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Bringing Domains to 4th

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
UrielApeiron
Dec 29, 2008 12:15:27 i'm not asking "should", but "how". How do we bring domains back to 4th Edition? In 3.x domains made clerics of different faiths DIFFERENT. Priests of a sneaky god gained sneaky abilities. Priests of a fire god had fire oriented powers. It made sense in the narrative and gave priests a bit of flavor. Alas, powers are not interchangeable, so it's not a simple matter of "give him the wizard's fireball".

i'd like to come up with a way to make priests of this god have different powers/abilities that those of another god. Beyond the choices of powers and more significant (and less costly) than the one feat per deity.

Has anyone worked on this, either in the fora or in a book somewhere?

One way i was thinking of working this in, was to require that priests multiclass into something reflecting their god's area of interest. God's of war would go into Fighter or Warlord. The god of thieves into rogue, and so on. This gives additional trained skills and other powers that provide a bit of flavor. The down side is the cost in feats.

Any other ideas floating around?
#2
Einlanzer
Dec 29, 2008 14:10:39 Channel divinity and deity specific paragon paths kind of took the place of domains, and personally i'm kind of glad they're gone because it was a weird mechanic, but i do kind of miss the variations they provided.

What I would probably do is integrate deity choice and subsequent domain choice into the class feature options and try to avoid making a bunch of new powers. Like, have players select a deity and then a domain. Whatever domain they chose would give maybe a small passive bonus and/or an ability that either took the place of an at will or was maybe a class feature power like holy word or the wizard cantrips. You'd have to be careful not to provide too much though.
#3
stormonu
Dec 29, 2008 15:48:04 I agree that Channel Divinity basically took over for the old domains. While the feats that give you per encounters should be expanded further that what we've been given (and probably will be in the Divine Power book), I'd also like to see some "at-will" Channel Divinity powers as well, along the line of the Wizard's cantrips. Some expanded "Daily" channel divinity powers would be nice as sort of advanced/high level domain powers/spells. Especially if these are tied to specific gods to give clerics of different faiths some unique, earth-shaking abilities.

I also think there should be Paragon paths devoted to each individual diety, allowing you further differentiate clerics of different gods.
#4
kuonji
Dec 29, 2008 17:31:35
I also think there should be Paragon paths devoted to each individual diety, allowing you further differentiate clerics of different gods.

The FRPG does have some of these IIRC. I'd check the compendium but I keep getting an error on the DnD main site.

Were I worried about specializing my powers to fit my deity, I'd just reflavor the powers accordingly. Renaming powers and changing the power descriptions, perhaps even working with the DM to change keywords to better fit my ideas.
#5
vebrandsson
Dec 29, 2008 18:19:19 Actually if you really wanted to flavor clerics (and paladins) by their diety its quite a simple matter. I've done this to make an evil paladin (3.x players may be more familiar with the term blackguard but back in 2e we weren't that fancy) just playing around not too long ago. Simply tweak some of the names towards the element you are trying to get and change the keyword, its that simple. Lets take the Cleric at will Lance of Faith. If you wanted a cleric devoted to a fire diety change this power to Lance of Flame and change the radiant damage to Fire and you're done. Not very flavorful but it works if you really want it. As I said I did this to make an evil paladin, changing all the radiant damage to necrotic and making everything named a bit darker (may could do the same for a raven queen cleric/paladin). It works, it's quick, and its simple, it flavors the divine classes by diety slightly, and best of all it keeps the players guessing as to what kind of element the cleric will throw at you instead of the "Oh no an npc cleric, lets use our utilities to resist radiant damage" even if its a chaotic evil cleric npc.
#6
UrielApeiron
Dec 29, 2008 20:15:26 Oo. Good ideas!

Fudging the specifics of powers is a simple fix for the narrative. In my own games i liked to fiddle with the manifestation of spells based on culture, like Magic Missile looking like arrows for elves, or tridents for a sea farers.

OK, and what of domain abilities such as skill training, feat equivalents and the other stuff? For instance, a war god giving Martial Weapon proficiency or some of the granted powers. Trickery grants Bluff, Disguise and Hide to the in-class list. Or:

Turning elementals/plants, Speak w. Animals, +1 Caster Level for spells with the X element, Death Touch, Good Fortune, Freedom of Movement and so on.

Some of them translate fairly easily. Channel Divinity as Turn (Other Thing). Other might be difficult. Death Touch sounds like a Daily Power, though it didn't seem all that useful in the game. Proficiency in one martial weapon might not be too bad. Or heavier armor proficiency.

