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  1. - Top - End - #1
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    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    It seems as though there's a million cleric spells that give infinitesimal bonuses to attack. Rarely do they seem to me like a good idea. Surely summoning a monster, adding a whole other combatant to your side of a battle, is better than +1 to attack (realistically, it rarely comes up that my characters miss by a tiny margin like that). Protection from Evil gives +2 to AC for the same spell level and auto-counters possession to boot. Instead of blowing a cantrip slot on +1 to a single attack, you could get the invaluable utility of purify food and drink or light. Prayer and aid start getting into vaguely useful territory, but so too are the spells they compete with. Does anyone ever use these sorts of spells?

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    WolfInSheepsClothing

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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by VoxRationis View Post
    (realistically, it rarely comes up that my characters miss by a tiny margin like that)
    Funny. When someone in my group says "A +1 to hit has never made a difference," we always hear it in blue. And bless hits the entire party. For those reasons, it's only not used when there's a bard in the party (because morale bonus).

    Summon monster has a 1-round casting time, which is really annoying if you need to move or there's any enemy in range to whack you and force a Concentration check. Also, worthless in combat at low levels when you're only going to get a round or two of use out of it.

    Aid is... well, no, we don't use aid. Maybe if it was 10 min/level and it gave a sacred/profane bonus instead of morale it would see play. Maybe.

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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    I use aid all the time when I have a lantern archon in residence.

    Bless is generally a better buff spell than protection from evil because it hits the whole party. It's pretty good for a 1st level slot.

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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    Bless, well I wouldn't call it great or amazing, but it's pretty good as first-level spells go, especially on a bigger party. I'd say prayer is less good, simply because there's a lot of competition for those third-level slots.

    Aid is good because of its temp hp. The bonus is icing on the cake, its purpose is basically a preemptive healing spell.

    Guidance sucks, at least in combat. Out of combat, giving the party +1 on all and sundry skill checks is decent, just don't waste a standard action on it during action scenes.

    But yes, generally speaking this kind of boosting ability becomes a whole lot better once you can do it as a move or swift action (e.g. bardic performance at level 7). Or, if it lasts long enough to cast it before combat, such as Aid or Heroism.

    Quote Originally Posted by Deophaun View Post
    For those reasons, it's only not used when there's a bard in the party (because morale bonus).
    Bardic performance is a competence bonus.
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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    Bardic performance is a competence bonus.
    Inspire Competence and Inspire Greatness are competence bonuses. Inspire Courage and Inspire Heroics are morale bonuses.

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    Kurald Galain's Avatar

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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Malimar View Post
    Inspire Competence and Inspire Greatness are competence bonuses. Inspire Courage and Inspire Heroics are morale bonuses.
    Huh. Turns out inspire courage is morale in 3.5, and competence in PF.
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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by VoxRationis View Post
    It seems as though there's a million cleric spells that give infinitesimal bonuses to attack. Rarely do they seem to me like a good idea. Surely summoning a monster, adding a whole other combatant to your side of a battle, is better than +1 to attack (realistically, it rarely comes up that my characters miss by a tiny margin like that). Protection from Evil gives +2 to AC for the same spell level and auto-counters possession to boot. Instead of blowing a cantrip slot on +1 to a single attack, you could get the invaluable utility of purify food and drink or light. Prayer and aid start getting into vaguely useful territory, but so too are the spells they compete with. Does anyone ever use these sorts of spells?
    At low levels, summons are useless - they don't last long enough to justify the casting time, and they lack necessary features (like Large+ size, or SLAs) to fulfill their function of gumming up the battlefield for the opposing side and taking hits for the party. So yes, a Bless spell is going to beat SM1 for at least the first 4-5 levels of your cleric's career, and possibly longer. The bonus vs. fear is icing on the cake as well, because at these levels, a single Doom or especially Cause Fear can debilitate your front line.

    A single Bless lasts 10 rounds and hits the entire party - it's one of the best buffs a starting cleric/oracle can use.
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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    Bless and Prayer both see a lot of usage in the games I play in. Aid isn't used nearly as often, but does see some usage. I haven't ever seen Guidance used though.
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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    I'm of two minds about Bless. On the one hand, I like playing support characters and giving other folks a chance to shine, and I recognize that every +1 adds up. Missing on a key attack roll is no fun at all, and turning a miss into a hit is awesome, both psychologically and mathematically. Buffs matter, and laying down enough bonuses to let the heavy hitters hit heavily (even if they otherwise wouldn't) is an entirely worthwhile way to contribute to combat.

