Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 october_darkness Sep 15, 2009 19:38:59	Ok, before I post about the details... I understand what the Religion skill is used for. Esoterical information about churches, hierarchies, dogmas, etc. etc. What I did in the game is something from earlier editions, but I've not heard of it in a long time. Anyways, my party is asleep. We're all asleep. Supposedly the area where we were sleeping was so immersed in magic, that it affected our dreams. We end up going through combat in our dreams. So as we're running through the combat, we find in the dream that we're all Eladrin: head to toe. We were dreaming of the Drow Rebellion War. We're getting whooped by the Drow. The city where we were at is in shambles. I asked my DM if my character could do a "God Call" with the Religion skill, as I didn't know any other way to get Corellon's attention. My DM tells me that Corellon doesn't give me any response, or any hint of him being aware that the Drow rebelled. Now, being a former Drow fanboy (damn Drizzt novels)... I remember that it was Corellon who had to intervene on the Elves behalf in order to win the war. I assumed we were in that specific timeline, but calling out to an unaware deity should get their attention, no? It's not a serious issue. I just want to know if being "creative" can get over the top when using Skills in a different way than described in the core material.
#2 masterzel Sep 15, 2009 19:47:43	That's what houserules are for. If it fits the situation, let core be core and do what you think makes sense. Of course...if the DM agrees to that. Tell him, why wou want to do it, and if he is a good DM, he will come with a good explanation, why it didn't have the result you expected, rather than saying "The rules say no"
#3 kouk Sep 15, 2009 20:14:05	I think that's pretty over the top. At least unless you can hit something like 50+ on your Religion check. They have spells/rituals for contacting gods -- and even then you usually just get someone from a lower plane on tech support or something. If it was so easy to call a god to your aid, you'd think everyone would be doing it, no? Even if Corellon ultimately saved the high elves by intervening with the drow (depending on your game world I guess), that doesn't mean it happened right then, or even at all in a magical dream which could be a hallucination from ghosts.   Most of the time gods in D&D, if they act at all, do so at their own leisure.
#4 Krusk Sep 15, 2009 20:42:52	The idea of calling on your god for aid is really a pain to DMs. The DM almost definitely has a plan for your PCs in that fight, and he probably planned for a whole bunch of contingencies for what you will do depending on your choices. Unfortunately, calling on the gods for aid, while common in literature, doesn't work so hot in dnd. It ends in one of the following scenarios. Scenario 1- "OK, your deity comes and fixes it. The campaign is over..." Scenario 2-  "OK your deity comes and now I have to make up an on the spot boon that he grants you so that your quest is easier. Also now I have to ramp up the challenges to compensate." Campaign broken/unbalanced/needing to be seriously rewritten. OR the DM plans for divine intervention, in which the following happens whether you pray for it or not. 1- " Your deity sends an avatar that saves you at the last second and carries you to safety. Que adventure" 2- "Your deity gifts you with weapons, powers, and tools to defeat the evil" These have all been carefully incorporated into the future encounters, which rely on you having these things. Basically divine intervention is a DM plot device, and anytime a player asks for it, there is a good chance the DM had not planed for you to and will have to throw something together on the spot. If they did plan for you to, then it will happen whether or not you ask for it, so it is best to simply not ask for it.
#5 salla Sep 15, 2009 21:14:52	The standard D&D cosmology has distant gods that do not actively, visibly interfere in the affairs of mortals.  If you were actually playing in FR, you might have something, though I think everybody's gone very hands-off there, too, thanks to the Spellplague. And as stated above, trying to make a skill check for a literal Deus Ex Machina is pretty ridiculous; I can't think of a single DM who'd go with that.
#6 Novacat Sep 16, 2009 2:46:10	It actually makes perfect sense that it didn't work, given the context, and if you were thinking in character (and if your character is a thoughtful person), you might have realized something is up when you can't feel your god's connection. It is, after all, a dream, and you can't really commune with your deity in the same way that would would while awake. Were your characters aware that they're in a dream? If so, then this shouldn't have come as a surprise. If not, this should have been a hint.
#7 morgrum Sep 16, 2009 5:33:53	I'd certainly allow a Religion check to know the proper prayers / rituals to use to try to get a god's attention (possibly with a bonus if you're a follower of said god). Due to all the problems with literal divine intervention listed by the previous posters, getting any other response than: 'Your call is important too us, however at the moment all our divine power is busy, please try again later' is quite unlikely however. Also actually speaking directly to a god sounds like a high-level Ritual (with the capital R) to me, which would have to be acquired and used according to the usual Ritual rules.