Quote:
Originally Posted by ycleption 
Right now, the biggest mechanical differences (other than alignment and race of typical followers) between the deities are what equipment their followers can use... and lo and behold, the ones who can wear full plate and get fun weapons are the most played deities.
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I do think we are all agreeing with each other and are just the types to go for the extra clarification in detail - so I will go ahead and put in what I think about this sentence. Right now, this problem is magnified because we have a single cleric class that comes with a set package. The ones that are the most popular are the ones that, in my opinion, fit that pre-conceived package. The ones that can use full plate, the ones that are combat oriented and such things. The smite clerics work really well with the cleric class. Other gods almost require a multiclass which then loses "clerical" power.
Clerics of non-standard gods (or even standard, but not the stock "cleric") are underdogs because they don't fit the very narrow mold of the cleric class. A cleric of Kith for example is a very sad thing - regardless of your dex your reflexes are never going to be that great, all the tracking skills are cross class, and let's not even go into the whole spear thing. Lucindites don't get any cool magic bonuses and have to sacrifice a lot for arcane knowledge. Katian clerics are considered completely different from druids when they should often
be druids. Folian clerics have to multi with ranger and then end up with the weakest of both classes. Same with Brander and rogue, and why in the world doesn't Deliar have the Appraise skill as not only favored but required?
So while of course we all agree that customizing deity blessings is a big thing, it's at .5 okay, etc, I will add that clerics of any deity will be much, much better off than they were before because of the skill based system. They posted the spell lines - why should a Katian priest not have Spellpraying and Spellgrowing? Why should a Lucindite not be also a spellweaver? An Ilsarian a Spellsinger? Look at the potential combat skills - a Voraxian will be better in combat by default, because he will customize his skills to be a war machine as well as a spellprayer. Someone of Prunilla will more likely be focusing on cooking. That is just the cleric diversity from the start by virtue of having a skill-based system - even before you add deity specific blessings and abilities.
Blessings would be wonderful, but my point is that even at .5 completion, a cleric of any deity will be a much
better representation than is at all achievable in NWN right now. Since all skills should serve some purpose, a cleric choosing any other skills to go with their deity's portfolio will be useful in those areas. It may not be damage, but it will be use. I am excited to see what deity specific things can be implemented, but in the end to do 28 spell lists would be impossible for what is still essentially a single "class" that will not be used by everyone, so we have to remember the amount of deity customization we can do in other areas to make up for it. Even five deity specific spells for every deity is an additional 140 spells that have to be created. And the more time you spend on Spellpraying, the less time you have to, you know, make sure that things take damage when you hit them, that a transition doesn't port you into the pits of hell, that your armor isn't on backwards, etc.
So yeah, while I still agree, I do think that the whole "everyone picking the full plate one" is not necessarily applicable here because of how vastly different one could make 28 different spellprayers by using the other skill legos to go with the single shared praying skill.