    On the other hand, a +1 really is just a +1, and when your entire turn is nothing more than "hey guys, your numbers are better by literally the smallest margin that the game can handle," well, even someone who likes buffing isn't going to necessarily be super excited by that, even at level 1, and level 1 is about when Bless is most useful. I mean, it's possible to dump STR (or DEX, if you like that sort of thing) on a Cleric and have them be utterly incompetent with a weapon, but even with just average STR, there's a decent chance that a whack with your morningstar will have a greater numerical outcome on a level 1 fight than Bless will, you know? No one has a crazy high bonus to hit at level 1, so most Clerics will be semi-decent in melee at level 1 even if they aren't building for it specifically, and HP totals at that range are so low that even 1d8 or 1d8 + 1 might take out a significant portion of the enemy's health. With enough allies or with really careful analysis of the target numbers your allies need to roll in order to hit, I'm sure that there's a point where Bless is more valuable than just swinging at something, but I also wouldn't call it a guarantee, you know? The bigger the combat (meaning either that it takes longer or that it involves more targets, so either way your team is going to end up making more swings), the bigger the chance that Bless will have a measurable impact overall, so in a really big or long fight, Bless is almost always going to be better than just starting in with the morningstar. But for a smaller skirmish, that's less clear.

    Now, after level 1, things are a little bit different (the difference between someone who invests in melee and someone who doesn't is going to get much larger, HP totals are going to make 1d8 + 1 be less impressive, and so on), but once we start getting too far above level 1, we have to start asking why you're bothering with a level 1 spell like Bless. I suppose it's a fine way to burn a standard action several rounds in (after you've laid down some higher-level and therefore more important effects and then you don't want to spend any more higher-level slots), but I'm not sure that that's what you're talking about.

    I'm not sure if I'm even answering the question you asked anymore, so let's leave it there for now. Basically, I like buffing and I like throwing around numerical bonuses to my allies, so it's cool that Bless is a way to affect the entire party at level 1. But even I recognize that a lone +1 is only significant on approximately one roll out of every twenty, so it doesn't really feel exciting to spend a caster's turn on something that is literally no more than a +1.
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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    Huh. Turns out inspire courage is morale in 3.5, and competence in PF.
    Which is why bless is better in Pathfinder due to the spell Inspire Greatness. (doubles it for 1 attack for each morale bonus).

    Heck, Barbarians love Inspire Greatness as well (extra +2 str/Con).

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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    Guidance gets a lot of mileage in PF, at least in the games I've played. Since PF cantrips and orisons are at-will, you can just tap the rogue before he attempts to pick a lock, tap the wizard (or fighter) right before they start scribing or crafting that day, tap everyone in the party individually including yourself when they're about to climb down from a ledge etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zaq View Post
    I'm not sure if I'm even answering the question you asked anymore, so let's leave it there for now. Basically, I like buffing and I like throwing around numerical bonuses to my allies, so it's cool that Bless is a way to affect the entire party at level 1. But even I recognize that a lone +1 is only significant on approximately one roll out of every twenty, so it doesn't really feel exciting to spend a caster's turn on something that is literally no more than a +1.
    That's a +1 to your whole team though, including any pets/minions. If even two of them hit that would have otherwise missed as a result, that's a lot of extra damage thanks to one spell from you.

    The save bonus vs. fear shouldn't be underestimated either. If you save someone on your team from being Shaken, you've actually caused a 3-point swing to their attack (+1 from the spell, and avoiding the -2 from shaken) and if you stop them from being Frightened that's even better as you've also saved an action.
    Last edited by Psyren; 2016-09-23 at 02:40 PM.
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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    Well the math isn't hard.

    if (amount of teammates that make attack rolls) * (rounds remaining in combat) * 5% > (your to-hit chance), then bless is better than making a melee attack. Assuming for the sake of practicality that all melee characters deal more-or-less the same damage. The same math applies to bards.

    Statistically, the bonus to fear is only likely to make a difference if the party has to make ten or more saves against fear in the same combat, which in my experience is never. But +1 to hit for all? Yeah, pretty decent.
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    Default Re: Prayer, Bless, Aid, Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    Assuming for the sake of practicality that all melee characters deal more-or-less the same damage.
    Your math is okay but this assumption is faulty. At first level, the cleric's damage from one swing is unlikely to compare to that of the barbarian who is 2-handing a greatsword, the rogue who is flanking with him, or even the Ranger shooting from the back (especially if a FE is targeted.) There are few actions from you and pretty much no spells that could equal that kind of potential output.

    Lvl 1 Bless might as well read "your party ignores the penalty from Power Attack for 10 rounds."
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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