No, really. Lance of Faith can fuck right off.
I didn't hate laser clerics back in the 4e days. I thought it was kinda nice for clerics to have a ranged attack option at the lower levels. But listening to players in my test game say "oh, I wonder what I'll do. Right - the same thing I do every time - cast lance of faith" made me burn with the white-hot rage of a thousand suns.
Lovely - a default spell, and worse yet, it's ranged damage, and worse yet for some clerics it's at-will, and worse yet it has higher damage than magic missile (albeit with a to-hit-roll).
Let's examine the evidence.
Evidence:
 |
| Cleric. |
 |
| Not-Cleric. Or Wizard, as the are commonly known. |
Conclusion:
Fuck Lance of Faith.
The last playtest version makes it so only the Light specific cleric can use it as an at will, and while that still makes it fairly superior to the others "gods" some of them seemed a lot closer (I'm looking at Trickster...) Something as simple as taking Cure Minor Wounds off of their at will list would drop them in line with the healer and protector clerics.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why removing heal minor wounds does anything. It's only usable on characters with less than 3 hp, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteCorrect. As often as you want (once per round, but unlimited times if its at will) You can convert someone from -whatever isn't dead number of hitpoints, to 1 hitpoints. In we learned this when I was running a party wipe in progress and Jennie discovered she could get someone up from near AND lance of faith a goblin to death every round, from a safe place, for the 8 or so rounds it took to get the goblins under control. It was pretty much fantasy Riverworld.
DeleteHow did you cast two spells in a round? The cleric's Word of Power mechanic requires the secondary action not be a spell.
DeleteYou are right...she was actually slinging with her other action
ReplyDeleteI don't mind lance of faith because some clerics, notably the women players I game with, like to be healers but don't necessarily like to be crusaders covered in the gore of the enemy. so instead of having them sling stones or do other similarly semi-effective range attacks, a little jolt from god seems to do the trick.
ReplyDeletethe idea of the laser cleric as priestess in robes instead of holy warrior with chain and mace, is a pretty archetypal role.
If however, cleric spells started stepping on the toes of wizards, I would be mighty upset. but so far not the case imo. wizards spells blow things up with great alacrity, clerics just get a cool not-too-powerful lightning bolt to toss, which also happens to be drawn from divine offensive spells in myth, legend, and religion.
Well, I'm ok with that. But in the current rules, that isn't how it works. Sun clerics can wear heavyish armor and carry maces. But the way that the +wis and spell bonuses work in the current rule system, it's almost guaranteed that the to-hit and damage rolls for lance of faith are going to be better than going hand-to-hand. That and the fact that it's ranged make it almost a default option.
ReplyDeleteI would say that if you want to play a robed priestess tossing holy light, you need a scheme for that that gives up medium/heavy armor and other standard cleric features. Right now you can have it both ways, and that is no good.
Amen to getting rid of, or heavily modifying, lance of faith.
ReplyDeleteI originally thought it would make sense for it to only work against undead or otherworldly foes. At least it wouldn't be an at-will laser then.
It's true that a beam of light does fit some mythology, but in mythology such powers don't get used so frequently.
You know, maybe this makes me a bad person, but every time I see the title of this post in my blogroll it makes me happy.
ReplyDeleteI'm very glad I could contribute to your bad happiness. The best kind of happiness, really. Like how food tastes better if you stole it from your sibling or friend. Felony-food.
DeleteIt seems like lance of faith would be usable if it had a cooldown associate with it ... e.g., use one round, wait two rounds for 'recharge'
ReplyDelete