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Alternate Religious Magic System for HARP
Jan. 19th, 2007 09:46 pmThis is taken from the comments of the previous post, and basically lays out the system I'm going to try. Moved to its own post to facilitate discussion:
In HARP, everyone already has access to spells from the universal sphere, as long as they spend the points on them, so if I wanted to just open up the clerical sphere, that's not really a big deal. That will probably be one thing that I do, but not all. Likely I'll just transfer all the spells that don't cross over with other spheres into the Universal sphere, and leave it at that. That type of "bought" magic will be just as dependable as it is in a usual magical class situation.
I think the more interesting idea that will go along with it is that I think I'm going to grant free cleric-style magic to everyone, activated through a dice roll. I think I'll create a new skill called something like "Faith" or "Devotion" as a measure of their devotion to the gods, and have that skill be a modifier to a roll on whether the gods decide to intervene in their favor. They can get additional bonuses by making offerings, living as an example, things like that.
HARP is an open-ended D100 system
For example: Gimli Wartooth, Dwarf Warrior, wants to invoke a Blessing from the gods on himself and his party before going into battle. Bless is a spell that will grant a +5 to the target's Offensive Bonus, Defensive Bonus, Resistance Rolls or Maneuvers for the duration of the spell. He and his fellow warriors don't have any innate magical ability, but they are rather devout. Fortunately, everyone in HARP has access to Power Points (which fuel magic) even if they don't use magic. Gimli will have to spend the power points needed (4) to power the spell, but doesn't have any ability in the spell itself. He does, however, have 5 ranks in Devotion, giving him a skill bonus of +25, which means he rolls D100, adds 25 to the number, and hopes that he rolls over 100 (the base difficulty).
For each additional person wanting in on the spell, they also have to pay the power point cost, and the difficulty goes up. I figure this can be offset by sacrifices or oaths to the gods when asking for the blessing. Gimli, for example, can sacrifice a boar and hold a feast in honor of the gods for a +20 to the roll, or Thorin Snagglebeard can make an oath to craft a fine sculpture for the gods' shrine after the battle, things like this. These would be cumulative, so that the more offerings made, the easier it is to achieve the Blessing, and possibly the more beneficial it will be to them in battle. This can also be helped by increased power point expenditure. If they decide to make an oath and reneg on it, then the gods can come back and punish them later, which in my opinion could lead to some interesting roleplaying possibilities.
I still need to work out the actual bonuses for types of sacrifices, oaths, things of that nature, but that's the basic idea I have for it. Any comments or suggestions would be welcome, particularly if anyone sees any huge glaring flaws in the idea. Probably not too hard for someone to port into a D20 framework, if they are so inclined, although I'll let them do that work themselves.
In HARP, everyone already has access to spells from the universal sphere, as long as they spend the points on them, so if I wanted to just open up the clerical sphere, that's not really a big deal. That will probably be one thing that I do, but not all. Likely I'll just transfer all the spells that don't cross over with other spheres into the Universal sphere, and leave it at that. That type of "bought" magic will be just as dependable as it is in a usual magical class situation.
I think the more interesting idea that will go along with it is that I think I'm going to grant free cleric-style magic to everyone, activated through a dice roll. I think I'll create a new skill called something like "Faith" or "Devotion" as a measure of their devotion to the gods, and have that skill be a modifier to a roll on whether the gods decide to intervene in their favor. They can get additional bonuses by making offerings, living as an example, things like that.
HARP is an open-ended D100 system
For example: Gimli Wartooth, Dwarf Warrior, wants to invoke a Blessing from the gods on himself and his party before going into battle. Bless is a spell that will grant a +5 to the target's Offensive Bonus, Defensive Bonus, Resistance Rolls or Maneuvers for the duration of the spell. He and his fellow warriors don't have any innate magical ability, but they are rather devout. Fortunately, everyone in HARP has access to Power Points (which fuel magic) even if they don't use magic. Gimli will have to spend the power points needed (4) to power the spell, but doesn't have any ability in the spell itself. He does, however, have 5 ranks in Devotion, giving him a skill bonus of +25, which means he rolls D100, adds 25 to the number, and hopes that he rolls over 100 (the base difficulty).
For each additional person wanting in on the spell, they also have to pay the power point cost, and the difficulty goes up. I figure this can be offset by sacrifices or oaths to the gods when asking for the blessing. Gimli, for example, can sacrifice a boar and hold a feast in honor of the gods for a +20 to the roll, or Thorin Snagglebeard can make an oath to craft a fine sculpture for the gods' shrine after the battle, things like this. These would be cumulative, so that the more offerings made, the easier it is to achieve the Blessing, and possibly the more beneficial it will be to them in battle. This can also be helped by increased power point expenditure. If they decide to make an oath and reneg on it, then the gods can come back and punish them later, which in my opinion could lead to some interesting roleplaying possibilities.
I still need to work out the actual bonuses for types of sacrifices, oaths, things of that nature, but that's the basic idea I have for it. Any comments or suggestions would be welcome, particularly if anyone sees any huge glaring flaws in the idea. Probably not too hard for someone to port into a D20 framework, if they are so inclined, although I'll let them do that work themselves.
