Divine Intervention, going by the article, just seems to effectively be a 5th level slot that doesn't need material components. Very nice, but I don't see it as game breaking?
I think on a small scale, being able to cast Prayer of Healing as an action - which now grants the benefits of a short rest - can be a bit cheesy. Hallow can significantly impact encounters.
On a larger scale, having every 10th level cleric in the world get a free Hallow/Raise Dead every day means:
1. Every graveyard is warded so the dead cannot be raised.
2. All entrances to walled towns/cities/castles will be hallowed, most likely with the tongues effect, with all the benefits and impact that may have. Walls and sewers are monitored more closely for anyone that circumvents the wards.
3. How do people's behavior change; how do laws change; how does the value of a life change when a bit of goodwill from the right person is all it takes to bring someone back to life?
4. How does war and siege tactics change when you can create fields of permanent energy vulnerability or silence? Fire vulnerability or silence in front of every wall out to fireball range?
How many level 10 clerics are running around, that they need to do this? T3 (or at least very high T2) characters are a very rare breed.
Why are these precautions any different from what they would already have done? These spells, and much more powerful spells, already existed and the world kept spinning. The idea that a fraction of a fraction of a percent of people can do 1 thing per day more easily is not going to have the huge impact you are assuming here.
Divine Intervention, going by the article, just seems to effectively be a 5th level slot that doesn't need material components. Very nice, but I don't see it as game breaking?
I think on a small scale, being able to cast Prayer of Healing as an action - which now grants the benefits of a short rest - can be a bit cheesy. Hallow can significantly impact encounters.
On a larger scale, having every 10th level cleric in the world get a free Hallow/Raise Dead every day means:
1. Every graveyard is warded so the dead cannot be raised.
2. All entrances to walled towns/cities/castles will be hallowed, most likely with the tongues effect, with all the benefits and impact that may have. Walls and sewers are monitored more closely for anyone that circumvents the wards.
3. How do people's behavior change; how do laws change; how does the value of a life change when a bit of goodwill from the right person is all it takes to bring someone back to life?
4. How does war and siege tactics change when you can create fields of permanent energy vulnerability or silence? Fire vulnerability or silence in front of every wall out to fireball range?
I'm wondering how many level 10+ Clerics wandering around the cities that exhaust their spell slots on a regular basis and therefore would need DI to do this...but then wouldn't need the DI to do more of whatever they blew their spell slots on and so can use it on this? Feels like the problem, if any, is with the spell, rather than DI. Granted, on a player level, being able to cast Hallow as an Action is pretty bad - especially if you're doing an undead/fiend/etc campaign, it would be potentially game breaking. I think I'll be house ruling that. But the problem in the larger scale would seem to be more a problem with the spell itself rather than Clerics getting what amounts to an extra 5th level slot.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
These changes to move all subclasses to level 3, made multiclassing a lot weaker now, forcing you to dip into a class for 3 levels when before you could do just one. All for what? anyway now if you want the subclass feature you can really only take one class dip to level 3 before you lose the level 17 class features.
How many NPC clerics have access to the divine intervention ability. That's the ticket. Player characters are avatars of heroism, usually chosen of the divine or some such tomfoolery. Clerics in cities are people who have dedicated lifetimes to service, but that doesn't meant they are chosen. They are recognized for their devotion to the faith, but that doesn't mean their god recognizes them on a level to grant them such abilities.
These changes to move all subclasses to level 3, made multiclassing a lot weaker now, forcing you to dip into a class for 3 levels when before you could do just one. All for what? anyway now if you want the subclass feature you can really only take one class dip to level 3 before you lose the level 17 class features.
To be honest, I think it's a good thing. It encourages players to do MCing because it makes sense for the character rather than dipping to get some feature. The only thing I don't like is that it homogenises the class a bit.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If they limited it to 1 hour casting time or less, that would ban Hallow while still allowing for instant Raise Dead, Prayer of Healing, Geas, Animate Dead and other cool things.
Divine Intervention, going by the article, just seems to effectively be a 5th level slot that doesn't need material components. Very nice, but I don't see it as game breaking?
