One thing I would like to point out. Intervention does not mean your deity "shows up", it could if it chose to but, it's pretty unlikely that your situation would require more than a powerful servant of your deity. If for some reason you need your God in order to fight another God, maybe it would happen.
That said, I would like to see a percentage chance of level times three. :P
I'm agree with you.... and also I can easily think about What if I cast Divine Intervention, a God appears and tell me to commit a crime ( and due to my failed roll on Investigation check to detect if is my God ). Then later, after commiting this act, I cast again Divine Intervertion just advice God about what I did and, appears my God. Am I gonna be punished and expelled from this Religion by that ?? omfg.
That is not how divine intervention works. If you use Divine Intervention and you fail your roll, nothing happens. It doesn't mean some other god shows up.
It may not be how divine intervention works, but it may be something an interested deity (though it would take a lot to get a deity interested) decided to do depending on the game world. For example, if you were running a higher level Curse of Strahd campaign, you might allow Strahd to intervene.
One thing I would like to point out. Intervention does not mean your deity "shows up", it could if it chose to but, it's pretty unlikely that your situation would require more than a powerful servant of your deity. If for some reason you need your God in order to fight another God, maybe it would happen.
That said, I would like to see a percentage chance of level times three. :P
I'm agree with you.... and also I can easily think about What if I cast Divine Intervention, a God appears and tell me to commit a crime ( and due to my failed roll on Investigation check to detect if is my God ). Then later, after commiting this act, I cast again Divine Intervertion just advice God about what I did and, appears my God. Am I gonna be punished and expelled from this Religion by that ?? omfg.
That is not how divine intervention works. If you use Divine Intervention and you fail your roll, nothing happens. It doesn't mean some other god shows up.
It may not be how divine intervention works, but it may be something an interested deity (though it would take a lot to get a deity interested) decided to do depending on the game world. For example, if you were running a higher level Curse of Strahd campaign, you might allow Strahd to intervene.
One thing I would like to point out. Intervention does not mean your deity "shows up", it could if it chose to but, it's pretty unlikely that your situation would require more than a powerful servant of your deity. If for some reason you need your God in order to fight another God, maybe it would happen.
That said, I would like to see a percentage chance of level times three. :P
I'm agree with you.... and also I can easily think about What if I cast Divine Intervention, a God appears and tell me to commit a crime ( and due to my failed roll on Investigation check to detect if is my God ). Then later, after commiting this act, I cast again Divine Intervertion just advice God about what I did and, appears my God. Am I gonna be punished and expelled from this Religion by that ?? omfg.
That is not how divine intervention works. If you use Divine Intervention and you fail your roll, nothing happens. It doesn't mean some other god shows up.
It may not be how divine intervention works, but it may be something an interested deity (though it would take a lot to get a deity interested) decided to do depending on the game world. For example, if you were running a higher level Curse of Strahd campaign, you might allow Strahd to intervene.
But then you would be making things up that aren't in the rules and if you do that, well, anything goes, really. The answer to the question given is the answer I gave, though.
While in Barovia, characters who receive spells from deities or otherworldly patrons continue to do so. In addition, spells that allow contact with beings from other planes function normally — with one proviso: Strahd can sense when someone in his domain is casting such a spell and can choose to make himself the spell’s recipient, so that he becomes the one who is contacted.
If Strahd can do it, I'm guessing an actual God or powerful Demon could too!
It may not be how divine intervention works, but it may be something an interested deity (though it would take a lot to get a deity interested) decided to do depending on the game world. For example, if you were running a higher level Curse of Strahd campaign, you might allow Strahd to intervene.
So, are you telling us Strahd is a God ??
Arguably, within his domain he is. But more importantly, he explicitly has the ability to intercept spells to communicate with gods coming from people within his domain. This would not include divine intervention (as it isn't a spell) unless the DM adjusts things, but if you have a level 10+ cleric in CoS, you're adjusting things anyway.
While in Barovia, characters who receive spells from deities or otherworldly patrons continue to do so. In addition, spells that allow contact with beings from other planes function normally — with one proviso: Strahd can sense when someone in his domain is casting such a spell and can choose to make himself the spell’s recipient, so that he becomes the one who is contacted.
If Strahd can do it, I'm guessing an actual God or powerful Demon could too!
Except that Strahd is arguably stronger in his domain than gods are in most other realms (he doesn't have the competition in the same way).
TLDR: I think the roll should always be allowed. If abused, the GM can easily & reasonably make a "success" less than helpful.
I feel like as interpreted here it's not smart to use:
If you are in "great need" the way most here seem to define it, you probably can't spare the Action on something that fails 9 out of 10 times. You need that Action to *survive*.
