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

[FrozenNorth]

Depending on the duration of the prayer, it could be Raise Dead. A few rounds is short to pray, depending on religion. If the friend is just doing Death check, then it's easy. If he rolls over 10 three times before failing three time (DC 10), the god granted him life. Praised be the god.

A few rounds is also a bit short to administer first aid to prevent someone from bleeding out. Why make uttering a quick prayer slower than staunching bleeding?

The only reason I could think of is make the Religion check impossible, which leads to the question “Why?”

It can’t be a question of niche protection or relative power, because you are literally replacing a DC 10 Wis(Medicine) check that is available to anyone.

 

[AnotherGuy]

This thread could have been much better received had it opened up with

If the setting allowed for deities to answer the calls of those begging assistance, how would one go about it mechanically within D&D, particularly if the character in question was not of a divine class and class protection being a thing. The example that springs to mind is a fighter desperately praying to save a dying ally in the midst of combat. It fits the genre. Religion is a skill that exists in the last few editions, would it be a single skill check, a SC, or free form? How do you imagine running it should a character take such an action. And importantly how would one go about it so that such course of action is not exploited down the line.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yet we have a fighter doing just that...

It really isn't. You have yet to show it is.

Why are we allowing it to be used right now? What makes this instance more viable/palatable/anything than when another character tries it? Why are we allowing one player to perform an improvised action and then deciding no one else can do it?

The answers to those questions cannot be given without more details about the situation. They're necessarily context-specific. I've given an example: you can only give your faith once, and it has to mean something, it can't just be 'oh yeah I call on the gods, k?" Other tables might have other reasons. There is not, cannot be a generic answer because a generic answer will always be exploitable in some way, to some group, some of the time.

IME players tend to advocate for themselves... you're giving them a tool (that could possibly save their lives and help in life or death situations) and then expecting them to choose not to use it. That's not a player who is untrustworthy... it's a player leveraging a tool the DM introduced.

Uh...no. I'm not expecting them to not use it, other than expecting them to be respectful of the tone and style of game I'm running. Because that applies to literally everything. Especially things like spells. If you can't trust the players to be respectful of the kind of game you want to play, no amount of restricting things will save the campaign.

Hence why I've said--repeatedly--that when you do things like this, you should take steps like "don't make it an 'I Win' button" and "don't let it be infinitely reusable" and "make it actually costly in ways players can't avoid and won't generally be willing to pay." When these things are actually special, as in, they only work once or very rarely, under special circumstances, and only with serious costs and risks...there's no need to "expect them to choose not to use it." You know they either can't or won't use it.

 

[Imaro]

It really isn't. You have yet to show it is.


The answers to those questions cannot be given without more details about the situation. They're necessarily context-specific. I've given an example: you can only give your faith once, and it has to mean something, it can't just be 'oh yeah I call on the gods, k?" Other tables might have other reasons. There is not, cannot be a generic answer because a generic answer will always be exploitable in some way, to some group, some of the time.


Uh...no. I'm not expecting them to not use it, other than expecting them to be respectful of the tone and style of game I'm running. Because that applies to literally everything. Especially things like spells. If you can't trust the players to be respectful of the kind of game you want to play, no amount of restricting things will save the campaign.

Hence why I've said--repeatedly--that when you do things like this, you should take steps like "don't make it an 'I Win' button" and "don't let it be infinitely reusable" and "make it actually costly in ways players can't avoid and won't generally be willing to pay." When these things are actually special, as in, they only work once or very rarely, under special circumstances, and only with serious costs and risks...there's no need to "expect them to choose not to use it." You know they either can't or won't use it.

But you are in turn allowing it without these questions being answered... They haven't been clarified or expounded upon in the OP and yet you are arguing for allowing it and then basically claiming... no issues should arise because of all these "things" that we haven't defined but I'm sure will eliminate any and all problems that might arise.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So when can they (the gods) be used? What are the exact rules here?

As I said above: there cannot, even in principle, be universal answers to these questions. Because universal answers can be exploited some particular context.

Each table must answer those questions individually.