Hmm.
#7
vebrandsson
Dec 29, 2008 20:26:07 Well as it stands now there is only one channel divinity feat for each diety, meaning each player can only gain one such feat, if you make multiple divinity feats that grant weaker powers as well as training in a skill I don't think that'd off balance the system much if at all. You could even do a Weapon Mastery type multiclass for certain dieties based around their favored weapon, like Moradin and a warhammer, that'd be fun to see, though it does end up making divine classes more powerful than the other sources (which they kind of look already) but given enough thought you might could do something simular for the other sources.
#8
tequila_sunrise
Dec 29, 2008 23:17:50 Do you want all clerics to still fill the leader role or do you want, for example, clerics of trickster gods to be strikers? If you want all clerics to remain leaders, it's going to be very hard (if not impossible) to make clerics of different gods significantly different. Your best bet would be multiclassing, refluffing and maybe a few new channel divinity feats.

If you want clerics of different gods to really be different, some of them are going to have to fill different roles and therefore require whole new classes. You might get away with refluffing other classes as "clerics", but I think the results would be a little disappointing.

TS
#9
vebrandsson
Dec 29, 2008 23:26:35
Do you want all clerics to still fill the leader role or do you want, for example, clerics of trickster gods to be strikers? If you want all clerics to remain leaders, it's going to be very hard (if not impossible) to make clerics of different gods significantly different. Your best bet would be multiclassing, refluffing and maybe a few new channel divinity feats.
TS

This is why I brought up the idea of doing divine versions of the Weapon mastery Multiclassing system, useing the god's favored weapon naturally. It lets you have very flaovred powers with a flavored weapon, useing your multiclass one instead of your paragon path. I think it would work well though as I said before it may tip the balance of power into the divine classes favor further.
#10
androkguz
Dec 31, 2008 20:10:27 My first tought is having rituals that only clerics with the right domain can use.

If you need more. then you refluff powers as explained above and refluff multiclassing so that the cleric isn't multiclassing, just getting stuff from his domain (so a fire cleric would mecanically work as a multiclass with wizard but will only take fire spells)

And if that's not enought, have an Orison (like the wizard's cantrip) that's really not something you would use in combat and that are, if posible, seldomuseful.
For example:
Air - Blow strongly (as strong as a typical house fan)
Animal - Speak with animals
Death - Kill little plants with touch
Earth - Write stuff on earth at will
Fire - Light candles with touch
Water - Create water (very few)
War - Materialize a flag and/or a warhorn
#11
UrielApeiron
Jan 01, 2009 11:17:04
My first tought is having rituals that only clerics with the right domain can use.

If you need more. then you refluff powers as explained above and refluff multiclassing so that the cleric isn't multiclassing, just getting stuff from his domain (so a fire cleric would mecanically work as a multiclass with wizard but will only take fire spells)

And if that's not enought, have an Orison (like the wizard's cantrip) that's really not something you would use in combat and that are, if posible, seldomuseful.
For example:
Air - Blow strongly (as strong as a typical house fan)
Animal - Speak with animals
Death - Kill little plants with touch
Earth - Write stuff on earth at will
Fire - Light candles with touch
Water - Create water (very few)
War - Materialize a flag and/or a warhorn

Ah, the rituals idea is elegant. We call it Moradin's Whatsit, only clerics or other holy types can use it. 'Twould be appropriate to require a Channel Divinity charge to make the ritual work.

Off the top of my head:

Raven Queen's Requiem - Takes 10 or so minutes to recite the prayer, kick in a channel divinity and the corpse is "healed" (injuries disappear) and the corpse is perfectly preserved for Caster's Level in years. Also, the subject may not be resurrected nor their corpse animated by necromancy. (Better than gentle repose)

The second idea might be trickier, but has great potential. Tricky because Xly Powers even of the same level aren't meant to be interchangeable (they might be unbalanced if given to another class). Maybe the folks who know what is behind the curtain better than i could weigh in. i love the idea of a fire god's cleric being able to cast something like fireball.

And refluffing is also an excellent hack (where hack means, elegant solution).

Thank you for your input guys!

Happy New Year!

i like the orison/at will powers. Heck, if each deity had some kind of at-will or other power, i'd be happy.
#12
Authw8
Jan 02, 2009 2:27:36 I would say have multiclass-only classes like the spellscarred for cleric domains. They would take the initial feat and get a skill training and a neat ability, then later feats could power swap for special domain powers.

The only problem is that they would have to write a bunch of these to get complete coverage, and it may not be worth it to WotC to waste pagecount with this. My other idea is just a bunch of deity themed feats that give skill bonuses and useful abilities to followers of certain deities.
#13
Thought
Jan 02, 2009 11:35:50 For weapon mastery, skills, etc, instead of adding them on top of a cleric natural class abilities, replacing them might be better. For example, perhaps the cleric of a war god gets +2 to Fort rather than will, and a Cleric of a trickster god gets the option of training in streetwise.

