Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

[Crimson Wraith]

Hi all,

This is my first post at the Fantasy Hero forums... I've been trying to implement a different structure for 'Spiritual/Religious Magic' in my Fantasy Hero campaign. My complaint with the 'stock system' in the books is that it never really seperates itself from arcane spellcasting. Keep in mind, I'm still using the 4th edition books (*sob* I haven't been able to update the FH portion of my Hero collection yet...), so if this has already been handle by new 5th edition rules, sorry.

 

(and I'll apologize about the length now...sorry)

 

To me, the power a priest/druid/shaman/etc wields is bestowed upon them from their faith and their relationship with their deity. That relationship (as in the real world) is a dynamic, personal interaction. Given that in a fantasy setting, deities (in most) have material consequences, manipulations, interdictions, etc... the relationship with with one's faith should be less abstract. Praying and worship is done by anyone who follows a deity. A religions clergy however, have to have other duties that set them apart from the masses. Otherwise, anyone who prays at a temple, church, etc. would be able to cast religious spells.

 

For me, priests speak directly to servants and avatars of the deity. Or maybe even the deity itself. The relationship is direct.... tangible. So I've tried to structure religious magic around this concept.

 

What I've done is use a Contact Perk with the deity and its minions, and Favor points with the deity. These favor points are used when the priest wants some form of intervention from the deity (like a bless, lightning bolt, etc... whatever fits the deity's tenets and description... the veritable praying for victory). Or the favor points are used when the deity bestows a 'gift' upon the priest (i.e. a token that summonons a minion, a relic or artifact, or an ability like a permanent speak with animals).

 

Favor points are regained (as part of the character's experience) for furthering the tenets of the deity, rituals, etc... So if a priest gets lazy, or negligent, has a crisis of faith... they'll fall out of favor with the deity (literally), and lose their favor points. They can only gain them back with some form of atonement.

 

This puts more work on me as the GM having to come up with new tests of faith, avatar personalities, etc.. It puts more on the player by actually having them roleplay out their faith, and all of the relationships, sacrifices, etc that go with it. But it makes playing clerics much more dynamic...

 

Any ideas or problems with this idea? Anything like this covered in the 5th edition? I'm looking for feedback so I can cement the ideas, or go back to the drawing board...

 

Thanks in advance,

CW

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

Well, Favors are inherently single-use -- once you use them, they're gone. If a priest has to use a Favor every time he casts a spell...he's not going to be doing a heck of a lot of spellcasting, unless you're giving out Favors like candy on Halloween. Or am I misunderstanding something?

[Curufea]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

Your missing the bit about how favours are gained by priests

(about the fifth paragraph down)

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

Hmmm...and idea is forming...

 

Instead of Favors and such, why not use a variation on the "Reputation" perk? What I'm thinking is something like this:

 

The character buys levels of "Divine Reputation" at the same cost and in the same way as the normal Reputation perk, except these levels reflect the degree to which the diety is aware of and approves of the character's devotion and actions.

 

When casting a spell or praying for an intervention, the Active and Real costs of the spell or effect must be determined.

 

For every 10 Real points the spell costs, it requires 1 point of "Divine Favor" to cast. (Round 5 up to the next whole value of 10...ie 15 rounds up to 20 or 2 points of "Divine Favor".)

 

In order to cast the spell / receive the effect, the priest makes a prayer or invocation and the player rolls his "Divine Rep" dice and counts the BODY. Each BODY rolled counts for 1 point of "Divine Favor". If the player equals or exceeds the points of "Divine Favor" required, the spell goes off. If he doesn't, the spell fails.

 

As the GM, you might wish to have the player add an extra die to the roll if the invocation or prayer was particularly moving or well role-played.

 

Obviously a famous priest or one who is a favorite of the diety (say, 4 or 5 dice of "Divine Rep") shouldn't have any problem casting a minor spell or getting a minor miracle (something that only requires 1 or 2 points of "Divine Favor") but it might be "iffy" for a more powerful effect.

 

In order to keep the power level of the spells under control, you might say the Active cost of the spell can't exceed 20*dice of Divine Reputation...for example, someone with 4 dice of Divine Rep could call for effects up to but not more than 80 Active points. (Or maybe 10* or 15* would suit you better.)

