New Powers for Priests

Priestly Powers

Priests of Stratus do not take runes or cast ritual magic. Long ago, they were permitted to do so, but many of these mage-priests became heady with their power and broke from the teachings of the Church. St. Michael and the last of the loyal mage-priests struck down the rebels and then gave up their runes, forsaking magic for all time.

Priests are not without recourse however. They are the chosen of Father Stratus and leaders among men. Though their powers are not as devastating, or obvious as those of mages, they are still formidable characters.

Saints and Petitions

When a follower of Stratus and Aestra perform extraordinary acts of faith and service in their life, they are sometimes recognized and venerated as saints after their death. According to the Church, saints act as a bridge between the mortal world and the divine world, interceding on behalf of mortals who petition them for aid.

Common Bostonians pray for favor, or leave offerings at a church or statue hoping for a subtle blessing. Priests and priestesses are taught prayers in a special language that put them in direct contact with the saint’s power. These prayers are called Petitions.

Petitions for Starting Characters

Starting characters with the theology skill and the Petitioner talent start the game with 6 petitions learned and 3 attempts/day. Generally, only priests of Stratus have this talent, but it is possible for priestesses and other religious characters to buy it at the GM’s discretion.

Learning Petitions

Petitions are usually learned at churches, temples and shrines dedicated to a specific saint. Each saint has a set of petitions characters can learn. Learning a petition typically requires traveling to a place associated with the saint and being taught the proper prayers. A small donation (100p) or a service might be asked of a potential petitioner at the GM’s discretion.

Once the local religious folks agree to teach the prayers, the petitioner must make a theology skill test against the DL of the prayer. Success means the character spends five free checks and marks the petition on his sheet. Failing this skill test generally means that the character cannot learn the petition until his theology skill level increases through experience.

A character can learn as many petitions as his current theology skill level.

Petitioning Saints

Petitions are prayers asking for a saint to intercede on behalf of the petitioner. The success of a petition depends on the theology skill.

A given petitioner is only allowed three total petitions a day. More daily petitions can be earned by purchasing talents. A petition is considered used even if the petition skill test fails. There is no other penalty for failing a petition.

Types of Petitions

Belssings

Blessings are permanent boons given to a priest for his devotion to a saint. Once the blessing is learned, its bonus is permanently bestowed to the priest. A petition slot is taken, but a daily attempt need not be used for the priest to get his bonus.

The priest may also bless others, in which case, blessings behave exactly like prayers. Blessings bestowed to others do not remove the boon from the priest, take an action to attempt, require a successful theology roll, use up a petitioning attempt and are temporary.

Charms and Medalions

Some of the petitions listed allow the priest to create blessed charms or medallions. These are symbols of the saint’s favor and provide boons to whoever possesses the object as long as that person is a member of the Bostonian Church.

Creating a charm requires spending free points as though the priest were purchasing a three-point talent. Three improvement points must be earned by spending a free check and rolling under his theology skill level.

Charms are permanent and any number of them may be created as long as the priest is willing to spend the experience.

Prayers

Prayers are direct petitions to the saints to intervene on the priest’s behalf. They take a full action to complete and require the priest to make a theology check against the DL of the petition. Success means that the saint responds, providing the listed benefit for the remainder of the scene (unless a duration is specified in the petition’s description). Failure means that petition slot is used for that day.

Miracles

Miracles are special petitions that do not have to be learned by the priest. Instead, they are available if the priest knows ANY of that saint’s other petitions.

Asking for a miracle takes no time, but does use one of the priest’s daily petition attempts. Miracles have high DLs and produce striking effects.

Successfully invoking a miracle costs the priest a level of theology that can be earned back with experience. In addition, the priest cannot ask for that same miracle for at least a year.

