God loves you?

[Avor]

Most people forget that in D&D, gods are 100% rea!. Have you ever IC called out for god to save your ass?

I don't think I've ever have, but I know it's a matter of time, that's why I pick dragon gods nowadays, Screw archons and angels, if I want a dragon.

[Ire]

Not really called on any gods to save me...but I did manage to solo a few minor deities, and in we're out to kill Mask for playing some really dirty tricks on us...

[Thanatos 51-50]

Yes.

I figure Elhoona was just busy fighting Obad-hai at the time, though.

[Tech]

My characters (or at least the ones that care about the gods) make it a habit of beginning their mornings praying to every single god they know of that might come in handy for good luck and to not kill them, a la that one guy in the first Mummy movie with about fifty different religious symbols.

[Narmoth]

When dm-ing, I've let clerics call upon their god for miracles

[Dhavaer]

In the game I'm playing at the moment, you have a percentage change equal to your level of divine intervention rescuing you when you die.

[bosssmiley]

1E D&D "Legends and Lore" used to have a percentage chance of divine intervention if you called out for help. IIRC it was something like 2-3% chance they just pulled you out of the situation, and a 1% chance that the god turned up personally to kick butt and take names.
(doubtless one of the Oldschoolians will correct me on my percentages there...)

As for 3E/4E/n+1E : unless its Ragnarok time the gawds of D&D-land are basically playing a hands-off version of Black and White or Sim City with their worshippers. They issue their orders, their clerics bumble around trying to achieve their masters will to the best of their (limited) ability. Actually, come to think of it, that makes your cleric more like one of The Sims...or possibly the pitiful little Imps of Dungeon Keeper fame.

As for divine intervention. Why should your god care? He takes a minor hit to mana/league ranking when Erythnul (or some other griefer) does an "In yer base, killin yer doodz" zergrush on one of his temples, but there are always plenty more mortals to replace the ones deaded. Heck, they sprout like weeds.

[WingedHorse]

My characters haven't. I should try that some time.

In games I DM nobody ever has tried that though I certainly would have allowed it and something interesting would have happened without doubt. I wait for the day that some character does...

There is one interesting system I've considered implemeting. I read it on forums (perhaps even these) once.. Don't know if it was a houserule or variant that actually is written somewhere...

The idea was that every character has a randomly determined (d4 or so) number of faith points at creation. They could spend them to ask for help from their gods. There would be more awarded by DM at occasions where he deems appropriate (such as when character does something the god would really like). This could be anything appropriate to god and situation. When fighting in the woods, a bear appears and drives the enemies away. When trapped in a cave with nothing to drink, they suddenly notice a small stream of water...

The catch is that players never know how many faith points the characters have left and it can go to negative. If they demand help more than their gods think they are worth, something will happen to the situation but it will end up worse than originally. The bear that appeared from woods and drove their enemies away will be hostile towards them too. The stream of water they find when trapped will be polluted and give them some disease.

It shouldn't be immediatelly apparent that they no longer have points left but the effects could be worse the further they go to negatives. If they get into a lot of desperate situations, it would mean that they would need to always wonder "Have I earned my god's favor back...?"


Needs some tweaking but could be interesting

[Greymane]

Heh, funny topic here. Shaundakul from the Forgotten Realms (3.5) actually has a reputation for doing this. You call for aid and sometimes he shows up personally and kicks the trash out of whatever is giving you grief.

So far as I can tell, he's one of the few gods that actually does that, so I imagine that should bring more worshipers to him... Hm... adventure idea!

[kyoten]

In one of the campaigns I was playing in the party I was in and the city I cam from got involved in this battle against an army led by a high-level Blackguard with a Nightmare. I, being a level 5 paladin/ level 1 Knight Protector, challenged him to a fight. He took out a third of my HP in one blow. After that I prayed to my deity. Luckily my deity heard my pleas. Suddenly my AC and to hit got a major boost. My special mount, a Donkey, became a Pegasus! Also, my Aura of Courage spread out across the battlefield and allowed the other protectors, besides the party members, to start defending the city instead of being slaughtered.

To note i've designed this character to do predominantly nonlethal damage via twin shield fighting.

After some tense moments of fighting, during which I still almost died, I managed to knock his good back into him for a few seconds. It was during his few seconds of redemption that he requested I grant him a mercy killing. Reluctantly I do so.

After the battle I gave him a hero's burial. I took the longsword, which he gave me to kill him with, and have been trying to redeem it since. I have started to make progress on that end.

[Piedmon_Sama]

Once when I was 13/14, I was in a campaign run by one of my schoolteachers (she was awesome like that), and I think somehow my Half-Orc rogue had gotten himself captured and was swinging in a cage. So I prayed out loud to Olidammara--and to my immense surprise, the DM looks over the screen at me and answers "what? Yes? Why are you bothering me?"