I think on a small scale, being able to cast Prayer of Healing as an action - which now grants the benefits of a short rest - can be a bit cheesy. Hallow can significantly impact encounters.
On a larger scale, having every 10th level cleric in the world get a free Hallow/Raise Dead every day means:
1. Every graveyard is warded so the dead cannot be raised.
2. All entrances to walled towns/cities/castles will be hallowed, most likely with the tongues effect, with all the benefits and impact that may have. Walls and sewers are monitored more closely for anyone that circumvents the wards.
3. How do people's behavior change; how do laws change; how does the value of a life change when a bit of goodwill from the right person is all it takes to bring someone back to life?
4. How does war and siege tactics change when you can create fields of permanent energy vulnerability or silence? Fire vulnerability or silence in front of every wall out to fireball range?
How many level 10 clerics are running around, that they need to do this? T3 (or at least very high T2) characters are a very rare breed.
Why are these precautions any different from what they would already have done? These spells, and much more powerful spells, already existed and the world kept spinning. The idea that a fraction of a fraction of a percent of people can do 1 thing per day more easily is not going to have the huge impact you are assuming here.
The difference is in the material costs. 500gp / 1000 gp is a pretty big cost.
It seems like every time you turn around, there's a level 20 retired adventure as a bartender or shopkeeper. If the party has a run in with the law, the guards are an appropriate level for the party. Waterdeep has like 10 temples and it probably wouldn't be unreasonable to think at least 1 sufficiently powerful cleric was working at each. Competing groups of adventurers that have class levels is a common challenge. Mercenaries of every class can be hired. The world is full of NPC's with class levels. And it would only take a single cleric working as the Johnny Appleseed of hallowed ground to ward a large number of places in a single year.
How many level 10 clerics are running around, that they need to do this? T3 (or at least very high T2) characters are a very rare breed.
Why are these precautions any different from what they would already have done? These spells, and much more powerful spells, already existed and the world kept spinning. The idea that a fraction of a fraction of a percent of people can do 1 thing per day more easily is not going to have the huge impact you are assuming here.
The difference is in the material costs. 500gp / 1000 gp is a pretty big cost.
It seems like every time you turn around, there's a level 20 retired adventure as a bartender or shopkeeper. If the party has a run in with the law, the guards are an appropriate level for the party. Waterdeep has like 10 temples and it probably wouldn't be unreasonable to think at least 1 sufficiently powerful cleric was working at each. Competing groups of adventurers that have class levels is a common challenge. Mercenaries of every class can be hired. The world is full of NPC's with class levels. And it would only take a single cleric working as the Johnny Appleseed of hallowed ground to ward a large number of places in a single year.
At level 10, each encounter would be yielding at least the equivalent of 91 gold 70% of the time, and most encounters at any level should not be a grueling slog. By the time level 10 comes around, the party should be having to find creative means of storing gold because they have so much. If the DM hasn't given at least one 500gp diamond by this point, the party should have been able to easily buy several. How often are you killing your player's PCs when DMing?
In my experience and from what I see from others, retired adventurer shopkeepers tend to pop up when the party is being a gaggle of ****heads. Monsters/NPCs are not PC classes and shouldn't be most of the time. As a player, if your DM is creating Johnny Appleseed NPC to do your job for you, you might want to talk to your DM about it.
It seems like every time you turn around, there's a level 20 retired adventure as a bartender or shopkeeper.
Even in settings where that's the case, true clerics are still rare. It says so right in the class description. So these worldbuilding concerns are overblown on your end.
How many level 10 clerics are running around, that they need to do this? T3 (or at least very high T2) characters are a very rare breed.
Why are these precautions any different from what they would already have done? These spells, and much more powerful spells, already existed and the world kept spinning. The idea that a fraction of a fraction of a percent of people can do 1 thing per day more easily is not going to have the huge impact you are assuming here.
The difference is in the material costs. 500gp / 1000 gp is a pretty big cost.
