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?
There's some context I'd need to get this out of Pure Theorycraft and into Just Theorycraft.
For me, the only reason to play out such a scene is if something in the narrative is at stake. If the players are coming across a dying villager and it's worth stopping and asking "what do you do?" for, then there must be some reason they want that villager dead or alive, and thus some challenge in the scene that they're addressing.
So in such a situation, there is a time limit. My DMing rule of "presume failure unless action is taken" means that if nobody does anything relevant to the dying villager, the Worst Thing happens. Lets presume in this scene that would be the death of the villager -- left alone, that villager dies, but some action might be taken to save them. The party, for one reason or another, wants them to live.
I then ask, "What do you do?" and go around the table to get reactions.
Given that this is a scene with something at stake, there's the possibility for failure here, and pressure to do everything in your power to succeed. Also, because there are consequences here, the entire party is there, and they will all be required to intervene if they want to turn failure into success. Presuming a Core Four party, our doughty fighter knows that the villager's best hope is for the devout priest to heal them.
In this context, if the fighter said "I pray for the villager's life," I probably would say "Cool. That doesn't take your action. Do you want to do anything to help this villager actively, or are you going to hope some god does it for you?"
And in the latter case, I'd treat it similarly to praying that some god materializes and smites the goblins or slays the dragons for you -- ie, not really likely, without some extenuating circumstances. Like, if the fighter was carrying the magical sword of the god of life (or whatever), maybe it'd work! Or, if they had recently joined an order of paladins (and were hoping to multiclass). But not typically. In the former case, I'd consider it interesting flavor for the action actually performed (perhaps he dresses the wounds of the villager with a skill check). Saying "Pelor help this poor creature!" isn't an action, any more than your character saying "Frig! Oh no! Don't die!" is an action.
But there are circumstances where that might be fine.
Like, maybe nothing is at stake in the scene, maybe I just am describing the aftermath of a dragon's attack, and there are dying villagers everywhere and I'm just interested in seeing how the party reacts, and the fighter's player says "I pray for the villager's life," I am just likely to
have it work, without having to roll anything. "Ok, the villager looks a little stronger and clings to your arm a little tighter. You're not sure if it worked, but it looks like it gave her a bit of hope, at least."
...and then later that villager becomes a priest and a party contact.
That action would still depend on some context, of course. A fighter in the first session, or one with a long history of faithful service to the God of Death or something, would probably have an NPC life saved there. A fighter who has been a bloodthirsty marauder with nothing but disdain for the gods probably wouldn't have a successful life saved, but the more interesting story would be why they're changing their tune now...
I tend to run games where the gods are aloof -- even the God of Healing and Life accepts that folks are going to die, and isn't likely to directly intervene. In these settings, even clerical magic like
cure wounds isn't the direct intervention of a deity, it is simply a magical spell powered by faith, as opposed to knowledge or blood or secrets or whatever (and that could be faith in anything -- the God of Death and Destruction could have a cleric who casts a
cure wounds spell, too). Learning a spell like
cure wounds isn't much different from learning to use a shield properly, it's character knowledge. The source of power is credited as the gods, but lots of things cast that spell without being beholden to the gods (BARDS, for one!), who credit their ability to other sources.
So in that context, praying itself isn't a thing that gets expected results, anymore than signing a song or writing a letter is. All those things
can have magical results, but not each instance of those things does, and if they do, there is some knowledge and skill that goes into producing that effect that just saying "Pelor save this villager!" isn't going to equal. If a cleric says that, and treats that as their action, they'd have just about the same result.
So that's my messy response.
