Re: [DF] Placing areas of different mana in Dungeon Fantasy
 

The thing is in polytheistic religions spheres tend to have overlap. Ares, Athena, and Aphrodite Areia were all Greek war deities. Aphrodite Areia was only worshiped in Sparta and when it fell she effectively became irrelevant.

So one deity of magic wants to play hardball but other doesn't. The hardball deity allows mana areas to be reduced in power or destroyed but the other deity does the exact opposite.

As I said before if you are going with the deities get everything from their followers concept the hardball deity will be basically cutting off her nose to spite her face.

The more she tries to gain control the less worshipers she has and the less power she has - she is in an effectively death spiral and will be reduced to a deity of divine magic able to only effect sanctity before too much time passes.

If she still refuses to get the memo she will wind up like Aphrodite Areia - no worshipers and therefore irrelevant to the mortal world.

Re: [DF] Placing areas of different mana in Dungeon Fantasy
 

What would the exact opposite be? Bear in mind that that deity of magic will also boost magic for her followers. Also there's a market for a deity of magic who protects you from hostile magic. In fact that's most of what people pray to a deity of magic for.

Re: [DF] Placing areas of different mana in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Depends on what happens to the missing mana. "Reduce the level of mana in one area to increase it in another" is totally useful. For example, casting Restore Mana might require casting Drain Mana somewhere else.

Re: [DF] Placing areas of different mana in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I was thinking of Bazangi a deity in a fellow DM's campaign.

The deities there were all saving their power for a major threat except Bazangi who grants boons on a whim. Problem is not only is he out of his head crazy but he had a weird scene of humor. He was the sort of deity that if you wished for a magic weapon you wound up with a +2 Rubber chicken that functioned as a mace in terms of damage. If he was in a really silly mood he's go "Well I'm out of chicken, so here have an eraser that does a lot of damage when thrown at a target" :-)

The thing is even though Bazangi was Planter's Special levels of crazy he was the most worshiped deity because he was granting boons - even if they looked silly. But since deities got their power from worshipers they realized not listening to worshipers as they had been not only didn't they have need power to fight the coming danger but they had a new head deity: Bazangi. Oops.

Depending on the setting "harmful" can be a relative term. For example, in warcraft healing spells hurt undead. Spells that promote peace would be harmful to a deity of war and so on.

Also unless the deity is given out Power Investiture with large areas like free candle samples "boost magic for her followers" doesn't work because since the mana level is trashed their magic is shot as well.

Remember unlike Mana the default for Sanctity is akin to a zero-sum game; for the Sanctity of one deity to rise their opposite/rival has to fall so trying to go the Sanctity route.

You could have what happened between D&D 3.5 and 4.0 where the goddess of magic, Mystra, was killed. Magic when wild and many of the old rules went out the window. Things were such a mess that her pantheon in desperation found a way to recreate her though there are still elements of the Spellplague to clean up.

Re: [DF] Placing areas of different mana in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Uhn--what? I'm not thinking in terms of draining the mana from huge tracts of land. Clerics wouldn't be able to do that anyway.

Re: [DF] Placing areas of different mana in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I get the game balance reason for not having a dangerous spell risk consequences that do not apply to the caster, but I'm struggling to come up with a narrative rationale. Divine powers are granting (or declining to grant) that prayer for their own reason(s). What reason would a god capable of granting the ability to remove mana have for worsening his priests connection to him over a failed casting of this spell (or really any spell generally, that sort of danger is better represented by Pact or Disciplines of Faith IMO)?

Re: [DF] Placing areas of different mana in Dungeon Fantasy
 

While I'm not a fan of extreme consequences for Critical Failures (and losing levels of an Advantage would certainly qualify), you could say the cleric ended up angering his/her deity with the casting attempt, leading to revocation of some of the granted power. Alternatively, if the cleric's personal power plays a role in the connection to the deity (otherwise, why wouldn't a deity just empower their champion to PI 10 or whatever the limit is from the beginning?), you could say that the failure damaged the character's connection to the deity (or damaged the character's ability to handle diving magic flowing through him/her*), so until this can be built back up, the cleric is going to be weaker when it comes to spells.

*It's based on Pathfinder (and thus Dungeons and Dragons), and so has daily limits to spellcasting, but I like the way the webcomic Marble Gate Dungeon handles it. To quote the author from the comment section on the page the limit was first mentioned in the comic: "Casting divine magic is painful, because you're channeling a god or higher being through your fragile mortal body. As you do it more, and your connection to said god deepens, it becomes easier to do more and is less painful, but you still have limits. Once you go over your limit, your body starts to fall apart and you'll almost certainly die. Dying this way is horrifically painful, and is completely forbidden in the Church of the Highfather." When the main character, Coleeen, first acquired this ability, she'd get pretty close to her limit with just a single spell, but over time she built up a tolerance and can cast her main spells a few times per day (the cantrip she uses to turn her holy symbol into a light source she appears to be able to use without much limit).

Re: [DF] Placing areas of different mana in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Actually in the Roma Arcana setting Clerics do have that ability because the relationship between mana and sanctity. I worked out a way to build Objects of Power (Classic: Religion) in 4e (as gadgets):

*Object of Power (Minor) [600]: Sanctity Enhancer 2 [100] + Wild Sanctity Generator [100] (+200%: Area Effect 4 hexes +200%)
*Object of Power (Major) [800]: Sanctity Enhancer 2 [100] + Wild Sanctity Generator [100] (+300%: lingering Sanctity effect +100%; Area Effect 4 hexes +200%)

Sanctity Enhancer and Wild Sanctity Generator are nothing more than Mana Enhancer and Wild Mana Generator with the (Sanctity Replaces Mana, ±0%) modifier.

It would be child's play for a deity to add Mana Damper to the above package.

Re: [DF] Placing areas of different mana in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Interesting change from AD&D1 which is what I played back in the day. Back then deities provided a channel through which Clerics accessed the planes and that was where they got their power - not the deities:

"All magic and cleric spells are similar in that the word sounds, when combined into whatever patterns are applicable, are charged with energy from the Positive or Negative Material Plane. (...) The triggering action draws power from some plane of the multiverse" DMG1 pg 40.

Note this expressly states that energy for cleric spell comes from the Positive or Negative Material Plane and yes it didn't make much sense back then either.