The Power of Prayer

[GSHamster]

Ah, the old question of whether a layperson can communicate with God without the intercession of a priest. You could go either way.

My preference would be that only clerics/paladins/priests can invoke overt, obvious miracles. They are the conduits for divine power. Angels don't appear for laypeople.

However, the god can intercede for pious and faithful laypeople subtly. In this case, I would have the stabilization check automatically succeed. It's something that could have happened naturally, and it is not obvious that it was the god's hand at work. The faithful will attribute it to the god, others will attribute it to chance. Those, and other coincidences, are the types of intervention that a faithful layperson gets.

To sum up, clerics get miracles, faithful laypeople get coincidences.

 

[Ahnehnois]

This is a very interesting scenario. Is it based on something from one of your games, or is it strictly hypothetical?

It's hypothetical. The idea was to take the fighter resources thread and turn it on its head a bit, but also to look at it in a more applied way. I was trying to find a tangible way of asking the question "given the right circumstances, would you let a character that is not a cleric do cleric stuff?", because we often talk about niche protection and I wanted to look at it from a different angle.

It has not happened in my game, though I do have a somewhat twisted analogue of it in a non-D&D horror game that I'm running (which I apparently was unconsciously thinking of when I was working on this thread).

So, the thing about D&D specifically that makes this scenario weird is that 'faith' has a mechanical component (sometimes! not always).

That is a wrinkle. It's unclear sometimes what is and is not inside the rules. The same thing also arises with other classes though. For example, if a fighter wants to go off the book and try some crazy stunt maneuver. Can he only do it if it's on his character sheet? What are the criteria for how far above and beyond that character sheet his actions can go? I suspect answers vary.

Of course virtually every PC or NPC in the game follows a god of some sort without being shoehorned into a divine class.

Well, that will vary considerably depending on setting. But I do believe that the default 3e character sheet had a space for "deity" to be fair.

So arguably piety does not REQUIRE the PC to be a divine class.

I see several responses along the lines of, "Well, if the PC is so pious why isn't he a cleric?" But there are lots of examples of pious non-divine characters in D&D (the classic dwarf fighter who is a devotee of Moradin being an obvious example). The other problem is that a cleric isn't just a fighter + piety. A cleric fills a different niche from a fighter entirely.

Exactly my point. My point is that the cleric is filling that niche, so should we actively try to protect it, and if so how far will we go to do so?

So it seems like a player might have legitimate reasons for playing a pious fighter.

That is my intent. Maybe he just wants to be really good at fighting and doesn't want to get sidetracked with special abilities. Maybe he doesn't want a code of conduct (he's following a NG deity after all, not a LG one). Maybe that's what he was brought up to be. There are plenty of reasons as to why even a strongly religious character would not want to be a cleric or a paladin.

Just as there are many reasons why someone other than a rogue would want to be stealthy, or someone other than a fighter would want to be good a fighting.

But we're not talking about letting the fighter go about casting cure spells willy-nilly. This is a one-time, limited use event. There is apparently no cleric in the party to feel affronted by it.

Those things are not stated explicitly in the scenario but do fall along my assumptions. Obviously if this fighter can cast any spell he wants any time by just asking nicely that's not going to fly. And yes, this is one of those cleric-free parties.

I say 'yes'. The only reason to deny the fighter his miracle is because it supposedly infringes on the territory of the cleric.
...
So basically it hurts no one and it is an awesome payoff for the player's character.

Some people on these boards get very upset about those sorts of "victimless crimes" though I happen to agree. To be fair, I've changed the scope of the discussion from general rules to one special event, but some people are very legitimately concerned with this niche protection business.

Either way, it should be something visible, miraculous and more interesting than a fudged dice roll.

I think they're both interesting. Some other people talked eloquently about the value of leaving the mechanical reality ambiguous to the players. If he fudges the stabilization roll, the players may never be sure what happened. Which is exactly how faith works; if you know for sure it's not really faith is it?

Now, going forward I would talk to this player about steering their character towards a class with mechanical divine casting abilities.

I stated in the OP that this PC does not have sufficient Wisdom to cast divine spells (there's one reason to be a fighter), and changing classes like this could be hard depending on edition-specific variables, so this would require some effort. I suppose if you wanted to find or create ways around that it's possible.

 

[Jacob Marley]

What happens next?

My answer is edition-dependent. In 1st Edition I'd follow the rules for deity intervention (DMG pages 111-112). In 3rd Edition I'd likely call for a Heal check with the DC reduced by 2 (PHB page 64). In Mythic it would be a straight-up role on the Fate Chart, with the odds set based on the context of the situation. In any event, I prefer these types of situations to be resolved via a stochastic method. I think it results in more interesting situations than DM fiat generally does.

 

[Celebrim]

This is prayer we're talking about. People tend to do it as a last resort.

