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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8752629" data-attributes="member: 6790260">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.Each of these is possible. Other possibilities include:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You can only give your devotion once. Choose wisely.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Deities have to live by rules of their own. Whatever these rules are (perhaps they can be learned), they apply here.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There aren't multiple gods, there's only one god, and this one god has a standing policy on this front.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Existing religious groups are actively looking for anyone who does this. You will be hunted (for good or for ill, or perhaps both.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> </ul>This should not be seen as an exhaustive list.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.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.</blockquote>

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