"Pray to God."
"Praying to God!"
- Spaceballs: The Movie
In GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, you can pray to your (or the) god(s) for help. It's a roll, and you can sacrifice character points - unspent xp, as we call them - on a bonus, at a 1:1 for a +1.
What's it do?
Per DFRPG Exploits, p. 90, or GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 2: Dungeons, p. 15:
Success means a fortuitous coincidence saves the supplicant; e.g., the hero’s pack snags, stopping a fall. Critical success means a miracle; e.g., teleportation to safety by the delver’s god.
That's pretty thin guidance. Success seems to undo a single bad roll. Critical success gives you extreme benefits. There is no other listed guidance in any DF supplement that I know of.
Here is what I actually do in DF Felltower.
- I allow any success to provide an actual miracle. The Good God intervenes in a noticeable way. Healing a combatant, causing a magical effect that disrupts the enemy, or allowing a success with an inappropriate skill to succeed in helping in a situation (such as healing a Mortal Wound with First Aid.)
Note - per the rules as written, this is very generous.
- I allow critical success to basically reverse the problem at hand, and quite possibly tilt it in your favor. This can be healing all friendly combatants, mentally stunning all enemies, whisking the PCs to safety, etc.
This seems more in line with how it's written.
Note that in no case does the rule state, or imply, that spending xp automatically ramps up the effect. You can spend 10 xp and all it might get you is your backpack snagging you so you don't fall into the lava stream below.
Even so, there are issues I stumble over:
- What do the PCs wants? The players tend to ask a pretty broad, vague request that I have to decide on. Even so, specific doesn't help, because then it tends to be a little too specific. "Good God, please heal Kaylee's arm and help us win this fight" - what the hell kind of prayer of desperation is that? It's basically leading the GM and making it a mechanistic roll. "I have a 7 or less to get the Good God to heal Kaylee's arm, and on a critical we get massive healing!"
- Does the prayer actually solve the problem? The problem with the Last Ditch is that things are already really bad when you ask, so a simple coincidence isn't really going to do so much. And a solution may not be a helpful solution. PCs might not be ready, physically, to take advantage of a divine lull in attacks. The players, mentally, might not be ready to react quickly to a narrowly created opportunity.
It feels like success should give you some real concrete game-changing benefit . . . but it's hard to time that. It's hard to ask at the right moment and get the right roll. If it doesn't, are you really benefitting? Or are you just asking for help and secretly praying (a prayer within a prayer) to get a 3 and have your diety save you completely, like a Wish?
I don't have a lot of answers here. I have no issue with how I've run it so far . . . except a disatisfaction with the results. As often as the PCs pray, they are more often just delaying disaster to later in the session. And, possibly, just hoping for a 3 so they can escape completely from a bad situation.
It's been an interesting part of the game but less impactful than I would have thought it would be.
Thoughts (and prayers!) welcome in the comments as always.
I think it's one of those things where the GM has to do what he feels is best in the moment. As you said, something that has an appreciable effect on the situation. Really depends on the GM, overall table, and current circumstances.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. It's so nebulous, and you really don't want hard and fast rules, otherwise it's just another spell, maneuver, or special ability.
DeleteI use Divine Favor for this and just treat all god botherers as having lvl 0 in Divine Favor.
ReplyDeleteIn my games Divine Favor costs 5/lvl, starts at lvl 0 for free (anyone can pray) and maxes at lvl 16 (sometimes I allow it to be bought higher). Power Investiture (Divine Favor) costs 10/lvl unless your adding to another PI, in which case in my games adding PIs increases the cost by +2 per level, but the PC cannot cast spells while a Divine Favor is in effect and vice versa (as per Alternate Abilities rules).
Otherwise I use all the standard rules for Divine Favor.
I've never actually played with Divine Favor. I'm not sure I've ever even read the whole thing. I should take a look . . . although I'm not sure I want to institute a whole system - which only two of my players will read - to handle a "Last Resort" situation. But I will take a look and see if it inspires some outlines and shapes for applying divine intervention in the game.
DeleteThe types of examples you give of a success and a critical success sound a lot like the AD&D limited wish and wish suggestions. A success or limited wish would heal someone, remedy a bad situation, or enact the equivalent of a powerful spell. Critical success or wish would heal everyone, move the entire party to safety, turn a bad situation into a good situation, or do anything one or more spells might accomplish.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that Matt Colville does is have the god send a servitor. The servitor has powers corresponding to the success degree and can use it's judgement as to the best course of action.
ReplyDeleteOn a regular success? How powerful on, say, a success by 0?
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