The party was in a maze in a terrible dungeon and they had been dodging traps and fighting horrible monsters for days. At some point they reach a chamber and find 10 battered-up warriors resting inside. The warriors claim they are treasurehunters and that they have been lost within the maze for several days. They have no food left and one of their comrades has been drained by a wraith or wight.
Now, any normally suspecious player can almost immediately figure out: "these guys are brigands and the minute we go to sleep, they are going to cut our throats!" (which they were)
But rather than playing what I would call "tactical roleplaying" Martin's priest set forth to Create Food, Create Water and even casting a Restoration spell on the poor drained bandit! I was amazed! Martin reasoned that even if Alex (his character) instinctively knew that they warriors would perhaps turn against him and his companions, because of his religion they deserved the benefit of the doubt. So he decided to follow the ethos of his faith although he suspected it would probably place him in even greater danger!
(Eventually, the brigands did turn but died by the wizard's wand of fireballs :D )
And now to the point of my post: (sigh, why are they always so long?)
I want to introduce an outside-the-rules system of blessings from the immortals to characters who have truly acted according to their faith. Not just the letter but also the spirit. IMO players should receive a small, temporary blessing to their characters when they act as Alex did.
Here are my ideas so far:
Halav / Vanya - the next time the priest falls below 0 hit points in combat he is instantly healed back to 5 hit points to continue his heroic struggle.
Korotiku - the priest is allowed to reroll the next save or attack roll he misses.
Ixion - the priest is rewarded with a sacred medalion which can summon a 5 HD fire elemental once to serve him for up to six turns.
Valerias - the priest is granted an aura of passiveness. All creatures within 15 feet must make a Will Save DC 15 or be unable to perform any hostile actions. The aura lasts until the next full moon.
These are just ideas. Please let me know what you think.
:-) Jesper
From a meta-gaming viewpoint you are basically rewarding good roleplaying - and for clerics to have access to a major reward (you may be thinking of your characters current levels, but the reward would also apply at 1st level) is very unfair to all other classes.
What might be worth giving (worth as in the players will still find it useful) would be a free guidance bonus. Yes - I think a 0 level spell would be as powerful as these rewards should get - but let them choose what the bonus is to, or you can choose a different spell.
Looking at your suggested rewards (as to why I htink they are too powerful):
Auto-healing to 5hp. Suppose he was on 10hp then got hit by a polar ray for 50 or so, I can't remember the proper rules becuase my DM plays below neg10 is dead - not healable (which happened to me last session and the healer had readied an action to heal anyone who needed it
). Even if a player could heal it, it is a potenentially huge heal effect for free and when it is needed most.Re-roll next save or attack missed - hmm, and if that is casting a touch spell? - like Heal on the next big undead they fight? - Yes they don't lose the spell, but 1 round could save some characters lives.
5HD Elemental - consider a 3rd level cleric with this - need I say more?
Aura of passiveness - what if she attacks them, or her party members do? (Actually this could be fun if the party fighter fails his will save - the moment the cleric is near him he can't fight).
Also look on the opposite side for a minute. Suppose the party is going up against a cleric of Vanya (who can be the "bad guys" in a lot of circumstances) - the instant free heal to 5hp on death could be really problematical to the players,though it helps if you want them to get away.
Nice idea, but needs to be tiny or is over-balancing imo.
Originally posted by Kheldren
Nice idea, but needs to be tiny or is over-balancing imo.
You're quite right of course - I didn't think of first level clerics but of my party of 7-9th level characters. In my current campaign it would make little difference :D
Basically, you are rewarding good roleplaying
That's right, I am. Some DMs prefer to just hand out extra XP for good roleplaying and i 99% of the cases I do too. But every once in a while a player comes up with a really brilliant idea, which saves the entire party or one of the players plays really cool roleplaying and I would like to be able to reward that with something different/extra.
It shouldn't necessarily be limited to clerics - who I agree have way too much power in general already - but clerics are (or at least should be) so much more required to live by codes and ethos that they are probably the most likely to do something "exceptionally in character"
I can see why the blessing would have to be balanced off against the character's current level but I still believe that a little something extra for those exceptional performances would be nice and add flavour to the game.
:-) Jesper
In fact the more I think about it I may use this in my own campaign............