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I had the following idea in order to improve the usefulness of the two more underrated attributes WIS and CHA.

The idea is limiting the rank that you can achieve in a faith according with these two attributes, after all you can be a great fighter/thief/wizard/cleric/bard but it doesn't mean automatically that you are a great leader or communicator, since it is expected that those with a medium or high rank in their faiths act as representatives and managers of their faith it would be necessary that they had the skills necessaries to back-up their position.

People who has work probably would know that the best and more efficient workers are not necessarily the best leaders of a labor union and also the more able to be representatives of a labor union are not necessarily the most efficient workers.

I would see an issue with this, in the fact that faith level is a purely human decided rank, given by the faith managers of a given faith, as a purely RP reward for the character's dealings and place in a faith.

It would not be fair to impose a mechanial limitation, IMO, on the faith managers who are trusted to build their faith structure as they see fit.

Besides this, there are plenty of considerations where ones WIS, or even CHA, wouldn't play a main part of their place in a church. Remember, higher faith levels isn't just for priests. A person in the Maskarran church could earn their rank simply because they are sly, and quick, and a master in their trade, and not only apprentice young rogues, but also bring them into the fold in the course of their teaching. A member of the Lovite faith may reach upper levels of the faith simply on the merit of how much pain and torment they cause in their RP to other characters.

And one can't overlook the fact of corruption and such. Even in RL, there are plenty of people in important places in ANY faith or church, who don't deserve to be there based on their piety, or even their magnetism, rather what the DO, or who they ARE, or how much they pay/consider/tithe/etc.

I think leaving faith levels in the hands of the FMs that have been trusted to the faiths is sufficient. I don't think adding a mechanical limit to it simply for a way to further penalize WIS and CHA is a good thing.

I agree with Kregor, and also because it's important to take OOC considerations into hand as well. Many faiths can suffer from a lack of otherwise capable and responsible people in the upper ranks of the faith. It makes it harder for new people to get involved, harder to build the idea of an active church, etc. I think we shouldn't impose somewhat arbitrary limits that would do OOC damage to a church's ability to function, as many of them just barely get by as it is.

Vindur wrote:The idea is limiting the rank that you can achieve in a faith according with these two attributes, after all you can be a great fighter/thief/wizard/cleric/bard but it doesn't mean automatically that you are a great leader or communicator, since it is expected that those with a medium or high rank in their faiths act as representatives and managers of their faith it would be necessary that they had the skills necessaries to back-up their position.

Though I agree with the OOC considerations Kregor and Solaghar raise, I want to say, Vindur, that I think you are quite right about this when it comes to a consideration of realism. I'm involved in both teaching and politics, and can attest that the people in positions of political power are not the ones best suited to get the job, but the ones most able of getting themselves into such positions - and that's true not just in representative democracies! As for teaching...geniuses and naturals make the worst teachers, in my experience. The student asks them a question, and they just can't understand the question, as it is so terribly obvious to them. I never believed there was such a thing as genius...or had a slew of really terrible teachers...until I went to Caltech. It's not that great teachers can't do what they teach, but the really good ones enjoy teaching it more than they enjoy doing it.

I'm American.. Because of this and what I have seen over my twenty-five years of living, I don't believe that only the most intelligent, wise, and charismatic people will raise to the top.. *ahem*

Do we have to have every single thing realistic? Can't we just have something that is fun and not have to worry about doing the same things on a GAME that we have to face in Real life? Why is everyone so dead set on making this a carbon copy of life and all it's horrors?

Rhianon wrote:Do we have to have every single thing realistic? Can't we just have something that is fun and not have to worry about doing the same things on a GAME that we have to face in Real life? Why is everyone so dead set on making this a carbon copy of life and all it's horrors?

I concur.

I believe that when Vindur made his post, he wasn't just trying to improve the realism of the game. In fact, he says in his opening statement that he was trying to find a way to improve the usefullness of the Wis and Cha stat.

When trying to figure out a way to improve the usefullness of the stat on the game, he made the connection between an activity on this game and real life. Kudos to him for coming up with this idea and being willing to post it up on the forums. Is it the best idea ever to help improve the usefullness of a stat? I will not dare to say yes or no but regardless, he offered his idea.

I have, several times, grown annoyed/tired of the common "let's make it as real as possible" angle on topics. At the same time, I have also used real life physics and my experience of them to help justify or illustrate a point I was trying to make.

Point being: Everyone has their pet peeves and ideas. Lets keep this constructive and not crap on someone's idea because of the angle or reasoning they took. If you feel strongly about something as a whole, rather than one particular idea, please create another topic so that it may be discussed in depth.

Of course, I was not having a dig at the original post, merely agreeing with some of the quoted text..

No disrespect intended =)

I know very well that this is a game and my intention was not to make it more realistic only to improve the usefulness of these two attributes.

As a sidenote I will say that many people who has played cRPG's would know
is that in many in cases when the PC can join a organization, in other to raise in its ranks they need to have determinate stats or skills.

Not all ideas turn out to be great ones. Vindur, don't shy away from continuing to post your ideas in the future. The goal is always to make the mud better. Without ideas, good or otherwise, that can't happen.

I /love/ this idea, though only with wisdom...and only with "favor"

It would be a coded reason as to why priests (who typically have wisdom as their primary) inherently are most favored by their god more so than other followers...usually I'd just say "they get divine spells, of course they're more favored" but in FK we have a mechanic that gives the player a measure of how much favor they have acquired.

