Powers/Sorcery: Clerical and Divine Empowerments in Action

 Powers/Sorcery: Clerical and Divine Empowerments in Action

One of my patrons asked me to write up an example of clerical and divine empowerments in action. That's quite understandable, as those abilities are somewhat complex and confusing. Let's try to make things more clear!

Example #1 - Divine Empowerment

Divine empowerment was meant to represent "innate" divine casters, such as favored souls in D&D or oracles in Pathfinder. In my games, I modify the advantage a bit (like described in this post), but this example will keep things simpler and avoid any modifications. For our example, our character will be an elven favored soul of Corellon Larethian. This is the creator and protector of the elven race who can grant abilities related to magic (meta-spells), sound (he is also a patron of music and arts), making and breaking (he is a patron of elven craftsmanship), and sense improvement (to keep vigil over the elven lands and seek out corruption). This is roughly equivalent to three colleges of magic, giving us the scope limitation of -20%.

First, let's determine the Pact component of the character's divine abilities. We require -10 points of self-imposed mental disadvantages that would represent an aspect of the deity's dogma. Sure, if the GM allows, we could take -5 or -15 or any other amount, but keep in mind that you'd have to recalculate the power modifier. Also, the internal structure of the Divine Empowerment disadvantage assumes a -10% power modifier, so you'd have to recalculate the cost from the ground up, and that it quite tedious (plus the cost won't be a whole number). So, let's settle for Sense of Duty (Nation) [-10] to represent the character's devotion to protect his elven nation. Sense of Duty (All Elves) costs -15 points, so it isn't very appropriate here. Let's say that the character does not consider other elven nations (if they exist in the setting) under his protection/jurisdiction.

Let's say that our character has Divine Empowerment 8 (Correllon Larethian). This advantage costs (15 + 7 * 6) * 0.8 = 45.6 points that get rounded up to 46 points. Let's also give the character Divine Talent 1 [5].

Learned prayers work the same as known spells in Sorcery. So, let's pick a couple of spells to take as learned prayers with full cost no more than 46 points. I decided to go with the following two:

Blessing of Magic

Keywords: Area (Leveled), Obvious.

Full Cost: 23 points for level 1 + 5 points/additional level.

Casting Roll: Will.

Range: Self.

Duration: One minute.

You channel divine energy through your body that appears as a white flash. When this spell is cast, creatures within the area around the caster that were not excluded from this effect by the caster gain Magic Resistance 2 (p. B67) with the Improved enhancement for 1 minute. If a particular living subject possesses DR with no Tough Skin limitation, your casting roll is penalized by their DR. Calculate effective DR for this penalty according to the rules for Large-Area Injury (p. B400).

Statistics: Affliction 1 (HT; Advantage, Blessing of Magic, +100%; Area Effect, 2 yards, +50%;  Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%; Divine, -10%; Emanation, -20%; Fixed Duration, +0%; Reduced Duration, 1/3, -10%; Selective Area, +20%) [23]. Additional levels add more Area Effect (+50%) [+5]. As a special effect, the DR subtracts from the casting roll rather than forcing a resistance roll. Note: “Blessing of Magic” is Magic Resistance 2 (Divine, +0%; Improved, +150%) [10].

Note that while this spell was taken from How to: Cleric Abilities, two things were changed - the Sorcery power modifier of the Affliction was split into Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5% and Divine, -10%; and the Magical, -10% power modifier of the granted Magic Resistance advantage was replaced with Divine, +0% (not -10%, because the recepient does not have to uphold the deity's dogma). This does not change the cost of the spell, but might change it in other cases, when the base point cost of the advantage granted by the buffing spell is higher.

Dispelling Touch

Keywords: Obvious, Resisted (Will or spell).

Full Cost: 13 points.

Casting Roll: Will. Use DX or unarmed combat skills to hit.

Range: Touch.

Duration: Instantaneous.

Attempts to negate every instance of magic affecting the subject. Dispelling Touch does not care if the spell is beneficial or harmful; this spell attempts to counter everything. Casting Dispelling Touch on another magician will remove any Buff spells and such that he’d previously cast upon himself, but does not affect any of his more distant ongoing spells nor his spellcasting ability.

Note how much the sorcerer’s Will roll succeeds by; every spell affecting the subject resists separately with a Quick Contest. Use the spell’s level (if a skill) or the caster’s Will + Talent (if a power); for the latter, the Talent is usually Sorcery Talent or some type of Magery. If the sorcerer wins, the spell dissipates; it may be recast normally.

