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Thursday, October 27, 2011

Cleric Petitions Again

Here's a pro-tip for you rules system designers, try explaining your rule to a drunk.  Last Friday, one of my players decided he wanted to try a cleric to mix up the fighter brigade.  He'd been imbibing before I even arrived.  And I had to explain my cleric petition rules about five times.  Now, I'm not saying all rules should be so simple that buzzed folks understand them, but the multiple attempts at explaining how my petition rules work certainly forced me to think of them holistically and from every angle.   I've never really been satisfied with them anyway.  The difficulty is that I've wanted to incorporate diminishing returns for asking for miracles over and over and for asking for miracles of more and more power.  I've found it hard to be simple and work with both axes.  Here's another attempt:

I'll give a cleric 3 glass beads and this little chart. They can put their bead anywhere they want but only three times. Any miracles of an order below their level will work 70% of the time.  I think I'll give them 3 more beads at 4th and then again at 8th level. I also give permanent miraculous powers to these holy people at those levels (think halos, healing touch that works 100% but limited times per day etc.)  This is weaker than a traditional cleric, but maybe not too much.  An 8th level cleric in S&W Core has 10 spells, and my cleric will only have 9 and then no guarantee they will work.  But then, my clerics could choose to use 4 6th level spells at 70% where the S&W cleric can't even cast that level spell at all.  So I guess what I'm trying to do is inject power and uncertainty; if the entities you're petitioning listen, a cleric in my world can do powerful things, but you can never be so prideful to expect things to happen for you.

5 comments:

  1. Telecanter, someone needs to comment on these rules because they are very good. Keep up the work. I am reading.

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  2. I've also been very interested hearing how your clerics work. I just don't have any other specific comments due to lack of experience with your diminishing returns system.

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  3. Thanks very much to both of you. I think this version might stick, it's almost explainable in a single sentence.

    The next difficulty is negotiating new religions with my players. My player wanted to worship a god of Earth and tremors. Fine by me, but what strictures would that imply, what difficulties to the adventuring life would come with the aid of answered petitions? Allowing player-made religions will always entail this . . . and now I'm thinking a chart could help here, where a player could roll to see various things they have to give up/go with out, and things they must always do. Maybe this would work into a one-page cults I was thinking about. Thanks!

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  4. You gotta come back to No town and atone! haha

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