Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 pukunui Jul 05, 2014 17:43:13	I was daydreaming during church earlier (as you do), and I got to thinking about how the traditional method of divine casters having to pray for their "miracles" in advance and have them locked in for 24 hours is rather bizarre. I get that it's a game balance thing, but from a conceptual standpoint, wouldn't it make more sense for a cleric or paladin to be able to pray to their god for whatever power is needed at the time?   Consider this scenario:   The PCs ride into a town where there is a beggar suffering from some malady. He sees the cleric and comes up to him, asking him for aid. The cleric says, "Sorry, I can't help you right now, but I'll pray to my god in the morning and will come and find you after."   Wouldn't it be much cooler if the cleric could just pray to his god then and there and get the spell he needs to heal the beggar?   To a certain extent, the 5e rules already allow for this, since you technically don't have to prepare all your spells in advance, but you still end up with a situation where the cleric prays for, say, lesser restoration to help the beggar, and then has that spell "locked in" for the rest of the day.   I'm inclined to say that clerics and paladins can just cast any spell from their entire class spell list at any time (within the limits of their daily spell slots and available spell levels and the like) without having to prepare any in advance or lock any into slots ... but I acknowledge that that might make divine casters considerably overpowered in terms of versatility.   I suppose an alternate could be to expand on the idea of Domain Spells. Instead of a cleric just getting a couple of "always on" spells, they'd get a package of spells appropriate to their Domain that they can always cast without having to prepare/lock in any specific spells. I'm not sure how that would work with paladins, though ~ perhaps each subclass has a specific package of spells as well. Basically each subclass of cleric and paladin would have its own, more limited spell list.   These are just my initial thoughts. Feel free to tell me I'm an idiot, just so long as you're polite about it.     Thanks, Jonathan
#2 spelley Jul 05, 2014 19:05:38	pukunui wrote:
#3 pukunui Jul 05, 2014 20:52:29	spelley wrote:
(Reply to #3) LupusRegalis	pukunui wrote:
#5 CCS Jul 05, 2014 21:21:52	What you've come up with is exactly how I've been running casters - both divine and arcane - for the past 30+ years. Divine types have access to any spell they could cast at their lv. (Drawback being that success is reliant upon the granting powers {played by me, the DM} consent. Generally automatic, but on occasion denied....). For arcane types, as above, but no outside beings involved. Instead the arcane caster must have the spell in question in their spellbook, etc. Arcane caster's must also aquire their spells on an individual basis. Divine or Arcane, I, the DM, have quite a bit of input into what spells get cast in games I run.....
#6 spelley Jul 05, 2014 21:35:51	LupusRegalis wrote:
#7 LupusRegalis Jul 05, 2014 21:44:33	Exactly!
#8 pukunui Jul 05, 2014 21:55:55	Going the ritual route certainly sounds like the simplest, easiest option, but I must admit to being partial to CCS' method, albeit for divine casters only. I just like the idea of a cleric not having to prepare spells in advance. Allowing them to choose them spontaneously gives them a more miraculous feel, which I think could help set divine magic apart from arcane magic more.