Creating a Super Mage/Cleric

[Edeldhur]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

A straight 2d ranged attack with enough range to matter is going to run you around 8-15 points, depending on how you enhance and limit. A cool spell, like an explosive fireball or a cone of lightning, can run 20-30 points. A great spell, like a hard to resist area sleep affliction, is going to be 35+ points.

So having 40 points in your modular pool is probably good. However, most modular pools are going to run 120+ CP for that much in the pool, which is a significant investment. It's doable, but you may find yourself severely limited for all that flexibility.

Alternately, a 40 point attack spell and 6 alternate abilities runs you no more than 98 points, and if you can't figure out what you're going to do with 7 different attack spells, you're probably suffering from option paralysis anyway.

I truly cannot argue with that, the investment is huge, even if I can somehow manage to lower its cost to like 20% of the total without completely crippling its usefulness.

The thing is that, in my head, having for example an attack ability as the "main one" it would mean that the alternate ones for the sake of consistency, should be something at least attack-related, like a slow, or area, etc.

This means that flexibility implies having either a modular abilities pool or what I am now equating, which would be "power/spell chains" by specialty and alternate from one another - something like:

- single target heal > multiple target heal > disease heal > restoration > etc;
- single attack spell > area attack > area slow > etc;
- single target stat buff > multiple target buff > multi target movement buff:
- concealment (invisibility) > improved concealment (sight + sound) > mass...
- etc

Dunno if this has any legs to stand on without trying it first - I want to be able to do different things, not having to spend whole sessions firing the same laser type "ray of light" beam or dropping the same xD straightforward heal :D

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Edeldhur

The thing is that, in my head, having for example an attack ability as the "main one" it would mean that the alternate ones for the sake of consistency, should be something at least attack-related, like a slow, or area, etc.

This means that flexibility implies having either a modular abilities pool or what I am now equating, which would be "power/spell chains" by specialty and alternate from one another - something like:

Published examples allow for great variety in alternate attacks. A character with Divine Powers can have Smite (area effect burning attack versus demons), Holy Fire (short ranged single target overhead smash), and Vampiric Touch (touch ranged steal health) all on the same alternate power group, along with their Healing Touch and Create Food effects. So you may voluntarily choose to limit yourself, but it's not required.

Personally, I like keeping all of my attack powers (however unrelated) in one group, and all my utility/defense powers in one or two others.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Published examples allow for great variety in alternate attacks. A character with Divine Powers can have Smite (area effect burning attack versus demons), Holy Fire (short ranged single target overhead smash), and Vampiric Touch (touch ranged steal health) all on the same alternate power group, along with their Healing Touch and Create Food effects. So you may voluntarily choose to limit yourself, but it's not required.

Personally, I like keeping all of my attack powers (however unrelated) in one group, and all my utility/defense powers in one or two others.

This tends to be self balancing since you can only have one active per "array" at one time, anyway, non-attacks take a Ready to activate, but you can always switch to an Attack as a free action.

[Edeldhur]

Ok... I am still fighting with this one, and all of a sudden I came across the most basic of questions - how do you actually heal someone when using a "spells as powers" approach?

- The power "Healing" really does not seem to cut it at the steep 30 point cost, and with 250 point characters I can really imagine me stumbling across those -2 rolls to heal un unconscious fellow. I am not even going to talk about the -6 when attempting to recover a crippled limb...

- Trying to use regeneration affecting others is simply too expensive...

I am kind at a loss here, anyone that can give me some pointers on this one?

Thank you in advance.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Edeldhur

I am kind at a loss here, anyone that can give me some pointers on this one?

Thank you in advance.

Powers: Divine Favors uses Healing as the basis for the Lay on Hands blessing. With Empathic and Cosmic, the cleric doesn't need to roll or spend FP, but transfers his own HP to the subject. A single patient can be treated up to IQ/3 times per day (though it would be fair to add his Power Talent to IQ for that purpose). The total cost of the power is [39], or [8] as an Alternative Ability. Throw on the [20] / [4] point Flesh Wounds blessing (Regenerate 10 HP in 10 minutes) and the cleric can actually deliver a considerable amount of healing, at least while out of combat.

This combo only really works as AAs though. It's fine at [12] points, though even then it's pricier than what you'd spend for the main Healing spells. But at [59] points it doesn't seem worth it. It could actually be cheaper to just afflict the target with Fast Regeneration directly, and would spare the cleric a lot of personal suffering.

[mlangsdorf]

Healing (Capped 8 FP -10%; Faith Healing 20%; Power Modifier -10%; Reliable +6 30%) [39] is pricey on the buy in, but lets you make healing rolls at IQ+6, which nicely handles that -2 penalty for unconscious people. Make it an alternate power of something (True Faith: Turning is classic) and it's not too bad.

You can also bring the cost down by reducing the FP cap, or adding other modifiers: I prefer Accessibility (Skin to skin contact, -20%) and Onset (Exposure Time, 1 minute, -30%) to bring it down to 24 points. Now my healer would have to touch the target for 1 minute to heal them, which renders it useless for in-combat healing. Still, the ability to make someone's wounds go away is a pretty potent ability, and shouldn't be cheap.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Healing (Capped 8 FP -10%; Faith Healing 20%; Power Modifier -10%; Reliable +6 30%) [39] is pricey on the buy in, but lets you make healing rolls at IQ+6, which nicely handles that -2 penalty for unconscious people. Make it an alternate power of something (True Faith: Turning is classic) and it's not too bad.

You can also bring the cost down by reducing the FP cap, or adding other modifiers: I prefer Accessibility (Skin to skin contact, -20%) and Onset (Exposure Time, 1 minute, -30%) to bring it down to 24 points. Now my healer would have to touch the target for 1 minute to heal them, which renders it useless for in-combat healing. Still, the ability to make someone's wounds go away is a pretty potent ability, and shouldn't be cheap.

You missed the easyist modifier for a Cleric Pact using the disadvantages required by God for their clerics