Please, discuss what you like/dislike about the class. I tried to give it a more "flavorful" aspect, borrowing ideas from the 2E rules as well. I know there's no flavor text, but... well... I legally can't post the flavor text I have with the class in my personal campaigns' writeups.
Some notes on various aspects of the class:
The sun of Athas is usually pictured as being red rather than yellow so that would make more sense as the color for Sun clerics. Silt is often described as being grey thought beige makes sense as well so mabye both would be acceptable colors. To differentiate Magma from sun, magma could be black and red and orange.
As to the weapon restrictions for clerics, the Air cleric would need to be able to use martial ranged weapons in order to use long bows and short bows.
I really like the idea of your spontenous casting though I'm still not sure if I agree with the exact implementation or not.
I really like the descriptions of the various holf symbols as well, but I think you should put a little more effort into describing paraelement holy symbols.
Good system on the Turn or Rebuke elementals :D , nice touch on being able to turn ones adjacent to the opposition but as a lower level. I would personally set it at three level lower however like the paladin. Also the arrangement of the elements in athas causes some problems as Silt is right next to water, which by all rights is an element in complete opposition to water.
I don't really see the sacarifice ability, I mean it makes some sense for earth clerics and for water clerics but not really for the others. Honestly that seems to be more of the druids shtick.
With this alternate I think it would make sense to drop domains entirely, seeing as they gain a lot of powers from the class.
Overall very intriguing, I'll need to look at and consider its merits again when I'm not drunk
Thanks Xlore, this class is much closer to how I envision clerics on Dark Sun then the official one.
I just wish I could put the flavor text, I did a massive rehash of all references of Clerics in the 2e books flavor-wise, blended them together, and produced what basically amounts to about 10 or 12 pages of info on Clerics. I've been working on documents which I use for my own campaigns -- sort of a unified all-inclusive book that covers all my rule changes, etc, and stops me from needing to loop up dozens of reference books for everything. I'm currently up to 18 base classes (DS3 classes + Paladin, Sorcerer, Monk, Erudite, and Noble). Several I've done some significant reworking on, and I'm planning on getting them all up there. My Ranger, for instance, is a lot closer to the old DS3 ranger (pre 3.5e), when there was no spell casting for that class. My Templars have different assigned spells based on each sorcerer-king, which more or less is analogous to having a single domain.
Some notes on various aspects of the class:
The sun of Athas is usually pictured as being red rather than yellow so that would make more sense as the color for Sun clerics. Silt is often described as being grey thought beige makes sense as well so mabye both would be acceptable colors. To differentiate Magma from sun, magma could be black and red and orange.
Actually, I was going straight out of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water for that. However, I'm open to suggestions. Good ideas for the class colors.
As to the weapon restrictions for clerics, the Air cleric would need to be able to use martial ranged weapons in order to use long bows and short bows.
That's possible. Or at the very least, possible to let them use bows and crossbows.
I really like the idea of your spontenous casting though I'm still not sure if I agree with the exact implementation or not.
Still toying with that one, might up it a bit more, like starting with 2 per level, rather than 1. I also want to make sure that there is some room for a cleric to change their mind down the road and switch to a different spontaneous spell (like how sorcerers can swap out a spell every 4 levels). I might need to rework the wording of the text there to help make more sense of it all.
I really like the descriptions of the various holf symbols as well, but I think you should put a little more effort into describing paraelement holy symbols.
Well, that's technically how it was described in EAFW. I know I need to flesh out the paraelements.
Good system on the Turn or Rebuke elementals :D , nice touch on being able to turn ones adjacent to the opposition but as a lower level. I would personally set it at three level lower however like the paladin. Also the arrangement of the elements in athas causes some problems as Silt is right next to water, which by all rights is an element in complete opposition to water.
The opposite is natural opposite, not necessarily who they are fighting in the elemental/paraelemental "war". Water and Silt might be against each other, but silt is sort of a corrupted form of ooze, which is why it is placed where it is. Notice I don't let the clerics rebuke/control "adjacent" elements/paraelements -- there is no real friendly alliances going on between the elements and paraelements. They can turn/destroy the opposed element/paraelement, and then at a lesser ability, do the same to the paraelements/elements adjacent to their opposed. In actuality, generally speaking, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water do try to get along, despite their diametric oppositions. This makes them possible to use the ability to turn/destroy paraelementals.
I don't really see the sacarifice ability, I mean it makes some sense for earth clerics and for water clerics but not really for the others. Honestly that seems to be more of the druids shtick.
Actually, in Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, it makes perfect sense as to why it works for all four elements. Fire is also working on restoring Athas, just like Air is. It only is an option for them, and isn't even required of them to use it. It was an ability in 2E that I brought across.
With this alternate I think it would make sense to drop domains entirely, seeing as they gain a lot of powers from the class.
I did drop domains. Didn't I? Coulda sworn I took domains out, and am using your spell system for everything.
Overall very intriguing, I'll need to look at and consider its merits again when I'm not drunk