That is, start adding in "domains" as soon as a character starts to consider the class. Adding a bunch of at-will powers would also be quite simple, as a character would still be limited in how many they can have at a given time. Sort of like a Warlock's pact-powers. Course, it would be a pain to add new powers for ever god at every level, but maybe one god-specific power in addition to the at-will power for every tier of play. Then, of course, additional feats are always nice.
#14
UrielApeiron
Jan 02, 2009 16:00:26
Course, it would be a pain to add new powers for ever god at every level.

True, which is why i'd prefer some thing like the domain approach. We don't need a Moradin set of powers, just a Law, Dwarf and Forge set. Other dwarven gods could use/offer the Dwarf domain, and the Lawful Evil gods could use Law.

As for WotC not wanting to make tons and tons of powers... i think they would if there was a sense that people wanted it. Never underestimate WotC's desire to sell full color 40$ books of narrow scope. Even if they don't, anyone else COULD make just such a text and give it away or even sell it. Which is one of the things i love about the post 2E world of D&D.

i bet a book of warlock pacts is in the making. i'd love to see the next iteration of Deities and Demigods to have just such a list. Throw in paragon paths of various religious orders and you've got a great product.

In the setting i've been working on, the humans are monotheists, but clerics derive their powers from Archangels. These angels have orders (usually based on a saint like figure). Sadriel, Archangel of Justice provides Divination, Strength, Lawful, Fate domains. Under him there is the Order of St. Cuthbert, which is more militant and less forgiving. i suppose in 4E Order of St. Cuthbert would be a paragon path.
#15
Thought
Jan 02, 2009 21:37:49 True, powers by domain would be a little more flexible than powers by god (and 4e does seem to be all about making things easily interchangable).
#16
androkguz
Jan 03, 2009 11:12:47 I stick to my idea of Orisons. If made weak enough, they would hardly be unbalancing, and in any case, the cleric does need a little pump up.
#17
Einlanzer
Jan 04, 2009 3:41:40
I stick to my idea of Orisons. If made weak enough, they would hardly be unbalancing, and in any case, the cleric does need a little pump up.

