Priests, clerics and Deity

[timm meyers]

Love to hear some feed back on this my 3rd form of rules attempting to bring more "spirit" to Cidri.

Cleric system MK III
The talent Priest or Theologian has the following rules.

Once learned these talents mean the character have devoted themselves enough to request assistance from their deity to perform spiritual feats. This is represented as being able to “earn” (not learn) assistance in the form of spells. (or make up some cleric spells but honestly its all magic)

Priests- Having this talent a character may choose to earn a spell the same way as a 2 cost talent (1k exp if fighter class, 2k exp if wizard class). The available spells are from their IQ +1
Theologians- May “earn” spells as a 1 point talent. Available spells are from their IQ +3

To use an “earned” spell the player follows all requirements as a wizard from gestures, voice, DX roll etc.

“Earned” spells are not inhibited by metals and do not suffer the -4 DX penalty (ITL p. 140).

Powering earned spells do not cost fatigue nor can they use storage devices.

A successfully cast “earned” spell expends “Favor”. This represents the spiritual will of the deity to assist their follower. Favor is equal to the characters ST. Players must track the use of “Favor” the same as they would fatigue except “Favor” has no effect on the characters ST. Once all “Favor” is expended they no longer can cast/request any of their Earned spells.
Failing the roll of an earned spell does not expend favor as the deity has simply ignored you.

Critical failure roll of an earned spell still fails but expends Favor as if the spell were successfully cast. (option of a critical 18 roll = you have really angered the deity and lose all your remaining Favor pts)

Favor points only replenish once a week at which time the character regains their full ST level in Favor points. Current status of wounds or fatigue have no effect on this, and Favor is always restored to a characters starting level in ST. The 7-day time period starts once a character has expended their last favor point and are at zero. Think of this as the deity will answer a clerics call requesting help but has a limit to the number of pestering requests they will receive.

Desperation- A cleric with 0 or negative Favor may still attempt to use an Earned spell. Perform the spell casting as normal, marking all favor used as Negative, then make a saving roll VS IQ. The number of dice to be rolled is equal to the current level of Negative Favor they have. If successful nothing bad happens and their deity has chosen to grant their desperate request. If failed the character immediately loses all earned spells and are stripped of their Priest/Theologian talent(s).
The forlorn character may earn back their status after this horrible mistake but will probably be spending years of experience to relearn talents and spells.