Rarity, Efficaciousness, and Reliability of Divine Magic in Your Campains

[MNblockhead]

Reading over the recently necro'd post Can Clerics Cure Cancer and also reading Matt Mercer's resurrection-challenge rules in his Tal'Dorei campaign setting, has got me thinking about different ways to handle divine magic in my campaigns.

In a high-magic campaign, I suppose disease and death are just radically different concepts to the peoples of D&D worlds. Old age is probably the one thing that most people can't overcome without exceptional magic and many devout people would not want to overcome it. Your lifespan is something that is pre-ordained by the gods. Those with money and connections probably have little to fear from disease and even death is a managed risk. Even dirt-poor commoners will have good-aligned clerics--often supported by the charitable wealthy--administering healing to them. Probably the only limitation is that there is still likely to be far more people in need of such services than those who can administer them. A plague could still be serious if not nipped in the bud early. Not every community may have access to divine magic, so you would only travel for healing or more serious illnesses.

I'm not generally a fan of Forgotten Realms level high-magic. Either I would go Eberron or, as in my homebrew settings, magic is rare. Some ways I've handled divine healing and resurrection magic or thought of handling it:

DIVINE MAGIC COMMON BUT STRICTLY GOVERNED

In my last campaign, arcane magic was illegal and extremely rare. The Federation of Kingdoms, which formed after a devastating period of war, agreed on a small number of official religions. Arcane magic was banned. A powerful inquisitor organization was formed to search out and destroy all arcane artifacts, magic items, and those to practice arcane magic in secret--and also practitioners of divine magic outside an officially sanctioned religious organization.

Clerical magic is fairly common in many areas, but it can still be a long travel for many to get to temple with someone who can cast healing magic, especially above 1st level. Donations are expected. Those that can't pay are dependent on the mercy of the charity of others. Though many temples will do their best, in times of plague or in highly-populated areas, they will have to triage who they serve and powerful officials and benefactors will generally be able to jump the line.

Resurrection is rare but available. Generally, the religious belief that death is gods will. And will not agree to resurrect someone, unless they believe there to be a divine reason to do so. Though, it is easier to find divine reasons to do so for the rich and powerful.

DIVINE MAGIC IS EXCEEDINGLY RARE

I've run campaigns where divine magic is limited to prophets and saints. The purpose of the miracles is conversion or to execute some divine plan. Those able to cast 1st level cleric spells are more common but still seen as god-touched and special. Those who can cast higher level healing, restoration, and resurrection spells would attract disciples and their reputations would spread fast and their arrival in villages and cities would attract throngs of believers and petitioners.

The existence of such individual would not make the world that much different than ours

DIVINE MAGIC IS FAIRLY COMMON BUT NOT RELIABlE

Divine magic is imparted on a mortal by the gods. Perhaps the gods do not intend for that power to be used as a neighborhood clinic. They may look unfavorable at the use of healing, resurrection, and restoration magic in "frivolous" ways. Depending on the nature of the god and its plans, the following are some twists I might throw into the game. These would not be acceptable in organized play. I think if we go by RAW none of the following are strictly in-line with the rules (some are clearly not) and expectations of players, so I would clearly specify that the following may be possible--treating them as homebrew rules.

1. Some gods may not allow you to cast divine magic for coin. If you want to cast resurrection, it comes out of your pocket. It is your sacrifice. Or the money must go to a charitable use or to a temple. But not to your coin purse.

2. I like the alternate resurrection rules used by Matt Mercer. You need to convince the gods and the departed soul for the soul to return to the body. You set a difficulty and up to three people can help the cleric using a variety of checks (mostly persuasion and religion, but Mercer's rules are pretty open to players presenting creative ways to help).

3. I god will not allow higher level healing, restoration, or resurrection if it goes against their or another god's plans. Ultimately, the cleric must leave it in the hands of the gods. I like the concept of a cleric for whom much of their magic just doesn't work most of the time. Only when it counts. So, it would be in very reliable in battle, when the cleric is heroically helping his or her party, hopefully in support of quests that advance the god's goals. If the party is out of food and water in the middle of the desert, level levels of exhaustion in, things look bleak--then the cleric and bring for water and food as a miracle. But the cleric can just go around creating food and water as a convenience. The cleric can't just go around healing people and subverting the natural order for no good reason.

4. Outside of support of quests and the party, the cleric must sacrifice of himself. Perhaps casting healing magic on a commoner the cleric takes pity on costs one level of exhaustion. But in battle and during quests, the cleric is infused with the gods power and can cast as per the rules, with no extra negative effects.

I'd be interested in reading how you all have handled it.

 

[Satyrn]

I treat is as exceedingly rare.

I don't have any real system or plan that makes it so. I just tend not to include spellcasting NPCs. Even the high temples in a capital city are typically devoid of them. Well, not devoid. There might be one or two going about their adventuring downtime business like the player's cleric does.

 

[iserith]

In my current Planescape campaign, divine magic is easily accessible in Sigil via the many temples in The Lady's Ward - but it's expensive. Or the PCs can just planewalk straight to the realm of a given god or goddess for assistance though the proxies of the deity are more likely to ask for the PCs to complete a quest than cough up some gold.