List of Petitions

Name	Saint	Type	DL	Effects
Aeltharze’s Chant	Camille	Prayer	14	·         You get a +1 to all missile attacks for the encounter.
Aestra’s Blessing	Camille	Blessing	14	·         You cannot drown.
Agatha’s Blessing	Agatha	Blessing	10	·         You are blessed after participating in any singing performance, or religious observance that includes song.
Agatha’s Medallion	Agatha	Charm	10	·         You get a +1 to all checks related to singing and playing music.
Agatha’s Mercy	Agatha	Prayer	14	·         You get a +3 to save and -1 damage/die vs. fire effects until you are out of danger.
Agatha’s Soothing Hand	Agatha	Prayer	14	·         You get a +1 to healing effects when healing burn damage.
Alice’s Charm	Alice	Charm	14	·         You get a +3 to save against disease, or any disease-like effect.
Alice’s Light	Alice	Blessing	14	·         You get a +1 to all physician rolls pertaining to diagnosing and curing disease.
Alice’s Touch	Alice	Prayer	17	·         You get +1 to healing effects for the rest of the day.
Antel’s Blessing	Antel	Blessing	10	·         You are blessed when you heal someone from unconsciousness or near death ( less than 25% hits).
Antel’s Mending	Antel	Prayer	17	·         You lay your hands on an ally after combat and allow them to shake off wound damage.
Beggar’s Blessing	Fergus	Blessing	12	·         You are blessed when you give something of value to the needy.
Beggar’s Prayer	Fergus	Prayer	12	·         You get a +2 to survival rolls in an urban setting.
Beheaded Sermon	Elbrand	Prayer	10	·         You get +2 theology and persuasion when making a religious argument, or converting someone.
Blessing of Burning Water	Tristan	Prayer	14	·         Your holy water does +2 damage to the undead for the remainder of the encounter.
Brega’s Knowing	Brega	Prayer	10	·         You gain knowledge of tomorrow’s weather.
Brega’s Mercy	Brega	Prayer	12	·         You get +2 to all checks pertaining to avoiding the effects of bad weather or escaping bad weather.
Chant of the Metal Devils	Sebastian	Prayer	14	·         You get +4 to stand firm against the fear effect from talak chariots. ·         You get +1 attack and defense when fighting talak.
Consecration	Camille, Dovid, Others	Prayer	14	·         All enemies of the church suffer a -1 penalty to all actions. ·         This effect can be made permanent if the prayer is repeated for 3 consecutive days and 2 levels of theology are invested.
Curing of the Leper	Alice	Miracle	24	·         You cure someone of a disease and reverse all ill-effects of that disease (including the loss of a limb or organ).
Defiance of Callous	Callous	Prayer	14	·         Protects an enclosed or delimited space from demonic influence by engaging the demon in theological debate. ·         Each hour, you make an opposed check of your theology vs. the theology of the creature (or INT, WIL or SPI at -5). ·         If successful, the creature and its fellows are unable to enter or affect your space. ·         After 8 hours, you must make TOU checks to continue the debate. The first of these is DL 10, but they increase by 2 each hour afterwards. These can be avoided if there is a way to avoid sleep and the need to eat, excrete, etc.
Divine Contract	Camille, Dovid	Prayer	17	·         Nearby templars feel called to come to your assistance. ·         It is up to the GM if there are templars around or not. If unsure, a good random chance might be 7/12.
Elbrand’s Medallion	Elbrand	Charm	14	·         You get +1 AV to the head, but the medallion shatters once you are hit there.
Exorcist’s Medallion	Roard	Charm	17	·         The first attack from a demon or its minions shatters the medallion, but does no damage to you.
Exorcist’s Prayer	Roard	Prayer	14	·         You get +1 to attack and defense against demons and spawn until dawn of the next day.
Father’s Light	Roard	Prayer	10	·         A vial of your holy water will glow with a faint light, similar in strength to candlelight. This effect lasts for one hour.
Fergus’ Bargain	Fergus	Prayer	17	·         You and your fellows can travel for a night through an urban setting without encountering any thieves, pick pockets, or cutthroats.
Fergus’ Returning	Fergus	Prayer	18	·         Causes a lost or stolen item to find its way back to its owner. ·         This takes on the order of 2d8 days. ·         Someone in possession of the lost item can save to keep it (SPI 16)
Fury of Callous	Callous	Prayer	17	·         You do 2d6 penetrating damage to any undead or demon you hit with an unarmed attack, or +1 damage if fighting with a weapon.
Gidus’ Medallion	Gidus	Charm	10	·         You get a +1 to rolls dealing with gardening, farming, or animal husbandry.
Gidus’ Thumb	Gidus	Blessing	10	·         You get +2 to crafts and knowledges dealing with agriculture and gardening.
Gidus’ Walk	Gidus	Prayer	17	·         You can travel this day without being subject to random encounters of a natural nature (wolves, bears, etc.).
Goblin Friend’s Medal	Olum	Charm	12	·         You get +1 to all social skills when dealing with goblins.
