Cleric's Divine Intervention

[robbie374]

Thoughts on Divine Intervention:

What would be the impact of changing Cleric's Divine Intervention to roll a d20 rather than percentile dice?
(When I first read the description, this is what I thought it was, and thought, "Hey! That's pretty cool!" When I found that it was actually percentile dice, it was, "Oh. That's rather lame, actually.")

What if it started at 1st Level?

What if it was useful once per day rather than once every seven days?

[Clumsyninja23]

Changing it to a D20 is simply changing the medium if you keep the percentages the same. 1 and 2 (19/20 if you prefer) for 10%, and so on.

After this point it's my own opinions. Starting it at first level has it's own share of problems. Even if you dropped it down to like, 1%, the effect of it happening would be astronomical for level 1's. Fire Storm, BBEG 5 levels above you is dead. Earthquake, small town is destroyed. Old King Macguffin who died to an assassin, sparking a huge "who is the rightful heir" situation, is now suddenly back to life, no worse for wear. On the other side of this, it does take your action to do (if you're doing it in combat), and wasting an action on a 1% chance isn't something that players would likely do. So it's broken both ways I think. That said, if you could balance it a DIFFERENT way, it could be workable. Something like "The Intervention can be a Cleric spell (or have the power of a Cleric spell) level equal to your Cleric Level." So a level 1 could basically ask for any level 1 spell, a Sanctuary to protect the mayor, a Cure Wounds for your Fighter when you're out of spells, etc. I think you would have to change the percentage thing though still, so you had more than a 1% chance to cast Sanctuary on a target.

Once per day instead of once per week would need balancing to the power of it, unless you went for something like "Grants you any Cleric spell of the highest level you can cast" kind of thing. It'd be similar to Arcane Recovery or something, but instead of giving you a slot back, casts a spell that you might now have prepared. It could be interesting.

I'm trying to imagine how this would work if you scrapped the percentage completely. Just "Once per day, call upon your diety for aid. This aid can be in the form of a Cleric spell of the highest level Cleric spell you can cast or lower, or something of equivalent power. You can't perform this miracle again until after a long rest." The only issue I can really see balance wise for this is if you put it in at level 1, Cleric dipping is even more appealing to other classes. Putting it in later curbs this, but then you don't get the level 1 start you're looking for. I'd like to toy around with the idea if I ever decide to make big adjustments to classes in the future.

[robbie374]

Changing it to a D20 is simply changing the medium if you keep the percentages the same. 1 and 2 (19/20 if you prefer) for 10%, and so on.

After this point it's my own opinions. Starting it at first level has it's own share of problems. Even if you dropped it down to like, 1%, the effect of it happening would be astronomical for level 1's. Fire Storm, BBEG 5 levels above you is dead. Earthquake, small town is destroyed. Old King Macguffin who died to an assassin, sparking a huge "who is the rightful heir" situation, is now suddenly back to life, no worse for wear. On the other side of this, it does take your action to do (if you're doing it in combat), and wasting an action on a 1% chance isn't something that players would likely do. So it's broken both ways I think. That said, if you could balance it a DIFFERENT way, it could be workable. Something like "The Intervention can be a Cleric spell (or have the power of a Cleric spell) level equal to your Cleric Level." So a level 1 could basically ask for any level 1 spell, a Sanctuary to protect the mayor, a Cure Wounds for your Fighter when you're out of spells, etc. I think you would have to change the percentage thing though still, so you had more than a 1% chance to cast Sanctuary on a target.

Once per day instead of once per week would need balancing to the power of it, unless you went for something like "Grants you any Cleric spell of the highest level you can cast" kind of thing. It'd be similar to Arcane Recovery or something, but instead of giving you a slot back, casts a spell that you might now have prepared. It could be interesting.

I'm trying to imagine how this would work if you scrapped the percentage completely. Just "Once per day, call upon your diety for aid. This aid can be in the form of a Cleric spell of the highest level Cleric spell you can cast or lower, or something of equivalent power. You can't perform this miracle again until after a long rest." The only issue I can really see balance wise for this is if you put it in at level 1, Cleric dipping is even more appealing to other classes. Putting it in later curbs this, but then you don't get the level 1 start you're looking for. I'd like to toy around with the idea if I ever decide to make big adjustments to classes in the future.

