Editing Cleric (section)

===[[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game|First Edition]]===
[[File:Stargazer.jpg|left|150px]]
[[Pathfinder]] played give and take with Clerics. It reined them in somewhat by taking their heavy armor proficiency (though they could spend a feat to get it back, and as non-arcane casters they won't suffer for it while casting), and nerfing several of their key spells (for example, Divine Power no longer sets their BAB to full and only gives a typed to-hit bonus). But it also gave all clerics the favored weapon of their deity, plus it buffed the domains. They're now "only" mostly on-par with the other casters, if a little more melee-capable than the average [[wizard]], but that's still awesome.<br>
They still get domain powers, but ''turn undead'' is now ''channel energy'': it basically lets them heal living creatures and hurt undead in a big radius with positive energy, or vice-versa with negative energy. It made them superior healers, at the cost of an ability that only did anything if you were evil (and sucked at healing as a result) or the GM threw hoards of weak undead at you (or you had feats to trade its uses for other broken stuff). They can also learn to channel those energies into other buffs and benefits too, or burn them for single-target damage.

====[[Spheres of Power]]====
On top of the changes to casting through Spheres, the Cleric gained a slower Magic Talent progression, gaining talents every even level rather than every level like other High Casters. Instead, the Sphere Cleric gets two useful tools to help them compensate: Domains now provide a specific bonus sphere and talents at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th level, and Clerics can obtain the Life or Death sphere (Life if they Channel Positive Energy, Death if they Channel Negative Energy) and talents at 1st, 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th and 19th level.

The Faithful Shepherd archetype turns into a midcaster, with the normal progression that entails (3/4 of a talent every level). Additionally, they only gain access to Channel Positive Energy, and gain the Protection and Life Spheres upon first obtaining the archetype. They even gain a series of special pseudo talents, "Divine Works", to improve their capabilities.

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