I like where you're tracking. An additional idea (because I have lived it kind of recently) is what about all paladins are empowered to 30 as-is?

That means without empowerment or an imm/deity, paladins only lose out on their main dedicant skill (anticipate, marshal, angels wing, and maybe the level 30 2h skill). That's still a very playable class that has time to roleplay, rank, and do more than sit at level 20 for hours on end waiting on some juice.

Then there's the need for an imm for virtues, too, like you said.

If you apply the same logic to shamans, they only miss out on these skills: wither, rot, aristatiea. Again, key supplications but it leaves the class very much intact, sans shaman path sups.


**Edit to add - maybe some of those skills/supplications post-30 could be triggered available by imm exp as a secondary route or in tiers.

Is it because Healers and Druids get *all* of their class without divine intervention (no shaman paths or virtues) that you thought they couldn't be handled like Paladins or Shamans?

I'm honestly curious.

Unrelated: What do you mean by "underdeveloped" characters? I know Imms staff has insight that players don't, but it takes a lot of interactions to build up an idea of someones roleplay... but not having a written role doesn't mean you don't have an established character.

>Is it because Healers and Druids get *all* of their class
>without divine intervention (no shaman paths or virtues) that
>you thought they couldn't be handled like Paladins or
>Shamans?

Healers and Druids aren't balanced in a version of CF where their numbers aren't organically throttled by empowerment and their behavior isn't kept in check by an religion/deity.

>I'm honestly curious.
>
>Unrelated: What do you mean by "underdeveloped" characters?
>I know Imms staff has insight that players don't, but it takes
>a lot of interactions to build up an idea of someones
>roleplay... but not having a written role doesn't mean you
>don't have an established character.

Mostly in a RP sense. Your average immortal may very well want nothing to do with a character who approaches them out of the blue, for the first time, and level 30. Or on the flip side a ton of character developed occurred and the would be empowering immortal missed it all.

>Healers and Druids aren't balanced in a version of CF where
>their numbers aren't organically throttled by empowerment and
>their behavior isn't kept in check by an religion/deity.

I believe "artificially" would be more accurate in the throttling department. I would also argue that religions and deity's almost universally allow *more* leeway in behavior than say a generic nature god would.

Think about it in DnD. No one is prevented from choosing a "divine" class like paladin, druid, etc. But the DM is generally well within their rights to pull power (unempower) from a priest that doesn't act in accordance with their class. Usually having a specific religion (But I follow Thor, so of course I called down the wrath of the storm on those elves!) doesn't give you an excuse. In some cases in CF it does. I don't know that I want to pick on any specific religion, but I think we can come up with examples.

>Mostly in a RP sense. Your average immortal may very well
>want nothing to do with a character who approaches them out of
>the blue, for the first time, and level 30. Or on the flip
>side a ton of character developed occurred and the would be
>empowering immortal missed it all.

I always thought the point of empowerment was to be a priest of your God and thus preaching the faith to other Players, not to roleplay with your Imm in your Shrine. Perhaps I've been mistaken all along and that isn't the design? I've also always been an action speaks louder than words person, but this has never served me well with empowerment either, so I guess my understanding is flawed. Can you clarify?

It probably sounds like I'm being an ass, but I'm really not just asking to be a one... I haven't had a successful empowerment character in like... 10 years... The last one was probably empowered by Thrak as a healer slave... which honestly didn't take much.

I totally agree with Tac in that I always thought the best "priests" are ones that walk the walk and talk up their God at all times.

Now, granted, I've only had 2 characters that could remotely be called religious last past level 11. One was a Khaso healer, and Khaso encouraged me to be an asshole and to disavow any other priests of different religions (which fits with his religion at the time). The other was Eljassir, who was basically rolled to be a Twist "zealot" who was all about some Twist and constantly preached Twist up to any magic-user or someone who used magic.

Another thing I dislike about the empowerment process (now, granted, I haven't tried it much) is that it favors people who "know the code" much like cabal inductions used to be. I try to roll characters that are organic/dynamic, and so I find often when I go to a God's shrine and don't know "all/everything" about their religion, they seem sad. But I don't want them to be sad...I want them to teach me about their religion!

Anywhoo...

>>Healers and Druids aren't balanced in a version of CF where
>>their numbers aren't organically throttled by empowerment
>and
>>their behavior isn't kept in check by an religion/deity.
>
>I believe "artificially" would be more accurate in the
>throttling department. I would also argue that religions and
>deity's almost universally allow *more* leeway in behavior
>than say a generic nature god would.
>

Maybe you don't understand the usage of "organically" it is organic because it is controlled via the process setup with the game environment. Just because you think (I am assuming) that without the current process there would be more healers and Druids doesn't make it artificial.

>>Mostly in a RP sense. Your average immortal may very well
>>want nothing to do with a character who approaches them out
>of
>>the blue, for the first time, and level 30. Or on the flip
>>side a ton of character developed occurred and the would be
>>empowering immortal missed it all.
>
>I always thought the point of empowerment was to be a priest
>of your God and thus preaching the faith to other Players, not
>to roleplay with your Imm in your Shrine. Perhaps I've been
>mistaken all along and that isn't the design? I've also
>always been an action speaks louder than words person, but
>this has never served me well with empowerment either, so I
>guess my understanding is flawed. Can you clarify?
>

I think your missing the point. I presume the point about Immortals missing character developement is that CF immortals are not omniscient. So the longer a player waits to seek empowerment the more likely the potential empowering IMM will be unaware of the character entirely and not have any context for the character I.e he will it have snooped him and seen the awesome preaching RP you are referring to. I don't think it has anything much to do with not have any role playing with an IMM in their shrine. I could be wrong though but seemed obvious to me.

If that is not the case anymore, I'm rolling a healer now.

asd

I don't think there's much support up here for upping the level cap on empowerment. Not for balance reasons, but because it's just going to result in characters being even more under-developed (relative to when it was lower). It also sets players up for disappointment because now they have even more time and possible achievement (e.g., cabal induction) invested in the character by the time they realize their role doesn't at all jive with the religion or things don't go their way for some other reason.

It just won't lead to positive experiences.