Several people have, in conversations, said that they don't like the fact that much of some priest's powers lies in blessings, because:
- Blessings can be taken on linears where the priest isn't going.
- Blessings are points the priest spends to give someone else screentime.
- In a system as small as TT, it's often infeasible to limiting yourself to only blessing people who roleplay in certain ways.
What do people think of the following idea?
- Split blessing into "miracle blessings" and "rite blessings".
- Miracle blessings have a five minute duration, work on anyone, and carry no roleplay restriction. They do the kind of things the current blessings tree grants, apart from the duration. These would be commonly-used.
- Rite blessings can be performed by priests of any God. The default duration is "for the duration" - either to complete one task, or permanent - and they often (but not always) bestow serious flange, but they come with serious roleplay restrictions on both the user and the recipient - they can only be used on someone genuinely favoured by that God. These would be quite rare.
I kind of had this thought, which I am going to put here.
Blessing N. Common to all gods, prerequisite Devotion N, possibly costs some XP, possibly doesn't. Confers the ability to cast the Blessing tree as currently extant. A blessing of level N costs N spirit points. Blessing VIII is negotiated with your god, so probably has a prereq of Contact Deity. Gods currently with Blessing get another miracle tree as appropriate. --Pufferfish
- This doesn't get round the problem of priests sending power on linears without going on them and without much restraint on the person using it. I like the idea of Blessing N as a - probably free - thing coming of devotion, but I'd prefer it granting the ability to do occasional powerful situation-specific non-spirit-point-using rites for people your God likes, not spend-the-spirits-and-crank-the-handle works-on-anyone miracle blessings. --Jacob
- It does if the blessings granted by Blessing N are five-minute duration rather than Inflict duration. They might be more powerful than current blessings for the same spirit cost (or give the same effects for less spirit) in order to balance this. Inflict duration and higher blessings would be only available through Rites and would place harsh restrictions on recipient and caster. --Valtiel
- Yes, that could work. Incidentally, I don't like "Inflict" as a duration for blessings - I think it's too long for Dick and too short for Richard. I prefer "five minutes" or "the duration + roleplay requirements". --Jacob
- ...please don't phrase it like that. Please please please. --Pufferfish
- Blame Vimes. --Jacob
- So about right for Chard, then? --Entimix