Conversely, its timing is structured so as to create a "use it or lose it" incentive structure... which all here seem to agree would annoy the deity... ? I'm unconvinced of this: Deities get pleas all the time but this is an instance of the deity granting 1 in 10 to a character that's advanced to a fair level of effectiveness in their cause. The deity is enabling all the character's other spell abilities; granting 1 in 10 requests for higher level assistance sounds totally reasonable, given the 1 request per day & 7 day recharge limitations.
For a Level 10 character, spending a full Action to attempt something that can only be tried once per day *and* only works once in ten attempts... seems like it should work when it works.
If the character wanted something game-breaking from the Intervention, the GM has ample room to interpret *how* the request succeeds; but I feel like the request should *not* be dismissed as "not enough need" given the rarity of 1) who gets this ability & 2) its frequency of success.
Leaving it to the GM to assess level of need, to determine whether it works, would be fine. 1 in 10 with a 7 day recharge would be fine. GM decides whether you can even ask, & then it still works only 1 in 10 *and* the GM decides how? That's a pretty lame ability for Lvl 10.
If the character feels they have a "great need" for Divine Intervention cleaning up after dinner, or for reviving a sick pig, such that they're willing to spend an Action *and* a week's worth of Intervention on it, I don't see many scenarios where they shouldn't be allowed to at least roll for it.
If they're *really* mis-using it (requesting Divine Intervention to do something the deity opposes) then the phrasing allows the GM to have the deity respond any way it wishes; but denying the roll at all on the grounds that "need" wasn't "great" enough seems to me like a bad ruling which removes the utility that had been intended.
So, no water to wine for the big party then? I'm looking at you Jesus. For shame.
Seriously, I agree with the above post. If the Cleric was asked by a peasant family to help cure their sick child, I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be a valid use of Divine Intervention if the cause aligned with the God's dogma.
We had been playing a four players party for almost one year. One of our friends played a Life domain Cleric, Cleric of Rakash ( God of Death and Diseases). Because of divine intervention, we still believe that Rakash is real. Even %10 is quite a gamechanger.
So, no water to wine for the big party then? I'm looking at you Jesus. For shame.
Seriously, I agree with the above post. If the Cleric was asked by a peasant family to help cure their sick child, I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be a valid use of Divine Intervention if the cause aligned with the God's dogma.
Great example!
1 in 10 is terrible odds to spend an Action on in a life-or-death situation, but a pretty cool ability sometimes if you can ask for it any time. If it's an inappropriate request, the GM can have the deity react unhelpfully if it succeeds. Don't just deny the request on an assumption that "need" isn't "great" enough!
My biggest issue with this ability is the guaranteed success at level 20 in comparison with many of the other classes capstone features. Functionally at level 20 this is equivalent to a Wish spell that won't fail and likely won't be purposely misinterpreted against your favor. So once a week you get essentially a 2nd 9th level spell slot. From a power increase perspective, that is HUGE. Compare that to some of the other full caster classes like Sorcerer for instance who gets the equivalent to 2 1st level spells on a short rest......or Warlocks who can once a day get their pact slots back in 1 minute of rest vs 60 minutes.....or Bards who get a bardic inspiration at the start of combat if they happen to have none.......
Cleric, Druid, Barbarian, Artificer, Paladin- all get hugely thematic and extremely powerful, game altering improvements to their skillset at level 20.
Fighter & Rogue- get thematic and useful but not overly powerful or game altering in the way one would assume would happen for hitting the pinnacle of a class.
Bard, Ranger, Monk, Sorcerer & Warlock- sort of thematic, situationally useful but low power and not game altering in any meaningful way.
Remember Jayne, if you successfully do roll Divine Intervention, "The DM chooses the nature of the intervention; the effect of any cleric spell or cleric domain spell would be appropriate".
You only get a Wish spell or other powerful type of aid if the Deity(the DM) deems it reasonable.
The spell also states you call on the aid when your need is great and describe the aid you seek. On success the deity intervenes. Logic of the spell would dictate the intervention fits the need of the aid being sought. If the cleric asks for wealth and is in no peril, give them 5 gold. If the party is on the verge of TPK, drop the mass heal spell. Don’t be a turd.
I agree that the Lvl 20 jump is sudden & extreme, especially in light of the Ranger's absolutely lame capstone ability.
The wording does seem to leave plenty of wiggle room for a DM if they feel the spell is being misused or abused. If the Cleric is being greedy, the deity could drop a wealth of copper pieces from 5000 feet above. If the request is to avoid TPK without real effort, the deity could dump the whole party in the Ethereal plane or other location; either temporarily or indefinitely.
