This week we once again take a closer look at an area of the rules which has seen significant improvement over the playtest process. With classes like the Cleric and Paladin that are heavily dependent upon deities for both their abilities and their theme, such powerful entities were always going to hold a great weight of importance. But as the playtest progressed, the influence deities have on the mechanics of the game grew, both for the two most iconic religious classes and beyond.
Perhaps the biggest way the deities themselves changed, was in the scope of their personal influence. Each deity once started with a suite of domains and a handful of signature spells. There was a great amount of variance between deities with regard to the types and spell levels of each list of signature spells. Some deities having more of an impact earlier ended up stratifying the available choices into ones that always mattered, and others which required a great deal of patience. While this made for a potentially interesting dynamic from a storytelling perspective, in practice it pretty much boiled down to only a few seeing any actual consistent use. Even though some deities, typically evil ones, can be generally expected to see less use from players, as opposed to game masters, these choices are more appropriately driven by story than by the nature of the game mechanics.
As a result, each deity's list of signature spells expanded such that every one offers a spell of every level from 1-9, plus a Cantrip. Since clerics can always freely prepare their deity's signature spells, even if those spells are uncommon, rare, or don't even belong to the divine tradition, this dramatically improves the difference in feel between clerics of different deities, while the class perk which lets a cleric spontaneously cast these spells using Domain Powers or Channeled Spells also became more consistently useful across all deities.
This change also had a profound impact on the paladin class and its Champion Powers. This class offers a very limited spellcasting potential out of the box, with a few Spell Points that can be used to cast heal or harm, and the deity's signature spells once the paladin's powers can cast spells of that level. This change significantly widened the pool of available powers to all paladins, but also ensured that every paladin gets a Cantrip. As a secondary spellcasting class, Paladins previously lacked any ability to cast Cantrips at all, unless they picked one of the two or three deities whose signature spell happened to be a Cantrip. Similarly, having new spells of every level automatically added to a paladin's pool of Champion Powers somewhat relieved the pressure to spend a majority of class perks on picking new spells.
Besides the two most obviously divine classes, this change also had helpful knock-on effects for two classes that aren't always thought of as divine in nature, monks and sorcerers. Monks have an entirely opt-in access to any sort of spellcasting, but for those that choose to explore this possibility through the divine path the class becomes much like a martial artistry focused counterpart to the paladin. Like paladins, these divine monks get access to their deity's signature spells as Qi Powers, making this option similarly more consistent and giving another path to Cantrip acquisition for another secondary casting class, where previously only rogues could get reliable access to these useful spells.
Sorcerers, on the other hand, are often considered an almost anti-divine class, drawing power from within rather than without. This applies even to those bloodlines which draw from the divine magical tradition. And yet, all sorcerers get the option to pick a divine evolution as a class perk. This perk lets a sorcerer focus on a deity's religious symbol during daily preparations in order to add that deity's signature spells to the caster's Spell Repertoire for the day. So long as the sorcerer does not violate a deity's anathema, they can keep doing this day in and day out. With each deity consistently offering spells of every level, the value of this perk quickly becomes more in line with the other three counterpart evolutions, each of which focuses on a different magical tradition.
Deities have also grown in influence beyond simply the powers that they grant to those spellcasters that follow them closely, or even those which just dabble. Several skill perks from the Religion skill allow lay worshippers and charlatans to invoke the power and influence of a deity for an advantage. This can range from simply using displays of religious iconography to gain bonuses to social skills against those that follow the deity displayed, to actually calling down divine intervention from a true deity to change the outcome of an event. In these cases, as with the sorcerer's Divine Evolution, the efficacy of these tricks largely depends on the deity's anathema. Worshippers that see you violate their deity's anathema will turn your bonuses against them into steep penalties, and a deity will simply refuse to intercede on your behalf if you have been taking actions that rouse its ire. These interactions open up many more character archetypes to caring about deities and their personalities even beyond those that can draw magical power with consistency.
Although clerics and paladins must follow a deity, there are several other classes which can draw additional benefits from accepting divine patronage, and anyone can get some benefit if they wish to, even without requiring the use of multiclassing. For those that do devote themselves to the gods, the power available is always relevant, regardless of chosen patron. Next week we'll once again introduce another class exemplar and its art, with the sorcerer.
Comments