Which honestly I didn't know what to say to.

As for me as a DM, no, never. Like the other gods, Zenithaar doesn't directly intervene in the affairs of mortals. Not even to save his prize cleric, who's advanced in enough levels to become a champion of the temple. Gods just don't work that way---without the requisite spells, at least.

[Fhaolan]

My players have learned to be *very* careful when they swear IC.

The Gods in my campaign world go by titles instead of names, as they pay no attention to the names given to them by mortals. So you get gods like 'The Wanderer', 'The Tempest', 'Lord of the Revels', etc.

But the one the players fear the most is... 'Good God', the goddess of children, innocence, and light. Who appears as a 6-year old girl. And who has a tendency to actually show up and 'help' whenever someone says 'Oh, good god...'

Imagine, a creature with immense power with the personallity of an 6-year old girl, one who by definition is a true innocent.

[herrhauptmann]

My players have learned to be *very* careful when they swear IC.

The Gods in my campaign world go by titles instead of names, as they pay no attention to the names given to them by mortals. So you get gods like 'The Wanderer', 'The Tempest', 'Lord of the Revels', etc.

But the one the players fear the most is... 'Good God', the goddess of children, innocence, and light. Who appears as a 6-year old girl. And who has a tendency to actually show up and 'help' whenever someone says 'Oh, good god...'

Imagine, a creature with immense power with the personallity of an 6-year old girl, one who by definition is a true innocent.

As bad as that can be, I'd be more afraid of the oh god. Most people tend to say 'oh god' when it hits the fan, and not 'good god'.
Not to mention, since so many people say 'oh god' while sick, you can imagine he's never too happy on account of always being called to a variety of toilets, outhouses, and sickbeds (alley behind the pub too for that matter).

[Shademan]

in the dark days when the games were few and far between and the other players were.... not really into D&D, a Barbarian captured by goblins (pesky lv.1 characters, hehehehe) prayed to Kord for merely a chance to save himself.
since this was the only SHRED of RP i saw i let, in my wisdom, Kord drop him a greatsword.
sure he preferred axes but heeey... its kord!

[Narmoth]

I've once made a god of vengeance that recruits followers personally, by appearing by them in time of great need and offering the bargain of their life for the revenge.

[Edge of Dreams]

In a 2e game a friend runs, any character can spend a round praying to their god. They then roll a wisdom check, modified by how much that god would care about the situation (e.g. If you're fighting an evil dragon, Bahamut would be more likely to answer your prayer.) Results ranged from nothing at all, to minor advice, to full on visions of exactly how to win.

In a 4e game, I played a Paladin of Avandra who didn't take his religion all that seriously, until one day when he failed to bring a minor criminal because the rest of the party didn't think it was worth the trouble. Later that same day, the party found a holy symbol of Erathis among the loot from some goblins. My Paladin took it as a sign that he wasn't working hard enough to uphold justice, so he went to the temple of Erathis to talk to the clerics there and pray. Erathis gave him a vision that told him how he could redeem himself, and he ended up uniting an entire city to deal with an imminent threat that otherwise would have flat-out destroyed them.

[Chrono22]

Yes. One of my characters worshiped a god of travel and weather. When he (a level 1 character) was being followed by a huge red dragon, he prayed for rain.
Rain would help for several reasons:
It provides concealment.
It blocks tremor sense, and blind sense that depends on sound as the rain droplets create a ton of interference.
It can wash away scent, and reduces the range of a creature's ability to
detect another creature by scent.
It can put out fire (stifling or negating the possibility that the dragon would burn down the forest to kill me).

I rolled a natural 20 on a luck check, and the rains came poring down. That, combined with a very high sneak result, allowed him to escape the dragon.

[Avor]

My characters haven't. I should try that some time.
-snip-

Needs some tweaking but could be interesting

I don't know about that kind of system, it could mess up the players a bit. If you tell them ahead of time, they will all be playing up the religous aspect way to strongly. If you don't tell them, they will think this is a magical land of free miricles until they hit the -3 point range and figure it out.

As for divine intervention. Why should your god care? He takes a minor hit to mana/league ranking when Erythnul (or some other griefer) does an "In yer base, killin yer doodz" zergrush on one of his temples, but there are always plenty more mortals to replace the ones deaded. Heck, they sprout like weeds.

It depends on how much intervention you needs, what your doing, and how immportant you are to the big scheme of things.

-If all you need is to be stabalized, that's not a big request.
-If you are fighting an entire to save innocent people, god would value those fallowers and may help your ass
-If you are god's tool, destined to be immportant later on, he might care about you.

