In article <1169504142.757468.33110@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
DougL <lampert.doug@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>I remember that one. 3.5 a Planetar casts as Cleric 17 and is CR16.
>This is I believe the same as 3.0.
>The presumption would have to be that lack of gear based special powers
>and 3 fewer HD make it weaker than an actual level 16 Cleric. This is
>perfectly reasonable if you note that it's gear doesn't include a Holy
>Symbol, and thus that it can't cast 90%+ of those spells :). Otherwise
>it's garbage. The CR is obviously off.
I think the creature Tele****ts. If an archangel shows up
at the High Temple and says "I need a holy symbol, quick" surely
someone will find it one! Anyway, the person who summoned it had
one....
That the spell summons a strong CR16 is already a bit disturbing.
In general being able to long-term summon something much more powerful
than yourself is hard on scenario balance. The rules seem to imply
that this will be kept in control by the creature's desire to be paid
for its services, which works okay with evil creatures--but an angel
really ought not to say "I know the enemy of my god is about to
destroy the world, but you're not paying me enough so I won't help you."
>(IIRC when this came up on the D&D group someone did defend the CR as
>reasonable, but then someone defended the CR of the 3.5 5-headed hydra
>as CR 4 as reasonable too.)
For any rule in the rulebook someone will defend it. I've read defenses
of the obvious typo in 1st edition that made ogre power so inordinately
cheap, for example.
The perception of clerics does differ wildly among groups. My husband
is running SCAP for two different gaming groups (me, and a four-player
group with two adults and two teens). The clerics are totally different
animals. Mine is known for settling otherwise nasty fights abruptly with
show-stoppers: either death touch (his domain ability), or spells like
Banishment, Dismissal, Silence, True Seeing, or occasionally Flame
Strike. He never casts healing spells above CLW, and uses that mainly to
take prisoners. Theirs is known for pumping hit points into the party
fighter
during combat, and otherwise functions as a backup fighter. The party
has adopted a combat strategy which requires the continual hp infusion,
so he almost never gets to cast anything else, and comes across as
essential but not powerful. If the Planetar just follows you around
casting Cure Serious Wounds and swinging its sword, perhaps it's a CR16
after all. That's not what happened in _Spider Queen_ though. :-)
Come to think of it, the cleric in _Spider Queen_ was like neither of
those, but a third type: she cast a lot of buffing spells and
consistently
out-fought the dedicated fighters, at least for a short time each day.
But this was a bit easier in v3.0 than it is in v3.5.
If the Planetar does *that*, it's damned impressive.
Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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