Clerics not needing to rest?

[Vinyafod]

Now what about a cleric who prays at dusk for his spells.
If I understand the rule correct, then the cleric in question recieves his spells every evening at dusk, provided he is praying. No matter if he was resting or adventuring before his prayers.

Still there is a recent casting limit... PHB page 156, right column

"As with arcane spells, at the time of preparation any spells cast within the previous 8 hours count against the number of spells that can be prepared."

If the god of the cleric permits praying at dusk only, this cleric is really screwed. As the party will most likely be on the move during daytime, most of his spells were probably cast within the last 8 hours. All those slots used during the last 8 hours are not available to him now.

 

[Gizzard]

Ding ding ding!

Vinyafod's post hits the critical issue. Our Clerics pray at sunrise for their spells, but that means that any spells they use during the night (while on guard duty) are burned for the next day as well.

It essentially implies something about when your Cleric operates best - a LG Cleric who prays at dawn should not be adventuring in the middle of the night. A CE Cleric who prays at midnight should not be adventuring during the day. This is subtle, but it actually adds a nice bit of flavor.

 

[Norfleet]

Well, the easiest way to prevent a cleric from recovering his spells is to make him unable to pray.

Even nasty weather isn't really sufficient to stop people from praying. If you've ever been on a ship, people pray in the nastiest weather all the time. In fact, they pray specifically BECAUSE the weather is nasty.

As somebody above mentioned, attacking them while they're trying to pray is a fairly effective solution. Of course, this could seem gimmicky, but that can be avoided by several solutions.

#1: The players must remain quiet. Praying is noisy, and noise attracts enemies. Therefore, clerics cannot pray or else somebody will hear them and attack. Therefore, it becomes justifiable to attack the cleric when, and only when, he prays.

#2: The players are attacked constantly, thereby providing no time for extended praying-for-spells. This has many benefits, among which include the fact that a dead cleric won't regain his spells, period. If the player REALLY insists on trying to pray during this, it becomes an exercise in itself, as the other players must then hold the line while the cleric prays for spells. This is suitably dramatic, and can make for an exciting session.

 

[AuraSeer]

Even nasty weather isn't really sufficient to stop people from praying.

It may not stop ordinary prayer, but it will stop spell preparation. This is explicitly stated in the rules.

A cleric requires a peaceful environment to prepare spells, just as a wizard does. The SRD says: "Exposure to inclement weather prevents the necessary concentration." No recovering spells if you're caught in the rain without a tent.

#1: The players must remain quiet. Praying is noisy[...]

Not necessarily. The book says the cleric needs time for "prayer and meditation," but it doesn't state that the prayer must be out loud. Requiring actual speech would be a house rule, and a fairly restrictive one at that. (Implementing that would prevent a silenced cleric from preparing any spells at all.)

On your point #2, note that a cleric cannot just ignore combat and prepare spells anyway. Again from the SRD: "The surroundings must be free from overt distractions, such as combat nearby or other loud noises."

 

[Pax]

It essentially implies something about when your Cleric operates best - a LG Cleric who prays at dawn should not be adventuring in the middle of the night. A CE Cleric who prays at midnight should not be adventuring during the day. This is subtle, but it actually adds a nice bit of flavor.

Don't assume only evil clerics would obtain their spells at sunset.

IIRC, Judaism holds that each day begins at sunset -- so when the sun drops below the horizon on Monday night ... *poof* it's Tuesday. And it stays tuesday until the sun next sets.

Ergo, if sunset is at, oh ... 6:52pm on Monday, then 6:53pm is TUESDAY, for a cleric of that faith.

 

[Wippit Guud]

OT hijack on the Judaism thing.

If a Jewish person lives in Alaska, the sun sets, and *poof*, it's the Sabbath... and then then sun doesn't rise for 3 months... what do they do to work?

 

[Leopold]

OT hijack on the Judaism thing.

If a Jewish person lives in Alaska, the sun sets, and *poof*, it's the Sabbath... and then then sun doesn't rise for 3 months... what do they do to work?

don't ask these questions here. What you want to shut down this thread???


As for my clerics, I have them pick a time of day that they want to regain their spells. Morning, noon, or night and they must pray for one hour to regain their spells and then they are good to go. This allows people to have flexibility and depending on their gods that they can pray and worship to grant them power for whatever time they want.

 

[Murrdox]

In our group, we don't use the "Spells used 8 hours before you pray burns them for the day" rule for Clerics.

Talos, a FR God, changes the time at which his clerics pray nearly every 10 days.

I roll a d12 for my player who is a Talos cleric, and tell him how many days he prays at a given time period, and roll a d8 to determine the time of day he has to pray: 1 = sunrise 2 = morning 3 = high noon, 4 = mid-day, 5 = sunset 6 = supper 7 = midnight, 8 = before dawn

 

[AuraSeer]

Heh. No one ever said chaotic deities were boring.

How does your random system handle the overlap day? If the cleric had been praying at midnight, and then switches to dawn, does that day last 4 hours or 28?

 

[Murrdox]

Yes, that's the sucky part for his character.

We usually don't use the rule that any spells clerics cast over the last 8 hours count against them, specifically because it seems to me that this rule specifically screws over anyone who doesn't pray for spells after sleeping. Personally, I don't think writers took into account that different clerics might be praying at different times of the day when they made this, which is why we choose to ignore it.

However, basically that is the rule we use for this situation.

If he is praying for spells at 8:00 AM, and then his praying time changes so that it is now 10:00 AM - any spell he casts between 8 and 10 counts against him and he can't re-memorize that when he prays at 10.

Basically, I ruled on it this way because I didn't want a situtation where he could possibly have almost TWO whole days between praying... for example if the praying time changed from 6:00 AM to 5:00 AM and he couldn't pray at 5:00 AM (It's still the same day... but barely), he'd have to go almost 2 full days before recharging his spells.

I also didn't want a situation like previously mentioned: 8 - 10.... where he can cast ALL his spells in the span of 2 hours, and get them all back.

Fortunately for him, so far his shifts in prayer time have occurred on travel days or rest days.