Use of Miracle by divine casters who don't worship gods.

[Clistenes]

The Miracle spell's main limitation is that you can only ask your deity to do something that is congruent with its portfolio, but what if you don't have to answer to a deity?.

There are several kinds of divine casters (and even non-divine) who could gain access to the Miracle spell, despite not getting their power from deities:

-Oriental Shamans with the Luck Domain, get their power from spirits, but can cast Miracle.
-Clerics who get their power from their faith on a given philosophy or alignment.
-Favored Souls, if you see them as Celestial Blooded Sorcerers, and not as a kind of priests.
-Dragonlance Mystics.
-Rainbow Servant arcane casters.
-Several prestige classes allow access to a domain of your choosing, Luck included. Some other prestige classes give you access to a different domain, but you can get the Luck Domain too taking the Extra Domain feat.
-Couatls and Dragons can learn cleric spells as arcane spells.

So, how would you handle it? Forbid the spell? Limit its power? Allow its use, but twisting its magic if the player becomes too greedy?

[Preaplanes]

Well it depends on their ideals. A divine caster doesn't need to have a Deity to cast Miracle, but a religion IS needed.

For example, if a Druid somehow did it (not on the list, i know, I know,) the natural world would grant the wish. I'd restrict it to non-extreme requests 1 or 0 alignment steps away from the Druid's actual alignment, and make it so that certain requests (such as asking for constructs) are denied.

EDIT: By non-extrememe, I mean "No LG, CG, LE, or CE requests"

[Clistenes]

But the Miracle spell can grant really juicy stuff:

a) duplicating a clerical spell of up to 8th level
b) duplicating any spell of up to 7th level,
c) removing a permanent harmful effect,
d) asking for a favor in line with the deity’s philosophy. This costs 5,000XP.

So it can do a lot of the best stuff that Wish can without the XP cost...isn't it just too good?

The extraordinary requests are compensated by the 5,000 xp cost and the need of being in line with the philophy/ethos/code/whatever, but the power to cast any spell from any list of up to 7th level without spending xp is a really powerfull effect on itself.

[mattie_p]

For example, if a Druid somehow did it (not on the list, i know, I know,) the natural world would grant the wish.

So long as a Druid can pick up the Luck Domain, they have it. Can do it through Contemplative (takes 13 skill ranks cross rank, but doable), among other ways.

[Psyren]

So, how would you handle it? Forbid the spell? Limit its power? Allow its use, but twisting its magic if the player becomes too greedy?

The spell itself tells you what happens:


You don’t so much cast a miracle as request one. You state what you would like to have happen and request that your deity (or the power you pray to for spells) intercede.

As for what that power will do, that depends entirely on its philosophy. Worshiping Goodness and then praying that it smite an orphanage with plague probably won't have any effect, for instance.

Note that even the spell duplication part of Miracle, unlike that of Wish, isn't guaranteed; the power/deity can refuse anything.

[Venger]

The Miracle spell's main limitation is that you can only ask your deity to do something that is congruent with its portfolio, but what if you don't have to answer to a deity?.

There are several kinds of divine casters (and even non-divine) who could gain access to the Miracle spell, despite not getting their power from deities:

-Oriental Shamans with the Luck Domain, get their power from spirits, but can cast Miracle.
-Clerics who get their power from their faith on a given philosophy or alignment.
-Favored Souls, if you see them as Celestial Blooded Sorcerers, and not as a kind of priests.
-Dragonlance Mystics.
-Rainbow Servant arcane casters.
-Several prestige classes allow access to a domain of your choosing, Luck included. Some other prestige classes give you access to a different domain, but you can get the Luck Domain too taking the Extra Domain feat.
-Couatls and Dragons can learn cleric spells as arcane spells.

So, how would you handle it? Forbid the spell? Limit its power? Allow its use, but twisting its magic if the player becomes too greedy?

don't forget about probably the most extreme example of this with ur-priests, who must explicitly not worship any gods. they're still RAW capable of casting miracles. how you bring that into line with the flavor text is up to you

[hamishspence]

I'd go with divine power as a cosmic energy. Most divine casters have to draw it via some powerful intermediary- deity, archfiend, "nature" etc.

But some can draw it directly.