It’s not that they don’t float my boat - the idea behind them is really interesting. I feel like my concern is more directed at the custom divine progression system in general and less at the idea of divine elves, which I think are cool.
As I briefly addressed in my original post - I have a concern about how non-human races can rack up a goodly amount of power through building divine character classes. I like the Nobiran wonderworker, but my personal opinion is that it’s a bit low on the xp requirement chart.
And yes, I think the problem can potentially be exacerbated by pulling ‘mage purview’ arcane spells and adding them to a divine spell list. An 18 intelligence mage will have, at most, 7 first level spells to choose from at the peak of his power. Divine casters will have anywhere from 10 through 20 immediately available to them, and get more castings per day. Muddying the spell-list can really neuter an arcane caster’s schtick. Mages get spells like sleep at first level when they are at d4 hit points, no armor, a tiny selection of weapons, and no ‘bonus’ abilities other than spellcasting. Hell, they NEED a spell like sleep at first level. The divine elven enchanter will add sleep to their significant list of available spell options, more spell slots per level per day, a more generous experience progression chart,and several class perks. They have 15 spells to choose from at first level - enough to potentially solve any number of problems that come up over the course of the adventuring day - they don’t need it like the mage does. Again, I feel as though it’s the build cost that’s an issue, and how easily you can get full divine progression at so low a cost.
Apostasy becomes a very powerful proficiency when you add more and more spells to the system, particularly when you make bread-and-butter-mage arcane spells divine and add them to the divine caster’s spell lists, as in the case of the witch or the shaman. As the system adds potentially dozens and dozens of new spells over time, I may only allow a divine caster to cast each spell granted by apostasy a maximum of once per day, regardless of the number of slots they have at that particular level.
As an experiment, we could create a zaharan ruinguard as a +divine race instead of a +arcane race. I bet the xp cost would be noticeably lower and the ruinguard would end up being able to burn upwards of 21 spell slots ranging from 1st-5th level instead of 6 slots ranging from 1st-3rd. AND he could keep all of his armor, weapons, and special abilities.