It seems like every time you turn around, there's a level 20 retired adventure as a bartender or shopkeeper. If the party has a run in with the law, the guards are an appropriate level for the party. Waterdeep has like 10 temples and it probably wouldn't be unreasonable to think at least 1 sufficiently powerful cleric was working at each. Competing groups of adventurers that have class levels is a common challenge. Mercenaries of every class can be hired. The world is full of NPC's with class levels. And it would only take a single cleric working as the Johnny Appleseed of hallowed ground to ward a large number of places in a single year.
At level 10, each encounter would be yielding at least the equivalent of 91 gold 70% of the time, and most encounters at any level should not be a grueling slog. By the time level 10 comes around, the party should be having to find creative means of storing gold because they have so much. If the DM hasn't given at least one 500gp diamond by this point, the party should have been able to easily buy several. How often are you killing your player's PCs when DMing?
In my experience and from what I see from others, retired adventurer shopkeepers tend to pop up when the party is being a gaggle of ****heads. Monsters/NPCs are not PC classes and shouldn't be most of the time. As a player, if your DM is creating Johnny Appleseed NPC to do your job for you, you might want to talk to your DM about it.
It's not about PC's riches throughout a campaign, it's about the large-scale, everyday use of spells with high value material components by NPC's. At 1,000gp/Hallow, there's got to be a business case to spend that kind of money. There's only so many 500gp diamonds available, so raising every person who dies is not even possible, if the components are needed. I wouldn't question a DM that has thought through NPC's taking perfectly pragmatic, common sense actions.
"Rare" is quite subjective - 1% is rare and even that would leave 1,300 True Clerics (of whatever levels) in Waterdeep alone. I don't think that the amount of NPC's with PC levels is defined (for 5e) or that the D&D Community as a whole has (or ever would) reach a consensus about just how many there are. But it states in the DMG "You can create an NPC just as you would a player character, using the rules in the Player’s Handbook." By RAW, it's possible (normal, even) for NPC's to have PC class levels.
Consensus is not required. There are exactly as many Clerics with this ability in the campaign world as the DM says there is. Full stop. NPCs are not PCs unless the DM explicitly designs them that way (or allows them to be in the case of a premade adventure).
Furthermore if the PC is abusing this somehow, remember that the DM is playing the divine entity granting this power. If they want to use Divine Intervention to Raise someone for a frivolous or irrelevant purpose, the god can say no. Talking to a disruptive player away from the table is generally the best thing, but some cases may just require a gentle in-game nudge to indicate to the player that what they're trying to do is not okay.
Rule 0 comes first for a reason. Yes, it's bad to just lazily design something broken and say to fix it with Rule 0, but it's also bad to kill fun features just because they could possibly be abused if the DM lays down and lets the players walk all over them.
It's not about PC's riches throughout a campaign, it's about the large-scale, everyday use of spells with high value material components by NPC's. At 1,000gp/Hallow, there's got to be a business case to spend that kind of money. There's only so many 500gp diamonds available, so raising every person who dies is not even possible, if the components are needed. I wouldn't question a DM that has thought through NPC's taking perfectly pragmatic, common sense actions.
"Rare" is quite subjective - 1% is rare and even that would leave 1,300 True Clerics (of whatever levels) in Waterdeep alone. I don't think that the amount of NPC's with PC levels is defined (for 5e) or that the D&D Community as a whole has (or ever would) reach a consensus about just how many there are. But it states in the DMG "You can create an NPC just as you would a player character, using the rules in the Player’s Handbook." By RAW, it's possible (normal, even) for NPC's to have PC class levels.
A business case? I am going to go out on a limb and say that this is an uncommon expectation set for a cleric in any D&D game. If they have the resources and want to use it, this is mostly a shoulder shrug from the party so long as the cleric can keep one in the pipe for a Raise Dead. There are virtually as many 500gp diamonds as a DM permits and considering the burden you are placing on your players to justify use, the threat you seem to make common encounters, and the implied tendency to withhold riches, I do not know if your questioning of other DMs play style is something I should feel pressured to address to satisfaction.
If you want to give 1,300 NPCs 5th level spells which include Hallow and Raise Dead, more power to you. RAW, it is an option, but that 'normal' in your stated frequency of use is doing some incredibly heavy lifting in that second paragraph. How many NPCs in the official rules are built as PCs rather than using stat blocks?
