How to stat the power of granting spellcasting ability in exchange for prayers?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

<Shrug> I'd just represent them as "Ally Group: Priesthood" and let 'em pay for their own damn spells and clerical investment.

See, that's why we don't worship you. Not nearly as good of a deal as we get from SolemnGolem.

[Pursuivant]

As a starting point:

Affliction 1 (Enhancements: Advantage (Power Investiture 5 (Limitation: Pact (Disciplines of Faith, Vow), -20%), +400%; Cosmic (Irresistible Attack), +100%; Extended Duration (Permanent*), +150%; Increased Range (x100), +60%; Malediction (Extended Range Modifiers), +200%. Limitation: Power Limitation (Divine), -10%.) [100]

Attacking targets at reduced strength allows bestowal of different levels of Power Investiture.

Pact requires worship of the entity that bestowed the Powers via Disciplines of Faith and a suitable -10 point Vow.

Cosmic is slightly tweaked: it allows the attacker to grant powers even if it doesn't know the target's exact location, as long as it is aware of the target's existence.

The Affliction ends when the bestowing entity dies or is banished or until a person affected by it breaks their Pact.

If you want an entity which can bestow specific spells as well as Power Investiture, tweak the power above but substitute spells granted at (recipient's) IQ level for Power Investiture. A group of 10 'Hard' level spells at 4 character points each (IQ+0) would also cost 100 points.

I had to double and triple check the point cost for this power because I had trouble believing that an advantage that allows you to create an army of powerful clerics over continental distances costs just 100 points!

I'd require any PC with this advantage to have a big Unusual Background and Power Investiture at the same level as it can bestow. Ditto for any spells it can bestow. It would also need to spend massive amounts of points buying a ridiculously large and powerful Ally Group.

For a god which is dependent on worship, add Dependency (Worship by x number of people).

Technically, you could reduce the cost of Affliction by applying an Accessibility limitation so it can just affect certain targets, but that's probably abusive given that the Pact limitation on Power Investiture already limits the power to just affecting people who actually want it. OTOH, if the clerics of your religion can only be something like "virgin female elves" or "one-eyed orcs who have killed at least 20 sapient beings in melee or unarmed combat" Accessibility would be a legitimate limitation.

[SolemnGolem]

I should probably restate the central premise of my initial post in this thread. I'm trying to see if GURPS allows a mechanic build whereby a powerful entity gains power from receiving prayers, and then can use this power to grant spellcasting to favored other beings. Sorry if that wasn't clear in the attempted humor of my original post.

Reading these responses, it seems like a mechanical basis to build this could be:

• Mana Enhancer (aspect-changed so it's Sanctity Enhancer or what-have-you). This will allow the godling to make a space or area able to support spellcasting even if it's zero-Sanctity.
• Affliction: Power Investiture. This will allow a worshipper to be a "cleric", i.e. a spellcasting member.
• Affliction: Energy Reserve. This will give the worshipper an ER to allow them to cast spells. (Alternative: the godling itself could provide the ER to cast the spells, potentially with Threshold Limitation in Thaumatology.)
• Affliction: Modular Abilities. I'm not sure how else to give them skills to cast spells... although perhaps this is unnecessary, since the skill aspect could be feasibly explained as an investment made by the caster and not the wish-grantor.

The next issue would be how to stat up the god's ability to draw power for its divine acts from prayers and rituals. Modular Abilities with a limitation (something like "recharges at a rate of X points per thousand followers who pray weekly" might work.

A modified form of Leech might also work, though I'm not sure how I'd build that or what types of limitations would be appropriate.

Edit: crossposted with Pursuivant.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

As a starting point:

Affliction 1 (Enhancements: Advantage (Power Investiture 5 (Limitation: Pact (Disciplines of Faith, Vow), -20%), +400%; Cosmic (Irresistible Attack), +100%; Extended Duration (Permanent*), +150%; Increased Range (x100), +60%; Malediction (Extended Range Modifiers), +200%. Limitation: Power Limitation (Divine), -10%.) [100]

This is a great starting point, thank you. I may put a limitation of costs ER or something similar.

The Affliction ends when the bestowing entity dies or is banished or until a person affected by it breaks their Pact.

Perhaps I can model this as a week-duration Affliction from the deity, and it runs out unless the worshipper renews the status through prayers.

For a god which is dependent on worship, add Dependency (Worship by x number of people).

This is a great idea for the concept of "gods will fade away when their last worshippers are forgotten" (i.e. the god itself will die). I'm interested in actually setting a calculus for the god itself gaining points from a large number of lay worshippers, to grant to an elite cadre of spellcasting worshippers. Thus, a deity would mathematically act as a collector of layfolk points and then focus them into its priesthood or champions.

I'll tweak the above, but if anybody has any ideas on this issue please feel free to comment.

[Anthony]

The other way of resolving this is that all you actually have is Sanctity Enhancer (mana enhancer rebranded), and that being able to cast spells is just an inherent effect of a high sanctity area.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by SolemnGolem

I should probably restate the central premise of my initial post in this thread. I'm trying to see if GURPS allows a mechanic build whereby a powerful entity gains power from receiving prayers, and then can use this power to grant spellcasting to favored other beings. Sorry if that wasn't clear in the attempted humor of my original post.

Yes to both, but I cant answer with my ideas at this time.
Sorry about that.

[Taneli]

Do I smell a new book on it's way? I understand, can't neither confirm or deny, etc.

Back on topic, there's a disadvantage called Faith Maintenance in the Discworld RPG, based on Requires Maintenance disadvantage from the Basic Set. Basically, you require a certain number of people to worship you each week, or you start losing HP.

