The Power of Prayer

[Ahnehnois]

I haven't read beyond the first page, so someone else may have expressed this answer; I would ASK my players!

What do they think would happen? Are they comfortable with the gods giving the fighter's wife a cure? If so, then it happens. I like my players to influence how the world works. Of course, once they make such a choice, it sticks for the entire campaign, and likely for the rest of the time we run that world (my campaign world is almost 30 years old, at this point...).

Nope. No one else said anything like that. Not that the democratic answer is not a legitimate one. Interesting.

I would reward the player for roleplaying his piety even though he isn't a cleric by fudging the dice and making the character live. However, I would not hide the fact that I was doing so from the player. He would know that his character's prayer was answered even though the character does not have absolute proof.

I'm a little curious as to why you specifically feel the need to explain to the players that you fudged the rules. Some others gave responses to the effect that they wanted the player to wonder what had happened, just as the character wonders whether or not his prayer was answered.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

My reflex response is nothing happens. I am certainly not above making exceptions or just telling rules to take a hike if circumstances warrant it but I don't see anything about the situation as described that merits special handling.

If the player wanted a clerics powers then he should have chosen to run a cleric. Yes, I understand he has low wisdom as a fighter. As a cleric stats would have been different, no?

Why is there no cleric with them - or no other source of healing? Even assuming all PC's were out of available healing rescources then the question arises why are they still out looking for trouble? If they simply found themselves in over their heads well, that's just part of D&D ain't it? I'm not a killer DM. I give PC's lots of breaks because it's no fun for players to lose characters they really like, but there also comes a time when players are responsible for knowing the stakes are being raised (whether by their actions OR MINE) and step up. Characters die. Sometimes they die permanently. It really isn't part of the game that characters deaths are meaningful. In fact the game pretty well assures that they won't be. It'll just be a random sequence of unfortunate die rolls. Accept it.

Why would the player expect circumstances to suddenly change in this instance? You can look at it as a good time to pay off on the characters acts of piety but you can also look at it as an opportunity for the characters faith to be tested. Why are the games existing mechanics and consequences regarding death and healing suddenly insufficient NOW?

I do like TerraDave's suggestion of a prayer mechanic where choosing to venerate a given deity would gain a PC some appropriate boon - but the time to institute that is not in the middle of the game.

The piety and devotion by the PC in question is what we in the business call "roleplaying". I sort of thought the idea was that you do it because it's fun. It makes the character more interesting and appealing to not just the player but everyone at the table. Why would a player NOW expect some mechanical reward for it? Why would a DM NOW decide that THIS situation merits special rewards and considerations?

Nope. Without more justification for those special considerations none are due. Nothing happens. Game moves on.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I have a bunch of answers, depending on the specific game in question. Which seems right to me in some way. Anyway.

That's fine. I went and amended the OP to be clear. It's an "all D&D" topic, but the answer doesn't have to be the same for every possible D&D. It's just a question that you can ask for any D&D.

The way I see it, the old school answer might be to either make something up or use some little-known specialized rule that allows the fighter to do something. The new school answer would be that since there is nothing on the fighter's character sheet to support his intent, nothing happens. Which pretty much lines up with your spread of answers.

The poll is just a conversation starter, but I am a tad surprised that so few people picked the first answer. It seems like the "correct" by the book answer from my perspective.

I like the question and the intent behind it. I think these are important considerations for the game.

Thanks. I'm rather pleased that I've elicited a few pages of substantive discussion on gaming that don't follow the usual edition-based partisanship. And even though I tried to be thorough, I've learned a few unexpected things about how this scenario could be treated.

 

[Arduin's]

Why is there no cleric with them - or no other source of healing? Even assuming all PC's were out of available healing rescources then the question arises why are they still out looking for trouble?

Because there is no saving throw vs. stupidity. BUT, one can encourage it by rewarding it...

 

[GSHamster]

The piety and devotion by the PC in question is what we in the business call "roleplaying". I sort of thought the idea was that you do it because it's fun. It makes the character more interesting and appealing to not just the player but everyone at the table. Why would a player NOW expect some mechanical reward for it? Why would a DM NOW decide that THIS situation merits special rewards and considerations?

But the DM is also roleplaying the god. One can see the question as a pure mechanical question. Or one can see it as, in a world with active gods, how do the gods react to their faithful? In which case it is as much a world-building question as it is a mechanical one.

For example, if the fighters worshiped Thor or Odin, then the wife would die (assuming failed stabilization checks). But Odin might send one of his Valkyries to bear her soul to Valhalla as a warrior who died in battle. And that Valkyrie might be a visible manifestation to the other warrior, to reward his faith and comfort him.

 

[Ahnehnois]

My reflex response is nothing happens.

Great!

If the player wanted a clerics powers then he should have chosen to run a cleric.

I think that gets at the issue I was probing. If we say that cleric is a distinct niche and other people should not be able to have its powers, and that the choice to gain those powers or not is made in character creation, not at the table, then your answer is the right one.

Some people don't share those assumptions and run a more free-wheeling game where character building is not as important or strictly enforced.

Why is there no cleric with them - or no other source of healing? Even assuming all PC's were out of available healing rescources then the question arises why are they still out looking for trouble? If they simply found themselves in over their heads well, that's just part of D&D ain't it?

My scenario is admittedly vague on this. It is possible that the wife character was the only healer and is now dying so she can't heal herself. It is possible that the party has healers but they are unavailable for some reason, such as a split party. It is also possible that they have no healers or healing items, which is a dicey situation to be in, and may reflect the DM imposing adverse conditions or the players choosing to take that chance.

