the cleric

i've always enjoyed the role of the cleric, especially in 3.5e. ok, i lied, i never really liked them, except for their healing. otherwise, they tended to be waddling tin-cans that could heal or occasionally do a paltry sum of negligible damage (2e), or rely on amazing amounts of healing and meta-persisted spells to save their skin (3e). however, there were a few changed i'd made to clerics in my (recently) ended 3e forgotten realms campaign. they are as follows:

• While anyone may worship any deity they wish, only those of the same race of a pantheon may become a cleric of said pantheon. Example: gnomes may only become clerics of gnomish deities, humans with human deities, ect. The only exception for this rule is if the character’s native pantheon does not support his faith; for example, the gnome pantheon does not have a gnomish deity of psionics, so a gnome character may turn to worship the human deity of the Invisible Art, Auppenser, should he so chose.

• In order to incorporate newer sources of spells, such as the Spell Compendium, or Complete Champion, all divine casters, upon gaining a higher level of spells, receive 1 + 1 new spell per point of unmodified, base Wisdom bonus. For example, a cleric with a wisdom bonus of 3 gains four ‘new’ spells upon reaching a higher level of spells known, selected from any of the non-core sourcebooks.

Note that these new choices must in some way represent your deity, their beliefs or domains.

Channeling Energy

Turn undead has been replaced with the much-simplified channel energy, as used by Piazo’s Pathfinder d20. Good clerics channel holy and evil channel unholy. Neutrals may choose either or, but this remains a permanent choice, made at creation. For more information on this change, please see this explanation

• Undead creatures now count their turn resistance, if any, as a bonus on their saving throw against a good cleric’s channel holy.

Modified Domain Powers

Channel energy changes the way in which some domains work, as turn undead is no longer used.

• The sun domain special power now adds your cleric level to your channelling damage to undead, in addition to your charisma.

• Domains such as plant and the various elemental domains now allow you to choose said creatures as targets as your channel energy as a special power: when you channel energy, you may chose the corresponding type instead of ‘living’ or ‘undead’. Good clerics heal creatures of the corresponding elemental subtype, whereas evil clerics harm creatures of their element’s opposed subtype.

i realize that some people might find it extraneous, but i found it removed that horrible turn undead table that frankly a) never really seemed cool enough to warrant... b) stopping the game horribly for nine minutes. i'm not sure, it just never seemed really cool, when you were in mid-description to your PCs:

"...so, you raise the symbol of light, that begins to glow brightly, and the wraiths nearest you begin to scream hideous wails, clawing at the air, as they...*9 minutes later*...do nothing. weird. you rolled too low. oh, and one tagged you, so make a DC 19 or take a negative level."

it likewise struck me as odd that a deity may, for no real reason beyond rolling a polyhedral die, decide that you're unworthy of their "turn-y-ness" and leave you alone and boned. so, i found that this solution was vastly superior.