The Power of Prayer

[Grogg of the North]

[MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION]

It sounds like the player has been roleplaying his faith. Good roleplaying should always be rewarded. I'd have his prayers answered and he is able to heal his wife or, at the least, stabilize her. As a DM I'd make it clear that this is not going to be a common occurrence. Perhaps I'd go so far as to give the fighter a vision from his deity demanding some service in return.

 

[The Human Target]

This thread has made me realize what a good DM I must be.

 

[TwoSix]

The first point I'd make is that the character who is dying is a PC. So that character's player has a lot more to do with how I'd react to the situation than the piety of the character's in-game husband.

If the player is going to be upset with their character's death, I'd probably fudge a situation where the character doesn't die.

 

[Bob the Destroyer]

I'm a little curious as to why you specifically feel the need to explain to the players that you fudged the rules. Some others gave responses to the effect that they wanted the player to wonder what had happened, just as the character wonders whether or not his prayer was answered.

I would tell my players what happened because I want to reward their roleplaying. If I hid the fact that I fudged the roll from them I think that they would assume that no intervention took place. I think that giving the players that information would enhance their enjoyment of the game, but I would leave it up to them what their characters thought about what happened.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Partially, I have a disconnect with the scenario, because we had houserules to establish a buffer between 0 hp and death in AD&D and everyone was allowed to stabilise the dying, otherwise the death rate would have been ridiculous (this was also insurance for the party cleric in case they went down). This attitude was grandfathered into more recent editions with skill systems for first aid.

Huh. And here I am trying to make the game more deadly.

Also, past very low levels, in my experience all adventurers have a healing potion or item of some sort stowed away against just such situations.

Fair. For this scenario, you'll just have to assume that the characters got caught with their pants down for some reason or other. It is a scenario that could happen, but isn't necessarily likely.

My games are generally high magic ones with active gods, and the answer is seldom going to be "nothing", though it could be "no". At the very least there is likely to be some sort of omen or manifestation which could be from the god addressed.

Interesting that a deity would take the trouble to rebuke a character when it could presumably grant the request with minimal effort. Those are deities with an attitude.

So, it all depends.

Fiar enough

I selected "other," because both of my choices for answers didn't fit with the above options.

In games that I've run, I used a rule laid down in the 2E book Monster Mythology that basically said a character who prays for divine intervention has a 1% chance of such prayers succeeding (and, if it succeeds, will never happen again for that character). There were a few other qualifiers, but that's one that I personally liked.

If I had this poll to do over again, I'd add an option for some kind of percentile roll for divine intervention, since there have been quite a few of those responses even though it never occurred to me.

That said, I'm also very enamored of the Faith skill as being a way to mechanically represent this exact sort of thing - a very religious, but not divine spellcasting, character asking for deific intervention. It's an elegant system that not only doesn't eclipse divine spellcasters (who not only follow religious tenets but dedicate their lives to advancing a religious cause, and so have commensurately greater powers in the form of true spellcasting), but fits within the inductive framework of "how things work" in a d20-based world (e.g. that faith in an other-planar power forges a link to that power, which it can channel its energy through).

Interesting. Certainly, my angle on these types of things is that the rules for how actions work should be separate from any individual character and that characters should merely tap into them. I had yet to see anyone do that in a d20 way for divine magic.

 

[billd91]

It sounds like the player has been roleplaying his faith. Good roleplaying should always be rewarded. I'd have his prayers answered and he is able to heal his wife or, at the least, stabilize her. As a DM I'd make it clear that this is not going to be a common occurrence. Perhaps I'd go so far as to give the fighter a vision from his deity demanding some service in return.

I'm generally of the opinion that good RP should be rewarded as well. I doubt I'd put limits or service on it, though. The pious character is already serving the deity plenty and I'd just be stabilizing the unconscious PC anyway. I figure the pious PC has already role played enough to be worth the cost of some bandages and a competent Heal check.

 

[Aenghus]

Interesting that a deity would take the trouble to rebuke a character when it could presumably grant the request with minimal effort. Those are deities with an attitude.

Interesting that you jump to the conclusion that a "no" is automatically a rebuke.

Thing is , I want to have a game multiverse where both bad stuff happens to everyone and interventionist gods exists, some of which aren't asshats. So there need to be limitations on the gods that mean bad stuff can happen that simple prayers can't necessarily prevent or reverse. The traditional limitation is that divine intervention is statistically unlikely, or requires intermediaries like clerics and paladins.

However, that doesn't mean that well-meaning gods don't want to help as much as they can, even if it's only manifestations of consolation and condolence, or a feeling of certainty that the deceased has gone to their reward.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Interesting that you jump to the conclusion that a "no" is automatically a rebuke.

True. That is my own bias to an extent. I was very influenced by Greek mythology when I first looked at D&D, and I view D&D deities as having superpowers but also human personality flaws. My deities are very moody and petulant. I can see where your interpretation leads you down a different path.

 

[I'm A Banana]

She dies.

Look, lets change the scenario a bit. Instead of a level 6 fighter, he's a 0-level NPC.

Does that change your answer?