 

If you want to keep someone from buying scads of Divine Rep, perhaps each die of Divine Rep purchased with points also requires the character to take a Disadvantage of some kind...a vow, for example, that shows his dedication to the diety. Dice of Divine Favor handed out as rewards directly from the GM (for whatever reason) wouldn't have that requirement...presumably the character did something during a scenario that would already have proved their devotion in order to warrent the reward.

 

You should also feel free to just outright deny any effect that you feel the diety wouldn't grant, no matter how well the player rolls the "Divine Favor" dice -- they don't get a point break for that, it's just part of how divine magice works.

 

Thoughts? Opinions?

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

Your missing the bit about how favours are gained by priests

(about the fifth paragraph down)

You mean this?

Favor points are regained (as part of the character's experience)

That sounds like the Favors have to be bought with XP. If that's the case, and I'm playing the priest, I'm not going to cast a healing spell on a fellow party member for every little injury, if it costs me a minimum of one point of my character's XP to do it!

[Crimson Wraith]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

Well' date=' Favors are inherently single-use -- once you use them, they're gone. If a priest has to use a Favor [i']every time[/i] he casts a spell...he's not going to be doing a heck of a lot of spellcasting, unless you're giving out Favors like candy on Halloween. Or am I misunderstanding something?

Thanks for the quick replies...

Favors would be handed out in addition to experience. You would gain favor points by worship, rituals, rites, passing tests, etc... all of which has to be role played out, of course. Preists that don't interact with their deity, it's minions, or his faith very much do not get much favor by the deity. Preists & clergy are all agents of their deity. Their chosen calling is to further the cause and ideals of said deity. In exchange, the deity is granting him power. Clerics don't have power that is innate to themselves.

Instead of Favors and such' date=' why not use a variation on the "Reputation" perk? [/quote']

I'm not familiar with Reputation as a Perk. Alas.. no 5th edition yet... Still stuck in 4th. I agree with the idea of 10 real points for 1 favor/reputation point... that would be a pretty fair exchange.

That sounds like the Favors have to be bought with XP. If that's the case, and I'm playing the priest, I'm not going to cast a healing spell on a fellow party member for every little injury, if it costs me a minimum of one point of my character's XP to do it!

I agree, the priest isn't going to be casting healing spells all the time. Especially if healing doesn't fall into the deity's dogma. The character actually has only a small bit of control on how his deity manifests it's power in the world. But... that's kind of how faith works. In general, I think priests would be casting less spells than wizards. But what they do would would generally have more permanance, and could potentially be even more powerful than the highest of arcane spells.

[Citizen Keen]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

I like the good Doctor's suggestion - go with Reputation. It's kind of a nice activation roll meets VPP.

 

The one problem is that, like any other VPP, you're going to need to be very familiar with the system, because you're going to be casting spells on the fly. If I'm a druid, and I want to make a spell that causes weeds to grab my enemies feet, you need to come up with and Entangle, AOE fast enough that gameplay doesn't slow down. If I want teleport myself from the shade of one tree to the shade of another, you need a TP spell fast. And so on and so on. But otherwise, good. And welcome!

[Crimson Wraith]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

Is Reputation (as a Perk) in the 5th edition rules? I don't have it yet, so I'm not sure...

 

If I understand the suggestion correctly, it behooves a question: Should the priest, druid, etc. have a choice in how or when their spells or miracles manifest? Is it their spell, or their deity's ?

If it's the deity's, then why would the priest have a choice in how it manifests? Isn't it a simulation of someone praying for aid, and believing (having faith) that said aid will come?

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

It's always been my take that whenever a priest "casts a spell", what he actually does is pray for aid, and the prayer is granted.

 

Now, it's entirely possible that a priest might pray for aid in some way and the deity decide to answer that prayer in a different manner. This actually makes more sense, in some situations, than the way most games handle divine magic. Imagine a priest praying for the strength to strike down the shadow-lurking person that's been following the party. Unbeknownst to the priest, the person following them is another priest of the same faith, who is following the party because he suspects them of some ill intent. Now, in most games, the first priest will get his spell granted, and the lurker priest will also have his granted when he defends himself. Apparently, the deity is happy letting his minions destroy each other. A properly structured divine magic system will not allow this, at least for most sane deities, and would instead grant both priests knowledge of the other and their true intentions, which is much more like a traditional miracle than two dead priests.

