Prayer vs. Bless: What the...?

[NMcCoy]

Suppose you're up against an evil cleric who has used the Prayer spell to toughen up the AC of his cultist minions. Does it strike anyone else as problematic that you improve your party's chances of hitting more by casting Bless on your enemies than by casting it on your allies?

Someone in WotC seems to have dropped the ball somewhere in the development (or more likely, revision) of these two spells...

 

[Ahnehnois]

That is indeed odd. That's why you just use typed bonuses.

 

[slobo777]

That is indeed odd. That's why you just use typed bonuses.

Agreed. The designers are so far going out their way to provide "plain English" descriptions, and trying to solve usual RPG system problems such as stacking without providing generic rules for them.

Even a moderate amount of bonus stacking is going to be a problem in the bounded accuracy model. Especially with AC boosts or attack penalties to monsters, which are on the edge of being "locked out" on their attacks already (I think they'll fix this).

Could be easily fixed by having general rule of high-level spells over-rule the low level ones, rather than the other way around, and/or using some kind of typing system.

Maybe though this is some clever design testing. Behind each set of spells or monsters, there might be a more generic rule that they are not showing us, because in actual fact they are running two or three variants of the rule at the same time, writing the results direct into the spell descriptions. And seeing which leads to more satisfying play is probably getting better feedback than playtesters arguing about which kinds of generic stacking rules are "best".

Edit:In the specific case of Prayer versus Bless though, it's not a rule versus direct stacking, because they affect different abilities. It's a rule, as far as I can see, to reduce over-spending of spell slots and decrease likelihood of 5-minute-workdays. In a very minor way, as it only addresses one specific "buff nova" combination (not really a nova, the effects are too minor, it's just removing the temptation to use 2 prepared spell slots when one would do).

 

[Ahnehnois]

Edit:In the specific case of Prayer versus Bless though, it's not a rule versus direct stacking, because they affect different abilities. It's a rule, as far as I can see, to reduce over-spending of spell slots and decrease likelihood of 5-minute-workdays. In a very minor way, as it only addresses one specific "buff nova" combination (not really a nova, the effects are too minor, it's just removing the temptation to use 2 prepared spell slots when one would do).

You're right, which makes the whole thing even stranger. Why are disparate abilities not stacking?

 

[FireLance]

I wonder if the basic rule will be along the lines of: you can only claim bonuses from one spell (or possibly more, at higher levels) at a time. However, it seems simple enough that it could have been mentioned even now.

 

[slobo777]

You're right, which makes the whole thing even stranger. Why are disparate abilities not stacking?

From the very general angle of "they are spells that improve allies", they would be stacking. Also from the angle of "they are spells that provide general divine support for allies during combat".

I'd quite happily play with buff effects broadly categorised into e.g. "Morale", "Divine", "Enchantment" etc, and only one of each could work at a time.

 

[GreyICE]

Suppose you're up against an evil cleric who has used the Prayer spell to toughen up the AC of his cultist minions. Does it strike anyone else as problematic that you improve your party's chances of hitting more by casting Bless on your enemies than by casting it on your allies?

Someone in WotC seems to have dropped the ball somewhere in the development (or more likely, revision) of these two spells...

Can you even cast Bless on your enemies?

 

[slobo777]

Can you even cast Bless on your enemies?

Yes, according to the spell description.

I'm not sure if D&D Next differentiates between allies and enemies in the formal way that 4E does. None of the Effect blocks include "ally", "allies", "enemy" or "enemies" - they all target "creatures" (if a target description is required).

There seems to be a lot of work to avoid creating canonical meanings for game terms, and skirting around the rules-as-legalise in the spell descriptions. On the one hand I applaud this (it's the bane of my life in 3E and 4E, when effects hang off strict readings of what "an attack" is), on the other there are some spells and effects already in the playtest material which would be better served IMO with a more formal definition, supported by general rules.

 

[Teataine]

Prayer says "[target gets these bonuses]...provided it is not under the effect of bless".

That means target doesn't get the benefits if it's already blessed when you cast it. It says nothing about Bless dispelling Prayer.

If anything they need to add a line about how lower level spells do not supersede the higher level ones. Or rather, that casting Bless on a Prayer'd target does nothing.

This has nothing to do with typed bonuses or stacking because Bless is +1 to attacks and Prayer is +2 to AC and saves.

 

[slobo777]

Prayer says "[target gets these bonuses]...provided it is not under the effect of bless".

That means target doesn't get the benefits if it's already blessed when you cast it. It says nothing about Bless dispelling Prayer.

My reading is that the spells can be cast in any order, both continue to apply at the same time, and the Bless effects suppress the Prayer effects. It would have been simpler IMO to have that the other way around, with Prayer suppressing Bless.

If anything they need to add a line about how lower level spells do not supersede the higher level ones. Or rather, that casting Bless on a Prayer'd target does nothing.

I agree that higher level suppressing lower level in same "category" (whatever or however that turns out, even if this is only ever a special case for these two spells) would make more sense than having a lower level spell impact the higher-level one. It would also make more sense to me as a general rule rather than spelled out - no pun intended - in the effect descriptions of every spell.

I don't think that needs to turn into "does nothing" or talk of dispelling.

This has nothing to do with typed bonuses or stacking because Bless is +1 to attacks and Prayer is +2 to AC and saves.

It wouldn't be solved by typed bonuses, but I think it is a related issue. The designers appear to be putting a limit onto the benefits you can achieve by putting multiple "cheap" resources into powering up the player character team.