Gods’ Beacon	Seldon	Prayer	17	·         You wander, allowing the gods to guide you and end up where you are most needed. ·         You invest a level of theology.
Grasp of Callous	Callous	Prayer	14	·         You may substitute your theology skill for your unarmed combat skill when grappling an enemy of the church.
Healer’s Medallion	Antel	Charm	14	·         You get a +1 to all medical skill rolls.
Miracle at the Orphanage	Weirgrub	Miracle	28	·         You return a recently dead person back to life.
Miracle of Elbrand	Elbrand	Miracle	24	·         You can operate for up to 10 rounds after being killed or knocked unconscious.
Miracle of the Inferno	Agatha	Miracle	22	·         You and your allies are miraculously saved from a fire. Either an escape route is found, or the fire is extinguished by a sudden rainstorm, or a mysterious girl appears to lead you to safety.
Miracle of the Wretched One	Olum	Miracle	26	·         You instantly convert a pagan, or non-believer.
Mountain Sanctuary	Sebastian	Prayer	17	·         You find a shelter in a cave or crevasse. ·         The cave is hidden from plain sight and by entering it, you have a 8/12 chance to avoid pursuit.
Mountaineer’s Prayer	Sebastian	Prayer	14	·         You get +1 to climb checks.
Olum’s Blessing	Olum	Blessing	13	·         You get +1 to all saves made against goblin spell casters.
Olum’s Tongue	Olum	Prayer	18	·         You can speak an unknown language for a couple of hours.
Orphan’s Blessing	Weirgrub	Blessing	12	·         You have a way with children and get a +2 to social checks when dealing with them.
Physician’s Prayer	Antel	Prayer	13	·         You get +1 to physician rolls when trying to heal wound damage.
Pilgrim’s Chant	Seldon	Prayer	14	·         You can travel and extra 20% overland this day.
Pilgrim’s Prayer	Brega	Prayer	14	·         If you are on a pilgrimage, or a journey with some significance, you insure good weather for the next 1d6+2 days.
Prayer for a Clear Mind	Roard	Prayer	14	·         You get a +3 to save against mind and perception-altering effects for the duration of the encounter.
Prayer for Quiet Earth	Weirgrub	Prayer	14	·         You get +3 to save against earth spells and -1 effect/die. ·         The region around you is protected from natural earthquakes for the day.
Prayer of the Restful Dead	Tristan	Prayer	14	·         You gain a +1 to attack and defense against undead until dawn of the next day.
Prayer of Sanctuary	Tristan	Prayer	17	·         Your holy water is blessed so that undead cannot cross an unbroken line of it.
Purifier’s Prayer	Seldon	Prayer	14	·         You get a +3 to save vs. spells and trap effects.
Roard’s Vigil	Roard	Prayer	14	·         You can maintain vigil over your charges all night without needing sleep.
Sailor’s Medallion	Camille	Charm	10	·         You get +1 to all sailing, fishing and swimming checks.
Seeker of the Valley	Sebastian	Charm	10	·         You get +1 to navigation and survival in the Seeker’s Valley and the surrounding mountains.
Seldon’s Lens	Seldon	Prayer	14	·         You look through a vial of holy water and can detect magic and evil auras for 5 minutes.
Soothing Voice	Gidus	Prayer	12	·         You get +2 to animal handling rolls to calm an animal.
Stratus’ Wrath	Roard, Tristan, Others	Prayer	12	·         You can call upon Stratus to destroy his enemies (primarily undead and demon-kind). ·         Invoking this petition is automatic, but the results are based on a test of your theology vs. the spirit of the creatures you are destroying. ·         You choose a group of creatures to destroy and then roll your theology vs. the highest spirit score in that group. ·         Success means one creature in that group is destroyed. Every 2 points you succeed by destroys another creature in that group.
Sunbringer’s Blessing	Tristan	Blessing	17	·         You get a +2 to all attempts to turn unholy creatures using Sunbringer’s Wrath.
Tristan’s Medallion	Tristan	Charm	10	·         You get a +1 to all navigation, survival and stealth checks in swampy terrain.
Tristan’s Miracle	Tristan	Miracle	24	·         All unholy creatures within your sight are turned. Lesser creatures are destroyed. Major ones are destroyed, or forced to flee (GM’s call).
Unifier’s Blessing	Dovid	Blessing	14	·         You are blessed when you put an enemy of the church to the sword.
Unmaking	Callous, Dovid, Others	Prayer	14	·         You destroy a magical artifact and receive a boon from the gods. The DL to learn the prayer is 14, but actually using it has a DL based on the power of the artifact in question and the boon the GM has in mind. ·         You must invest a level of theology to use this petition.
Visionary’s Prayer	Camille	Prayer	18	·         You get a vision that helps you answer a pressing question.
Voice of Dovid	Dovid	Blessing	14	·         You get a +1 to all social checks with devout Bostonians.
Weirgrub’s Meditation	Weirgrub	Prayer	14	·         You return one level to any one of the runes you possess.

