Having played it straight for a while, I'm getting ready to house-rule the cleric. My issues:
- No spells at 1st level is a big change for many of my players. I'm okay with it, from a world-building standpoint I even like it, but changing it would mesh well with a fix for 2 below.
- There's no tactical decision to make or resource management to consider when turning undead - if you can turn undead, you should turn undead.
- On certain axes they're better "wizards" than mages are. The standard cleric always has Detect Magic, which the mage may or may not have. They get a much larger spell repertoire once they get spells, and that's magnified at 6th level when they get two spell repertoires at once, followed by another at 7th.
What I'm considering:
- Spells from first level, and a rationalized spell progression.
- Turn Undead is now a 1st level cleric spell. Now there's an actual gameplay decision to make. (I believe I'm stealing this from LotFP.)
- Introduce smaller repertoires for clerics, no longer their full ten spells.
Major questions to decide:
- Is there another "fixed" cleric progression floating around, or just use the standard spell progression and lop off 5th level spells?
- Size of repertoire - calculate the same as mages, or give them a larger number, say a flat five per spell level, in recognition they're carrying the burden of turning undead and healing the party?
- Related to the above, I'm even considering using the improved spell progression, so they've got more than one cure or turn undead at 1st level.
Thoughts? Critiques?