Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 sallstice Jul 23, 2010 11:12:08	Nerdaphernalia - On a Mission from God... or two. It's basically this idea that players can gain points with the different gods by their actions and use those points to do a bunch of different things, like reroll, add to rolls, or activate entirely different powers.
#2 salla Jul 23, 2010 15:08:41	I don't like it on the personal level, but it doesn't look like it'd mess things up too badly.
#3 mellored Jul 23, 2010 15:16:17	Not bad, just wondering why there's no "i pissed off this god" chart.  Gaining points with the raven queen is bound to piss off Vecna.
#4 salla Jul 23, 2010 15:19:39	Not bad, just wondering why there's no "i pissed off this god" chart.  Gaining points with the raven queen is bound to piss off Vecna. Mechanically, it would get too complicated. In-world, gods only get the newsflash when you do something that pertains to their interests, otherwise they'd be constantly inundated with all the 'things that don't pertain to my portfolio'.  The RQ doesn't care when you're doing the dishes.
#5 rampant Jul 23, 2010 15:36:17	Mel's issue being that certain deities contest each others claims over certain areas. For instance gaining points with RQ is almost certainly gonna piss off Vecna and Orcus since they both want her death portfolio. The problem I see is that if gods can just grant blessings to anyone they like why have divine classes at all?
#6 sallstice Jul 23, 2010 16:10:59	Initially I didn't let the PCs lose favor with gods for doing things they didn't like, but after one of the more evil players tried to burn down a library, I figured she should lose some points with Ioun.  But gaining and losing favor has always just been mostly based on how the characters act, but gaining and losing is supposed to be a moderately uncommon event. The idea kinda spawned initially as the party didn't have any divine classes, but after a character died and a cleric took their place, it didn't really overlap too much.  The cleric had Channel Divinity, which no one else had and still claimed to still feel more connected to the deities. I've also been playing with the idea to grant Divine Boons at certain Accumulated Favor Points, but never really planned it out.
#7 salla Jul 23, 2010 16:57:37	Mel's issue being that certain deities contest each others claims over certain areas. For instance gaining points with RQ is almost certainly gonna piss off Vecna and Orcus since they both want her death portfolio. The problem I see is that if gods can just grant blessings to anyone they like why have divine classes at all? Well, the divine classes, as written, except for the Invoker, don't get their power through direct divine intervention, just rituals of investiture.
#8 rampant Jul 23, 2010 22:34:10	Right but the god or at least their higher-ranking followers believed said classes worthy of the special blessings and attention of a deity. If The gods can just randomly drop by and hand out favors to selected mortals why bother picking out special servitors in the first place? Plus you get into situations where opposing deities start squabbling. Say you're a half-orc wizard whose just burned down the library of an opponent. On the one hand Gruumsh is most pleased, while Ioun is about ready to hex you himself. By picking out special servitors (i.e. divine classed characters) the gods are sort of marking their territory, to prevent this kind of problem where divine entities squabble over whether a mortal should be granted favor, or punished. Your system forces the gods to pay individual attention to mortals and then blithely assumes that's a good thing.  If you're short on divine classes, or want to play characters with a bit more religious connection, you can always multiclass.
#9 sallstice Jul 24, 2010 14:08:11	Well, the gods aren't providing power to the players.  They still have their own power sources: Arcane, Primal, what have you.  But, who's to say a Wizard can't still be devoted to his god to the point of the god throwing him a bone once in a while.  It seems unfair that the gods shouldn't even pay attention to anyone who isn't a invoker or paladin.  A ranger can be just as devoted to The Raven Queen as a cleric is to Pelor. Divine classes are still held to a higher godly standard as they have Channel Divinity and such and, more importantly, the Divine power source.   The gods don't choose who is a cleric or paladin, the mortal does.  The god doesn't REALLY have that much say in the matter.  The mortals choose to devote themselves to that god so throughly that the god ACTUALLY goes out of their way to grant them powers.  That's the difference between having some favor points and being a divine class. Plus, gods squabble all the time anyway.  You think Gruumsh and Corellon aren't at each other throats all the time? Plus, if all gods grant favor to anyone who follows their teachings, it's not like there'd be fighting over individual mortals.  They're gods.  They have plenty of other worshipers. If you don't like the mechanic, that's totally fine.  I understand how some might not like it as it does give the players a few extra chances to reroll and such and that's supposed to be a pretty rare thing.  However, honestly, I'd rather you poke holes in the mechanic itself and how the rules for it might be flawed, rather than the roleplay aspects of how you think the gods should interact with the players. EDIT: Also, not to nit-pick... ...while Ioun is about ready to hex you himself.... Ioun's female.