Talents in Runebearer

One of the changes to Runebearer that I am happiest about is the addition of talents. Talents are akin to D&D's feats in that, under the correct conditions, they permit you to break the rules in a certain way. This could mean rerolling a failed skill check, or taking a move when it is not your character's turn, or ignoring incoming damage, or a host of other things.

Talents are a relatively late addition to Runebearer and they came about primarily as a way to make the experience system more interesting. See, a long-standing campaign was coming to a close and looking back, I realized that at some point, my players were stuck when leveling their characters. Runebearer is a skill-based game and as characters gained experience, the most effective thing to do was to pump that experience into increasing their skills.

And so skill levels that started around 12, slowly crept up into the upper teens and then the 20s. Increasing skills is a "roll-over" system and so as skill levels increase, it costs more and more experience to increase it more. You spend an ever increasing amount of experience to get an ever decreasing statistical benefit.

It wasn't fun. And more importantly, most characters really didn't change much mechanically over the course of the campaign. Everyone got better at what they did, but very few characters saw their abilities broaden as they gained experience. We were all that AD&D fighter ... "Woo hoo another +1 to hit stuff!!!"

Another issue was one common to many game systems, as the characters advance, the difference between the "haves" and "have-nots" in combat becomes more and more pronounced. So, as the fighters were gaining level 20 in their weapon skills, the magey types, who had other skills to spend points in, were still floundering in their low teens. Combatants that challenged the fighters would gut the mages if they even glanced at them.

So the search was on to find a way to make the experience system more interesting, while evening out the leveling curve a bit, and also making characters more mechanically interesting as they gained experience. I would love to tell you that Lucy Lawless showed up at my house, stabbed a few leather-clad dudes, threw a D&D book on my table and screamed "FEATS, you fool!!"

Indeed that did happen, but that didn't lead to Runebearer talents. What did lead to talents was I had run a short, abortive variant Runebearer game where characters had classes and "leveled up" based on their skill gains. As they leveled, they could pick additional powers, or combat maneuvers, or tweak the way one of their skills worked. The rules for leveling up were cumbersome. The campaign was forgettable. But the powers? Everyone loved the cool new powers.

At that point, it was a matter of finding a way of melding these new powers into the standard Runebearer experience system. As you gain experience, you have the option of putting your checks into increasing your skills, or purchasing a talent. To purchase a talent, you must have the requisite skills at the proper levels (usually 15 or so) and you must roll-under your current skill level (instead of over).

This works in many ways. First, it gives players something to put their points into instead of just raising their skill levels over and over. In fact, at a skill level of 16 or higher (out of 30), it becomes more efficient to spend your points on talents than to buy increased skill levels. Because of this, it naturally tends to even out characters who specialize in a skill with those who do not. A novice fighter might have a skill level of 10. A veteran might have a 16, but have half a dozen talents that give him more options in combat, but don't skew the statistics of the dice mechanics.

