Cleric



Obsidian has confirmed that the Cleric base class will be included in NWN2.

DnD 3.5 Cleric
Description: Clerics act as intermediaries between the earthly and the divine (or infernal) worlds. A good cleric helps those in need, while an evil cleric seeks to spread his patron's vision of evil across the world. All clerics can heal wounds and bring people back from the brink of death, and powerful clerics can even raise the dead. Likewise, all clerics have authority over undead creatures, and they can turn away or even destroy these creatures. Clerics are trained in the use of simple weapons, and can use all forms of armor and shields without penalty, since armor does not interfere with the casting of divine spells. In addition to his normal complement of spells, every cleric chooses to focus on two of his deity's domains. These domains grants the cleric special powers, and give him access to spells that he might otherwise never learn.

Alignment restrictions: A cleric’s alignment must be within one step of his deity’s (that is, it may be one step away on either the lawful–chaotic axis or the good–evil axis, but not both). A cleric may not be neutral unless his deity’s alignment is also neutral.

Class features progression
Spellcasting: Divine (Wisdom-based, spell failure from armor is ignored). Must have a Wisdom score of 10 + the spell’s level to cast a spell.

Aura
A cleric of a chaotic, evil, good, or lawful deity has a particularly powerful aura corresponding to the deity’s alignment. Clerics who don’t worship a specific deity but choose the chaotic, evil, good, or lawful domain have a similarly powerful aura of the corresponding alignment. This is used by alignment detecting spells.

Bonus languages
A cleric’s bonus language options include Celestial, Abyssal, and Infernal (the languages of good, chaotic evil, and lawful evil outsiders, respectively). These choices are in addition to the bonus languages available to the character because of his race.

Turn or rebuke undead
Any cleric, regardless of alignment, has the power to affect undead creatures by channeling the power of his faith through his holy (or unholy) symbol.

A good cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships a good deity) can turn or destroy undead creatures. An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships an evil deity) instead rebukes or commands such creatures. A neutral cleric of a neutral deity must choose whether his turning ability functions as that of a good cleric or an evil cleric. Once this choice is made, it cannot be reversed. This decision also determines whether the cleric can cast spontaneous cure or inflict spells.

A cleric may attempt to Turn undead a number of times per day equal to 3 + his charisma modifier. A cleric with 5 or more ranks in knowledge (religion) gets a +2 bonus on turning checks against undead.

Domains
A cleric’s deity influences his alignment, what magic he can perform, his values, and how others see him. A cleric chooses two domains from among those belonging to his deity. A cleric can select an alignment domain (Chaos, Evil, Good, or Law) only if his alignment matches that domain.

If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. The restriction on alignment domains still applies. Each domain gives the cleric access to a domain spell at each spell level he can cast, from 1st on up, as well as a granted power. The cleric gets the granted powers of both the domains selected.

Available domains

 * Air
 * Animal
 * Chaos
 * Death
 * Destruction
 * Earth
 * Evil
 * Fire
 * Good
 * Healing
 * Knowledge
 * Law
 * Luck
 * Magic
 * Plant
 * Protection
 * Strength
 * Sun
 * Travel
 * Trickery
 * War
 * Water

Spellcasting

 * Cleric spell list
 * Cleric spell progression: Clerics have the same spell progression as druids.

A cleric casts divine spells, which are drawn from the cleric spell list.

To prepare or cast a spell, a cleric must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a cleric’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the cleric’s Wisdom modifier.

A cleric can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. In addition to his base daily spell allotment, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Wisdom score.

Each cleric must choose a time at which he must spend 1 hour each day in quiet contemplation or supplication to regain his daily allotment of spells. Time spent resting has no effect on whether a cleric can prepare spells. A cleric may prepare and cast any spell on the cleric spell list, provided that he can cast spells of that level, but he must choose which spells to prepare during his daily meditation.

Domain spells
A cleric gets one domain spell slot for each spell level he can cast, starting at 1st level. When a cleric prepares a spell in a domain spell slot, it must come from one of his two domains. If a domain spell is not on the cleric spell list, a cleric can prepare it only in his domain spell slot.

Alignment restrictions
However, his alignment may restrict him from casting certain spells opposed to his moral or ethical beliefs. A cleric can’t cast spells of an alignment opposed to his own or his deity’s (if he has one). Spells associated with particular alignments are indicated by the chaos, evil, good, and law descriptors in their spell descriptions.

Spontaneous casting
Which spells a clerics can sponatenous cast is dependant on their (or their deity's) alignment. They may not "lose" a domain spell for this purpose.
 * A good cleric (or a neutral cleric of a good deity) can spontaneously cast any cure spell.
 * An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric of an evil deity) can spontaneously cast any inflict spell.
 * A cleric who is neither good nor evil and whose deity is neither good nor evil can convert spells to either cure spells or inflict spells (player's choice). Once the player makes this choice, it cannot be reversed. This choice also determines whether the cleric turns or commands undead.

Ex-Clerics
A cleric who grossly violates the code of conduct required by his god loses all spells and class features, except for armor and shield proficiencies and proficiency with simple weapons. He cannot thereafter gain levels as a cleric of that god until he atones (see the atonement spell description).

Pre-release notes

 * Dispel, healing and summoning magics are highly likely to be in NWN2 as they are almost integral to the magic system of DnD
 * NWN did not use languages. If NWN2 repeats this then it is unlikely the bonus languages class feature will be implemented.
 * Knowledge skills are not in NWN2. The collective lore skill will be used instead, though without the specific skill synergies.

NWN comparison

 * The parry skill was created by NWN and is not a feature of DnD 3.5, and has returned in NWN2 for the same reasons it was in NWN.
 * NWN did not implement deity or alignment restriction for spell and domain selection. Without dieties being used clerics had no class-alignment restrictions imposed so it was impossible to become an Ex-cleric and lose your abilities.
 * Alignment detection spells were not implemented and character alignment was directly used for the smite good/evil abilities instead of specifically aligned auras.
 * Domains in NWN only provided a handful of extra spells with no restriction on the amount which could be prepared at any time.
 * All Cleric were given Turn Undead and Spontaneous cure spells irrelevant of alignment, while Rebuke Undead and Spontaneous inflict spells were not implemented.

External resources

 * NWNWiki:Cleric