... but, if the Cleric is putting in an honest effort & playing in good faith, undeserving of such a problematic intervention, the ability really does start to seem overpowered compared to pretty much anyone else's L20 capstone.
Instead of jumping from 19% success rate to 100%, I think a more balanced version would be to leave it at 20% success rate & add "At Lvl20, if the request fails, you can recover one spell slot, usable for any Cleric spell you have prepared."
Let's forget level 20 (who plays at level 20 anyway?). You're a pretty senior cleric at level 10 dealing with "matters of state" level threats.
The mechanics: Ask your deity for aid: Your level % chance of getting an answer. Long rest cooldown if fails, 7 days cooldown if succeeds.
Perhaps most important, the DM determines the nature of the aid. This isn't like a spell where the caster is in control. There's plenty of scope to deliver a dud reward to greedy players, or for requests against the deity's values.
How to use it: Two options occur to me.
Daily appeal for assistance - think of people praying at church or mosque - asking for stuff that isn't game necessarily changing, but might be difficult to access in the current situation.
The "reserve parachute" your party are on their way to a total kill / dragon has the upper hand / you've all been restrained / ship's sinking in the ocean with no land in sight. You've burned all other options, so your 10-19% shot is better than none.
Your deity might not exterminate the big bad, but might teleport some or all of you to a safe place where you can recuperate.
It works fine. I would only agree that yeah, at level 20, auto success is strange. Higher than 20% seems okay to me, but higher than like 30%ish chance to me is weird.
It works fine. I would only agree that yeah, at level 20, auto success is strange. Higher than 20% seems okay to me, but higher than like 30%ish chance to me is weird.
It's not strange to me that as a high priest you can more easily call on your deity to intervene on your behalf when your need is great. A diety has very few cleric at such high level and f it intervene, the feature can’t be used again for 7 days.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
It may not be how divine intervention works, but it may be something an interested deity (though it would take a lot to get a deity interested) decided to do depending on the game world. For example, if you were running a higher level Curse of Strahd campaign, you might allow Strahd to intervene.
So, are you telling us Strahd is a God ??
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
But then you would be making things up that aren't in the rules and if you do that, well, anything goes, really. The answer to the question given is the answer I gave, though.
From CoS:
While in Barovia, characters who receive spells from deities or otherworldly patrons continue to do so. In addition, spells that allow contact with beings from other planes function normally — with one proviso: Strahd can sense when someone in his domain is casting such a spell and can choose to make himself the spell’s recipient, so that he becomes the one who is contacted.
If Strahd can do it, I'm guessing an actual God or powerful Demon could too!
Arguably, within his domain he is. But more importantly, he explicitly has the ability to intercept spells to communicate with gods coming from people within his domain. This would not include divine intervention (as it isn't a spell) unless the DM adjusts things, but if you have a level 10+ cleric in CoS, you're adjusting things anyway.
Except that Strahd is arguably stronger in his domain than gods are in most other realms (he doesn't have the competition in the same way).
TLDR: I think the roll should always be allowed. If abused, the GM can easily & reasonably make a "success" less than helpful.
I feel like as interpreted here it's not smart to use:
If you are in "great need" the way most here seem to define it, you probably can't spare the Action on something that fails 9 out of 10 times. You need that Action to *survive*.
Conversely, its timing is structured so as to create a "use it or lose it" incentive structure... which all here seem to agree would annoy the deity... ? I'm unconvinced of this: Deities get pleas all the time but this is an instance of the deity granting 1 in 10 to a character that's advanced to a fair level of effectiveness in their cause. The deity is enabling all the character's other spell abilities; granting 1 in 10 requests for higher level assistance sounds totally reasonable, given the 1 request per day & 7 day recharge limitations.
For a Level 10 character, spending a full Action to attempt something that can only be tried once per day *and* only works once in ten attempts... seems like it should work when it works.
If the character wanted something game-breaking from the Intervention, the GM has ample room to interpret *how* the request succeeds; but I feel like the request should *not* be dismissed as "not enough need" given the rarity of 1) who gets this ability & 2) its frequency of success.
Leaving it to the GM to assess level of need, to determine whether it works, would be fine. 1 in 10 with a 7 day recharge would be fine. GM decides whether you can even ask, & then it still works only 1 in 10 *and* the GM decides how? That's a pretty lame ability for Lvl 10.
If the character feels they have a "great need" for Divine Intervention cleaning up after dinner, or for reviving a sick pig, such that they're willing to spend an Action *and* a week's worth of Intervention on it, I don't see many scenarios where they shouldn't be allowed to at least roll for it.
If they're *really* mis-using it (requesting Divine Intervention to do something the deity opposes) then the phrasing allows the GM to have the deity respond any way it wishes; but denying the roll at all on the grounds that "need" wasn't "great" enough seems to me like a bad ruling which removes the utility that had been intended.
