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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Laurefindel" data-source="post: 8236561" data-attributes="member: 67296">warning: long post. But worth itOriginally, the (vancian) internal logic went something like this:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Gods are beings. Powerful beings, but singular and individual beings nonetheless.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">God have magical powers. One of those powers is to give mortals the ability to use some of their own magical powers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">To receive godly magical powers, a mortal needs to deserve it. That's where faith comes into play. If you show devotion and faith, you are admitted into that god's clergy and can henceforth receive magic. It's like a treehouse club really; you need to follow the rules to be allowed in. It is implicit that the gods can tell if you are faking it. Faith must be genuine.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Gods don't just grant wishy-washy magical powers; they give packaged magical effects called "spells".</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The cleric receives all their spells at once through prayer and other acts of devotion. Then the cleric needs to be able to hold them until they want to cast the said spells.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Spells are difficult to "hold" for mortals, and some are harder and more complex to hold than others. Typically, the more powerful the spell, the more complex (i.e. high level) the spell is.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The more experienced the cleric, the more spells and the more complex spells they can hold to cast them later (i.e. spell slots).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Once the spell is cast, the cleric must pray/perform religious duties again to receive new spells after a period of rest (1 night of rest by standard rules). They can keep the spells they are holding already, or release them and hold new ones.</li> </ul>So in a classic OD&D style, faith does not allow you to part the sea. Faith (and experience) allows you to download a "part the seas" spell from your patron deity's server, and then cast it when you need the seas to part. Spell preparation is a bitch.The internal logic is pretty sound and straightforward.In 5e, you can ask your god to intervene on your behalf when you're in doo doo. Should the deity answer the plea (1% chance per level in 5e), the DM decides how the deity intervenes, and may decide that your god parted the seas to let you and your people pass. But technically, you didn't do it. Your god did because you have faith, and than allowed you in its threehouse club. No faith? Tough luck.Cleric still cast spells too, but vancian magic disintegrated a little with each passing editions. So now it's more something like this:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Gods are powerful magical beings and can give mortals some of their magical powers, or let mortals access their divinity like a font of magical power to draw from.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Not only gods can do that, things like nature, a trinity or pantheon of gods, or forces of nature can act as divine fonts of magic to draw from too.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Gods and divine fonts of magic now only grant magic "patterns" or "templates" (spells), but these are now independent from the raw magical energy required to make magical effects out of these spell patterns.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Spells are useless without spell slots, and spell slots are (mostly) useless without these spell templates. Yet, some classes like the paladin use spell slots as fuel for something else than spells (smite).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cleric still need to "allowed-in" to have access to spell templates. Faith in your patron god is the de facto door to divine spells, but other forms of devotions work too (i.e. reverence of nature, adherence to a sacred oath etc).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Once you have access to the library of divine spells from a god or divine or source of magic, you get spell template that are "weak" enough that no spell slots are needed to cast them (i.e cantrips) or in addition to spells (i.e. channel divinity and other class abilities).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The template of a spell still needs to be downloaded from the divine server, but you, the cleric, construct the spell on the spot from your magical mojo (spell slot). Where spell slots come from is a bit fuzzy... But as long as you have the template, you can recreate the spell indefinitely (as long as you have enough mojo, i mean, spell slots). No template? No spellcasting. Spell preparation is still a bitch, but a nicer one.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Some spell templates are permanently imprinted in your mind as long as your are part of the club (domain spells). As long as you have spell slots, you can cast those spells; they are always prepared.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Some spell templates are still easier to master than others, and experience is still needed to get them. Note that this is independent from the experience needed to get more potent spell slots. You can possess high-level spell slots and no high-level spell templates to cast them with.</li> </ul>From where I stand from, it still makes logical sense.So in 5e, you do not really get your magical powers from faith; faith is the encryption key that will allow you to access the divine spell server to be able to cast spells with your spell slots. If you lose faith, you can still learn arcane magic and use your spell slots for that.</blockquote>

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