I had the same idea of domain orisons. It's flavorful, allows for diversity, and would have little effect on game mechanics.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 UrielApeiron Dec 29, 2008 12:15:27	i'm not asking "should", but "how". How do we bring domains back to 4th Edition? In 3.x domains made clerics of different faiths DIFFERENT. Priests of a sneaky god gained sneaky abilities. Priests of a fire god had fire oriented powers. It made sense in the narrative and gave priests a bit of flavor. Alas, powers are not interchangeable, so it's not a simple matter of "give him the wizard's fireball". i'd like to come up with a way to make priests of this god have different powers/abilities that those of another god. Beyond the choices of powers and more significant (and less costly) than the one feat per deity. Has anyone worked on this, either in the fora or in a book somewhere? One way i was thinking of working this in, was to require that priests multiclass into something reflecting their god's area of interest. God's of war would go into Fighter or Warlord. The god of thieves into rogue, and so on. This gives additional trained skills and other powers that provide a bit of flavor. The down side is the cost in feats. Any other ideas floating around?
#2 Einlanzer Dec 29, 2008 14:10:39	Channel divinity and deity specific paragon paths kind of took the place of domains, and personally i'm kind of glad they're gone because it was a weird mechanic, but i do kind of miss the variations they provided. What I would probably do is integrate deity choice and subsequent domain choice into the class feature options and try to avoid making a bunch of new powers. Like, have players select a deity and then a domain. Whatever domain they chose would give maybe a small passive bonus and/or an ability that either took the place of an at will or was maybe a class feature power like holy word or the wizard cantrips. You'd have to be careful not to provide too much though.
#3 stormonu Dec 29, 2008 15:48:04	I agree that Channel Divinity basically took over for the old domains. While the feats that give you per encounters should be expanded further that what we've been given (and probably will be in the Divine Power book), I'd also like to see some "at-will" Channel Divinity powers as well, along the line of the Wizard's cantrips. Some expanded "Daily" channel divinity powers would be nice as sort of advanced/high level domain powers/spells. Especially if these are tied to specific gods to give clerics of different faiths some unique, earth-shaking abilities. I also think there should be Paragon paths devoted to each individual diety, allowing you further differentiate clerics of different gods.
#4 kuonji Dec 29, 2008 17:31:35	I also think there should be Paragon paths devoted to each individual diety, allowing you further differentiate clerics of different gods. The FRPG does have some of these IIRC. I'd check the compendium but I keep getting an error on the DnD main site. Were I worried about specializing my powers to fit my deity, I'd just reflavor the powers accordingly. Renaming powers and changing the power descriptions, perhaps even working with the DM to change keywords to better fit my ideas.
#5 vebrandsson Dec 29, 2008 18:19:19	Actually if you really wanted to flavor clerics (and paladins) by their diety its quite a simple matter. I've done this to make an evil paladin (3.x players may be more familiar with the term blackguard but back in 2e we weren't that fancy) just playing around not too long ago. Simply tweak some of the names towards the element you are trying to get and change the keyword, its that simple. Lets take the Cleric at will Lance of Faith. If you wanted a cleric devoted to a fire diety change this power to Lance of Flame and change the radiant damage to Fire and you're done. Not very flavorful but it works if you really want it. As I said I did this to make an evil paladin, changing all the radiant damage to necrotic and making everything named a bit darker (may could do the same for a raven queen cleric/paladin). It works, it's quick, and its simple, it flavors the divine classes by diety slightly, and best of all it keeps the players guessing as to what kind of element the cleric will throw at you instead of the "Oh no an npc cleric, lets use our utilities to resist radiant damage" even if its a chaotic evil cleric npc.
#6 UrielApeiron Dec 29, 2008 20:15:26	Oo. Good ideas! Fudging the specifics of powers is a simple fix for the narrative. In my own games i liked to fiddle with the manifestation of spells based on culture, like Magic Missile looking like arrows for elves, or tridents for a sea farers. OK, and what of domain abilities such as skill training, feat equivalents and the other stuff? For instance, a war god giving Martial Weapon proficiency or some of the granted powers. Trickery grants Bluff, Disguise and Hide to the in-class list. Or: Turning elementals/plants, Speak w. Animals, +1 Caster Level for spells with the X element, Death Touch, Good Fortune, Freedom of Movement and so on. Some of them translate fairly easily. Channel Divinity as Turn (Other Thing). Other might be difficult. Death Touch sounds like a Daily Power, though it didn't seem all that useful in the game. Proficiency in one martial weapon might not be too bad. Or heavier armor proficiency. Hmm.
#7 vebrandsson Dec 29, 2008 20:26:07	Well as it stands now there is only one channel divinity feat for each diety, meaning each player can only gain one such feat, if you make multiple divinity feats that grant weaker powers as well as training in a skill I don't think that'd off balance the system much if at all. You could even do a Weapon Mastery type multiclass for certain dieties based around their favored weapon, like Moradin and a warhammer, that'd be fun to see, though it does end up making divine classes more powerful than the other sources (which they kind of look already) but given enough thought you might could do something simular for the other sources.
#8 tequila_sunrise Dec 29, 2008 23:17:50	Do you want all clerics to still fill the leader role or do you want, for example, clerics of trickster gods to be strikers? If you want all clerics to remain leaders, it's going to be very hard (if not impossible) to make clerics of different gods significantly different. Your best bet would be multiclassing, refluffing and maybe a few new channel divinity feats. If you want clerics of different gods to really be different, some of them are going to have to fill different roles and therefore require whole new classes. You might get away with refluffing other classes as "clerics", but I think the results would be a little disappointing. TS