 

[gyor]

Natural diseases no, but unnatural magical resistant diseases on the other hand. Gods of Diseases like Talona work hard to make sure disease remains a problem.

Plus few areas of the realms have anything approaching a social safety net aside from charity and maybe food and water from the state in a national emergency.

Also theocracies like the Drow, Mulhorand, Unther and so on likely have plentuful access to divine magic, but other states may find it far more expensive and rare and lacking in state funding.

 

[Oofta]

I run a fairly high magic world. Not quite Eberron, but in many ways similar in approach. Meanwhile, casters that can cure or heal with a snap of the fingers are rare but magically assisted healing is not. Local shamans, clerics and hedge witches essentially fulfill the same niche as doctors and hospitals do in our world. Except for a very few chosen casters, magic aids healing and greatly increases the chance of full recovery but it's not a guarantee. Especially in a world where disease and injury is sometimes caused by supernatural beings.

On a related note, magic for most non-adventurer casters simply works on a different level. Many NPC casters use rituals and ancient tomes that frequently do things that arcane or divine casters cannot but could not cast a fireball to save their lives.

Death on the other hand tends to be more permanent. I base my cosmology on Norse mythology where even gods (such as Baldur) can die so there's no guarantee you can come back. Spells like Revivify work because the spirit has not had a chance to cross over yet. Some people delay their final destination (whether that's Helheim, Valhalla or some other realm), but doing so is risky. The longer they delay, the more likely they are to forget who they are and become ghosts or some other incorporeal undead.

 

[Sunseeker]

The last campaign I ran (where I bothered to restrict magic), holy* magic was fairly common in the human civlization, because the Church made an overt effort to train Clerics and Paladins in order to build a holy army. Which they of course used to stamp out opposing religions. Arcane magic was illegal to use in city/town limits, but it wasn't illegal to be a magic user, just to use it in town without a permit and training. The Church also made use of some Arcane users, but the number was few.

Other civilizations had different rates of magic users and approach to death is similarly varied. Orcs won't resurrect. Elves are mostly arcane and have a few druids, who are fine with reincarnation but there's a risk that you'll come back as a rat or something (woo random reincarnation tables!). Humans will do it if you got the cash.

So I guess my answer is, it depends?

 

[MNblockhead]

In my current Planescape campaign, divine magic is easily accessible in Sigil via the many temples in The Lady's Ward - but it's expensive. Or the PCs can just planewalk straight to the realm of a given god or goddess for assistance though the proxies of the deity are more likely to ask for the PCs to complete a quest than cough up some gold.

Interesting. I've been wanting to play in a Planescape campaign. Definitely seems like it would be a high-magic campaign.

 

[MNblockhead]

Natural diseases no, but unnatural magical resistant diseases on the other hand. Gods of Diseases like Talona work hard to make sure disease remains a problem.

Plus few areas of the realms have anything approaching a social safety net aside from charity and maybe food and water from the state in a national emergency.

Also theocracies like the Drow, Mulhorand, Unther and so on likely have plentiful access to divine magic, but other states may find it far more expensive and rare and lacking in state funding.

I guess I may have overstated the availability of this kind of magic in the Forgotten Realms. I really have no knowledge of it outside of the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

My impression is more from Adventure's League, in which resurrection is kinda guaranteed by your faction. Not sure if I'm remembering the rules correctly, but is seems pretty easy to obtain resurrection in AL from my limited experience.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I guess I may have overstated the availability of this kind of magic in the Forgotten Realms. I really have no knowledge of it outside of the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

My impression is more from Adventure's League, in which resurrection is kinda guaranteed by your faction. Not sure if I'm remembering the rules correctly, but is seems pretty easy to obtain resurrection in AL from my limited experience.

Resurrection is available for free in AL play only up to 4th level, I think, because they did not want new players to be turned off and quit when their first ever character died in the first couple of adventures and was gone for good.

 

[Li Shenron]

7407638DIVINE MAGIC IS EXCEEDINGLY RARE

I've run campaigns where divine magic is limited to prophets and saints. The purpose of the miracles is conversion or to execute some divine plan. Those able to cast 1st level cleric spells are more common but still seen as god-touched and special. Those who can cast higher level healing, restoration, and resurrection spells would attract disciples and their reputations would spread fast and their arrival in villages and cities would attract throngs of believers and petitioners.

The existence of such individual would not make the world that much different than ours

This is generally my starting assumption. I most commonly just tell the players that classed characters are a tiny minority of the population, and that in addition the distribution by level looks kind of a decreasing exponential, so it's progressively more and more difficult to find a higher-level cleric (or whatever) in the world. To the point that it should not be assumed that there even is anyone beyond a certain level at all given times.

But also, I don't stress too much the social and economical implications of the existance of spells. It would be nice to have a very consistent world, where continual flame is used for public street illumination, mage hand and levitate and floating disks are used for masonry constructions and so on. But it's quite a work to make everything consistent and realistic.