yea thats the way it seems to me.. priest = good support.. or undead grouping.. paladin = solo or party.. just have to spend extra mana to bless party members or what not.. priest would rock in big questing partys.. but you dont see many real partys anymore.. and not very often any more then 3 people in a party.. and thats really rare

I like the idea of Priests, being spellcaster types, having more mana than their Pally brethren.  Conversely, I like the idea of Pallys, being warrior-types, having more hp than their priestry brethren. 

I do have a pretty significant question, though:  Regarding Protection/Protection from Evil...what are the ideas for implementing this?  As it is now, certain gods only protect versus evil npcs only, but the absorbtion rate is higher.  One of the prime reasons I chose Shroud/Antiu with Malal was because of the ‘blanket’ protection—alignment of the enemy didn’t matter and I was concerned with PK.

Hmmm...that protection is a big thing.  That is another reason I chose Moira for blanket protection.  If I were to think on it the Priest would have more blanket protection and the Paladin more specifically for evil.  I say that because their dislike of evil is so strong. 

I just noticed too that the shield is a shadowing a shield with power not a called shield.  I like a called shield with perharps specific damage resistance.

I do want to point out that I am prett dang sitisfied with belly’s flow and that he would be the one to code all this.  SOme of this might just be pipe dreams from a coding perspective.

Thanks again Belly!

The only reasons I’d prefer shadowing a shield are:  It’s nostalgic. and it potentially helps the metal side of the economy.  It reminds me of Myrkul pumping mana into his shield until it glowed like the sun and burned away nasty necromancers.

I have been thinking too.. i know.. thats dangerous.. but.. i think there should be 3 types… paladin.. the fighter with minor prayers and such… the priest.. which is heavy prayers.. heavy heavy heavy.. but has armor limit at chain and blunt weapons and possible limit the wc too.. and then the middle one is cleric, which the inbetween and your most common seen cleric anyways.. can wear any ac armor wields blunt, yet powerful weapons, and his more prayers then a paladin but less then a priest.

reason i say that is i know we arnt going by dnd rules strickly (hence necros being undead and not mages) so i look to other games.. where priests are usally as weak mages.. sometimes even limited to cloth or just above

also.. got a question

will there still be multipule gods? i love the idea of many gods, and maybe that can be put in later with even more gods to chose from.. but instead of have a major effect on the class.. let them give minor effects.. like boast certen spells.. or allows certan weapons to be used.. ie god of the amazons alows her clerics/priest/paladins to uses polearms (and possible limited to female chars).. or god of war can use any type without cleasing.. but must spill x amount of blood to maintan favor
god of life greatly increases heals and resurrections… maybe even certan gods drop mana costs.. just ideas.. like i said id like to see them in with alot more gods to choice from.. of coruse you need a god to pray too.. and need to keep in there good grace.. but nothing like current devotion.. maybe minor quests like god of death, scrafice x amout of corpses at altar… god of good and god of life turn x amount of undeads… god of war.. just kill… amazon god.. kill males… god of dwarfs, sac metals.. god of nature.. hug a tree (or druid)

These are great comments - keep ‘em coming, guys.  You’re covering a lot of ground that I haven’t really gotten down to thinking about yet, so the ideas and discussion is totally welcome.  You’ve asked questions in a few of these comments that I frankly haven’t got the answers for yet, otherwise I’d tell you what my plans are.

maybe rather than more gods you expand them a little bit for each path.  The followers of Antiu/shroud are your paladins, followers of yesou/l-whatever are your Priests, followers of Moira/Gogo are your Clerics.  So when you class you are a generic cleric and you have several quests/tasks you can do to build up enough favor/devotion with the gods you want to follow.  You might be a cleric for a few levels but eventually you’ll be able to join the ranks of a paladin or a priest.

What would be really cool is if you chose the path of a priest and down the road you decided you wanted to really be a paladin and you could undertake the task of switching paths (not something easy or simple but doable).

Heimdall.. receive the subliminal message from Moira - give it up.  Even if it is kickass for everyone else, Moira will curse your 2-handed basher.

Pray for forgiveness!