 

My suggestion is to make this a VPP, with No Conscious Control at the -1 level (the character can choose when to activate it, but not necessarily how it manifests). Actually, maybe this should go to the -3/4 level or even -1/2, given that the god will usually let the priest manifest powers in the way he expects them to. Also the VPP should have a Contact roll with the diety or his servants as the activation.

[Basil]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

It's always been my take that whenever a priest "casts a spell", what he actually does is pray for aid, and the prayer is granted.

 

Now, it's entirely possible that a priest might pray for aid in some way and the deity decide to answer that prayer in a different manner. This actually makes more sense, in some situations, than the way most games handle divine magic. Imagine a priest praying for the strength to strike down the shadow-lurking person that's been following the party. Unbeknownst to the priest, the person following them is another priest of the same faith, who is following the party because he suspects them of some ill intent. Now, in most games, the first priest will get his spell granted, and the lurker priest will also have his granted when he defends himself. Apparently, the deity is happy letting his minions destroy each other. A properly structured divine magic system will not allow this, at least for most sane deities, and would instead grant both priests knowledge of the other and their true intentions, which is much more like a traditional miracle than two dead priests.

 

My suggestion is to make this a VPP, with No Conscious Control at the -1 level (the character can choose when to activate it, but not necessarily how it manifests). Actually, maybe this should go to the -3/4 level or even -1/2, given that the god will usually let the priest manifest powers in the way he expects them to. Also the VPP should have a Contact roll with the diety or his servants as the activation.

In line with this: Adventurers Club #25 had an article, "Help from Above" by John Ward about a more reasonable way to do "clerics" than the war-game style D&D et al. use. Basically, it's a VPP, Usable By Others (+1/4, or more if multiple minions can use it together), No Skill Roll To Change (+1), Change As Zero-Phase (+1), Not Usable By Self (-1), Only For The Diety And His Minions (-1/2 or less), Must Call On The Diety For Aid (-1/2), No Conscious Control (praying usually starts/stops the power, and the diety might activate it w/o being prayed to; -1 1/2 to -1). It also takes an Activation Roll (-various); the Roll equals the Roll on the "Watched By The Deity" Disadvantage he takes. After all, the diety keeps an eye on his priests, and the more the diety watches, the more likely he is to notice a priest being in need.

 

The priest also has to buy an END Reserve with Not Usable By Self (-1), Only For The Diety And His Minions (-1/2 or less), and the REC for the END Reserve takes "must pray at 0 DCV (-1/2) for 5 minutes (-2)" and "Only to the amount the diety will allow (-?)". Note that the REC should be very small compared to the size of the Reserve, so the priest needs to pray a lot; also, this allows the diety to control the END actually recovered with a fine degree of control. The article suggests the REC should be ~3-5% of the size of the pool.

 

Thus, the diety actually performs the "spell", and the priest pays for the privilege. Rather like fantasy literature usually depicts the priest-diety relationship.

 

Note one useful element to this set up: the size of the VPP tells how "hard a hit" the diety will do for the priest, while the size of the END Reserve tells how long he's will to put up with the priest's begging for help.

 

 

*NB: all Lims not specifically in 5th Ed. are my guesstimates; change them if you wish.

[Old Man]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

I'd recommend adding behavioral limitations to the powers depending on specifics of the religion. Caster cannot eat meat, caster cannot wear shoes, caster must recite the Five Litanies of St. Valencia every morning, etc. I also like the idea of forcing all faith-based abilities to have invisible power effects, thus maintaining some of the mystery, although of course that's expensive.

[Brokenland]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

That's a creative approach.

 

Another approach, not a better one, is to do it as Summoning drawing on an end reserve with a rec that only recovers by observing rights. But that may be just about my tendency to over define at the expense of role playing...

[Nagus Pantojan]

Re: Religious Magic Idea: Looking for feedback....

 

I play in Eosins fantasy campaign and play the only religious based charecter(the Justicar).

 

What I would suggest is say using the base magic system and buy the spells and endurance pool and recovery with the limitation Faith Based. If the charecter starts straying from what his deity would deem appropriate behavior the GM could start to make spells suffer an increase in end cost and decrease how often the end pool recovers.

 

In our campaign anyone who cast spells uses a separate end pool and the recovery rate(how often they recover) is based on the ambient magic in the area. This could translate into a recovery rate frequency increase while in a holy site, or praying, or periods when the priest is truely doing his deitys bidding.