Dispelling Touch has no effect on instantaneous spells (which don’t stick around) or on the secondary effects of lasting spells (e.g., if a mind-controlled bear has mauled people, their wounds don’t go away). Also, some spells explicitly state that they are unaffected by Dispel Magic; such spells cannot be dispelled by Dispelling Touch as well – they require more powerful countermagic, usually Remove Curse (see GUPRS Thaumatology: Sorcery, p. 21). It also cannot end Truly Permanent effects, such as the magic of enchanted items.

Statistics: Neutralize Magic (Accessibility, Must target subject, not caster, -10%; Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%; Divine, -10%; Interruption, -50%) [13].

Here the power modifier is changes in the same way, and the cost remains unchanged as well. Note that Dispelling Touch can only affect magical effects, but not divine effects or effects of other power sources. Thus, it cannot lift the effects of Blessing of Magic described above. I guess our priest has to deal with hostile spellcasters quite often.

What can the priest do with these abilities? Most importantly, he can switch to Blessing of Magic or Dispelling Touch as a Ready maneuver, as per Sorcery. However, he can also improvise spells, advantages, or skills that are covered by the deity's portfolio.

For example, the character wants to improvise Sense Good (I suppose that it's fair to allow ethical spells to any divine spellcasters regardless of the deity's portfolio). If we replace Sorcery, -15% with Divine, -15%, the cost stays at 8 points - that's within the improvisation range of 8 points. To improvise the spell, the character must hold his deity's holy symbol in his hand and pray for 8 seconds, taking consecutive Concentrate maneuvers. After that, he must roll against 11, but he may gain additional bonuses as described on page 5 of GURPS Powers: Divine Favor. For this example, let's assume that the character has 25 devout worshippers joining him in prayer, and he also extends his prayer by 5 minutes for a total bonus of +2. Thus, he rolls against 13. If he succeeds, he may use Sense Good for up to one hour, or until he requests a new ability, or switches to a learned prayer. Keep in mind that each use costs 1 FP. If he fails, then the deity is busy doing some other divine stuff and ignores the request. However, the character may try again, but each additional attempt costs 1 FP. If the repeated attempt succeeds, later attempts at requesting that ability no longer cost FP. If the character is reduced to three or fewer FP, he must rest until all FP are regained before he can attempt to use Divine Empowerment and all learned prayers again. In any case, five minutes must pass between the deactivation of the granted ability and the next request.

What makes Divine Empowerment different from Sorcerous Empowerment is that the character is not limited to improvising spells. For example, he could also improvise a passive ability, which isn't much different from an Indefinite self-only spell, to be honest (for example, Protected Hearing (Divine, -10%) [5]) or a skill. Thus, when in need, the character could do the routine described above to gain up to 8 points in Artist, Carpentry, Thaumatology, Observation, or any other skill that fits into the deity's portfolio. But while using this granted-by-the-deity skill, he won't be able to cast any spells! So, planning and thinking ahead is crucial here.

Should he use hardcore improvisation, the process goes as normal for Sorcery, but Thaumatology is replaced with Religious Ritual, and the character still had to have his holy symbol in hand and pray for a number of seconds equal to the point cost. Keep in mind that for hardcore improvisation you can only improvise single-use abilities that must be used immediately, so passive abilities and most skills are out of question.

Example #2 - Clerical Empowerment

Clerical empowerment was meant to represent divine casters that gained their powers through study and devotion, as clerics in D&D. The internal structure of their Clerical Empowerment advantage is quite complex and confusing. In my games, I modify the rules a bit further (like described in How to: Cleric Abilities), but we will omit that for this example.

Why write up a new example when I can just list the differences with the previous example? First, Clerical Empowerment 8 (Corellon Larethian) would cost (26 + 7 * 6) * 0.8 = 54.4 points that round up to 55 points. That's more expensive.

The only difference is that Clerical Empowerment actually has two linked slots - one that holds advantages and one that holds skills. The skill slot holds only 4 character points, a static number. This allows the character, for example, improvise Sense Good (8 points) and 4 points in the Observation skill (does not depend on Clerical Empowerment's level) and use them at the same time! Note that these two are separate point pools - he wouldn't be able to improvise, for example, 6 points in advantages and 6 points in skills, or 10 points in advantages and 2 points in skills - onle a number of points in advantages up to the Clerical Empowerment level and up to 4 points in skills.

When using hardcore improvisation things work a bit differently - you may either use it to improvise an advantage with a cost up to Clerical Empowerment total cost, or improvise an advantage up to Clerical Empowerment total cost minus 4 and up to 4 points in a skill.

This entire skill slot thing was made with Skill for Everyone (GURPS Powers, p. 162) in mind, where each spell has a skill attached to it. This would let clerics improvise both a spell and an appropriate skill.