So I was thinking, which is almost as dangerous as lynis or heimy thinking and this is what came of my thoughts

I would like see newly classed players start as a priest.  Then at level 10 they can spcializr into a cleric or a paladine.  My way of thinking is that priests are usually near the bottom of the order and clerics and paladins near the top.  I would think it’s a downgrade to go from a cleric to a priest.

Anyway, in talking with belly, he suggested I get your opinions on it.

So opinion away

Belegost - 28 May 2008 06:41 AM

Here is the plan for reworking Clerics.

---

CLERIC class

Does this sound like something you’d like to see?  We will only do the work if people are favorable toward the plan.  It’s not worth doing all of this work if people will only wish they had the “old” Clerics back.

couple of thoughts: rather than a cure disease, or remove poison spell how bout a ‘purify person’ spell that would remove stun, disease, poison, curse, or any other nasty stuff.  The effectivness of the spell would be based on the targets alignment.  Your god may not want to help someone who is evil even if they arn’t a necro.

Priests should be able to call upon a holy avenger, a lesser heavenly creature to aid them in combat.

How bout various auras for paladins, but only one can be active at a time and rather than be time limit the paladin can sacrifice x mana to it for the duration of the spell, not quite a permanent loss but you’d give up the mana so long as the aura was active.  Either that or have the aura not take any mana but require someone else to keep running, maybe like a refreshing prayer or sacrifice.  And auras could include damage reflection, mana regen, health regen, stun, etc

Instead of a priest just spending mana on spells, how bout a variety of holy relics the priest can create and/or find and use.  I know its a cliche, but maybe a using a cross against undead, or sprinkling of holy ashes in a circle around the priest as part of a holy shield.

Hmm i was wondering if.. (these are all for priests )

Offensive Supporting Prayers:
Bless:
priests bless should also increase weapon stats, as well as normal stats, and at aristo levels, possibly a priest could increase level as well (so the bless will also increase class-skill abilities), also increases chances of passive skills activating when an aristo priest blesses (so thunderbolt, fighter’s weapon specials.. etc happen more often?) chances includes spells/weapons as well, so lightning shealth, slobberknocker activate more often (possibly only a level 24 priest is able to do this?)

Mass turning:
would be something similar to the old clerics turn where it would at least destroy at least 1 limb or 1 target when a priest uses it, with the minimum damage increasing to maybe 2 targets minimum when aristo?

Mass Wings:
casts wings on all the weapons/shields for all players in the party, weaker version till aristo?

Mass Touch:
casts touch on all party members, mostly the higher evasion portion, with very slight increase in accuracy till aristo then its the full touch spell, possibly?

Twist:
Twist is an area spell, affects everyone in room
all monsters in room will recieve the effects (not including bonus’s)
non-aristo priest - party members get bonus’s, also suffer the negative effects
aristo priest - party members usually do not suffer negative effects

e.g. priest casts twist, and recieves heal/rebound shield/and invisible target on body
while giving all opponents, a trip/burst of flame/unluckiness to combat

if at aristo, party members will recieve the heal/rebound and maybe one additional unlucky teammate will get the invisible target on body

Mass Guidance:
when cast will give increased guidance to all opponents in the area, player has to specify which limb, if not specified or monster does not have that limb, it will automatically target body

player can also focus all the guidance into one target, offering greater chances of hitting,
aristos when using spell will give a mini rage ability to party members when they attack the targeted npc (with the rage effects increased if there is only one target)

Hammer:
similar to old hammer, possibly stronger when aristo? or gives a special vs evil aura that affects all party members when aristo. So, fighters/barbs will get specials against evil when in party or something?

Defensive-Supportive Prayers:
-maybe priests dont need to unwield to cast prayers like heal/poison/curse removal?

Shephard’s Crook:
could we have a shephard’s crook spell where the priest doesnt have to unwield to keep the spell running? it’ll help people party more often, and also not make the priest useless in combat,
possibly crook’ll do healing over time (reduces the effects of all negative buffs, like poison/stun etc?), but uses up more mana or something?

