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New cleric kits, pretty please?

SionIVSionIV Member Posts: 2,689
edited February 2015 in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
So my favorite class by far is the cleric! Divine magic might not be the most popular out there, but i actually enjoy divine magic more so than arcane. Throw in the fact that you can put on a full plate, still cast your spells and have nifty abilities like turn undead, couldn't enjoy playing the cleric more... or could i?

The only problem i have with clerics in Baldur's Gate are the kits, which force you into a specific direction and removes many of your choices. Let's take a look at the cleric kits now, and i'm going to take the cleric stronghold in Baldur's Gate 2 as part of this discussion.

Priest of Talos - You're evil, deceiving and brutal. You'll sell your own mother AND dog if it makes Talos happy. While the stronghold quest is probably the best one out of the 3 cleric ones, it really awards you for backstabbing and being as mean and cruel as possible. Tell someone to go kill their wife's lover, kill someone yourself and frame someone else. It's fine if you're into being 100% cruel, but i'm rarely 100% anything so it fails there for me.

Priest of Helm - I love the idea of the Priest of Helm when it comes to alignment, I'm a sucker for lawful neutral. But once you do the stronghold quest it really annoy me how they follow the rules 110%. I'm all for following a set of rules, hence why i play lawful neutral, but when you have to do it every single time. The stronghold quest are so hit or miss for me. It doesn't help either that the watcher's keep should be a wonderful thing for Priest of Helms, but looking at those helmites, they really are fools all of them. This together with Anomen whom i'm not to keen on, really makes Helm stand out as something bad in my mind. Still it's the one i prefer out of the choices.

Priest of Lathander - You're good, like really good, and nice! Oh and you are good at slaying undead! I'm normally all for playing good, but it turns a bit too sweet with Lathander. And reading the description in the game of Priest of Lathander "And there are numerous wealthy temples devoted to him" makes me raise my eyebrow, what is this? Sune? Some greedy god? I'm probably taking it the wrong way but for me a temple of Lathander should be a spartan temple with only the necessary things. The stronghold is fine although very bland in my opinion, comes in last place on the list.

So for cleric strongholds : Talos -> Helm -> Lathander
And for cleric kits : Helm -> Talos -> Lathander

So what i would like to get introduced are a few kits that aren't so 100% following their alignment. I really liked what they did with the two new kits in IWD but no one have ported them as a mod to Baldur's gate yet and i'm a horrible modder. I'm curious as to why Beamdog doesn't add them to Baldur's Gate? And secondly why aren't there more cleric kits to start with? I would imagine they are very simple to do, the gods and history is already out there, you'll only have to add 2 spell like abilities and that's it. Yes i'm not expecting them to make new strongholds, but I'm sure that you could put them into one of the existing strongholds and i wouldn't mind. I can see from a roleplay view my character working for some other god that is friendly/close to his own god and in that way make choices that the other god might not agree with.

There was a BGEE mod out there for new cleric kits that also gave these kits to NPC's. This was awesome and i really enjoyed it, sadly the mod got broken with 1.3 and it doesn't look like it'll get fixed anytime soon.

Anyway, that's my rant!





Comments

  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    I want to see either Melicamp or Aerie with a cleric of Kentucky Fried Chicken kit! :smirk:

    And a cleric kit dedicated to the Cult of the Eyeless! Something like the Ocular Adept prestige class would be sweet to have.

    And the Amorphite of Ghaunadaur kit of course! With a brand new oozy cleric stronghold in Ust Natha for them to gather! And the implemention of Tentacle Rods!
  • SionIVSionIV Member Posts: 2,689
    Grum said:

    How about some non human deities?

    Clanggedin: Can take 2 pips in axes/hammers and 3 pips in dual wield, dwarf only
    Corellon: elf only
    Garl Glittergold: gnome only
    Avoreen: halfling only

    Would be a nice touch now when they introduced racial requirements on kits in BGEE (Dwarven Defender).
  • DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
    edited February 2015
    I wish there were special skills for default cleric , since the cleric kits have no disavantages whatsoever.
  • KilivitzKilivitz Member Posts: 1,459
    If they don't put out a Priest of Shar kit, then I don't care.

    In all seriousness, it'd be nice if the next BG/BG2 patches at least included the Tempus and Tyr's kits from IWD:EE.
  • SertoriusSertorius Member Posts: 172
    I would be satisfied, if only the NPC clerics got a holy symbol at level 25 which matched their patron deity.
  • mumumomomumumomo Member Posts: 635
    The lack of interesting kit is one of the reason why i never played a pure cleric in that game.
    That and the fact that they are severly underpowered compared to basically everything in the game.
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
    I'm sort of surprised we don't have a kit dedicated to a death god yet. Maybe even a Cleric of Bhaal himself. That'd be neat :3

    Even in Divine Remix there doesn't appear to be a death-god necromancy cleric related kit.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Bhaal is dead though, so yeah. Don't know if you're taint would be enough divine energy to power clerical magic, but who knows.

    The Death god is Kelemvor, who is also presumably God of Boring, though Velsharoon is in charge of Necromancy iirc.
  • GrumGrum Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,100
    Why make them god specific?

    1: Protector: Lathander Kit
    2: Crusader: Helm Kit
    3: Soulcrusher: Talos Kit

    It let's you rp your deity of choice without being tied down.
  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    DreadKhan said:

    Bhaal is dead though, so yeah. Don't know if you're taint would be enough divine energy to power clerical magic, but who knows.