So why in this case is it allowed? Is it because it is the first time? Does the god answer once and only once? Can a different god not answer? Can a different character not try this?

Each of these is possible. Other possibilities include:

• You can only give your devotion once. Choose wisely.
• Deities have to live by rules of their own. Whatever these rules are (perhaps they can be learned), they apply here.
• Actual divine characters have learned how to do this safely. You risked your life doing it once. Try it again, you're dead, and probably won't even get anything for trying.
• The moment of epiphany and revelation is a beautiful, unique thing. It can't be forced, only happens once, and when it arrives, it can catalyze a miracle.
• The resulting miracle is a "first taste," and deities will expect proof of devotion to do anything further...aka, taking levels in a divine class.
• There aren't multiple gods, there's only one god, and this one god has a standing policy on this front.
• Existing religious groups are actively looking for anyone who does this. You will be hunted (for good or for ill, or perhaps both.)
• Such intervention is in fact actually difficult for deities, and only done for mortals they're trying to "claim." Other deities generally aren't dumb enough to raise a deity's ire by interfering with someone they've "claimed." Mortals...well, they might be dumb enough to try to make that happen.
• The gods are all part of the Celestial Bureaucracy. You can bend the rules....once. Do it again and you have to deal with the worst enemy in the universe.....paperwork. (More seriously: the celestial bureaucrats might overlook one irregularity. They won't overlook two.)
• There are no "gods," but there are "kami," which occupy a huge swathe of supernatural statuses. Getting a miracle like this means bonding yourself to a kami, which increases its power. This bond is permanent, and your "first time" boon can't happen again.
• Miracles bend the laws of reality--and the laws of reality fight back. Divine magic is part of those laws, miracles aren't. You cannot ever get the same miracle a second time, no matter who you ask. Deities are thus very reluctant to spend their miracles willy-nilly.

This should not be seen as an exhaustive list.

We don't assume, we know. When 4e flanking gave a +2 or charging (I could be wrong on this, its been a while) gave a +1 you would see ridiculous repeatable movement on the battlefield in order to get those bonuses. And I'm not picking on 4e, its every edition. Winning formulas are used again and again by players.

Then don't make it ridiculously repeatable. It's not hard! Just don't do that. Don't LET it be a formula. You're the DM. You have the power to prevent this thing being formulaic.

But you are in turn allowing it without these questions being answered... They haven't been clarified or expounded upon in the OP and yet you are arguing for allowing it and then basically claiming... no issues should arise because of all these "things" that we haven't defined but I'm sure will eliminate any and all problems that might arise.

I am not "allowing it without these questions being answered." I am saying that you as DM must answer these questions, and the answers must be specific to your table. Obviously, if you aren't comfortable answering them, don't do this! But as you can see above, there's an incredible variety of answers that could apply. Most of those answers are mutually incompatible. Some of them will fit for some games, others will be wildly inappropriate.

 

[Imaro]

I am not "allowing it without these questions being answered." I am saying that you as DM must answer these questions, and the answers must be specific to your table. Obviously, if you aren't comfortable answering them, don't do this! But as you can see above, there's an incredible variety of answers that could apply. Most of those answers are mutually incompatible. Some of them will fit for some games, others will be wildly inappropriate.

I did not get this take from your posts at all. If this is your stance then I have no issues since it basically boils down to live and let live.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Suppose that the friend is on the other side of a crevasse from the fighter, or similarly out of reach? Or suppose that the fighter trusts more in the gods than in their own skills as a surgeon?

Well, to give you a more serious answer, the question can not be answered due to insufficient information.

Depends. What are the ontologic and daivanic constants of the local brane?

That was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek answer, but only partially.

Is the fighter an initiate of a temple? Has there been any attempt on the fighter's part to establish a relationship with a Patron, either individually or as a member of a pantheon? No? Just calling out in desperation? 1% chance of response, and you don't know which Patron or Power (god of greater or lesser status) has heard your plea.

If the fighter is an initiate, then the chance is 2-4%, depending on what they have done for the temple in the past. But then the plea will be heard by the one(s) they have called out to.

