fred_jaboobi said:
Don't forget, that depending on your wisdom score, you will be making sanity checks to cast spells. Muahahahahahaa!!
I am a little curious about how that will actually work. I mean, I can understand arcane spells causing sanity problems... The dark powers man was not meant to know and all that. But on the side of divine spells, especially good aligned divine spells, it doesn't make sense to me. Especially the variant rule that takes 5 extra sanity points for a divine spell. It would seem to me that praying for a spell and then being granted a boon after a personal conversation with your personal deity would be sort of a, ah, soothing and reassuring feeling. I mean, you would know that there is a benevolent and caring omniscient being looking out for your welfare.
I mean, I would be pretty freaked out if I saw a man casting fireballs down main street today or if a horde of dead bodies began crawling their way out of a nearby cemetery I would be up for a trip to the stress center. But if a priest said a prayer over me, waved a holy symbol, blessed me in the name of his god and I felt my sickness going away or my injury healing, as he explained his divine partners' love and concern for me, I doubt I would go nuts.
Although there are certain tv shows that you can see, where people are receiving that treatment and I of course wonder if THEY are nuts. But practically every other block in most cities is filled with people every Sunday morning who believe that divine beings are working their powers in our lives every day. I just don't see them all going crazy if the gods worked in more active, visible ways in our world. They sort of expect it, I think.
I am just saying that in a world with clerics who actually tap into divine powers, every single reverend, minister, priest, rabbi and mullah would be stark raving bonkers in short order if they cast their god-given spells. And why would deities grant such power to their most loyal followers if they know that it is eventually going to make them completely useless as prosletyzers and emisarries? It would be like the Pope or Robert Schuller going batcrap crazy every couple of months and needing to be replaced with another sane, person.
And really, in a world with active, vocal, powerful gods, wouldn't it be crazy NOT to believe in divine power? I mean, people on our world can poo-poo or ignore the existence of gods at our leisure, there is no day-to-day interactions there. But if Rev. John Doe was able to wave his cross and make things happen, along with every other minister on the block, only a fool or a lunatic would be an atheist.
And of course, I am not talking about coming face-to-face with some godling either, where, of course, it could make sense that your mind could crack under the strain of trying to encompass his/her magnificence.
I don't know. Maybe I am overthinking this. But let's say I am playing a 10th level cleric with an 18 wisdom which gives me a 90 sanity pool. I can cast three fifth level spells a day, five fourth level spells a day and five third level spells. Every 5th level spell drains 15 sanity minus 4 for my high wisdom for 11 sanity each. There is 33 sanity gone. Plus another 45 for my five fourth level spells. Plus another 35 for my five third level spells. There is my entire sanity pool right there. And don't even get me started on the first and second level spells.
So, in one normal day of spell-casting, the cleric is stark, raving bonkers. And who will be around to ward off those hordes of undead once all the clerics are in the loony bin?