So, no water to wine for the big party then? I'm looking at you Jesus. For shame.
Seriously, I agree with the above post. If the Cleric was asked by a peasant family to help cure their sick child, I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be a valid use of Divine Intervention if the cause aligned with the God's dogma.
We had been playing a four players party for almost one year. One of our friends played a Life domain Cleric, Cleric of Rakash ( God of Death and Diseases). Because of divine intervention, we still believe that Rakash is real. Even %10 is quite a gamechanger.
Great example!
1 in 10 is terrible odds to spend an Action on in a life-or-death situation, but a pretty cool ability sometimes if you can ask for it any time. If it's an inappropriate request, the GM can have the deity react unhelpfully if it succeeds. Don't just deny the request on an assumption that "need" isn't "great" enough!
My biggest issue with this ability is the guaranteed success at level 20 in comparison with many of the other classes capstone features. Functionally at level 20 this is equivalent to a Wish spell that won't fail and likely won't be purposely misinterpreted against your favor. So once a week you get essentially a 2nd 9th level spell slot. From a power increase perspective, that is HUGE. Compare that to some of the other full caster classes like Sorcerer for instance who gets the equivalent to 2 1st level spells on a short rest......or Warlocks who can once a day get their pact slots back in 1 minute of rest vs 60 minutes.....or Bards who get a bardic inspiration at the start of combat if they happen to have none.......
Cleric, Druid, Barbarian, Artificer, Paladin- all get hugely thematic and extremely powerful, game altering improvements to their skillset at level 20.
Fighter & Rogue- get thematic and useful but not overly powerful or game altering in the way one would assume would happen for hitting the pinnacle of a class.
Bard, Ranger, Monk, Sorcerer & Warlock- sort of thematic, situationally useful but low power and not game altering in any meaningful way.
Remember Jayne, if you successfully do roll Divine Intervention, "The DM chooses the nature of the intervention; the effect of any cleric spell or cleric domain spell would be appropriate".
You only get a Wish spell or other powerful type of aid if the Deity(the DM) deems it reasonable.
The spell also states you call on the aid when your need is great and describe the aid you seek. On success the deity intervenes. Logic of the spell would dictate the intervention fits the need of the aid being sought. If the cleric asks for wealth and is in no peril, give them 5 gold. If the party is on the verge of TPK, drop the mass heal spell. Don’t be a turd.
I agree that the Lvl 20 jump is sudden & extreme, especially in light of the Ranger's absolutely lame capstone ability.
The wording does seem to leave plenty of wiggle room for a DM if they feel the spell is being misused or abused. If the Cleric is being greedy, the deity could drop a wealth of copper pieces from 5000 feet above. If the request is to avoid TPK without real effort, the deity could dump the whole party in the Ethereal plane or other location; either temporarily or indefinitely.
... but, if the Cleric is putting in an honest effort & playing in good faith, undeserving of such a problematic intervention, the ability really does start to seem overpowered compared to pretty much anyone else's L20 capstone.
Instead of jumping from 19% success rate to 100%, I think a more balanced version would be to leave it at 20% success rate & add "At Lvl20, if the request fails, you can recover one spell slot, usable for any Cleric spell you have prepared."
With 3rd edition where can I find formal rules on deity intervention? Which book?
Plenty of posters have "got it" here.
Let's forget level 20 (who plays at level 20 anyway?). You're a pretty senior cleric at level 10 dealing with "matters of state" level threats.
The mechanics: Ask your deity for aid: Your level % chance of getting an answer. Long rest cooldown if fails, 7 days cooldown if succeeds.
Perhaps most important, the DM determines the nature of the aid. This isn't like a spell where the caster is in control. There's plenty of scope to deliver a dud reward to greedy players, or for requests against the deity's values.
How to use it: Two options occur to me.
Daily appeal for assistance - think of people praying at church or mosque - asking for stuff that isn't game necessarily changing, but might be difficult to access in the current situation.
The "reserve parachute" your party are on their way to a total kill / dragon has the upper hand / you've all been restrained / ship's sinking in the ocean with no land in sight. You've burned all other options, so your 10-19% shot is better than none.
Your deity might not exterminate the big bad, but might teleport some or all of you to a safe place where you can recuperate.
Facts, facts, facts.
It works fine.
I would only agree that yeah, at level 20, auto success is strange. Higher than 20% seems okay to me, but higher than like 30%ish chance to me is weird.
It's not strange to me that as a high priest you can more easily call on your deity to intervene on your behalf when your need is great. A diety has very few cleric at such high level and f it intervene, the feature can’t be used again for 7 days.