New & Improved Cleric Kit Thread

[Andyr]

Bri: Heh, I guess not. Though it's simple to do with WeiDU, so I'll probably do it when NiGHTMARE and I are doing Lands of Intrigue. He's got some new Cleric spells in the works too for spheres like Numbers, which only has 1 spell in BG2.

[Grim Squeaker]

Much as I like the idea of restricting the bogstandard cleric I think we are gonna get some serious bitching and whining. And people just won't install that component!

[Andyr]

Yes, you do have a point.

[NiGHTMARE]

But by and large, outside of some spheres, I don't see a problem with leaving clerics as is was meant.  Ugh, no biggie either way

Well from what I've researched in the past few days, pnp Clerics certainly weren't meant to have access to all spheres except Animal, Plant & Weather It's probably just that Bioware forgot/were too lazy to restrict the others Numbers, for example, was specifically intended for Monks and gods of knowledge (e.g. Gond), and War was created for Crusaders and gods of war (such as Tempus).

 

Anyway, the question would have to be 'why go the pnp route for speciality priests but not standard clerics'? In pnp (and if implented in BG2), restricted spheres for regular clerics means the restrictions of the kits serve more as alternatives rather than disadvantages. If you think about it, not worshipping a specific deity would actually be a disadvantage, not an advantage.

 

Restricting standard clerics would also allow us to add more new clerical spells, if we decide to go that route. If we don't, perhaps affecting regular clerics could be an optional component, mainly for those who want a more balanced & pnp-like experience?

 

 

Does anyone have a list handy of what spells would actually change for a vanilla cleric?

These are the spells they'd no longer be able to cast: Charm Person or Mammal, Miscast Magic, Flame Blade, Rigid Thinking, Strength of One, Zone of Sweet Air, Defensive Harmony, Mental Domination, Chaotic Commands, Champion's Strength, Physical Mirror, False Dawn, Sol's Searing Orb, Fire Storm, Sunray and Finger of Death.

 

If we fix Bioware's various sphere errors/ommisions, they'll gain Summon Insects, Creeping Doom and Dolorous Decay (though goodness knows why Dolorous Decay in BG2 is only accessible by druids, when it's supposed to be unique to priests of Myrkul ).

[CamDawg]

These are the spells they'd no longer be able to cast: Charm Person or Mammal, Miscast Magic, Flame Blade, Rigid Thinking, Strength of One, Zone of Sweet Air, Defensive Harmony, Mental Domination, Chaotic Commands, Champion's Strength, Physical Mirror, False Dawn, Sol's Searing Orb, Fire Storm, Sunray and Finger of Death.

 

If we fix Bioware's various sphere errors/ommisions, they'll gain Summon Insects, Creeping Doom and Dolorous Decay (though goodness knows why Dolorous Decay in BG2 is only accessible by druids, when it's supposed to be unique to priests of Myrkul ).

In light of that list, we may need to call it cleric rebalancing. The removal of FoD by itself will cause major complaints, much less all of the nifty buff and anti-undead spells that get lost.

 

BTW, I thought Chaotic Commands was already a druid-only spell.

[NiGHTMARE]

Heh well, if they want Finger of Death and the anti-Undead spells so badly, they should simply chose a god who grants them Besides, what the heck are they doing installing a mod that adds new priests kits if they're just going to use a standard cleric? :D

 

I just checked, and BG2 Clerics do get Chaotic Commands While we're on the subject, pnp Druids don't get Chaotic Commands either (sine they're not supposed to have access to the Chaos sphere)

 

 

EDIT: I did find a few mistakes in my list (e.g. Clerics don't get Charm Person or animal anyway), so here's a revised vesion.

 

Spells they'd no longer get:

 

Level 3 - Miscast Magic, Rigid Thinking, Strength of One,

 

Level 4 - Animal Summoning I, Defensive Harmony, Mental Domination,

 

Level 5 - Animal Summoning II, Chaotic Commands, Champion's Strength

 

Level 6 - Animal Summoning III, False Dawn, Physical Mirror, Sol's Searing Orb

 

Level 7 - Finger of Death, Sunray

 

 

Former Druid-only spells they would get:

 

Level 3 - Summon Insects

 

Level 6 - Dolorous Decay

 

Level 7 - Creeping Doom

[Grim Squeaker]

This is gonna turn into a complete Priest Remix isn't it?

 

If we do this then we have to make sure of two things:

 

- That we build in combatibility for Cleric/Ranger who who get Ranger and Cleric spells. Gotta make sure we don't remove Cleric spells from they're spellbook that they would get from their ranger side!

 

- That we edit the NPCs so they don't start with any spells memorised that they shouldn't have in their spellbook.

[NiGHTMARE]

Good points Clerics/Rangers should have levels 1-4 of the Animal and Plant spheres as well as the standard clerical spheres. So that's Entangle, Charm Person or Mammal, Hold Animal, Goodberry, Animal Summoning I and Call Woodland Beings.

 

Regarding the NPCs, should we just give them the spells of a regular Cleric, or the spells granted by their particular god?