Spiritual Healing:
mass spiritual healing? cleric sacrificies health to give increased mana regeneration or set amount of mana to all party members (including self)

Mass Aura of Peace:
Priests’s aura of peace effects everyone, less chances of being attacked by monsters, increased mana regeneration

Heal:
could it be made so that when priest casts on a player, he gets reduced damage for that specific limb its cast on as well as regains health in that limb faster for a period of time,

and if its cast on an undead, that specific limb has no regeneration or if the cleric is at higher devotion, it will actually have damage over time as well

aristos have a slow chance of instant killing if heal is used on the head

Poison/Curse removal:
was thinking if a priest uses it, the player will be immune to curses or poisons for a short while (few minutes at aristo), with the duration increasing with devotion and level… and if there is a mass poison/curse removal, it’ll protect everyone in the party for a while too

aristos get the chance of something similar to “sanctuary” in an area, when a mass poison/curse removal is cast, it still allows combat but poisoning and cursing from opponents is greatly hindered (affects everyone, including non members)

e.g. even if a priest cast and managed to activate this ability in moat, even if someone not from the party goes there to exp, he will most probably not get poisoned (or if so it’ll be weak)

Purify:
if there is one, should negate evil-doers/undeads spells/abilities, such as reduce the effects of necromancers spells, weaken their undeads and/or maybe something similar to a mass (yasuos) aversion?

Mass Protection:
similar to the “sanctified aura” prayer, or at least of that power, same requirements (as well as, party members only) till aristo? At aristos it can be cast on anyone, regardless of alignment.
-much weaker protection vs non evil

Moira’s Shield:
at higher levels, gives an increased AC aura that affects party members?

Will there still be divine intervention?

hehe

-Tyr

I really like the idea of remove poison and remove curse, when used on a target without either affliction, imbuing said target with invulnerability for a period of time. 

Also, I’ve been thinking about the potential differences between the priest/pally blesses.  Obviously, they need to be somewhat different including a significant disparity in power, but I fear this will re-open a can of worms:  Mages.  If a priest spends 25 mana, let’s say, for his own bless, and each party member requires an additional 15 or 10, then you still have an issue where a priest has significantly buffed a party for 50ish mana, whereas a mage has to spend hundreds.  Also, if priest blesses, to make them significantly better than their pally counterparts, include weapon skill bonuses, temporarily increased health etc., does it become more pragmatic to have a mage or priest in the party?  Ideally, both should be just as useful. 

A temporary fix could be to remove the cost difference between casting on yourself and casting on others.  Additionally, lower the costs for all ‘buffing’ spells, while maintaining costs on direct damage spells.

I like the Priest and Paladin idea a lot and I really look forward to try it out. I just have a couple of questions/comments.

1. Clerics are supposed to be good aligned. I hope we still get the detection of evil prayer, because otherwise I could see some problems for new people and people with bad memory like me.

2. The Paladin seems to get almost all the offense, but since offense gets the job done i most cases I can see why everyone is talking about the paladin. I think is sad if these 2 classes just become Shroud/Antiu that most play, and Ledah/Yasuo that almost no one plays.

Im not saying that the Cleric should have as many offensive powers as a paladin - but I’d like to see one or two more. Ideas could be reactive damage like Rebound: Your God protects you and smites your evil attackers for their attacks on his chosen. Perhaps make it work really well for the cleric himself/herself and in an reduced way on others (Pehaps allignment of the target should be a factor - God protects his chosen but will not lift a finger for the rest of you evil devilspawn)

And just for the record: I find Priests more interesting than paladins.

I am cognizant of the disparity between Priests and Paladins, and want to make sure that both are viable subclasses that people will play.  I think personal choice will play a large role in choosing class though; some will simply prefer the role of Priest while others prefer the role of Paladin.  If I can get the Resurrection spell to work the way I imagine, people had better hope there are high level Priests around . . .

RE: Priest offense.

I was making a Yasuo/Shroud cleric because it’s cool, and because I think Spiritual Hammer is one of the untapped offensive powerhouses in the game.  If it becomes a 1hd/2hd choice, I wouldn’t sell Priests short, with that and the better bless, plus their defensive prayers.