Pious people don't.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Pious people don't.

Sure they do. It's just not the only time they do it. I mentioned in the OP that the character did regular worship including prayer.

 

[Bob the Destroyer]

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.

 

[LostSoul]

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

B/X: A % roll, with a low chance of success (1-2% or so) modified by level. "The gods do care and will intervene, but only for those who have shown that they are exemplars of their alignment." In game terms, the better you are at playing (higher level) the more breaks you get. Which is kind of strange, I guess, in modern terms (tutorial levels, etc.) but that's how the game works.
AD&D: The divine intervention rules. I'm not sure if that's only for clerics; if it is, I'd house-rule to allow the fighter to get that ability (without adding the cleric levels to the roll, if I remember the rule correctly).
3E: Out of luck. That's what levels (and therefore spells) & feats are for.
3E, for realz: Actually... I'd probably do the same thing as if I were running B/X. Yeah, it breaks the XP/level/class/(spell/feat) economy, but I don't really like that, so...
4E: I might run a really high-level (25-30) skill challenge. At level 6 or so there's not much chance to succeed; but then again, social skill challenges often end up with unexpected results, so "success" would probably be based on what the PC is willing to do in exchange for the miracle.
My 4E: Gods don't have any ability to do this sort of thing, so it'd fail. (Setting explanation is probably boring so I won't go into it.)

Well, they do. And this is really the closest thing to the point I was getting at with this question in the first place. It's about niche protection. The cleric to me is probably the most justifiable example of niche protection in the game world: they're specific people who are chosen or who choose to join a specific priesthood. Anyone that is not part of the priesthood is clearly lacking something that they have.

So the question is, if I contrive a scenario where another character is trying to impinge on the cleric's niche in a way that seems reasonable and justified in the game but is not supported by the rules, which consideration wins out? Do we say that only divine classes can heal because that's how this class-based system works and other people don't get to steal their stuff, or do we say that the character's faith matters more than his build?

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

 

[Grydan]

I'm not sure whether my answer will be of relevance to your underlying niche-protection question. In my edition of choice, healing isn't a niche that's restricted to the Cleric, or Divine classes, or even Leaders. The Cleric, as the Divine Leader, is arguably the best at it, with both the widest array of healing abilities and – to the best of my knowledge – the most potent ones, but when there are Martial, Arcane, Primal, and Psionic healing abilities in the game, it's hard to argue that granting anyone in particular access to healing is encroaching on the Cleric's territory. Which isn't to say that the Cleric is without a niche, or that that niche shouldn't be protected, just that that niche is far more specific than 'healer' or 'divinely-powered healer' (the brief description of all of the classes on page 52 of the 4E PHB doesn't mention magic or healing at all, but describes the Cleric as A divinely inspired warrior). Note that despite plenty of other classes having access to both healing abilities (both magical and non-magical) and divine magic, no character who hasn't multi-classed into Cleric has access to any of the Cleric's specific healing abilities, many of which grant greater amounts of HP than same level non-Cleric healing abilities.

And, regardless of edition, it seems to me that it's more a matter of how the gods are being handled in that campaign than anything else. If it's a campaign where the gods are active interventionists, constantly granting miracles and blessings, being the direct and indisputable source of the powers of divine magic, and so on, then the answer is inevitably going to be different than in a campaign where the existence of the gods is something to be taken on faith, where divine magic is an observable fact, but the true nature of it is a mystery ... or in one where (whether the players are aware of it or not) the DM has decided that there are no gods at all, and all the world's religions are worshipping either things that are unworthy of their worship or which don't even exist.

In 4E, stabilizing the dying is a Heal check that can be performed untrained, by anyone. The absolute worst a by-the-book 6th level fighter can have as a heal check (assuming no penalties imposed by temporary conditions) is -1, which gives a success rate of 25%. And to be that bad requires you to have used Method 3 (rolling) to generate scores (something I can't recall ever seeing in a 4E campaign), and managing to get a 3 on 4d6 drop the lowest, and then deciding to put that in Wisdom, despite the game specifically labelling Wisdom a key ability for fighters and there being class abilities that make use of your Wis modifier. A point-buy fighter can't have a worse than 40% chance of success, and a standard array fighter's minimum success rate is 45%. At higher levels, the chance of failure almost entirely disappears, thanks to both the half-level skill modifier, and the bumps of +1 to all ability scores at levels 11 and 21.

Of course, the absolute worst-case scenario not involving some imposed penalty to the check would be to make the fighter level 1, losing the half-level bonus. Then our absurdly unwise (but very devout) fighter's heal check would be at -4, with only a 10% chance of succeeding.

In the unlikely event this scenario occurred in my game, I'd probably ask the player of the pious PC to roll a Heal check. If they want to treat a success as divine intervention, I'll neither confirm nor contradict their interpretation. If they opted to not roll, or failed on the roll (or rolls, because this could conceivably take multiple rounds to resolve), then it's on the player of the dying PC's death saves, and again, if they choose to interpret success as divine intervention, that's fine.

