D&D General What's the DC for a fighter to heal their ally with a prayer?

[OneRedRook]

@OneRedRook

To me, your DCs in combination with your HD costs look fairly high. But I'm no expert in relation to 5e, so maybe my impression is flawed.

I've got no quibble with your structure.

Having had a chance to reflect on this, I agree costs are clearly way too high, to the point of being punitive. It's also far too fiddly. I'm happy with the two-round consequence and the DCs, but success should just be "target spends one HD for hit points" and failure should be "petitioner spends one HD without effect" in each case. The points about additional bonuses and zero HD still seem OK.

I initially thought this might be more interesting (I mean narratively and mechanically, not as a comment for this discussion) than it probably is, which I suspect speaks to the 'nothingburger' comment above.

I realise the DC 23 case might reasonably put this out of reach for some characters, at least without promising a lot in exchange, but that seems fair. Given that I would accept either Wisdom or Intelligence for the ability roll, we're looking at someone who cannot manage more than a +2, which suggests they have no particular aptitude with religion, aren't well-read enough to know what might appease the gods, and don't have enough common sense to know whether they should be meddling like this. I don't think that person is favoured by the gods.

 

[OneRedRook]

Or you can just, you know, play by the rules that say fighters can't heal others without investing in some mechanical element that allows it.

Which rules are those? I couldn't find them in the books.

I know, I'm being facetious. And I know what you mean. But I think it's worth remembering that for the most part the rules for D&D cover what players can achieve through the game mechanics, and the rules about what they cannot achieve are much fewer. I think there is a tendency to judge what can't be achieved by implication, and I worry that's a trap (at least I worry that it is for me).

I agree it would be absolutely unfair for, say, a champion fighter to engage with the spellcaster mechanics, involving spell slots, etc, without the relevant mechanical guff. But from there I wouldn't go so far as to say all supernatural phenomena are off limits to their conception of their character in a 5e game. If the player has an idea that seems like it's in-genre there'd need to be a quick discussion about scope and failure consequence, and after that? Prove it by making the roll.

Here's a simpler question along a similar theme: having already spent their action and bonus action, a player needs their character to move 35ft to get out of danger, but they only have 30ft of movement. Is there a test you would consider that would let them make the distance? For me the answer is yes: DC 13 Athletics check, failure condition is probably Prone, unless something else in the scenario seems like a better fit.

 

[Imaro]

Which rules are those? I couldn't find them in the books.

I know, I'm being facetious. And I know what you mean. But I think it's worth remembering that for the most part the rules for D&D cover what players can achieve through the game mechanics, and the rules about what they cannot achieve are much fewer. I think there is a tendency to judge what can't be achieved by implication, and I worry that's a trap (at least I worry that it is for me).

I agree it would be absolutely unfair for, say, a champion fighter to engage with the spellcaster mechanics, involving spell slots, etc, without the relevant mechanical guff. But from there I wouldn't go so far as to say all supernatural phenomena are off limits to their conception of their character in a 5e game. If the player has an idea that seems like it's in-genre there'd need to be a quick discussion about scope and failure consequence, and after that? Prove it by making the roll.

Here's a simpler question along a similar theme: having already spent their action and bonus action, a player needs their character to move 35ft to get out of danger, but they only have 30ft of movement. Is there a test you would consider that would let them make the distance? For me the answer is yes: DC 13 Athletics check, failure condition is probably Prone, unless something else in the scenario seems like a better fit.

My question to this would be why? Why are you giving them an extra chance on top of whatever other resources/chances they have/had to bring to bear? Why are you ok that they suffer the consequences after this check (if failed) vs. before it if they've already found themselves unable to succeed?

 

[Voadam]

If everyone, not only fighters, can hurt other people with weapons, why can't everyone, not only clerics, pray to the gods with some hope of being heard?

One argument is that what clerics do is magic tied to power source and expericence and not just prayer. Why can't a 1st level cleric raise the dead? Why can't a 9th level one without the proper spell prepared or scroll at hand?

Conversely, if classes are really about protecting niches, then why do we let anyone without fighter levels engage in melee combat?

The argument seems to be that mechanics are protected niches, not classes. Barbarians and rangers and paladins are all expected to use melee weapons well, but usually not in the exact same way unless they have the same mechanical feature such as weapon proficiency. Those with mechanical access to smite can smite, those without cannot.

 

[Alzrius]

The fighter's friend is hurt, even dying. The fighter prays to the gods to heal their friend. How is this action resolved? If it's a Religion or similar sort of check, what's the DC?

I like using the Faith skill for this sort of thing, as it measures how much religious belief (not necessarily religious education) the character in question has. If we're defining "heal their friend" as "use a 1st-level curative spell" on them, the base DC is 20, with the formula being [15 + (spell level x 5)], so it's fairly easy to hit, especially if they have some of the modifiers outlined in that article. Of course, they can only do this so much, which keeps it from becoming an unlimited source of miracles on tap.

 

[Voadam]

If we followed your philosophy, we'd never have gotten any other classes but Fighting-Man and Magic-User.

That would have been so great!

If only things like paladins and rangers had been fighter options instead of full class/subclasses. If only healing had not been tied to a specific class, then a non caster party might be viable. If only thieves had been dex based fighters.

Cleric and Thief specifically evolved out of players asking to do improvised things.