Finally, and most importantly, it opened up a whole new dimension to the character leveling mechanics. Players started talking about builds, cool talent combinations, ways to build light, dodge-based fighters, heavy armored tanks, whether to level rune knowledge or meditate first to get access to which awesome talents.

Subsystems and Character Differentiation

Mechanically, characters in RPGs are differentiated by what subsystems they use. All of the fiddly bits of the rules that you get to use make your character mechanically interesting to play. 1st Edition AD&D is a great example of this concept. If you look at the 4 main character classes in that game you can see how the characters use different parts of the rules:

• Clerics -- have a subsystem for turn undead; use spells, but unlike the magic-user, do not have to deal with memorization, or spellbooks
• Magic-User -- they have spells; a memorization subsystem; rules for scribing spells in their spell book
• Thief -- backstab; all the percentage-based rules for thief skills (hide in shadows, climb walls)
• Fighter -- ???

Ahh... the lamentations of the poor, neglected fighting-man. To me, this is a great example of one of the interesting characteristics (flaws maybe?) of the early days of gaming. In AD&D, everyone can fight and everyone uses the same rules and the same sets of tables to fight. The fighter just has more hit points and uses an advantageous table to determine his chance to hit. So, the cool thing the fighter can do is... the same thing everyone does, but a tiny bit better. There isn't that much to make fighters different from other characters in AD&D... just better stats, really.

AD&D is a class system and indeed, each class (fighter excepted) brings its own subsystems to the game. Rangers and Paladins are more interesting than fighters because they have more systems to play with. In some ways, I think skill-based systems have a harder time creating character differentiation. Sure, characters buy different skills and thus, their characters are different, but the mechanics used are very often the same, just applicable at different times in the game.

Take Traveller, for instance. There are dozens of skills, and each character is bound to have a different set of them. However, the mechanics for pretty much every skill use is roll 2d6, add your skill level, if your total is 8 or more, you win. So, you are running down a hallway and come to a locked door? Roll 2d6 and add your lockpick skill. You need to hack a computer? Roll 2d6 and add your computer skill. You need to pick up some information in a bar? Roll 2d6 and add your carousing skill.

I am not really giving Traveller enough credit; not all skill use is so monotonous. Traveller has several subsystems where the character's skills allow them to interact with the game -- starships and commerce being two of them. The advanced books like Mercenary and High Guard added even more subsystems. Nonetheless, the basic game does suffer from characters feeling samey and I think a lot of that has to do with the lack of subsystems.

My mention of Traveller stems from a conversation I had yesterday with my friend, Phil. We were discussing Traveller and came to the conclusion that even though it held a special nostalgic place in our hearts, it hadn't aged well, even considering the relatively recent Mongoose re-release. Why was that?

I came to the conclusion that Traveller hadn't aged well because gamers today expect more mechanical character differentiation. We want "builds" and we want different "fighting styles". Traveller doesn't really have a character build. You have skills, that's it. Barring stats and gear, everyone fights exactly the same way. We may be statistically different, but mechanically, we are exactly alike.

In short, D&D 3.x spoiled us with FEATS.

Feats solve a lot of the differentiation issues suffered by earlier rpgs. Each feat is a mini set of rules (or ways to break the rules) that can be used by that particular character. Fighters get tons of feats and so now, finally, after numerous editions, fighters get their own little subsystem and can break the rules just like the wizards can.

(Of course, mages and rogues get feats too, but it is obvious due to the fact that most feats are combat-oriented and fighters get so darn many of them, that fighters are meant to be the "feat-guy". Much like mages are "spell-guys" and rogues are "skill-guys".)

Feats also act as a means of differentiating combatants and creating combat styles and builds. One fighter might build to be the "trip guy", taking feats that allow him to trip his opponent. Another fighter can build to be a two-weapon fighter. Another can build to be great with bows. Feats give us mechanical ways, besides just a boring +1, to specialize with a weapon or a set of maneuvers.

This is one reason I find it hard to get back into some of my older games. I fantasize about giving Traveller, Rolemaster and Aftermath and  another go, but I would miss the interesting character builds possible when everyone get their own subsystem.

I think tomorrow I will talk a little about Runebearer's "feat" implementation, talents and how that all came about.