List of Cleric Spell Changes

[CamDawg]

One of the goals of Cleric Remix is to add more elements from PnP. NiGHTMARE has been our researcher extraordinare in finding most of this, so he could probably cite the sources for these if there are questions. First, the clerical spell progression has been altered to reflect PnP for levels above 20:

 

Level 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

22    9 9 9 9 9 6 3
23    9 9 9 9 9 7 3
24    9 9 9 9 9 8 3
25    9 9 9 9 9 8 4
26    9 9 9 9 9 9 4
27    9 9 9 9 9 9 5
28    9 9 9 9 9 9 6
29    9 9 9 9 9 9 7
30    9 9 9 9 9 9 8
31    9 9 9 9 9 9 8
32+   9 9 9 9 9 9 9

 

Below is a list of changed spells, by level. Most are sphere changes:

 

1st:

Command - Charm, Combat, Law (normally just Charm)

Detect Evil - Divination (normally unlisted)

Doom - Charm (normally unlisted)

Sanctuary - Charm, Protection (normally just Protection)

 

2nd:

Aid - Combat, Necromantic (normally just Necromantic)

Barkskin - Plant (normally Plant and Protection)

Draw Upon Holy Might - Summoning (normally Combat)

Hold Person - Charm, Law (normally just Charm)

 

 

3rd:

Cure Disease - Healing (normally Necromantic)

Dispel Magic - All (normally Protection)

Holy Blight - Necromantic (normally Healing)

Invisibility Purge - Wards (normally Divination)

Negative Plane Protection - should be level 3 rather than level 4

Protection From Evil, 10' Radius - should be level 3 rather than level 4

Protection From Fire - Elemental Fire (normally Elemental Fire, Protection)

Remove Curse - All (normally Protection)

Remove Paralysis - Protection, Necromantic (normally just Protection)

Summon Insects - Animal (normally Animal and Summoning)

Unholy Smite - Necromantic (normally Healing)

Zone of Sweet Air - Elemental Air, Wards (normally just Wards)

 

4th:

Animal Summoning I - Animal (normally Animal, Summoning)

Call Woodland Beings - Animal (normally Animal, Summoning)

Death Ward - Necromantic (normally unlisted)

Farsight - Dvination (normally unlisted)

Holy Power - Combat (normally unlisted)

Negative Plane Protection - should be level 3 rather than level 4

Poison - Healing (normally unlisted)

Protection From Evil, 10' Radius - should be level 3 rather than level 4

Protection From Lightning - Weather (normally Protection, Weather)

 

 

5th:

Animal Summoning II - Animal (normally Animal, Summoning)

Greater Command - Charm, Combat, Law (normally just Charm)

Insect Plague - Animal (normally Combat)

Iron Skins - Elemental Earth (normally Elemental)

Pixie Dust - Divination (normally unlisted)

Repulse Undead - Necromantic (normally unlisted)

Slay Living - Necromatic (normally Combat)

True Seeing - All (normally Divination)

 

 

6th:

Animal Summoning III - Animal (normally Animal, Summoning)

Conjure Fire Elemental - Elemental Fire (normally Elemental, Summoning)

Fire Seeds - Elemental Fire (normally Elemental)

Pixie Dust - Combat (previously unspecified)

 

 

7th:

Confusion - Charm (normally Chaos)

Conjure Earth Elemental - Elemental Earth (normally Elemental Fire, Summoning)

Creeping Doom - Animal (normally Animal, Summoning)

Gate - All (normally Summoning)

[CamDawg]

If you want to see a list of available spells for a particular kit, use the attached spreadsheet.

spheres.zip

[Miloch]

Cause Light Wounds (cdcauslw) says it's level 5 in its description (change it to level 1, as it's coded). Same goes for Cause Medium Wounds (cdcausmw) which should be level 3.

 

I'm wondering the reason for these restrictions below. The 2e PHB and the game have them listed as multiple spheres - was this changed by some later supplement?

Barkskin - Plant (normally Plant and Protection)

Protection From Fire - Elemental Fire (normally Elemental Fire, Protection)

Protection From Lightning - Weather (normally Protection, Weather)

Animal Summoning I - Animal (normally Animal, Summoning)

Call Woodland Beings - Animal (normally Animal, Summoning)

Animal Summoning II - Animal (normally Animal, Summoning)

Animal Summoning III - Animal (normally Animal, Summoning)

Call Woodland Beings, in the game anyhow, has nothing to do with animals - it summons a dryad (in 2e it has a chance to summon other creatures). Anyway, it's already restricted to druids/rangers.

 

Also, 2e says about the Elemental sub-spheres: "Very few priests have access to all four elements." And yet most of the kits actually do have this access, at least going by the spreadsheet here. Which BTW I've updated with the additional spells and kits in DR, but I'm struggling to reconcile it with the readme and other info.

[NiGHTMARE]

Many spells had their spheres changed in the appendixes of Tome of Magic and Players Options - Spells & Magic.

 

I'm assuming the comment that few priests have access to all four elements is from the Player's Handbook, in which case it was made long before the Forgotten Realms priest kits were even dreamed up .

[Miloch]

Actually, it's from Player's Option: Spells & Magic (p. 29) which came out the same year (1996) as the 2e FR supplement Faiths & Avatars, from which most of these kits appear to be drawn. Faiths & Avatars cites both this and the Tome of Magic (1991) and in addition on p. 183 makes its own sphere corrections:

Summon insects (3rd-level, animal sphere) also belongs to the summoning sphere.