If it's not worth 1,000GP to do, then I doubt that it will be world changing. If it is worth 1,000GP to do...then it would already have been done, and the problem is the spell rather than the feature.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It's not about PC's riches throughout a campaign, it's about the large-scale, everyday use of spells with high value material components by NPC's. At 1,000gp/Hallow, there's got to be a business case to spend that kind of money. There's only so many 500gp diamonds available, so raising every person who dies is not even possible, if the components are needed. I wouldn't question a DM that has thought through NPC's taking perfectly pragmatic, common sense actions.
"Rare" is quite subjective - 1% is rare and even that would leave 1,300 True Clerics (of whatever levels) in Waterdeep alone. I don't think that the amount of NPC's with PC levels is defined (for 5e) or that the D&D Community as a whole has (or ever would) reach a consensus about just how many there are. But it states in the DMG "You can create an NPC just as you would a player character, using the rules in the Player’s Handbook." By RAW, it's possible (normal, even) for NPC's to have PC class levels.
A business case? I am going to go out on a limb and say that this is an uncommon expectation set for a cleric in any D&D game. If they have the resources and want to use it, this is mostly a shoulder shrug from the party so long as the cleric can keep one in the pipe for a Raise Dead. There are virtually as many 500gp diamonds as a DM permits and considering the burden you are placing on your players to justify use, the threat you seem to make common encounters, and the implied tendency to withhold riches, I do not know if your questioning of other DMs play style is something I should feel pressured to address to satisfaction.
If you want to give 1,300 NPCs 5th level spells which include Hallow and Raise Dead, more power to you. RAW, it is an option, but that 'normal' in your stated frequency of use is doing some incredibly heavy lifting in that second paragraph. How many NPCs in the official rules are built as PCs rather than using stat blocks?
Nobody's putting any burdens on players or withholding riches or running every encounter like it's the most challenging thing ever. When I say business case, I'm talking about local governments drawing up the city budget. There's lots of stuff to spend money on, and if you need several thousand gold for your plan, that's not an automatic thing. If you need nothing, it's a different story. When I say there's only so many diamonds in the world, I mean there's probably not enough 500gp diamonds in the world to keep up with the world's death rate.
This is a thought exercise. Like imagine in real life, if everyone got a free bag of flour every day - how would the world change?
I did a thought exercise when answering the question, how can the 5.24 Divine Intervention break the game, where I asked myself, in a fantasy world, if some people get a free 500gp diamond or 1,000 GP incense every day for free, that they can only use as components for casting Raise Dead/Hallow, how would the fantasy world change?
I agree that it doesn't need to be objectively problematic. Everyone is free to come up with their own answer or to ignore the question. I think the DI feature is a bit op in ways that can cheese some sessions, and there's great, simple advice here on how to deal with it if it is a problem for you.
Nobody's putting any burdens on players or withholding riches or running every encounter like it's the most challenging thing ever. When I say business case, I'm talking about local governments drawing up the city budget. There's lots of stuff to spend money on, and if you need several thousand gold for your plan, that's not an automatic thing. If you need nothing, it's a different story. When I say there's only so many diamonds in the world, I mean there's probably not enough 500gp diamonds in the world to keep up with the world's death rate.
This is a thought exercise. Like imagine in real life, if everyone got a free bag of flour every day - how would the world change?
I did a thought exercise when answering the question, how can the 5.24 Divine Intervention break the game, where I asked myself, in a fantasy world, if some people get a free 500gp diamond or 1,000 GP incense every day for free, that they can only use as components for casting Raise Dead/Hallow, how would the fantasy world change?
I agree that it doesn't need to be objectively problematic. Everyone is free to come up with their own answer or to ignore the question. I think the DI feature is a bit op in ways that can cheese some sessions, and there's great, simple advice here on how to deal with it if it is a problem for you.
The takeaway I am getting here is that in your mind, level 10 clerics are commonplace and apparently funded by local government, and that this is how you have managed to curtail excessive use of Hallow or Raise Dead. Now, your carefully balanced economy is turned upside down and people who have died can just be resurrected.
