Cleric Fluff

[Razanir]

Clerics meditate or pray for their spells. Each cleric must choose a time at which he must spend 1 hour each day in quiet contemplation or supplication to regain his daily allotment of spells. Time spent resting has no effect on whether a cleric can prepare spells. A cleric may prepare and cast any spell on the cleric spell list, provided that he can cast spells of that level, but he must choose which spells to prepare during his daily meditation.

Is it possible for a cleric to spread that 1 hour throughout the day? Like spend half an hour in prayer the night before, then pray for another half hour in the morning and get his spells then?

(I thought of the question, by the way, because I actually do pray twice a day like that in real life. It just got me wondering if a similar setup would be allowed for a cleric in D&D)

[Spore]

Why not? But you should only get 1/2 your spells because that's how Wizards do it and it would not be fair to give you full spells for half the time.

[Razanir]

Why not? But you should only get 1/2 your spells because that's how Wizards do it and it would not be fair to give you full spells for half the time.

Well, wouldn't it be the full time? The idea is that the cleric is required to pray twice every day. So wouldn't it be fair to only require half an hour each time?

[Brookshw]

By RAW: not to my knowledge. As a DM I'd be fine with it though if the character was unable to pray a second time I might limit their spells the following day.

[Spore]

Well, wouldn't it be the full time? The idea is that the cleric is required to pray twice every day. So wouldn't it be fair to only require half an hour each time?

Half spells for half a day's worth of prayer. If the wizard only uses 30 minutes to prepare half his slots, so should you. No one can tell if you HAVE the time to pray for the other half.

[Razanir]

What if I reword the question. Does the prayer have to be contiguous? Or can it be broken up, and the cleric gets his spells when the hour is accumulated? The way I see it, the cleric's still choosing "a time at which he must spend 1 hour each day in quiet contemplation or supplication". It's just that for that cleric, he's chosen two times that add up to an hour.

The only way I see any implication it must be contiguous is by analogy to other spellcasters.

[BWR]

The way I read it and the way I and every other DM I know rules it: it has to be contiguous. 1 hour at a specific time each day or you don't get any spells. Which led to a fun game where we had 4 different clerical characters with a different prayer time each: dawn, midday, dusk, midnight.