    The Death god is Kelemvor, who is also presumably God of Boring, though Velsharoon is in charge of Necromancy iirc.

    I wholeheartly agree that Kelemvor lacks any personality whatsoever. He's even more boring than Helm in that regard. Both Myrkul and Cyric were so much more appealing as death gods than Kelemboy...

    But instead of Velsharoon clerky, I'd personally rather like to see the Doomscribe of Jergal specialty priest kit. Being the Lord of the End of Everything and the very first god of Death. Although he now lacks the completeness of his former self back in Netheril's days, the Scribe of the Doomed still remains as one of my favourites. Not to mention his clergy study both Necrology and Netherworld Knowledge to the death! :smile:
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Kamigoroshi said:

    DreadKhan said:

    Bhaal is dead though, so yeah. Don't know if you're taint would be enough divine energy to power clerical magic, but who knows.

    The Death god is Kelemvor, who is also presumably God of Boring, though Velsharoon is in charge of Necromancy iirc.

    I wholeheartly agree that Kelemvor lacks any personality whatsoever. He's even more boring than Helm in that regard. Both Myrkul and Cyric were so much more appealing as death gods than Kelemboy...

    But instead of Velsharoon clerky, I'd personally rather like to see the Doomscribe of Jergal specialty priest kit. Being the Lord of the End of Everything and the very first god of Death. Although he now lacks the completeness of his former self back in Netheril's days, the Scribe of the Doomed still remains as one of my favourites. Not to mention his clergy study both Necrology and Netherworld Knowledge to the death! :smile:
    Yeah, but Jergal is big on responsibility, light on 'hordes of ravening Skeleton Warriors slaughtering Paladins' type things. He is cool though, assuming you aren't a capital 'E' Evil Necromancer.
  • FlashburnFlashburn Member Posts: 1,847
    Sertorius said:

    I would be satisfied, if only the NPC clerics got a holy symbol at level 25 which matched their patron deity.

    There's a component of the BG2 Fixpack that does that.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    elminster said:

    Well they did change BG2EE so that you have a bit more leeway when it comes to the cleric kit alignments (you can read about it in the patch notes).

    Anyways as far as new kits are concerned the only kits I could see being done within the existing structure of the game would be.

    Liira/Waukeen
    Umberlee
    Oghma
    Ilmater

    Just because there are existing temples for these gods in BG2.

    Now that I think of it Tyr and Torm would work as well (you could use the Order of the Most Radiant Heart). A cleric of Mask could be found in the thieves guild.

    The cleric of Cyric in front of the thieves guild giving you tasks (rather than killing you) would be rather interesting, especially given the ToB encounter with Cyric.
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  • ReticentReticent Member Posts: 122
    edited February 2015
    In the underlying AD&D 2e rules that create the game world, the chance of any given person being able to qualify for becoming a paladin is actually pretty slim. Becoming a priest is much less restrictive.

    Game design philosophy back then was a lot less "build the exact character you want" and a lot more "do the best you can with the circumstances you are given".
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    subtledoctor said:

    I always thought it was a bit odd to have priest kits for Tyr, Torm, and Helm who would go out adventuring and get combat bonuses as kit abilities. of course there would be temple priests, but wouldn't anyone following those deities who wanted go out and smash some orcs skulls just become a paladin?

    Temple priests are not always clerics even, ie they are as magical as a pastor, and concentrate on caring for the needs of their community. The higher ups are more likely to be high level clerics though, possibly retired adventurers. And as noted, Paladins required absurdly good rolls to qualify. Originally, Paladin was like a prestige class for Fighters, but we're getting older than oldschool with that!

    A normal cleric of tyr/torm would be very much a warrior priest, interested in actually figting evil I agree.
  • BladesBlades Member Posts: 167
    elminster said:

    Well they did change BG2EE so that you have a bit more leeway when it comes to the cleric kit alignments (you can read about it in the patch notes).

    Anyways as far as new kits are concerned the only kits I could see being done within the existing structure of the game would be.

    Liira/Waukeen
    Umberlee
    Oghma
    Ilmater

    Just because there are existing temples for these gods in BG2.

    Don't forget the Underdark....What about Lloth? Or a god for the Deep Gnomes? What about Suldanessar(?)? There are many Gods in the Elven Pantheon. Then there's ToB to think about. There are already tons of choices for new gods for Clerics to worship already in the game.

  • DarkDoggDarkDogg Member Posts: 598
    I wonder if is it fair to make a BG mod adding 2 new cleric kits from IWD...
    Haven't played yet, but Tempus Priest looks interesting enough.
  • GrumGrum Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,100
    The priest of tempus from IWD? Correct me if I'm wrong, but he helps you 50% of the time and helps your enemies the other 50%. What is the point in that?
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,752
    @Grum The priest of Tempus is a wonderful kit. She gets Holy Power once/five levels, and Chaos of Battle every ten. The Holy Power right from the start.

    The Chaos of Battle is an area of effect spell that randomly grants a scaling thac0/AC/save/HP bonus to allies, and penalties in the same categories to enemies. So, the Chaos of Battle doesn't help your enemies at all.
  • GrumGrum Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,100
    Ah, I see. In that case I stand corrected. Thank you
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