Goodman Games

I posted this in another thread, but it was correctly noted as a tangent. So here is a place to discuss.

My preference is still that Clerics work a bit differently than wizards for spell casting. For example, I'd like to see the following for a Cleric's class die roll with every spell:
1 - Faith tested, spell casting is resolved normally, but then spell or ability is lost until you give an offering or 12 hours pass.
2 - Your deity is silent, spell casting is resolved normally, but then the spell is lost for four hours or until you give an appropriate offering if it is the highest level spell you can cast.
3 - Minor boon, add +2 to spell check.
4 - Major boon, add +4 to spell check and you have a faint glow or aura appropriate to your deity for 1d8 rounds.
5 - Aspect of Power, add +6 to spell check and you prominently take on the appearance of your deity in some significant feature for 1d4 turns.
6 - Minor Visitation, add +8 to spell check. You also recover a spell previously lost today. An aspect of your deity manifests strongly as a breeze, light, darkness or scent around you for 1d6 rounds.
7 - Major Visitation, add +10 to spell check. You also are healed as though laying hands upon yourself with a check equal to your spell check result. An avatar of your deity appears and manifests your spell and then embraces you as it disappears.

The spell check results for clerics could then remain the same, just without losing a spell on failure.

Normally you would not add cleric caster level or class die to spell checks, only bonuses based on class die result as above.

Looking over that other thread, I'm not entirely sure what isn't a tangent.

Sorry for the tangent.


At first I was reading that bonus as something to off-set the cumulative casting penalty -- a value that cleared a portion of the daily penalty. But it's a bonus applied to the spell being cast, eh?

As I mentioned in the aforementioned other thread, I think the diff here is the cleric would not add caster level or the class die to the spell roll. The class die would be cross referenced to this chart to see what affect, if any, there is on the spellcheck result.

Correct, that was my thought. Just another way to make things unique. Also, as it is one constant chart it could go right on the character sheet.

Heck, you could even customize the effects for different deities. Perhaps some have variable modifiers for certain spells, or other side effects...

Doing it by deity is interesting.

I'm not a huge fan of that use of the class die, as it would make clerics unreliable. I like them to be more reliable while less powerful than wizards. Clerics have taken "the right approach" towards supernatural patrons/deities, which is respect, fear and adoration. Clerics wouldn't "dare" bargaining with such beings like fool wizards do.

From a metagaming point of view, this is basically because a cleric will often have 1 shot at trying to revive a fallen ally (at first level), and that is if he's close enough to reach him and try to cure him.
Right now, a 1st level, no bonus, Cleric needs an 11 to revive his friend
With the use of Class Die, 33% of the times he'll just need a 10, while he needs a 12 most of the times ( 67%), as he doesn't get any bonus; moreover, in this more likely scenario, he would lose his layonhands ability for 4-12 hours. This means that even if he needs to try again (maybe on another ally, maybe again on the same) in the next round he can't.


I'd like Clerics to use Class Die not to determine success/failure. But to determine degrees of success or degrees of failure, after success/failure has been determined with rules as they are.
This might also make for that strange -1 cumulative penalty we're not sure about.




PS: future SC means Spellchecks made until after next rest.
PPS: i assumed that class dice progression will be d8,d9,d10,d11,d12,d13

The faith of the cleric is tested when he invokes his deity. A mixture of prowess (which is success/failure in attaining the min DC to perform the miracle) and faith (good result on the Class die) is what a deity demands from its servants.

I tried to write it so there was only a 1 in 3 shot of a cleric losing lay-on-hands at first level. Assuming a +1 Personality bonus the cleric will have a 58% of a success on the attempt, so only a 13% chance of never getting one off (failure plus a roll of 1) and on average he'd get two uses a day. This tracks pretty well to other old school games availability of a cure light wounds.

In my play with the -1 rule I'd seen fewer successes than that due to accumulating penalties and having other spells penalize as well. Although we seem to have forum consensus that this rule has problems.

I'd considered saying that particular ability is never lost, but I think it makes the cleric TOO reliable.

Playtested last night using the Faith Die table as above.

1- the cleric player was enthusiast about getting to roll a special die too
2- he enjoyed the tidal "going-up-going-down" of penalties, instead of having a flat -1 cumulative penalty.
3- losing Lay-on-hands for the day provided a nice RP element, since they could do without it since they were in a hurry, or risk waiting, but the baddies could finish summoning a demon...
4- He looks forward for increasing his Class Die

One of the other players honestly believed that the table became too "nice" with mostly bonuses when you have a big Class Die. I pointed out that even a 5th level cleric had a 1/7 chance of getting a -1 penalty on success, but 2/7 chances of getting either -1 or -2 on a failure, plus the 1/7 chance of losing the ability/spell for the day He agreed that it had some serious drawbacks that could kick in sometimes.

Since I am going on vacation starting tomorrow, this will be one of the last posts I will make today. I will be back after GenCon.

I would suggest leaving the disapproval or losing spells/powers to rolling a 1. Not to be part of the class die results.

(i.e. move all the negatives to a disapproval chart that triggers on a failure or rolling a 1)

I dig the "Faith Die" success or failure swing, but I my instinct is to start the die much lower, say d3, d4, d5, d6 etc. But I guess this would be something to play test...

caveman, I assume class die would follow the same progression for all classes. Starting with d3 at first level and increasing by one die size per level thereafter.

ah, ok. The "PPS" in post with the chart confused me.

sorry , forgot to state "for levels 6th -10th".

And actually d13 won't be needed as 10th level means only d12; same thing then for 13 results on the charts.