The point being, good help os offten hard to find, and level up.

[JonestheSpy]

There is really only one safe prayer:

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

-Roger Zelazny

[ericgrau]

And what makes you think the gods in d&d have time for everyone who asks or would give it even if they did? In fact, I think there's a 9th level spell for that. The original post also seems like it might have a rather discussion innapropriate implication. So I've only showed it flawed in the d&d setting and I'll leave it at that.

[Ent]

My players have learned to be *very* careful when they swear IC.

The Gods in my campaign world go by titles instead of names, as they pay no attention to the names given to them by mortals. So you get gods like 'The Wanderer', 'The Tempest', 'Lord of the Revels', etc.

But the one the players fear the most is... 'Good God', the goddess of children, innocence, and light. Who appears as a 6-year old girl. And who has a tendency to actually show up and 'help' whenever someone says 'Oh, good god...'

Imagine, a creature with immense power with the personallity of an 6-year old girl, one who by definition is a true innocent.

Reminds me of Flute from Eddings' Elenium/Tamuli.

[MammonAzrael]

I had an old DM that ran 2ed, and he enjoyed injecting gods into the game. You could pray to any god, and there was a low percentage chance, usually based on your level, and modified based on the god you actually worshiped and your class and so forth, that the god would answer, help, or show up. And once that happened, your future prays were more likely to be answered (though not necessarily by the same god), but you attracted a whole damn lot of attention, most of it not so good.

Fun times.

[Avor]

And what makes you think the gods in d&d have time for everyone who asks or would give it even if they did?

Even if they ignore it, I would assume gods would at least hear it, gods being all powerfully super-natural beings that exist outside of linear time and space.

Or say we knew gods may or may not help, or even hear prayers. But when faced with a black dragon with a thing for necromancy, prayer it's worth a try anyways.

The original post also seems like it might have a rather discussion innapropriate implication.

I was thinking of that implication, but I accualy tried to word it so it didn't. sound like that.

When I want to have a round with religion, I go to the religous forums.

[ericgrau]

I was thinking of that implication, but I accualy tried to word it so it didn't. sound like that.

I almost regret bringing it out. Well I hope no one here takes it any further, and I won't.

Anyhoo, carry on with the homebrew musings. I've seen a lot of fun times from this sort of thing. Or even the lack thereof. I once saw a cleric cast augury in a dungeon that inhibited divination spells due to a crazy epic wizard that ran the place. When the cleric cast the spell, the maniacally laughing wizard appeared and answered instead .

[Seonor]

Vlad Taltos tells the tale of how he was ambushed by three sorcerers:

I was seriously upset by this time, and I was bloody well going to do something, stupid or not. I set Spellbreaker spinning and hefted my blade. I felt my teeth grinding. I sent up a prayer to Verra, the Demon-Goddess, and prepared to meet my attackers. Then something unusual happened. My prayer was answered. It wasn't like I'd never seen her before. I had once travelled several thousand miles through supernatural horrors and the realm of dead men just to bid her good-day. And, while my grandfather spoke of her with reverence and awe, Dragaerans spoke of her and her ilk like I spoke about my laundry. What I'm getting at is that there was never any doubt about her real, corporeal existence; it's just that although it was my habit to utter a short prayer to her before doing anything especially dangerous or foolhardy, nothing like this had ever happened before.

[chiasaur11]

As bad as that can be, I'd be more afraid of the oh god. Most people tend to say 'oh god' when it hits the fan, and not 'good god'.
Not to mention, since so many people say 'oh god' while sick, you can imagine he's never too happy on account of always being called to a variety of toilets, outhouses, and sickbeds (alley behind the pub too for that matter).

Ah, Bilious, the Oh god of Hangovers.

He's started temping for other gods, you know.

[sombrastewart]

My rogue implored Olidammara on one of his many deaths.

It oddly enough worked.

[TheCountAlucard]

When the first-level PCs in my good campaign knowingly ventured into werewolf territory, the Ranger stopped and made a prayer to Ehlonna for protection on their journey.

I decided to secretly give him a +1 bonus to his AC for the rest of the day.

[dspeyer]

Our party was once in a burning forest (which we had set on fire earlier as part of a fight, but our more reckless members had refused to help put out). When all else failed, my character prayed for rain. I rolled a natural 20 and we got an immediate downpour.

Then we arrived at our destination and found it devastated by flooding.

The next time we leveled, I multiclassed into cleric.

[bosssmiley]

And what makes you think the gods in d&d have time for everyone who asks or would give it even if they did? In fact, I think there's a 9th level spell for that.

The BECMI Wrath of the Immortals set actually had a standard issue divine power that was effectively a spam filter and faves list for prayers and requests for intercession.