D&D 5E Can a PC perform a miracle with a stat/skill check?

[pemerton]

I was prompted to ask this question by a discussion in another thread.

In 5e, can a player make a check to have his/her PC perform a miracle. For instance, if a fighter comes across a villager who is injured and dying, is it a valid action declaration to say "I pray for the villager's life"?

If the answer is yes, what is the relevant stat? WIS? And what is the DC? And what skill (if any) would grant a proficiency bonus to the check?

 

[delericho]

In 5e, can a player make a check to have his/her PC perform a miracle. For instance, if a fighter comes across a villager who is injured and dying, is it a valid action declaration to say "I pray for the villager's life"?

Well, he can certainly have his character pray, but it's unlikely to do any good - mostly for reasons of niche protection.

However, it's not impossible to envisage a world with a lot of low-level (probably ritual-based) magic that anyone can tap into (see Robin Hobb's "Soldier Son" trilogy for an example). In which case there might be a ritual he can learn and then use.

YMMV, of course.

 

[Paraxis]

They could pray, and not get a response just like every other person in the world, the representatives of the gods on the material world are clerics and paladins and they can use spells to do the deities work.

A 10th level cleric can make god calls but it is a percentage chance based on level not an ability check.

If you were to implement a high level of divine influence into your world, a setting like the old Hercules TV show, you might give non clerics a tiny chance to invoke a response from the deities, but it should be less frequent and much smaller smaller chance than the cleric ability.

 

[Sage Genesis]

I would say no, you can't.

Primarily because such a thing is a 10th level Cleric ability. Giving this ability to just about anybody who prays really robs the Cleric.

Second, there's statistics to take into account. If you give a prayer just a 1% chance of success, then a group of ~70 people has a better than 50-50 chance to make it. Just about any village could pray for anything, forever banishing disease, famine, and want.

Third, it's a very modern monotheistic idea that gods are omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Classic henotheistic deities, like those in D&D, won't even hear a prayer unless done in the right way, at the right place, and at the right time. It's not simply a matter of ignoring the Fighter, they can't hear the Fighter. It's like asking a question to the king while you're on the other side of the continent.


All of the above assumes "vanilla" D&D. If the DM has some special setting planned out then everything is out the window.

 

[PnPgamer]

This has always been on my mind. Why do clerics have powers granted by their deities, but not the common folk who follow the same deity?

 

[delericho]

This has always been on my mind. Why do clerics have powers granted by their deities, but not the common folk who follow the same deity?

Because having those powers is the mark of a cleric. Whether that's because they had some latent divine spark that allowed them to access those powers, or because they received special training/initiation, the Cleric is able to wield the powers granted by his deity. A common person either lacks that divine spark or hasn't had the training, and so can't.

And if they could... they'd be a cleric.

 

[Rocksome]

I think it's fair to say that the gods could respond to any prayer and perform a miracle, however I don't think that kind of occurence should come down to a skill check. That should precipitated by role-playing and ultimately should just be a DM call on whether or not he wants the god to intercede.

 

[JWO]

I'm a new DM and a bit of a "yes man" DM, but if a player wanted to do this I'd probably think about whether they were a character who'd shown themself to be particularly pious, think about whether the person they were trying to save "deserved" to be saved and then take into account how well they roleplayed/argued for the prayer.

So at one end of the scale there'd be the player who turned up to the session every week, stayed silent whenever combat wasn't involved and then suddenly decided to pray for this random villager* At the other end of the scale was the player who made a point to visit temples at every new town, carried around holy symbols and uttered prayers over the bodies of their fallen enemies. They find a dying child in the middle of the road on their way to the village, fall to their knees and hold their holy symbol aloft, begging their god for help.

*even in this situation, I might be tempted to grant it, just to encourage them to think outside the box more in future!

 

[Thyrwyn]

Maybe I've just played too much RuneQuest (which has built in mechanic for Divine Intervention) - but I would also likely say yes. And it absolutely robs nothing from the Cleric* - so many classes have access to healing in this edition it is moot. Since I am firmly in the camp of "PCs are different", it wouldn't break my world, and explains why ~70 villagers couldn't ask for and get the same thing. Your player has just opened his mouth and said "insert plot hook here." I'd run with it.

If you are using Plot Points - you've got your mechanic already. Regardless, God's don't work for free - they "ask" for favors in return: a quest here, a demon-slaying there, maybe a "why don't you build me a church over there?" every now and again. And they can be rather petulant when you say "no," and generous when you say "yes."

*This edition explicitly states that there are priests who are not Clerics, and anyone with the Acolyte background can perform the rites of his or her faith. Divine classes are not the only representatives of the Gods in the world.

 

[Bupp]

Second, there's statistics to take into account. If you give a prayer just a 1% chance of success, then a group of ~70 people has a better than 50-50 chance to make it. Just about any village could pray for anything, forever banishing disease, famine, and want.

I wouldn't make it as high as a 1% chance. At the very best I'd rule that both myself and the player roll %. If they match, miracle performed!