It also is unclear what this battle was and whether they could reasonably have been expecting a fight or not. I didn't want to write a novel, so this is a vague question that I've asked and you'll have to make some of your own assumptions about what is playing out here. I did not make clear the extent to which the players took unnecessary risks and the extent to which the DM imposed this situation on them, and if that affects what your decision would be, that's certainly reasonable.

Why would the player expect circumstances to suddenly change in this instance? You can look at it as a good time to pay off on the characters acts of piety but you can also look at it as an opportunity for the characters faith to be tested. Why are the games existing mechanics and consequences regarding death and healing suddenly insufficient NOW?
...
The piety and devotion by the PC in question is what we in the business call "roleplaying". I sort of thought the idea was that you do it because it's fun. It makes the character more interesting and appealing to not just the player but everyone at the table. Why would a player NOW expect some mechanical reward for it? Why would a DM NOW decide that THIS situation merits special rewards and considerations?

Maybe this rationale is not sufficient for granting the player the ability to do something that is not on his character sheet. If you want to stick with the RAW, that is the first answer I provided, and ostensibly the correct answer by the letter and intent of the rules (for some editions anyway).

As to reasons for the contrary, to why the DM would do something, there are a few I can think of.
One, sentimentality. DMs often cheat to avoid killing PCs, and I threw in that this was the fighter's wife to add to the sentimental quality. Obviously, if the fighter picked up the axe of the fallen orc and dropped down on his knees and begged the deity to identify any magic powers the sword might have, he does not get that prayer answered, because no one cares. But this situation was designed to be more urgent and important.
Two, the DM, as others have noted, is playing the deities, and may wish to do so in an interventionist way depending on their powers and goals and their interest in the PCs, depending on the nature of his campaign and the setting.
Three, the DM may wish to emphasize improvisational play, and reward good roleplaying ideas that happen at the gaming table while making character building less important. This is more the old school approach, to an extent, and feels somewhat unconventional in the context of modern D&D where the build is everything, but some people really want choices during the game to determine what happens.

I do like TerraDave's suggestion of a prayer mechanic where choosing to venerate a given deity would gain a PC some appropriate boon - but the time to institute that is not in the middle of the game.

In general, I agree that rewriting the rules at the table is a dicey proposition. But some DMs are very loose that way.

 

[Aenghus]

I answered "other" because my answer depends on a huge variety of factors.

Partially, I have a disconnect with the scenario, because we had houserules to establish a buffer between 0 hp and death in AD&D and everyone was allowed to stabilise the dying, otherwise the death rate would have been ridiculous (this was also insurance for the party cleric in case they went down). This attitude was grandfathered into more recent editions with skill systems for first aid.

Also, past very low levels, in my experience all adventurers have a healing potion or item of some sort stowed away against just such situations.

My games are generally high magic ones with active gods, and the answer is seldom going to be "nothing", though it could be "no". At the very least there is likely to be some sort of omen or manifestation which could be from the god addressed. (Partiallly this is a reaction to a prevailing anti-religious sentiment in many rpg groups where all gods turn out to be asshats, and all paladins are fascists)

The desires of the players as individuals and as a group are very important factor to me, as this sort of situation in a game,when mishandled in the eyes of the players involved, is the sort of thing that leads to bad feelings, PCs being retired, even players leaving.

But there would be a high likelihood that the wife would stabilise, whether it happened spontaneously or due the the prayer may not be answered definitively. I might or might not make some sort of dice roll behind a screen. Outlier results, such as a divine servant turning up to heal the wife would only happen on a very favourable dice roll and probably wouldn't happen without a random element.

Conversely if the player wanted his NPC wife to die tragically to set up a personal plotline of turning against his former patron god, I might facilitate this for him.

So, it all depends.

 

[nijineko]

Well. opening a bit of a can here, but i've witnessed prayer actually working in real life. i've been on both the receiving end and the offering end when a series of severely unlikely events - unlikely enough independently, but taken all together simply break the bounds of probability; occurred in a manner which answered the prayer. now, i'm not asking anyone to believe just because I say it happened, but i will ask everyone to respect my opinion that the various events were certainly convincing to me.

in any case, because i've had those sorts of experiences in real life, i can't and won't ignore the possibility in game either. having said that, the established game cosmology will come into play and affect the outcome in some fashion. this sort of a situation would likely cause a pause in the game while i thought it out really hard, maybe even talked it over with the player(s) and found out what their goals and desires are. then i would try to come up with a solution that was interesting, respected the players wishes to some degree, kept within the established game cosmology, and that i personally felt comfortable with.

as such, each situation in my gaming groups would have a personalized solution.

 

[Alzrius]

I selected "other," because both of my choices for answers didn't fit with the above options.

In games that I've run, I used a rule laid down in the 2E book Monster Mythology that basically said a character who prays for divine intervention has a 1% chance of such prayers succeeding (and, if it succeeds, will never happen again for that character). There were a few other qualifiers, but that's one that I personally liked.

That said, I'm also very enamored of the Faith skill as being a way to mechanically represent this exact sort of thing - a very religious, but not divine spellcasting, character asking for deific intervention. It's an elegant system that not only doesn't eclipse divine spellcasters (who not only follow religious tenets but dedicate their lives to advancing a religious cause, and so have commensurately greater powers in the form of true spellcasting), but fits within the inductive framework of "how things work" in a d20-based world (e.g. that faith in an other-planar power forges a link to that power, which it can channel its energy through).

 

[jasper]

Player (the husband pc) rolls d100. On 96-100 various heal spell depending on situation.
On 1-95. Tough luck. Check see if wife is alive by edition rules in play.