 

 

BTW how about adding new spells specifically to make up for the ones Clerics lose? Some possibilities:

 

Level 3 - Bestow Curse, Cause Disease, Magical Vestment, Prayer, Pyrotechnics, Summon Animal Spirit, Unearthly Choir

 

Level 4 - Cloak of Bravery, Omniscient Eye, Spell Immunity, Tongues, Unfailing Endurance

 

Level 5 - False Seeing, Impregnable Mind, Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, Slay Living, Unceasing Vigilance of the Holy Sentinel

 

Level 6 - Command Monster, Heroes' Feast

 

Level 7 - Destruction, Energy Drain, Impervious Sanctity of Mind, Succor, Wither

 

 

PS I mentioned earlier that only priests of Myrkul are supposed to have Dolorous Decay. Well, it also seems that only priests of Torm are supposed to have Bolt of Glory.

[Andyr]

I think it's fine allowing anyone with the right sphere spells like Dolorous Decay and Bolt of Glory.

 

For some other spells, how about the Inflict Wounds ones (reverse of Cure?)

 

Editing Cleric-Rangers etc is also easy. I am currently altering spellbooks via CLABs, so it is a simple case of replacing the CLAB file for the various multiclasses.

[CamDawg]

Nothing proposed so far is hard from a technical side, now that we've ruled out item usability restrictions. I think Andyr's Shar kit provides a pretty good template for kit development. Let's try a generic format such as:

 

Kit name & description

Alignments allowed (2e sources)

Races allowed (2e sources)

 

ADVANTAGES:

Progressive spiritual weapon of deity*

Innate ability every two levels (possibly based on domain abilities)

Other advantages (drawn from PnP or RP-based)

 

DISADVANTAGES

One less spell per level

Major sphere restrictions

Minor sphere restrictions

Other disadvantages (drawn from PnP or RP-based)

 

HLAs

Possibly based on high-level 3e domain spells, possibly from PnP or RP-based

 

* Personally, I think the progression for the spiritual weapon is a bit fast in the Shar kit; I think something every six levels is a bit better; i.e. +1 at lvl 7, +2 at lvl 13, +3 at lvl 19, +4 at lvl 25, +5 at lvl 31. This puts +4, the highest enchantment required to hit creatures in SoA, available right at the end of SoA and pushes +5 into ToB.

 

I like the cleric spell rebalancing changes proposed by NiGHTMARE. Toss in the new spells, changes to cleric/rangers, and lump them into a "divine spell rebalancing" component and require it for subsequent kit installations.

 

For the inital nine, how about the list I had earlier with NiGHTMARE's suggestion of substituting Iyachtu Xvim for Kossuth.

[NiGHTMARE]

I think it's fine allowing anyone with the right sphere spells like Dolorous Decay and Bolt of Glory.

It's actually good to know you feel that way, because I've found a tonne of cool spells that are limited to just one god in pnp, but it wouldn't really be worth the effort to recreate them in BG2 unless this restriction were relaxed Though having said that, perhaps some of them should be restricted by alignment?

 

For some other spells, how about the Inflict Wounds ones (reverse of Cure?)

Isn't it Cause Wounds? Cause Serious Wounds and Cause Critical Wounds are certainly both already in BG2

 

Editing Cleric-Rangers etc is also easy. I am currently altering spellbooks via CLABs, so it is a simple case of replacing the CLAB file for the various multiclasses.

That's good to know

[Grim Squeaker]

Yeah I agree to Cam's terms that he posted in that quote. Although I'm really gonna be pushing for those innates and HLAs to be based on Domain Spells!

 

So are you gonna give us a first draft then, Cam?

[CamDawg]

I have no priest source books, so I can't propose specific kits and abilities. I'll also need full spell descriptions for new/altered spells. Andyr & NiGHTMARE have already laid out changes for the trueclass clerics and divine spells, so there's no problems there.

[Grim Squeaker]

Spell descriptions for Cleric Domains spells:

 

http://www.gamebanshee.com/icewinddaleii/c...omainspells.php

 

Other 3rd Ed Cleric Spells:

 

http://www.gamebanshee.com/icewinddaleii/clericspells.php

 

3rd Ed Druid Spells:

 

http://www.gamebanshee.com/icewinddaleii/druidspells.php

 

3rd Ed Ranger Spells:

 

http://www.gamebanshee.com/icewinddaleii/rangerspells.php

 

 

As for cleric abilities you've still got the IWDII cleric kits if they give you any ideas:

 

http://www.gamebanshee.com/icewinddaleii/classes.php

[NiGHTMARE]

I have no priest source books, so I can't propose specific kits and abilities.

Here is a chart of what alignments the deities allow their worshippers, clergy and speciality priests to be (I think we're going with the clergy restrictions rather than speciality priests restrictions, right?). There's also a list of speciality priest names there too.

 

I'll also need full spell descriptions for new/altered spells.

I'm slowly compiling 2E pnp spell descriptions over at the LoI forums

 

Andyr & NiGHTMARE have already laid out changes for the trueclass clerics and divine spells, so there's no problems there.

Great