It doesn't for me. That 6th level fighter doesn't have an special miracles or talents he can call upon, any more so than the local dirt farmer does. He's a hero, sure, but he's not a hero powered by his god's divine magic...just his mundane faith, which in him is presumably as strong as it is in Dirt Farmer Lydia. Going to services and tithing and being devout -- these are things the Dirt Farmers do just as much if not more so than the Fighter. His extra-special worship doesn't make him any better than them.

In-character, that Fighter chose to protect his wife in their dangerous line of work by wearing heavy armor and taking blows and if he failed to do that, he failed to protect his wife, and thus, she dies. You failed. There are consequences for failure that just asking nicely won't get you out of. NG gods let devout people die all the time -- presumably even those who ARE powered by divine magic.

Out of character, the fighter's player made a choice NOT to play a healer. Presumably, not being able to heal his character's dying wife was a consequence of that choice the player was willing to live with. In battle with an orc or old in bed, sooner or later, she was going to die. As a fighter, you accept that you can't do much about that. Why would I rob him the chance to play his character as he develops into a grieving widower who perhaps questions his loyalty to a god who would allow such a thing to happen? That's a juicy character conflict, right there!

As a DM, there's things that a fantasy world can offer that become available to the fighter because of his status as a hero and his membership within the church. Perhaps a high-level cleric can take pity on the fighter and raise her from the dead (perhaps in exchange for some token service...like retrieving the lost relic from the vault of the undead?). Perhaps a necromancer offers her services, tempting the fighter down a dark path. Perhaps there is awkward sexual tension between the Fighter and the new character of the player who once played his wife! Perhaps he can go see her soul resting blissfully in the afterlife while he jaunts through there on his way to Hell to kill Asmodeus. Maybe he takes a level in Cleric to make sure this kind of thing never happens again. Heck, if this is 3e, find the nearest cleric with access to True Res, and pay him a boatload of gold, and she'll be right as rain in a night. Either way, there is going to be an awesome funeral scene where a bunch of recurring NPC's show up to offer their condolences!

These are all the seeds of a much more interesting story than, "Turns out, worshiping a god gives you a free pass sometimes."

She dies. Characters die. Adventurers die. Being a married adventuring couple is probably signing up to be widowed in the near future -- it's a dangerous profession. If the fighter couldn't prevent this by Being A Fighter, being a fighter who is especially devout ain't gonna change that any more than being a dirt farmer who is especially devout. But what being a Fighter might let you do is access ways to bring her back that the dirt farmer doesn't get. But it ain't bring back the dead. Those sorts of prayers are like asking the gods for a pony for your birthday or for your local knight to win the joust. Even gods of goodness and light view things in bigger terms than individual lives.

 

[Celebrim]

She dies.

Look, lets change the scenario a bit. Instead of a level 6 fighter, he's a 0-level NPC.

Does that change your answer?

No. It doesn't for me either. The 0-level NPC has as much of chance of getting divine aid as the 6th level fighter. The only slight difference is that the deity might not blow as much power on the 0th level NPC as he might on a more powerful subject.

Mine is a world with highly active deities. Everyone in my world, from the hero the dirt farmer can expect divine intervention - for or against them - at least once in their life, and often several times. Mine is a world where you meet deities, often multiple deities, in every campaign - sometimes at 1st level. I've a habit of writing a possible encounter with a deity into every first session of a campaign.

So yes, I make divine intervention checks on behalf of NPCs too. The gods of evil are no less puissant.

It doesn't for me. That 6th level fighter doesn't have an special miracles or talents he can call upon, any more so than the local dirt farmer does. He's a hero, sure, but he's not a hero powered by his god's divine magic...just his mundane faith, which in him is presumably as strong as it is in Dirt Farmer Lydia. Going to services and tithing and being devout -- these are things the Dirt Farmers do just as much if not more so than the Fighter. His extra-special worship doesn't make him any better than them.

Precisely. But this doesn't lead me to the same conclusion it leads you to.

These are all the seeds of a much more interesting story than, "Turns out, worshiping a god gives you a free pass sometimes."

What makes you think a world full of active deities is anything like getting a free pass. Almost by definition, the pious haven't been living life like they had a free pass to begin with, but living lives of submission and obedience or at least in some sense exemplary. And everything has a cost - among many other things it's fully in my rights as a DM to impose a geas on whoever wishes to receive divine aid.

Even gods of goodness and light view things in bigger terms than individual lives.

Even the gods of goodness and law would disagree that individual lives do merit their attention, and the gods of Chaotic Good would probably say that if individual lives don't matter then nothing does. But even the gods of evil can find merit in aiding the cause of a servant, because presumably the servants cause furthers their own. Beyond that, I can't imagine that gods of my world like Jord or Aratos - both of which are worshipped jointly with their wives, both being deities of matrimonial romantic love, and both celebrated as faithful husbands to the point that Jord/Sesstra or Aratos/Anwyn is almost a single cult - wouldn't be moved by a plea of a faithful servant on behalf of a beloved spouse whatever else they believed in.

Beyond that, one of the PC's took the Divine Blood trait on character creation, so when Showna intervenes on behalf of her priestess, she's also intervening on behalf of family.