Faith and the common man

If a common man (commoner/noble/fighter/wizard/whatever) prays to is deity/deities (who says you can only believe in one), why can't he pray for a blessing, healing, whatever?

My thought was to have anyone who spends 15 minutes a day in meditation and displays a holy symbol of the deity/deities) he worships be able to cast his/her WIS bonus in spells per day and he/she has access to the same spells that a Divine Caster of his/her WIS bonus level has. For example, my Conjuror has a wisdom of 14 for a bonus of +2, therefore he can access 2 spells per day, and they can be any spell that a cleric/priest/whatever of 2nd level of that particular deity (in this example 1st level spells) can cast, the WIS bonus is also his/her effective caster level.

I can't see how this would break the game. You would still need to have real clerics/druids/whatever for access to the higher level spell and other goodies that come with their classes.

Okay, I know I am going to hear about this one so bring on your thoughts, criticisms and whatever.

danged fat fingers ;{

Gray Lensman said:

If a common man (commoner/noble/fighter/wizard/whatever) prays to is deity/deities (who says you can only believe in one), why can't he pray for a blessing, healing, whatever?

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Because he is a common man?

On thing to be really careful of is that you aren't simply assuming a Judeo-Christian cosmology. Like, for example, to begin with you talk about the 'faith' of the common man. But in the vast majority of world religions, faith is not a particularly important concept. The ancient Greeks didn't speak of having faith in Zeus. Zeus didn't care if you had faith in him. Having faith in Zeus didn't make Zeus love you any more. Zeus for that matter wasn't a particularly loving deity. Ditto just about any religion we could talk about. Don't begin with the assumption that faith is particularly important, or if faith is important then you need a cosmological reason explaining why faith is important.

Secondly, the concept of universal priesthood is particular to Christianity - and even then, it was so bizarre, that the Catholics at least preferred to provide ritual that subverted that on the apparent grounds that most people would believe more if they thought that there was a priesthood to intercede for them. The idea that every one that believes is a priest isn't something common to religion generally. For one thing, again, belief itself is not generally considered important in most religions. Most religions assume for example that rites and rituals and formula are much more important for motivating the gods to love you or at least do your will than faith. And in particular, note that D&D religion makes the assumption that it is the priest performing the miracle, not the deity. The priest learns spells from the deity, who empowers and affirms them during a daily rite, but thereafter responsibility for those spells is the priests. Your deity didn't cast 'cure light wounds', you did. The deity probably wasn't even paying attention at the time, not being omniscient and having better things to do.

The question is, why would a deity be honoring the worship of a common man anyway? Does he love common men? Does he want to undermine his own priesthood? Why wouldn't the deity restrict spellcasting to just those priests chosen from the right families, descendants of some ancient hero who was the deities own offspring, who have undergone the rituals of purification and dedication, and who offer up the sweat smell of burning fat and wine in exchange for the members of their order being especially blessed by the deity, and who have the special right conferred upon them to speak on behalf of and to the deity?

My thought was to have anyone who spends 15 minutes a day in meditation and displays a holy symbol of the deity/deities) he worships be able to cast his/her WIS bonus in spells per day and he/she has access to the same spells that a Divine Caster of his/her WIS bonus level has. For example, my Conjuror has a wisdom of 14 for a bonus of +2, therefore he can access 2 spells per day, and they can be any spell that a cleric/priest/whatever of 2nd level of that particular deity (in this example 1st level spells) can cast, the WIS bonus is also his/her effective caster level.

I can't see how this would break the game. You would still need to have real clerics/druids/whatever for access to the higher level spell and other goodies that come with their classes.

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My thought is that something like that might be a nice feat 'Pious', but seems a bit weird for a normal D&D game to have every 0th level commoner out there also be a spell caster. Wisdom becomes a pretty amazing ability, especially at low level.

What you seem to be thinking on isn't so much spells as the concept of 'miracles'. And do you really want miracles to happen all the time for everyone? And are your deities so omnipotent that they have that power to spare?

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] You really put a lot of thought into your posts, don't you? The idea of making it a Feat never even crossed my mind but your right. Having to spend a feat on it would limit it to those whom really wanted to use the ability. Everyone else would either seem not to care about the Gods (except when they need that healing of course) or were just paying lip service (except when they need that healing of course). Guess I get to try my hand at making my first homebrew feat.

Think I finally got over my fat fingers,

Gray Lensman said:

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] You really put a lot of thought into your posts, don't you?

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It's probably more that I've spent a great deal of time thinking of my gaming, and when people ask questions that backlog of thought comes tumbling out.

Celebrim said:

Because he is a common man?

My thought is that something like that might be a nice feat 'Pious', but seems a bit weird for a normal D&D game to have every 0th level commoner out there also be a spell caster. Wisdom becomes a pretty amazing ability, especially at low level.

What you seem to be thinking on isn't so much spells as the concept of 'miracles'. And do you really want miracles to happen all the time for everyone? And are your deities so omnipotent that they have that power to spare?

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I like the feat idea. Simply make it Pious Initiate, using Magic Initiate as a general template, limiting the choices to cleric Domains and spells, rather than any other spell-casting class. The PC taking this feat gets two cantrips, one of which must be the bonus cantrip granted by the Domain if such is part of the Domain description, while the 1st-level spell must be one designated by that Domain and can only be cast as a 1st-level spell.

[MENTION=6778305]Redthistle[/MENTION] Where is Magic Initiate located at?

Gray Lensman said:

@Redthistle Where is Magic Initiate located at?

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In the 5e Players Handbook, Chapter 6, page 168.

It's an interesting idea but I'd make it no more powerful than a cantrip/orison. The granted ability should also be particular to the deity being petitioned. If performing daily worship rituals for a war deity then you might get a +1 to-hit on one attack per day. If it's a god of healing, then maybe you recover 1 extra hit point overnight. If it's a god of... food then maybe you could find sustenance to delay starvation by a half day (so that with daily ritual you could still starve to death but it would take twice as long). I'd also suggest that these "rituals" need to be somewhat time-consuming and maybe costly so that you don't end up with PC's performing a dozen different rituals a day to different gods for these small favors. You want it to be a system that adds interest to your game setting - not to invite over-use/abuse.

Redthistle said:

In the 5e Players Handbook, Chapter 6, page 168.

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Perfect, thank you. Two Cantrips and one 1st level spell will fit the bill.

Man in the Funny Hat said:

It's an interesting idea but I'd make it no more powerful than a cantrip/orison. The granted ability should also be particular to the deity being petitioned. If performing daily worship rituals for a war deity then you might get a +1 to-hit on one attack per day. If it's a god of healing, then maybe you recover 1 extra hit point overnight. If it's a god of... food then maybe you could find sustenance to delay starvation by a half day (so that with daily ritual you could still starve to death but it would take twice as long). I'd also suggest that these "rituals" need to be somewhat time-consuming and maybe costly so that you don't end up with PC's performing a dozen different rituals a day to different gods for these small favors. You want it to be a system that adds interest to your game setting - not to invite over-use/abuse.

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Proudly wearing your deities holy symbol (embossed on shield, worn on a necklace, embroidered into cloak, ect) and 15 minutes daily devotion is all I am going to require. The idea is to bring a touch of divine magic into the common mans hands after all.

I am "on the fence" about whether I should require the feat to be picked up at first level or allowing a character to "find his faith" at anytime. I am also going to include language limiting this to a one time deal, you can't be a Pious Devotee to more than one god, although you can certainly pay homage to more than one if you chose.

Thanks for all the ideas folks.