#10 salla Jul 24, 2010 19:58:27	Right but the god or at least their higher-ranking followers believed said classes worthy of the special blessings and attention of a deity. If The gods can just randomly drop by and hand out favors to selected mortals why bother picking out special servitors in the first place? Plus you get into situations where opposing deities start squabbling. Say you're a half-orc wizard whose just burned down the library of an opponent. On the one hand Gruumsh is most pleased, while Ioun is about ready to hex you himself. By picking out special servitors (i.e. divine classed characters) the gods are sort of marking their territory, to prevent this kind of problem where divine entities squabble over whether a mortal should be granted favor, or punished. Your system forces the gods to pay individual attention to mortals and then blithely assumes that's a good thing.  If you're short on divine classes, or want to play characters with a bit more religious connection, you can always multiclass.  At this point, I think I'll just say I have a different view of how gods operate even on those rare occassions they actually exist in my gameworlds, and leave it at that.
#11 mellored Jul 26, 2010 15:15:18	Seems like your actually best off limiting this to one god.  Mainly the one you worship.  And you can treat it basicly as an artifact. Otherwise you could burn down a library for Gruumsh, then rebuild it for Ioun, then burn it down...
#12 jetshield Jul 26, 2010 17:22:55	I've taken the gods and made them practically NPCs. In my campaign I've taken it a small step further. The gods are NPCs. Not the kind you're likely to meet (although it is possible), but each of them has been given personality, likes, dislikes, friends, enemies, family, habits, history, hopes, dreams, and plans.  Each of them takes an active hand in shaping the world. Normally, they act through their priesthood, but occasionally they may use another intermediary if they feel there's need enough. On extremely rare occasions, you may come accross one inhabiting a mortal form. Anyway, my point is that, in my campaign, praying to one god or another just might get you a minor miracle. Or it might not. You never know. Your chart, while interesting, makes the gods seem very limited in scope. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems to be saying that Bahamut (as a random example from the chart) either can not or will not grant Strength of Many (again chosen randomly) even if it would be more useful in that situation than Shield of the Faithful.
#13 sallstice Jul 27, 2010 11:24:04	Your chart, while interesting, makes the gods seem very limited in scope. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems to be saying that Bahamut (as a random example from the chart) either can not or will not grant Strength of Many (again chosen randomly) even if it would be more useful in that situation than Shield of the Faithful. Oh, totally.  I really had to simplify the portfolio of each god, only for the sake of simplicity.  When the idea was first constructed, there was no chart or anything, and each PC would ask for something specific and I'd give them a number of Favor Points required for that miracle. It got too complicated with players complaining that other players got a similar miracle for less points than they were being quoted at and other players trying to call upon Kord to help with their Arcana check and coming up with some flimsy excuse.  I had to standardize it and during such the gods were very much narrowed down to their main idea.  Kord = Strength, Bahamut = Protection, Corellon = Magic, etc... Separately, several of the books bring up the point that the gods are part of a pantheon.  Gods of a pantheon are not really supposed to be worshiped singularly.  A cleric of Pelor will still pray to The Raven Queen during funeral rites and to Kord if caught in some feat of strength.  Part of what I was trying to accomplish is getting away from the idea that players are only supposed to worship their primary deity and no one else.  Because that's not really how it is supposed to work.
#14 jetshield Jul 31, 2010 17:48:13	It got too complicated with players complaining that other players got a similar miracle for less points than they were being quoted at and other players trying to call upon Kord to help with their Arcana check and coming up with some flimsy excuse.  I had to standardize it and during such the gods were very much narrowed down to their main idea.  Kord = Strength, Bahamut = Protection, Corellon = Magic, etc... I understand why you did it. I avoided the situation by keeping track of divine favor/annoyance privately. My players don't actually know where they stand with a particular deity until something happens to clue them in. We (myself and my players) find that it feels more "realistic" (if such a word can be used to describe anything in a fantasy world) if only the gods know what they think of specific individuals.
#15 sallstice Aug 21, 2010 13:01:38	Seems like your actually best off limiting this to one god.  Mainly the one you worship.  And you can treat it basicly as an artifact. Otherwise you could burn down a library for Gruumsh, then rebuild it for Ioun, then burn it down... The gods aren't just robotic favor machines.  Like, I said, I treat them as NPCs.  They're not going to blindly give out favor without looking at past actions. In fact, since I've made this post, one of my PCs has been locked from gaining Melora points at all, because he tried to set fire to a forest.  Granted, it was to chase out an army of Gnolls, but Melora doesn't care.  You set fire to her forest!!!! My point is, the gods are not stupid.  You can't trick them... they're gods.