If the fighter is initiated and makes a vow, well, that's a little different. What kind of vow, and to whom? What sacrifice are you willing to make? How do you get your Patron's attention? What service will you provide? How will you prove your devotion in this most desperate hour of need? With what do you barter in this transaction?

Religion check? Hardly enters into it, except in remembering what sacrifices certain Powers prefer.

 

[Umbran]

What's that? You missed the opportunity to understand the thread?

Mod Note:
Rather like you missed the opportunity to keep the thread respectful? I mean, there was a warning posted not three hours before you.

Your opportunity to further discuss in this thread has also passed you by. Next time, be better to people

 

[OneRedRook]

I think that the way to view it as a more general proposition would be this-

Class A want to use Enumerated Ability B from Class C.

A does not have B.

As a general proposition, how do you adjudicate that use case?

I'm not sure that's the more general proposition. For me, that's become specific in a way that misses the focus of what I'm trying to get at in this discussion.

To put the above back into the OP's original context, class A is 'fighter', enumerated ability B is (say) the 'Healing Word' spell, and class C is 'Cleric'. If the player of the fighter asks "Can I cast 'Healing Word'?", my answer is no, they can't; but that's not really how I view the topic here.

Ultimately, I'm not trying to allow character build options, etc, to be duplicated, I'm trying adjudicate actions declared by my players. And I will absolutely think about those actions within the context of existing mechanics, niche protection, and table fairness as you note below. I guess this point might seem like semantics, but if I'm not trying to duplicate a mechanic, but instead frame the next roll, that opens up scope of both success and failure outcomes.

All that said, for something that seems like an 'out-of-build' declaration my preference in general is to put part of the cost into the action economy (if we're in combat, which the context I assumed for the OP), or into a significant time cost outside of combat. In part this is because players don't like giving up opportunities, and in part because often one of the benefits of having the right mechanical build is being able to quickly and reliably trigger the relevant effect: one action to cast 'Healing Word', or one action to initiate a disarm, etc. That's what being 'good' at doing those sorts of things tends to mean in D&D. Finding a DC to roll against would be another aspect, as without the right build it shouldn't be reliable.

There's a similar argument about the what success and failure look like, but you probably get the idea, except to say that either losing hit dice or gaining exhaustion levels are often convenient failure conditions.

Now, you can scale it up or down (is it a level 1 ability, is it a level 20 ability, etc.). It's somewhat difficult in 5e because there are so many ways for A to get B (multiclass, feats, etc.) that when it comes to enumerated abilities, you can run into the "table fairness" chargen problem; if character can simply use B at any time without devoting chargen resources to it, then those people who are really into chargen begin to believe that there choices are rendered meaningless. It's one thing to "reskin" enumerated abilities; it's another to have people invoke them without having selected them.

At least for some people; it's the tension between enumerated rules and playing to the fiction.

So I agree the difficulty you talk about above is one of the challenges here, and having a tuned eye for mechanical outcomes isn't trivial. If it's the sort of play someone enjoys, it might be good argument for limiting the sourcebooks for a campaign; conversely, if someone just wants to follow the rules as-is, presumably they can be much more relaxed about that.

 

[the Jester]

The rules are a bit more vague than that, I tend to rule that you finish the jump and then cannot move anymore.

But this still doesn't answer the question. Athletics to push your movement, at a potential penalty and with limits, is not outside the realms of the possible, so what is wrong with doing so?

To be clear, I'd be okay with allowing this with a cost, as long as it was available for both pcs and monsters.

However, I see exceeding your speed when there really aren't rules to support it to be potentially abusive. I mean, you have a numeric speed for a reason. And the way the PH describes movement seems clear that you're already doing your best to achieve maximum speed:

Every character and monster has a speed, which is the distance in feet that the character or monster can walk in 1 round. This number assumes short bursts of energetic Movement in the midst of a life- threatening situation.

If you want to move faster, you must use an action to Dash. It's very plain under the rules, at least to me. Moving more than your speed should have a cost.

Basically, if you allow a pc to exceed its movement by making a cost-free Athletics check, you might as well just give all fighters, barbarians, etc, a movement bonus instead, because you're giving them (what I see as) an unfair advantage.