[PK]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

I really liked this one

Glad that everyone who's picked it up has enjoyed it so much! I prayed for such a response . . . :)

I'm considering using it to replace clerical magic in Dungeon Fantasy.

That's one of the explicit things I wanted it to be able to handle -- hence the "dungeon delving" flavor to a few of the miracles (e.g., Smite).

Other important genres that I had in mind include the Deadlands setting (this is perfect for Blessed characters -- and note that cursed lands resist Consecrate Ground with effective HT equal to (Fear Level * 4)) and Monster Hunters (and yes, there are guidelines in MH1 for using Divine Favor instead of <FNORD> if you'd prefer to do so). But frankly, there shouldn't be many settings (featuring at least one interventionist god) that Divine Favor can't fit into.

My only complaints so far is that the book focuses entirely on goody-two-shoes gods, but that's barely a quibble as the book gives me all the tools I need to make my own sets of divine powers.

I thought about trying to get really expansive with it, but then decided that it was important to keep it as simple and focused as possible. IMO, a true take on "Unholy Favor" could be its own supplement. (Note to writers: Hint, hint . . .)

A slightly larger quibble is that I can't find the variation of Blessed in there that boosts your stats. I was kinda hoping to see what he did with that, or if that even needs to be covered by these (but he had other forms of Blessed, like the font, in the book).

Yeah, I know that's kind of weird leaving Heroic Feats out of the loop, but hear me out on this:

I played with a few different builds of Heroic Feats and simply could not come up with two miracles (a normal + an Enhanced) that felt like the definitive ones. For example, I considered doing a 10 point (boost one attribute) and a 30 point (boost all three), then thought about doing a 30 points (+1d to all three) and a 60-point (+2d), and then several more. In the end, I decided that the "best" combination of the two would depend on the GM.

So then it occurs to me that if I leave Heroic Feats as an obvious omission, it gives the reader/GM an easy opening to build his very first custom Learned Prayer! In other words, this is an advantage for which it is simultaneously (A) very easy to build a prayer from, yet (B) something everyone will want to take a slightly different approach to. When I realized that, I decided to consciously leave it off. So, while that may or may not have been a smart move, it was at least a willing one. :)

Originally Posted by Bruno

You can only do one Learned Prayer at a time, and while you're doing those, you can't do any other prayers at all.

This makes them Not Cheap At All.

Exactly. It's important not to overlook that -- a learned prayer comes with some amazing benefits, but also one huge special drawback.

A One Prayer Cleric, who does Protection from Evil (Enhanced) all the time, has spent not only 7 points for the Prayer, but also 35 points for the Divine Favor - instead of just 33 points for the basic True Faith Reliable Turning combo.

QFT. The learned prayers are cheap, but only because you can't buy them until you've sunk a lot of points into Divine Favor. You cannot just look at the Learned Prayer Cost for each and think of that as the "real cost"! If you want to part the seas, it doesn't cost you 32 points to do so -- it costs you 202 points! Because these use the Alternative Advantage rules, this is one case where the prerequisite cost is a balancing factor.