Now, there's a possibility that the player might reject the Heal check proposal. Perhaps they're a purist about things doing what they say on the tin. Their character isn't attempting to heal their wife with their skill at healing, they argue, so there's no reason for them to make such a check ... in which case I might ask them to roll a Religion check and on a success (level appropriate easy DC) inform them that while praying they've recalled that Pelor's directions to his followers include Alleviate suffering wherever you find it and Bring Pelor's light into places of darkness, showing kindness, mercy, and compassion and that sitting around praying instead of trying his best to alleviate his wife's suffering isn't the way of Pelor: Pelor is more likely to answer his prayers if he accompanies them with honest efforts to follow those instructions.

I might also try afterwards to subtly guide the player into realising that a truly devout follower of those teachings would probably at least consider getting some proper first-aid training ... or I might just leave it to them to figure out on their own. Though really, if they've been that active in bringing their character's piety into the game, there should've been plenty of opportunities by that level to show that followers of that religion seek training in healing as one of the ways to better serve their god (as it certainly seems to me that they would).

And setting questions of piety aside, if you've not got a reliable healer around (and some sort of back-up for when that character is the one that needs healing), opting not to train in even the most basic of healing (and also not carrying any potions or other healing resources) shows some pretty low Wisdom. An experienced fighter, regardless of religion, knows that people get wounded on the battlefield, often far from the best medical aid. Kudos to them for roleplaying their low stat, I guess.

(Tangentially, I still consider it odd that Clerics get magical healing abilities regardless of their deity of choice: to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, most real-world pantheons have a god or goddess who is the patron of healers, with few if any of the others having anything to do with healing at all. The universality of magical healing among Clerics seems to me a relic of the fact that, despite D&D generally assuming pantheonic settings, the Cleric is fundamentally inspired by monotheistic concepts.)

 

[Gilladian]

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...).

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'm not sure whether my answer will be of relevance to your underlying niche-protection question.

It doesn't have to be. I wanted to ask a real question about a scenario that could happen. If I wanted to ask "is niche protection good", I could have done that, but I would have gotten a bunch of equally abstract and probably partisan replies. By doing it this way, I can't isolate one issue with my scenario and several people have given other rationales for their answers, but I get (hopefully) a more interesting and nuanced discussion.

it's hard to argue that granting anyone in particular access to healing is encroaching on the Cleric's territory.

Well, I wanted to ask an all editions question, but yes 4e is fundamentally different in many ways. In this example, the fighter is not merely healing, he is specifically trying to do it divinely, which is neither within his power source nor his class role.

And, regardless of edition, it seems to me that it's more a matter of how the gods are being handled in that campaign than anything else.

True, that's one reason why there's no right answer.

Niche protection is part of that issue, in that the gods have to decide how exclusive they want to be about granting miracles and how they want to reward their clergy, but other variables in how the gods behave also affect this scenario.

In the unlikely event this scenario occurred in my game, I'd probably ask the player of the pious PC to roll a Heal check. If they want to treat a success as divine intervention, I'll neither confirm nor contradict their interpretation.

Fair enough. That's probably a legit use under the more abstract 4e mentality, wherein the skill doesn't necessarily correspond with the character applying bandages.

It's also a testament how newer editions seemingly keep making stabilization easier and easier. I tried to contrive a scenario in which divine aid was the only way the fallen character was likely to survive, but you're suggesting to me that the math in 4e makes it so the odds are generally not that bad. To me, first aid DCs should be based on how much damage the character has.

And setting questions of piety aside, if you've not got a reliable healer around (and some sort of back-up for when that character is the one that needs healing), opting not to train in even the most basic of healing (and also not carrying any potions or other healing resources) shows some pretty low Wisdom. An experienced fighter, regardless of religion, knows that people get wounded on the battlefield, often far from the best medical aid. Kudos to them for roleplaying their low stat, I guess.

Given the vagueness of the scenario, it's possible the group travels with a healer who is simply not available right now for some reason. It's also possible that the fallen wife character is a cleric who usually heals him; I did not specify. It's hard to write something like this in a way that explains every possible permutation.

(Tangentially, I still consider it odd that Clerics get magical healing abilities regardless of their deity of choice: to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, most real-world pantheons have a god or goddess who is the patron of healers, with few if any of the others having anything to do with healing at all. The universality of magical healing among Clerics seems to me a relic of the fact that, despite D&D generally assuming pantheonic settings, the Cleric is fundamentally inspired by monotheistic concepts.)

I agree, and this is one reason I've gone to spontaneous divine casting, in which clerics pick their spells from a list and don't automatically get healing spells. The association of divine magic and healing is an odd D&D-ism.