Conjure fire elemental (6th-level, elemental and elemental fire spheres) also belongs to the summoning sphere.

There are others, but I mentioned only the ones that appear to be implemented in BG2 or DR.

 

Also, the only reference I can find to restrictions of healing and necromantic spells is that Lathander's priests can only cast restorative forms and Iyachtu Xvim's can only cast the reversed forms.

 

The main problem with the spheres of these kits, as listed in Faiths & Avatars, is that in most cases they don't break down the elemental subspheres. Also, sometimes they seem to have neglected chaos, law and other spheres not added until Tome of Magic.

 

Player's Option: Spells & Magic also on p. 38 gives an "Access Cost" table to the spheres and says specialty priests are constructed using this table and begin with 120 points. Ideally, special abilities (including even Turn Undead) would cost points, but that would leave the existing kits with few spheres.

 

So the average of the DR kits does seem to be ~120 points if you add up the spheres. Some kits have significantly more or less than this though. Given the fact they're fairly balanced otherwise, it'd make sense to redistribute spheres a bit for better balance.

 

So I did this on my update to the spreadsheet here.

 

I used Faiths & Avatars and the DR readme as a guide and "demoted" or "promoted" the spheres that would be appropriate to each god, and would balance the kit, focusing on Elemental subspheres for the most part. This resulted in:

 

Lathander: Elemental Air demoted to Minor; Elemental, Elemental Earth, Elemental Water demoted to None

 

Helm: Elemental, Elemental Earth, Healing, Law, War promoted to Major

 

Talos: Astral, Summoning demoted to Minor; Animal, Time demoted to None

 

Selune: Elemental, Elemental Earth, Elemental Fire, Plant demoted to None

 

Shar: Astral, Summoning, Time promoted to Major

 

Tempus: Elemental Earth demoted to Minor; Elemental Air, Elemental Water demoted to None

 

Ilmater: Elemental Earth promoted to Major; Plant promoted to Minor

 

Kossuth: Elemental, Necromantic, Weather promoted to Major; Astral, Chaos, Law, Thought promoted to Minor

 

Iyachtu Xvim: Elemental, Elemental Fire promoted to Major; Astral promoted to Minor

 

Oghma: Elemental demoted to Minor; Elemental Fire, Elemental Water demoted to None

 

Sune: Elemental Fire demoted to None

 

Corellon: Astral demoted to None

 

Cyric: Chaos promoted to Major; Astral, Time demoted to None

 

I realise this is my interpretation and thus subject to debate. Purists might object to the departure from canon materials, but where they are lacking or inaccurate, game balance should take priority.

[Guest erik]

True Neutral, Miloch? "Balancing" is not necessarily a good thing for roleplaying, if it takes away from flavor...

 

(On the other hand, the cyric & chaos issue should probably be changed, since that's a strange departure from the kit as written)

[Miloch]

if it takes away from flavor...

It doesn't. Some of these kits aren't even affected, since the spheres in question are (currently) unimplemented. If anything, the diversification of the previous blanket lumping of the elemental spheres will add "flavor."

[NiGHTMARE]

Rather than changing spheres around, I personally think it would be better to add additional spells. The animal and plant spheres in particular are rather lacking in number of spells; so much so that rangers currently don't use their pnp spheres.

[Ishad Nha]

Spheres spreadsheet, from post #2 in this topic, was quite good.

Conditional Formatting was the slowest-loading thing that I have ever seen, it was ponderous on a good day. A better approach might be to choose between two alternative pieces of text, each of which is already formatted, but that is not possible in Excel.

 

I drew up a list based upon the printout from the ShadowKeeper Spell Browser. I found some spells that the Spheres tables omit:

 

1 Curse All

6 Divine Shell Chaos

2 Beast Claw Combat

1 Detect Good Divination

1 Infravision Divination

3 Clairvoyance Divination

4 Wizard Eye Divination

7 Conjure Air Elemental Elemental Air

1 Strength of Stone Elemental Earth

1 Cause Light Wounds Healing

3 Cause Blindness or Deafness Healing

3 Cause Disease Healing

3 Cause Medium Wounds Healing

3 Cure Blindness or Deafness Healing

2 Beast Claw Necromantic

7 Energy Drain Necromantic

1 Protection From Good Protection

2 Resist Acid and Corrosion Protection

3 Protection From Good 10' Radius Protection

5 Impregnable Mind Protection

7 Impervious Sanctity of Mind Protection

1 Sunscorch Sun

5 Impregnable Mind Thought

7 Impervious Sanctity of Mind Thought

 

I count 153 spells, the spreadsheet counts 131, with Curse occurring twice. Certain spells, like Wizard Eye may not be mainstream priest spells valid for all religions that access the spheres concerned.

[Ishad Nha]

CamDawg's spreadsheet is called "spheres.zip", you can find it in post #2 of this topic. I have tried to fix up the formatting in this spreadsheet so that it is less ponderous in loading times. I have had some moderate success. My version is found below.

My own preferred format is found in the topic: "Creating More Priest Kits".

CDDRSpheres2.zip

[Ishad Nha]

Actually CamDawg's spreadsheet runs normally now that I restored my computer, restored it to its factory state. It is the system restore or me using OpenOffice not Excel.