In my opinion, you have made the case for everyone else in this thread on why NPCs should not be made like PCs; the PCs are meant to be exceptional and you, in your world-building scenario, have taken that away from them. You have populated your world with Clerics, rather than clerics and that seems to be the problem; this is a world-building problem, not a class redesign problem.
I go on the assumption that most villages have defenders or local champions in the 1-4th level range. Most towns would have defenders or local champions in the 5-10th level range Most cities would have defenders or local champions in the 11-14th level range Capital cities would have some folks of 15th or higher (if any).
Using that, just about every town sized gathering of populace would have AT LEAST one 10th level individual (likely many). If a town has 5000 residents, I would assume at least 10 would be 10th level. If there are ten 10th level people in a single town, at least one will likely be a cleric.
Governments would absolutely make arrangements with the highest spellcasters in their borders, it not directly employing them.
So... using the numbers I listed above (which I have used in every campaign i've run over the past 40 years) - yes, town sized populations WOULD have access to 10th level clerics, as would cities, and ruling families.
It is also a good idea to keep at least a handful of NPCs in any given area, that are higher level than the characters playing the campaign - that way if they decide to get too naughty, there's someone around who can put them back into their place.
Of course you are free to run your games any way you wish, but I think most would agree that 10th level NPCs aren't that uncommon. Even if just 1/10th of a percent of the total population, at town of 5,000 would still have at least 5.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
Well, I look forward to the changes as a player and a DM. If I wanted to play a game where, while near the levels most games have historically ended, the DM demonstrates through world-building that the only thing special about my PC is that he/she hadn't been killed yet, I would just go play Zweihänder.
They’re a lot more powerful at level 1, considering that’s the level they get Channel Divinity at now, but a change that doesn’t right with me in that regard is that now they get subclasses at level 3, not level 1. Clerics literally get all their power from their devotion to the gods, so them picking the source of their power, or at least the way the can channel it, at level 3 just doesn’t make sense, at least in my opinion. Them being able to do things like smite undead and getting divine strikes regardless is a net positive, and I frankly like the new Clerics. They still remain as the best healers in the game, but they’re much more combat oriented now, which paints them better as the divine warriors they’re meant to be.
They’re a lot more powerful at level 1, considering that’s the level they get Channel Divinity at now, but a change that doesn’t right with me in that regard is that now they get subclasses at level 3, not level 1. Clerics literally get all their power from their devotion to the gods, so them picking the source of their power, or at least the way the can channel it, at level 3 just doesn’t make sense, at least in my opinion. Them being able to do things like smite undead and getting divine strikes regardless is a net positive, and I frankly like the new Clerics. They still remain as the best healers in the game, but they’re much more combat oriented now, which paints them better as the divine warriors they’re meant to be.
A cleric picking their god doesn’t mean the god picked the cleric. Levels 1-2 are an internship where they need to prove they’re worth the god’s favor.
"every 10th level cleric in the world" is not all that many, is it? PCs are supposed to be exceptional among the population, are they not?
How many level 10 clerics are running around, that they need to do this? T3 (or at least very high T2) characters are a very rare breed.
Why are these precautions any different from what they would already have done? These spells, and much more powerful spells, already existed and the world kept spinning. The idea that a fraction of a fraction of a percent of people can do 1 thing per day more easily is not going to have the huge impact you are assuming here.
I'm wondering how many level 10+ Clerics wandering around the cities that exhaust their spell slots on a regular basis and therefore would need DI to do this...but then wouldn't need the DI to do more of whatever they blew their spell slots on and so can use it on this? Feels like the problem, if any, is with the spell, rather than DI. Granted, on a player level, being able to cast Hallow as an Action is pretty bad - especially if you're doing an undead/fiend/etc campaign, it would be potentially game breaking. I think I'll be house ruling that. But the problem in the larger scale would seem to be more a problem with the spell itself rather than Clerics getting what amounts to an extra 5th level slot.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
These changes to move all subclasses to level 3, made multiclassing a lot weaker now, forcing you to dip into a class for 3 levels when before you could do just one. All for what? anyway now if you want the subclass feature you can really only take one class dip to level 3 before you lose the level 17 class features.
