ToME WikiRavenRed: Unsure as to whether this should really be in here or Developer Discussion, but...
The priest class in TOME is somewhat of an Angband hangover, which is quite ironic considering that the Gods in ToME are quite well-designed.
IMO, Priest classes should not be implemented in TOME. Worship, and the Valar should definitely remain, but should be kept as an adjunct to existing classes. If a character wants to pump prayer and play as a devout Tulkian / Ervian / Yavannist then that's a decision made in-game, rather than at character creation. The magic school bonuses might need a little bit of tweaking from this decision, but it'd be relativley painless to implement.
As (somewhat) of an adjunct idea, I thnk max piety should be capped to 1+ (([Prayer Skill]*([Prayer Skill]@10)) * [Wisdom]). Since both scale to 100, this gives a maximum of 100,000 piety (the amount required for Eru Reincarnation), whilst making this only available to both wise and devout followers. This also prevents a nominal devotion (1.000 in prayer) from turning into a big piety boost (with the attendant benefit) as the player's capabilities for destruction/charming/moving about increase. This makes the prayer skill valuable not just for Valar Spells and Magic School benefits, but also for increasing the potential bonuses you can gain from your Valar.
2c worth and counting...
DarkGod: Yeah I kinda agree, especially since mage are already adept at healing, which is usualy "priest-stuff". As for piety limit, what's the difference between [Prayer skill] and [Prayer] ??
RavenRed: My quality control. The idea is to give both Wisdom and Prayer a role in piety gain, but to weight Prayer more heavily, as skill allocation is where the player has the most choice.
NeilStevens: Disagree. I think Priest classes are interesting in that they, with the vala-specific magic schools, create unique ways of playing the game. They do need a new Mindcraft (like Sorcery, only for select spells) for utility spells though.
Additionally, they've needed the same kinds of fixes that warrior-mages needed, and therefore got in 2.3 and should keep in 3.0.
One last thing: having their own stat adjustments, instead of every priest type getting the same, would be nice, too.
RavenRed: Fair enough. I still think they're relatively light-on in the power department, and the replacement of the offensive capabilities of mindcraft with a more utility-based mindcraft would only exacerbate the issue. A Valar-specific stat adjustment and skill tree would ameliorate most of the issues (give them, for example, the ability to pump up the spell schools granted by their god using skill points as well as prayer skill).
NeilStevens: I said they NEEDED Mindcraft for utility spells; I didn't say new Mindcraft wouldn't get Mind school, and that Mind school wouldn't get the Mind attacks Mindcraft used to have, heh. I fully intended the mind attacks to go into that shcool and be accessible with mindcraft.
RavenRed: Fair enough. It'd still be nice if they could open a thematic can o whup-behind rather than having to rely on an (as far as I understand it) relatively random assignation of spells (both utility and offensive). This isn't to disrespect the new mindcraft in the least, just wondering whether the priest class shoudln't have it's own linear rather than semi-random power progression. However, as you said, re-jigging skill and attribute mods will probably do most of the business in any case...
Anonymous: For that matter, it would be nice if skill points invested in a spell school stacked with levels granted by your god. I find it annoying that I only get to use the higher of these two values, not the sum. This doesn't affect priests too much, because they don't have access to the standard spell schools, but it really discourages mages from investing very much in prayer.
DarkGod: On the contrary I find it nice to help mages. Prayer is raisable without skill points, this grants mages the ability to raise some magic schools "for free", given they do not require them to be at level 50
NeilStevens: Agreed.