Combine that with the affliction mentioned above, and have a zero-point feature that your affliction can only be as big as as you can pay with the points from the maintenance disadvantage.

[SolemnGolem]

Originally Posted by Taneli

Back on topic, there's a disadvantage called Faith Maintenance in the Discworld RPG, based on Requires Maintenance disadvantage from the Basic Set. Basically, you require a certain number of people to worship you each week, or you start losing HP.

Very useful, thanks! I do actually have GURPS Discworld in hardback too (I had some money burning a hole in my pocket during a home leave and thought I'd pick it up alongside Mars Attacks) so I'll look it up there.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Taneli

Do I smell a new book on it's way? I understand, can't neither confirm or deny, etc.

Back on topic, there's a disadvantage called Faith Maintenance in the Discworld RPG, based on Requires Maintenance disadvantage from the Basic Set. Basically, you require a certain number of people to worship you each week, or you start losing HP.

Yep IMO Requires Maintenance is the easiest RAW way to stat that portion, though there are others. And as already mentioned in this thread there are several ways to stat the ability to grant powers or energy. I've discussed a few on the forums.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by SolemnGolem

Affliction: Modular Abilities. I'm not sure how else to give them skills to cast spells...

If you're not set on spells-as-skills (Basic / Magic), then the god could just Afflict the appropriate magic-as-powers ability on their worshipper -- perhaps one built as One Use Only, so one prayer gets you one cast. (Always leave 'em wanting more, right?)

[SolemnGolem]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

If you're not set on spells-as-skills (Basic / Magic), then the god could just Afflict the appropriate magic-as-powers ability on their worshipper -- perhaps one built as One Use Only, so one prayer gets you one cast. (Always leave 'em wanting more, right?)

This could work. I think I could build spells as powers, much as is the case with the Powers: Divine Favor supplement. While this would mean much fewer clerical spells than if I used the pre-made lists, it would still be far easier to eyeball the cost of casting and the CP needed to master them.

As for the godling's own set of points for granting, this could be a simple ratio to calculate energy gained from mortal worship.

Under "Meditation, Holiness, or Study" on pp. 53-54 of Thaumatology, each 8-hour "workday" of clerical contemplation generates 1 Energy Reserve point that can be used to power divine magic or enchant some clerical artifact. (Compare this against the "200 hours of study to teach a skill" rule from Characters.) This is for somebody who is Very Blessed and has -10 Disadvantages in clerical orders. I'm going to operate on the idea that a priest (i.e. somebody with Power Investiture) will generate 1/8 ER for each hour of focus, and a layman will generate half that, at 1/16 ER for each hour of focus. There is no upper limit to the amount of ER that the prayerful can generate for the wish-granting demigod.

DR = K(F × H × S × T)

DR: Divine Recharge - Power granted to the god, which it can then later Afflict beneficially to followers.

K: universal background adulation constant - to be determined for whatever works for the campaign.

F: Raw number of worshippers without regard to individual holiness, sanctity of the place of worship, or of duration of sustainment of ritual activity. As above, this defaults to 1/16 of a point of Energy Reserve for an hour's worth of focus.

H: holiness of worshippers. Those more observant of Vows, Strictures, etc. contributing significantly more to DR. A priest with Power Investiture doubles his or her contribution, to 1/8 of a point of Energy Reserve for an hour's worth of focus.

S: Sanctity of the place of worship, e.g. at the altar of the High Temple contributing correspondingly more. The High Temple's "home turf" would probably double ER generated.

T: Duration of the worship activity, with a mass of several hours lending more power than a quickly mumbled prayer.

I'm thinking of just keeping this as a modular Energy Reserve which can be used to power the deity's Affliction and grant a like amount of advantage points to the faithful. Cost would be pretty close to 1 CP per ER point, since it's got so many limitations (essentially "Can't recharge unless somebody is engaging in Magical Thinking about your power at a set of ordained places, times, and rituals, subject to ratio K").

Numerically, I'm not sure that the worshippers need to contribute anything in the form of ER or FP. Merely engaging in that religiously required behavior would allow the grantor to generate its modular ER and then grant powers.

Note that this is mechanically limited to the very specific exchange of "your time and adulation in exchange for this entity to give you powers". It could thus be used to power a small idol or totem that grants a boon to those who rub it for luck while passing, or perhaps even a homonculus or a genie in a lamp. It is NOT meant to account for things like creating universal light, land and seas, terrestrial life, planets and space stations etc. which are other powers that deities are attributed with in various texts.

Campaign fluff for my backstory in spoiler tags below, to avoid sidetracking. And perhaps provide an answer to the inevitable question of "why are you bothering with statting this up anyway?":

Spoiler:  

In my campaign, the lich king destroyed a religion, and then captured the angelic emissary sent to destroy him. He subverted the old religion's teachings to create a new syncretic religion to keep the populace docile. The angel conceived a seed of hatred at the false prayers being made daily, and the seed of hatred became a dead god sprouting out of her head. Later, the dead god became powerful enough to start to grant spells to some of its clergy. The lich king is extremely interested in studying this godling to see how the power of magical thinking could alter reality. The PCs have the option to collect various anathema items and destroy both the godling and its mother, freeing the corrupted angel from an eternity of suffering and stopping the lich's downright ethically questionable research projects.

So ultimately, it takes 100 CP for the deity to grant Power Investiture to a priest.

Assuming that most laity spend one hour per week in prayer, and a priest may spend instead closer to 16 hours per week in meditative prayer, total (a little over two hours per day). One priest would generate 2 ER per week on their own. But the laity needs to band together and would need 16 of them praying together for an hour to generate 1 ER.