It's not even that.
How many NPC clerics have access to the divine intervention ability. That's the ticket. Player characters are avatars of heroism, usually chosen of the divine or some such tomfoolery. Clerics in cities are people who have dedicated lifetimes to service, but that doesn't meant they are chosen. They are recognized for their devotion to the faith, but that doesn't mean their god recognizes them on a level to grant them such abilities.
To be honest, I think it's a good thing. It encourages players to do MCing because it makes sense for the character rather than dipping to get some feature. The only thing I don't like is that it homogenises the class a bit.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If they limited it to 1 hour casting time or less, that would ban Hallow while still allowing for instant Raise Dead, Prayer of Healing, Geas, Animate Dead and other cool things.
The difference is in the material costs. 500gp / 1000 gp is a pretty big cost.
It seems like every time you turn around, there's a level 20 retired adventure as a bartender or shopkeeper. If the party has a run in with the law, the guards are an appropriate level for the party. Waterdeep has like 10 temples and it probably wouldn't be unreasonable to think at least 1 sufficiently powerful cleric was working at each. Competing groups of adventurers that have class levels is a common challenge. Mercenaries of every class can be hired. The world is full of NPC's with class levels. And it would only take a single cleric working as the Johnny Appleseed of hallowed ground to ward a large number of places in a single year.
At level 10, each encounter would be yielding at least the equivalent of 91 gold 70% of the time, and most encounters at any level should not be a grueling slog. By the time level 10 comes around, the party should be having to find creative means of storing gold because they have so much. If the DM hasn't given at least one 500gp diamond by this point, the party should have been able to easily buy several. How often are you killing your player's PCs when DMing?
In my experience and from what I see from others, retired adventurer shopkeepers tend to pop up when the party is being a gaggle of ****heads. Monsters/NPCs are not PC classes and shouldn't be most of the time. As a player, if your DM is creating Johnny Appleseed NPC to do your job for you, you might want to talk to your DM about it.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
Even in settings where that's the case, true clerics are still rare. It says so right in the class description. So these worldbuilding concerns are overblown on your end.
It's not about PC's riches throughout a campaign, it's about the large-scale, everyday use of spells with high value material components by NPC's. At 1,000gp/Hallow, there's got to be a business case to spend that kind of money. There's only so many 500gp diamonds available, so raising every person who dies is not even possible, if the components are needed. I wouldn't question a DM that has thought through NPC's taking perfectly pragmatic, common sense actions.
"Rare" is quite subjective - 1% is rare and even that would leave 1,300 True Clerics (of whatever levels) in Waterdeep alone. I don't think that the amount of NPC's with PC levels is defined (for 5e) or that the D&D Community as a whole has (or ever would) reach a consensus about just how many there are. But it states in the DMG "You can create an NPC just as you would a player character, using the rules in the Player’s Handbook." By RAW, it's possible (normal, even) for NPC's to have PC class levels.
Consensus is not required. There are exactly as many Clerics with this ability in the campaign world as the DM says there is. Full stop. NPCs are not PCs unless the DM explicitly designs them that way (or allows them to be in the case of a premade adventure).
Furthermore if the PC is abusing this somehow, remember that the DM is playing the divine entity granting this power. If they want to use Divine Intervention to Raise someone for a frivolous or irrelevant purpose, the god can say no. Talking to a disruptive player away from the table is generally the best thing, but some cases may just require a gentle in-game nudge to indicate to the player that what they're trying to do is not okay.
Rule 0 comes first for a reason. Yes, it's bad to just lazily design something broken and say to fix it with Rule 0, but it's also bad to kill fun features just because they could possibly be abused if the DM lays down and lets the players walk all over them.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
A business case? I am going to go out on a limb and say that this is an uncommon expectation set for a cleric in any D&D game. If they have the resources and want to use it, this is mostly a shoulder shrug from the party so long as the cleric can keep one in the pipe for a Raise Dead. There are virtually as many 500gp diamonds as a DM permits and considering the burden you are placing on your players to justify use, the threat you seem to make common encounters, and the implied tendency to withhold riches, I do not know if your questioning of other DMs play style is something I should feel pressured to address to satisfaction.