#9 vebrandsson Dec 29, 2008 23:26:35	Do you want all clerics to still fill the leader role or do you want, for example, clerics of trickster gods to be strikers? If you want all clerics to remain leaders, it's going to be very hard (if not impossible) to make clerics of different gods significantly different. Your best bet would be multiclassing, refluffing and maybe a few new channel divinity feats. TS This is why I brought up the idea of doing divine versions of the Weapon mastery Multiclassing system, useing the god's favored weapon naturally. It lets you have very flaovred powers with a flavored weapon, useing your multiclass one instead of your paragon path. I think it would work well though as I said before it may tip the balance of power into the divine classes favor further.
#10 androkguz Dec 31, 2008 20:10:27	My first tought is having rituals that only clerics with the right domain can use. If you need more. then you refluff powers as explained above and refluff multiclassing so that the cleric isn't multiclassing, just getting stuff from his domain (so a fire cleric would mecanically work as a multiclass with wizard but will only take fire spells) And if that's not enought, have an Orison (like the wizard's cantrip) that's really not something you would use in combat and that are, if posible, seldomuseful. For example: Air - Blow strongly (as strong as a typical house fan) Animal - Speak with animals Death - Kill little plants with touch Earth - Write stuff on earth at will Fire - Light candles with touch Water - Create water (very few) War - Materialize a flag and/or a warhorn
#11 UrielApeiron Jan 01, 2009 11:17:04	My first tought is having rituals that only clerics with the right domain can use. If you need more. then you refluff powers as explained above and refluff multiclassing so that the cleric isn't multiclassing, just getting stuff from his domain (so a fire cleric would mecanically work as a multiclass with wizard but will only take fire spells) And if that's not enought, have an Orison (like the wizard's cantrip) that's really not something you would use in combat and that are, if posible, seldomuseful. For example: Air - Blow strongly (as strong as a typical house fan) Animal - Speak with animals Death - Kill little plants with touch Earth - Write stuff on earth at will Fire - Light candles with touch Water - Create water (very few) War - Materialize a flag and/or a warhorn Ah, the rituals idea is elegant. We call it Moradin's Whatsit, only clerics or other holy types can use it. 'Twould be appropriate to require a Channel Divinity charge to make the ritual work. Off the top of my head: Raven Queen's Requiem - Takes 10 or so minutes to recite the prayer, kick in a channel divinity and the corpse is "healed" (injuries disappear) and the corpse is perfectly preserved for Caster's Level in years. Also, the subject may not be resurrected nor their corpse animated by necromancy. (Better than gentle repose) The second idea might be trickier, but has great potential. Tricky because Xly Powers even of the same level aren't meant to be interchangeable (they might be unbalanced if given to another class). Maybe the folks who know what is behind the curtain better than i could weigh in. i love the idea of a fire god's cleric being able to cast something like fireball. And refluffing is also an excellent hack (where hack means, elegant solution). Thank you for your input guys! Happy New Year! i like the orison/at will powers. Heck, if each deity had some kind of at-will or other power, i'd be happy.
#12 Authw8 Jan 02, 2009 2:27:36	I would say have multiclass-only classes like the spellscarred for cleric domains. They would take the initial feat and get a skill training and a neat ability, then later feats could power swap for special domain powers. The only problem is that they would have to write a bunch of these to get complete coverage, and it may not be worth it to WotC to waste pagecount with this. My other idea is just a bunch of deity themed feats that give skill bonuses and useful abilities to followers of certain deities.
#13 Thought Jan 02, 2009 11:35:50	For weapon mastery, skills, etc, instead of adding them on top of a cleric natural class abilities, replacing them might be better. For example, perhaps the cleric of a war god gets +2 to Fort rather than will, and a Cleric of a trickster god gets the option of training in streetwise. That is, start adding in "domains" as soon as a character starts to consider the class. Adding a bunch of at-will powers would also be quite simple, as a character would still be limited in how many they can have at a given time. Sort of like a Warlock's pact-powers. Course, it would be a pain to add new powers for ever god at every level, but maybe one god-specific power in addition to the at-will power for every tier of play. Then, of course, additional feats are always nice.
#14 UrielApeiron Jan 02, 2009 16:00:26	Course, it would be a pain to add new powers for ever god at every level. True, which is why i'd prefer some thing like the domain approach. We don't need a Moradin set of powers, just a Law, Dwarf and Forge set. Other dwarven gods could use/offer the Dwarf domain, and the Lawful Evil gods could use Law. As for WotC not wanting to make tons and tons of powers... i think they would if there was a sense that people wanted it. Never underestimate WotC's desire to sell full color 40$ books of narrow scope. Even if they don't, anyone else COULD make just such a text and give it away or even sell it. Which is one of the things i love about the post 2E world of D&D. i bet a book of warlock pacts is in the making. i'd love to see the next iteration of Deities and Demigods to have just such a list. Throw in paragon paths of various religious orders and you've got a great product. In the setting i've been working on, the humans are monotheists, but clerics derive their powers from Archangels. These angels have orders (usually based on a saint like figure). Sadriel, Archangel of Justice provides Divination, Strength, Lawful, Fate domains. Under him there is the Order of St. Cuthbert, which is more militant and less forgiving. i suppose in 4E Order of St. Cuthbert would be a paragon path.
#15 Thought Jan 02, 2009 21:37:49	True, powers by domain would be a little more flexible than powers by god (and 4e does seem to be all about making things easily interchangable).
#16 androkguz Jan 03, 2009 11:12:47	I stick to my idea of Orisons. If made weak enough, they would hardly be unbalancing, and in any case, the cleric does need a little pump up.
#17 Einlanzer Jan 04, 2009 3:41:40	I stick to my idea of Orisons. If made weak enough, they would hardly be unbalancing, and in any case, the cleric does need a little pump up. I had the same idea of domain orisons. It's flavorful, allows for diversity, and would have little effect on game mechanics.