Since the DM chooses the result of the intervention, I wouldn't worry too much about OP spell choices. The DM can simply choose a 1st or 2nd level spell for a 1st level cleric.

Changing to a simple "once per day" is easier, but it would remove possible fluff of a cleric becoming more in tune with his deity over time. Presumably the reason the request for intervention works is that the cleric's wishes line up with the deity's wishes.

This question came to mind because I was considering a pure pacifist cleric build, a cleric who would refuse to do damage of any sort and would only use control and healing spells. The only way this character could "do damage" would be if his deity decided to intervene and directly damage the enemy. The cleric's conscience would be clear: he remained completely non-violent while the deity chose to act as he saw fit.

[Unoriginal]

Divine Intervention is supposed to be a rare and very special event, a direct show of help from a deity to their chosen one, rather than simply granting the chosen one powers.

Making it happen more often just cheapen the whole thing.




This question came to mind because I was considering a pure pacifist cleric build, a cleric who would refuse to do damage of any sort and would only use control and healing spells. The only way this character could "do damage" would be if his deity decided to intervene and directly damage the enemy. The cleric's conscience would be clear: he remained completely non-violent while the deity chose to act as he saw fit.

That would make a that cleric a massive hypocrite. First, it would mean the cleric consider himself above the god, because if acting non-violently allows him to have his conscience clean it means he consider his god's conscience unclean for being violent. Second, "it's not be who did the violent thing, it's the person I called for help" would not be ok for someone who actually think violence is always bad. It's like saying "it's not me who killed those bandits, it's the lord I asked to kill the bandits who did it."

[robbie374]

That would make a that cleric a massive hypocrite. First, it would mean the cleric consider himself above the god, because if acting non-violently allows him to have his conscience clean it means he consider his god's conscience unclean for being violent. Second, "it's not be who did the violent thing, it's the person I called for help" would not be ok for someone who actually think violence is always bad. It's like saying "it's not me who killed those bandits, it's the lord I asked to kill the bandits who did it."

I disagree. The cleric could believe that the right to supremacy over life and death belongs to his deity alone, and not to any follower. It would be wrong for the cleric to harm another without explicit direction from the deity, but the deity is free to mete out judgment in whatever way appropriate. Even in requesting aid such a cleric might not request for his enemy's destruction but instead for the deity to rescue him and his friends from danger.

[Unoriginal]

I disagree. The cleric could believe that the right to supremacy over life and death belongs to his deity alone, and not to any follower. It would be wrong for the cleric to harm another without explicit direction from the deity, but the deity is free to mete out judgment in whatever way appropriate. Even in requesting aid such a cleric might not request for his enemy's destruction but instead for the deity to rescue him and his friends from danger.

The god gives his approval by allowing the cleric to use spells that can harm.

If the cleric doesn't want to harm, sure, he can just not take the options given, but then the god won't harm his enemies either.

[Bluemanarc]

Keep it simple I reckon.

Just ask for a free "Heroes Feast" each day and you will get it once a week say.

Big Feed for the party, Boom, party times :) yay !!!!!!!:smile::smallcool::smallsmile:

[Tanarii]

(Caveat: this is all white room thinking for me. I've never run a high enough Cleric to see how players attempt to use it in play.)

The way I read the ability, it's basically either a desperation combat move, or an almost certain non-combat move, designed to trigger a very high level Cleric or Domain spell, 1/week. Since you can just keep taking actions until you succeed, any Cleric 10th level or above can easily get a result out of combat in fairly short order. For example 5 actions (30 seconds) of requesting help will succeed ~40% of the time, and a full minute of prayer ~65%. (Edit: In other words, out of combat use is effectively 100% chance, it just takes a few minutes.)

Since the player is supposed to request the type of intervention they seek, they can fairly easily direct the type of spell that results. Or certainly narrow it down a lot. For example a component free Resurrection or True Resurrection (as needed) shouldn't be easy hard to come by if requested. Or a Travel spells (Plane Shift / Gate). Unless your DM is playing silly buggers and intentionally ignoring player intent.

So really, it boils down to: do you want clerics to be able to effectively request very high level combat spells 1/week? Or do you want to make combat use a last ditch effort, and have it mostly be used for non-combat spells?