If you want to give 1,300 NPCs 5th level spells which include Hallow and Raise Dead, more power to you. RAW, it is an option, but that 'normal' in your stated frequency of use is doing some incredibly heavy lifting in that second paragraph. How many NPCs in the official rules are built as PCs rather than using stat blocks?
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
If it's not worth 1,000GP to do, then I doubt that it will be world changing. If it is worth 1,000GP to do...then it would already have been done, and the problem is the spell rather than the feature.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Nobody's putting any burdens on players or withholding riches or running every encounter like it's the most challenging thing ever. When I say business case, I'm talking about local governments drawing up the city budget. There's lots of stuff to spend money on, and if you need several thousand gold for your plan, that's not an automatic thing. If you need nothing, it's a different story. When I say there's only so many diamonds in the world, I mean there's probably not enough 500gp diamonds in the world to keep up with the world's death rate.
This is a thought exercise. Like imagine in real life, if everyone got a free bag of flour every day - how would the world change?
I did a thought exercise when answering the question, how can the 5.24 Divine Intervention break the game, where I asked myself, in a fantasy world, if some people get a free 500gp diamond or 1,000 GP incense every day for free, that they can only use as components for casting Raise Dead/Hallow, how would the fantasy world change?
I agree that it doesn't need to be objectively problematic. Everyone is free to come up with their own answer or to ignore the question. I think the DI feature is a bit op in ways that can cheese some sessions, and there's great, simple advice here on how to deal with it if it is a problem for you.
The takeaway I am getting here is that in your mind, level 10 clerics are commonplace and apparently funded by local government, and that this is how you have managed to curtail excessive use of Hallow or Raise Dead. Now, your carefully balanced economy is turned upside down and people who have died can just be resurrected.
In my opinion, you have made the case for everyone else in this thread on why NPCs should not be made like PCs; the PCs are meant to be exceptional and you, in your world-building scenario, have taken that away from them. You have populated your world with Clerics, rather than clerics and that seems to be the problem; this is a world-building problem, not a class redesign problem.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
I go on the assumption that most villages have defenders or local champions in the 1-4th level range.
Most towns would have defenders or local champions in the 5-10th level range
Most cities would have defenders or local champions in the 11-14th level range
Capital cities would have some folks of 15th or higher (if any).
Using that, just about every town sized gathering of populace would have AT LEAST one 10th level individual (likely many). If a town has 5000 residents, I would assume at least 10 would be 10th level. If there are ten 10th level people in a single town, at least one will likely be a cleric.
Governments would absolutely make arrangements with the highest spellcasters in their borders, it not directly employing them.
So... using the numbers I listed above (which I have used in every campaign i've run over the past 40 years) - yes, town sized populations WOULD have access to 10th level clerics, as would cities, and ruling families.
It is also a good idea to keep at least a handful of NPCs in any given area, that are higher level than the characters playing the campaign - that way if they decide to get too naughty, there's someone around who can put them back into their place.
Of course you are free to run your games any way you wish, but I think most would agree that 10th level NPCs aren't that uncommon. Even if just 1/10th of a percent of the total population, at town of 5,000 would still have at least 5.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
Well, I look forward to the changes as a player and a DM. If I wanted to play a game where, while near the levels most games have historically ended, the DM demonstrates through world-building that the only thing special about my PC is that he/she hadn't been killed yet, I would just go play Zweihänder.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
They’re a lot more powerful at level 1, considering that’s the level they get Channel Divinity at now, but a change that doesn’t right with me in that regard is that now they get subclasses at level 3, not level 1. Clerics literally get all their power from their devotion to the gods, so them picking the source of their power, or at least the way the can channel it, at level 3 just doesn’t make sense, at least in my opinion. Them being able to do things like smite undead and getting divine strikes regardless is a net positive, and I frankly like the new Clerics. They still remain as the best healers in the game, but they’re much more combat oriented now, which paints them better as the divine warriors they’re meant to be.
A cleric picking their god doesn’t mean the god picked the cleric. Levels 1-2 are an internship where they need to prove they’re worth the god’s favor.