compile decent lists of spells.

 

Some spells could also be removed. NiGHTMARE has made a list of the spheres all priest spells in BG2 beling to. I have a link to a site that says what spheres the clerics of various deities are allowed major and minor access to. Perhaps clerics could be barred from casting level 4 and above spells from spheres they are allowed only minor access to, and any spells from spheres they cannot access at all? NiGHTMARE has informed me this is similar to PnP.

 

In addition, the various kits could bestow an extra advantage to balance the spells lost. Elemental deities's followers could get elemental resistance. Tempus' priests could maybe be allowed Rage, or be able to put 2 slots in weapon proficiencies. Sune's could get a Charisma boost. Kelemvor's could be better at turning Undead.

 

So, with this in mind, here is a proposal for a Firewalker of Kossuth:

 

Alignment: Any

Race: Any

 

Advantages:

 

Can cast Spiritual Weapon creating a flail once per day. The powers vary with level: At level 1 it is a normal flail, level 5 it is +1, level 10 it is +2, level 15 it is +3, level 20 it is +5, level 25 it is +5.

Has 2% fire resistance per level.

Gains Burning Hands as an innate at level 1.

Gains Azgannazar's Scorcher as an innate at level 3.

Gains Fireball as an innate at level 5.

Gains Fireshield: Red as an innate at level 7.

Gains Sunfire as an innate at level 9.

Gains Summon Fire Elemental as an innate at level 11.

Gains Delayed Blast Fireball as an innate at level 13.

 

Disadvantages:

Can memorise one less spell of each level.

Can only cast level 1, 2, and 3 spells from the Charm, Divination, Healing, Necromantic and Protection spheres.

Cannot cast any spells from the Animal, Chaos, Guardian, Law, Numbers, Plant, Thought, War and Weather spheres.

 

(Note: I retained the Elemental and Summoning spheres as they have some fire spells in them, though the site says Kossuth does not grant these spheres.)

[Koson]

The Specialty priests of Solonor Thelandira are apparently called Hawkeyes.

 

The Malagent of Talona's limitation to plate mail was not set in stone, so maybe it could be dropped - after all, Morninglords are limited to plate only and Bioware did not implement it.

 

For race limitations, you'd have to add new kits available only to non-humans, such as:

Feywardens of Corellon Larethian

Mischiefmakers of Erevan Ilesere

Hawkeyes of Solonor Thelandira

Alaghor (plural form of Alaghar) of Clangeddin Silverbeard

Hurndor (plural form of Hurndar) of Vergadain

Trueswords of Arvoreen

But the half-elves pick their gods from the Seldarine and human pantheon, so that won't work for them. And you'd surpass the already high number of 25 kits.

 

Easiest would be, in case there's more than 9 kits for one race, to give a big warning in the read me and let the player choose the kits he/she wants to play from the list and install only those. It's not as if you'll have more than 9 ongoing games with cleric PCs of different kits at one given time!

[CamDawg]

True, but I'm also trying to slyly weasel my way out of doing 25 cleric kits.

 

I'd rather do 25 kits across multiple classes rather than 25 for one.

[NiGHTMARE]

So what gods have been decided upon so far? These are the human deities I vote for myself:

 

- Ilmater

- Mystra

- Selune

- Oghma

- Iyactu Xvim

- Shar

[Koson]

I'd vote for:

 

Azuth

Iyachtu Xvim

Kelemvor

Selûne

Solonor Thelandira

Talona

Tyr

[NiGHTMARE]

I just found out that minor access to a sphere allows the priest to cast spells of levels 1-3.  So you were close Andyr

 

Anyway, how's this for a Priest of Mystra?

 

 

Advantages:

Detect magic once per day per 4 levels.

Has 2% magic resistance per level.

Gains Magic Missile as an innate at level 1.

Gains Mirror Image as an innate at level 3.

Gains Remove Magic as an innate at level 5.

Gains Wizard Eye as an innate at level 7.

Gains Breach as an innate at level 9.

Gains Globe of Invulnerability as an innate at level 11.

Gains Spell Turning as an innate at level 13.

 

Disadvantages:

Can memorise one less spell of each level.

Can only cast level 1, 2 and 3 spells from the Animal, Law, Plant, Sun, Thought, and Weather spheres.

Cannot cast any spells from the Chaos, Numbers and War spheres.

 

So forbidden spells are Miscast Magic, Chaotic Commands, Physical Mirror, Finger of Death, Defensive Harmony, Champion's Strength, False Dawn, Sol's Searing Orb, Sunray and Mental Domination.

[Andyr]

Race should be human, half-elf, half-orc, and alignments should be LN, NG, CG, LN, LE.

 

Sounds quite good- I'm not sure about Detect Magic, though. Perhaps replace that with a Spiritual Weapon type thing?

 

Magic Resistance could be quite powerful by itself, actually, so I don't know about that. But the idea is good.

 

Should we change minor access to levels 1-3, like in PnP then?

 

Also, CamDawg, I'd be quite happy to make a large amount of kits, provided we can think of decent stuff for them.

[CamDawg]

Judging from your plans for LoI, it sounds like there will be a lot more than 25.  

[NiGHTMARE]

Well according to official sources, Mystra is one of thoese gods that allows worshippers of any alignment.  There are no alignment restrictions when it comes to the use of magic after all

 

I put Detect magic there without really thinking about it, because that's what they have in pnp.  I agree it's not very useful though, so if it we go with a spiritual weapon I'd suggest a quarterstaff.

 

What about 1% magic resistance per level? That way it won't really be too high even by the end of ToB.  Failing that, perhaps +2 saves vs. spells instead?

 

Priests of Mystra in pnp are allowed to use any wizard item except scrolls.  Now this would be rather unbalancing at lower levels, so would a "Use Mage Items" HLA (seeing as Thiefs have "Use Any Item") be posible to do?

 

Yep, 1-3 sounds good.  For the Priest of Kossuth alone it means no Free Action, Cloak of Fear, Cure Serious Wounds, Cause Serious Wounds, Neutralize Poison, Lesser Restoration, Dispel Magic, Remove Curse or Remove Paralysis (on top of the ones they already couldn't have), so you may want to add another advantage to make up for all of those.

 

In fact I was thinking... because one of the most useful thing about clerics is their healing/resurrection abilities, those priest kits who have minor or no access to the Healing and/or Necromantic spheres should probably have some suitably powerful ability to make up for it.

[Meira]

I want to vote too!

 

(Mielikki)

Selune

Sune (unless Bons is already doing one)

Oghma (it would be *the* choice for Charname as there is a temple of Oghma in CK)

 

-Meira