I don't think that is accurate. I believe they were developed to emulate specific characters and to do some specific mechanical effects, not improvised on the spot. The cleric was originally to play a Doctor Van Helsing vampire hunter using a cross to counter a powerful vampire in the campaign. I have never heard it was a character encountering the vampire and improv turning the vampire.

For the thief it was the desire to emulate characters like the Gray Mouser (who first meets Fafhrd while backstabbing someone, and who is a former wizard's apprentice who occasionally casts spells from scrolls with mishap chances like high level OD&D and AD&D thieves can) using a magic user mechanical chasis but switching out spells for always useable skills with a failure chance, and some abilities. Their abilities are weaker than MU's magic, but they can also use leather armor and some more weapons than MUs. Apparently the original class was a slightly different thief skill model and Gygax turned it into the percentiles, but I have never heard that the class was developed in response to a character improv going for a pickpocket attempt.

 

[Manbearcat]

I like this answer. It makes sense to me.

Just for argument's sake though...

Is this not an opportunity for the revived player (and the one who prayed!) for an extraordinary character turn, a massive development in the narrative of their story? Like, if we have the idea that this is cheating somehow, or that the player is getting one over on the DM, or whatever (not saying you did that @Manbearcat ), then fine. But what if you have a player, who for the integrity of her character, really runs with this. Maybe it has mechanical representation (becomes multi-class cleric, etc.) or maybe it's just a brand-new avenue for roleplaying, but...it could really work.

Do we as GMs ever trust our players enough with something like this? It's something common enough in backstories...but it seems as though as soon as one is actively telling one's story, such things become impossible.

Just questions, no offense meant.

All good!

Alright so there are lots of ways to play games. What you're depicting above isn't "cheating" because its clearly onboarded by the social contract of a sort of "Writer's Room", freeform way to play these games where we're collaborating, unmediated by system constraints (inputs, outputs, binding resolution procedures...things that resolve/inform gamestate interactions and give a fair measure of form and shape to the unfolding fiction). In this sort of game, we're either inhabiting a sort of persistent Session 0 or we're toggling in and out of this state at our discretion. It is "Storygaming" in its most pure sense of the phenomenon and I think this example does well in drawing the starkest of contrast with other forms of play that share kindred interest with this agenda, but go about it a different way because they deeply prioritize the two principles I Iaid out above, concern for Protagonism Undercutting and Competitive Integrity.

This sort of "Writer's Room" freeform collaboration (even if its toggled rather than persistent) isn't concerned at all with Competitive Integrity. Further, it would definitely lay claim to caring deeply about Protagonism, but this takes a different form of caring than what I'm talking about above. The differences there have to do with what it means to be a protagonist in TTRPGs and what it means to undercut that. In the "Writer's Room" Storygaming variety, folks aren't "holding on lightly" nor are they "playing to find out." The process of a persistent or discretionary toggled Session 0 (where they're collaborating on what they want to happen and ensuring it comes to pass) is definitionally doing neither of those things. You're not "riding a roller coast" either. You're not persisting in that state of "audience + vessel." When you're writing and directing without the influence/constraints of an editor/producer (the binding aspects of system in TTRPG), you're inhabiting a very different cognitive orientation to play...an orientation that is certainly concerned with the literary form of Protagonism, but by definition cannot be preoccupied (consumed might be a better way to put it) by the TTRPG version of Protagonism where play is a crucible and we get to find out "who these people are (and what is this place they live in)?"

Hopefully that makes sense.

TLDR - One orientation is holding on tightly and concerned with the literary version of protagonism and isn't oriented to "playing to find out what happens" (because they are writers/directors without editors/producers so they have total authority over "what happens"). The other is holding on lightly and concerned with the TTRPG version of "protagonism defined by the remorseless crucible of play" and is "playing to find out what happens" because the system (editors/producers) always has its say (and the footprint of that "say" is robust) and therefore complete autonomy over the fiction and gamestate is not theirs.

 

[Staffan]

Not actually possible by 5e rules, which is ironic given your "well akshully" wrt the Grey Mouser. You cannot cast two regular spells in the same turn, period. You can only cast one regular spell and one cantrip.

Not true. The rule is that if you cast a spell as a bonus action, you can't also cast a non-cantrip spell with your regular action. There is nothing preventing a fighter/caster from casting two regular spells using Action Surge. You might argue that there should be, but as written there isn't.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think this is why @Manbearcat referred to it as a "nothingburger" in 5e terms. Upthread, I made a post setting out my way of thinking about it in 4e terms. (The thread is tagged D&D general, not 5e-specific.)

Sure, many ways to do it depending on edition/game. With 5E, I’d just make sure that whatever the cost would be, I’d make it more severe than 5 GP.

This is where I wish the BIFTs were not so weak. It’d be the perfect opportunity for the GM to offer a new Bond with the deity, one that must be observed by the character. It’d add a new element to the character going forward, and would open up some new opportunities for the GM to make the characters’ lives interesting.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I wouldn’t make it a DC. First, do I want the gods to respond, because the story will get better? If I do, I would think about what the fighter could offer in return. Do the gods propose a sacrifice/bargain? Do they ask what he is willing to offer, and maybe then it’s a roll, with the DC based on what he offers?

So much narrative possibility here. Reducing it to a roll and a DC? No thanks.