Religious Service and True Resurrection

[Maelynn]

Religious Service

Characters with a religious bent might want to spend downtime in service to a temple, either by attending rites or by proselytizing in the community. Someone who undertakes this activity has a chance of winning the favor of the temple's leaders.
Resources. Performing religious service requires access to, and often attendance at, a temple whose beliefs and ethos align with the character's. If such a place is available, the activity takes one workweek of time but incolves no gold piece expenditure.
Resolution. At the end of the required time, the character chooses to make either an Intelligence (Religion) check or a Charisma (Persuasion) check. The total of the check determines the benefits of the service, as shown on the Religious Service table.



Check Total
Result


1-10
No effect. Your efforts fail to make a lasting impression.


11-20
You earn one favor.


21+
You earn two favors.



A favor, in broad terms, is a promise of future assistance from a representative of the temple. It can be expended to ask the temple for help in dealing with a specific problem, for general political or social support, or to reduce the cost of cleric spellcasting by 50%. A favor could also take the form of a deity's intervention, such as an omen, a vision, o0r a minor miracle provided at a key moment. This latter sort of favor is expended by the DM, who also determines its nature.
Favors earned need not be expended immediately, but only a certain number can be stored up. A character can have a maximum number of unused favors equal to 1 + the character's Charisma modifier (minimum of one unused favor).
Complications. Temples can be labyrinths of political and social scheming. Even the best-intentioned secret can fall prone to rivalries. A character who serves a temple risks becoming embroiled in such struggles. Every workweek spent in religious service brings a 10 percent chance of a complication, examples of which are on the Religious Service Complications table.



d6
Complication


1
You have offended a priest through your words or actions.*


2
Blasphemy is still blasphemy, even if you did it by accident.


3
A secret sect in the temple offers you membership.


4
Another temple tries to recruit you as a spy.*


5
The temple elders implore you to take up a holy quest.


6
You accidentally discover that an important person in the temple is a fiend worshiper.


* might involve a rival

So, Xanathar's has a nice snippet on religious service and the possible boons that can be gained from it. I think it has some nice potential, but one aspect seems a bit overpowered: "reduce the cost of cleric spellcasting by 50%". It would be a nice discount for spells like Warding Bond and Scrying, but imagine True Resurrection with its material cost of 25,000 gp... especially considering the formula for spellcasting services, which doubles the cost of consumed materials.

Now, the text does say that a check happens after the 'required time' of service, but doesn't give any handles on what this requirement should be. Is it just the one workweek? Is it more? Surely they don't think that one week of doing some altar boy work should warrant a discount worth 25k?

I know that as a DM, I can modify it to my heart's desire. I know, I know, but that goes for everything. What I'd like to know is how other DMs would handle this service in combination with a True Resurrection.

- would you allow the 50% discount for True Resurrection?
- if so, how many workweeks would you think is fair?
- is it unbalanced to forego the check and have the leaders agree to one certain favour if the character meets several demands (such as a specific number of workweeks, a quest to retrieve a lost relic, etc)?

[JackPhoenix]

- would you allow the 50% discount for True Resurrection?

Yes. Of course, you'll have to provide the diamonds yourself, as temples don't have that kind of stuff just lying around, and good luck finding a spellcaster that powerful... at that point, it's not really a matter of money.

[QUOTE]- if so, how many workweeks would you think is fair?

"the activity takes one workweek of time"


- is it unbalanced to forego the check and have the leaders agree to one certain favour if the character meets several demands (such as a specific number of workweeks, a quest to retrieve a lost relic, etc)?

Not really.

[Zhorn]

- would you allow the 50% discount for True Resurrection?
- if so, how many workweeks would you think is fair?
- is it unbalanced to forego the check and have the leaders agree to one certain favour if the character meets several demands (such as a specific number of workweeks, a quest to retrieve a lost relic, etc)?

If the player didn't have the Acolyte background, I'd apply that 50% discount to the cost of purchasing the spell as if they hadn't done the religious service. That keeps the cost of the spell close to the material cost while cutting out the majority of the service cost. Pretty much a character doing religious service is able to access the same benefit of an Acolyte while they are working there.

If they did have the Acolyte background... hmmm. Maybe make favors worth covering the total cost of 1 spell level each, so True Resurrection would take 9 favors to cover the full cost of.
With the 1+Cha mod limit, this puts spells of 7th level and up out of reach of free casting via this method UNLESS you allow multiple characters to pool favors.
Could also allow favors to partially cover the cost. 1 favor covers the full cost of a 1st level spell, but only half of a 2nd level spell, and one ninths of a 9th level spell. 4-5 favors to get to the 50% off mark (44.4% - 55.5%)
For time taken, stick with the one-week-per-check method the XGtE had.

As far as having the service being the reward for a quest, as long as you think the quest is valuable enough to warrant the 25,000 gp equivalent reward I say go for it.

[Laserlight]

It depends. If Count Sir Berenger Dragonsbane, Lord Commander of the Most Holy Order of Paladins Errant, works at the temple for a week, then yeah, we're probably going to give him a good price break on whatever he wants. If it's Stinkbone the Rat, newly released from jail where he hit Level 2, then we might charitably give him some silver but probably not a 12,000gp discount.