I'd even go a step further and put class modifiers on the ceiling, and if possible, different classes to be priest equivalents (wizard for mystra, paladin for torm, etc etc) as far as the ceiling goes.

I love that you're coming up with ideas on how the faith system can be improved upon, Vindur. FK is a fantastic example of how a text based game, with instant player to player interaction, can come so close to what forgotten realms, the setting, feels like. Of all the nuances from FK to FR, I feel the faith system is the biggest...and giving a mechanical advantage to clerics for climbing the faith ladder, is a good way, imo, on closing that gap.

Keep em comin Vindur

I think the class-based favor ceiling is an awesome idea-- perhaps in that same vein, levels for different supplication tasks could be changed, so that all faith members can supplicate some things at their maximum favor, a particular God's favorite classes could supplicate more, and only the priests of that God could have all the supplicate options open to them at the highest favor level-- or the supplicate options for the priest vs. the favored class could be different. Perhaps it could even be made deity-appropriate; for example, a Paladin following one of the Gods commonly sporting many Paladins could supplicate something like "divine inspiration," allowing him to beat impossible odds in the name of his Lord. I'll grant this version of the idea would require a lot of coding, and so might not be practical, at least in the short-term.

I'd like to suggest a spin on the stat-to-favor correlation, in that one's wisdom could affect how quickly one's favor goes up, rather than one's maximum favor-- it seems reasonable to say that the wise are more likely to behave in Godly ways in everyday life than the foolish.

Edit: Another thought-- maybe favor level could also correlate with one's rank in the faith-- for example, a prelate could have a higher maximum favor level than an initiate.

I don't really think that putting a ceiling on favor for different classes is very fair. As it stands anyone can be a Faith manager. In the past it used to be only Priests. Now a wizard or thief or anyone can be if their deity thinks they should be.

Changing supplicate item favor levels depending upon class is a lot of work and I still think it is unfair. Then people will join the deity for their class rather than rp.

It is inpractical for your faith level to base what your favor level is as the faith system is new and there are not many who can raise you in the faith. This would also lend a hand to favoritism and abuse.

One thing that is already based upon favor however is priests spells. Some spells you need to have a certain amount of favor to cast. I noticed this especially with Lloth's priestesses.

The point we're making here is (and I think it's more than just me) that Priests are a whole class devoted specifically to the service of their God. Don't you think maybe they should get some kind of divine kudos for this? I think it's pretty crazy, actually, to have a faith led by a class other than a priest-- not because the players can't RP it, necessarily, but because priests are supposed to be the backbone of wisdom for any given faith. If another class proves worthy of becoming a Faith Manager, I think that individual should BECOME a priest, because they've gotten so close to their God it would be ludicrous for them to focus on earthly skills rather than their Godly connection. In my opinion, remaining a different class when your God says "I want you to lead my people" is rather like saying "Thanks, chum, but I kind of like where I am now."

The way I look at it, a Priest chooses his class because he has an inner calling, because it is in his nature to be a channel for the divine. If we're just treating them as healers in this game instead, and saying that any class has the capacity to represent their God on Faerun, I apologize for misunderstanding.

Quite frankly, I think it should be harder-- even for a hero of the Realms-- to gain favor with their deity than just going and killing a bunch of faith enemies. This is, after all, a God-- and I hope we all get the gravity of that term, even in a pantheistic world-- looking specifically at a mortal and saying "I like you." Were the Gods available more, I'd even go so far as to say favor shouldn't be available beyond a couple levels except by the will of one's deity. It should be no small thing for a God to lend a direct hand in the revival of the dead or to grant an object of his personal favor to a mortal.

That said, if the faith system were set up in the way I think would be ideal, it wouldn't be necessary to have certain levels of favor to cast the vast majority of spells. A couple very powerful spells-- things in the league of true resurrection or some overwhelming divine smite-- might require it.

Maybe favor is just meant to represent how well someone is following the tenets of their faith, in which case I'm percieving it wrong. I'm simply arguing the way I am because, when I read it, it looks to me like favor is a reflection of an actual opinion your Deity has on you. You've got to be pretty awesome for a deity to have an opinion on you, period, I think. To forestall any arguments of a particular nature-- yes, I know this is an escape from reality, I know it's not supposed to be realistic with the gods and the magic and all-- but I think there are plenty of ways to do great and heroic or villanous deeds in game without it being a comunality for a PC to attract any notable amount of Godly attention. I think it should really only happen when a PC devotes his entire life to the service of his God (priesthood, or possibly a very zealous character of a different class favored by the God) or when a character gets put in a Very Bad situation and behaves heroically despite all odds. We do have the opportunity for both of these situations in FK, and as I already noted, plenty of other rewards available for those who don't choose or find themselves in those situations.

In short, I think favor should be more special than it (at least in my experience) is. I've heard it said, effectively, that a PC was temporarily burned out, divinely speaking, because her God had raised her from the dead. While that's something that impacts RP, I think a direct divine raising should be a thing of legend, reserved for saints and avatars, and even then only in dire situations. I've seen a fair number of items "of a God" around, and while I certainly don't begrudge characters being rewarded for service to a Faith, I don't think it should be so staggeringly direct as to come directly from the Deity. One of my characters has a supplicated item, the favor for which came from killing orcs and healing people. I honestly think that's crazy, when I step back and look at it. Approval from one's God is one thing-- to actually be a beloved of a divine entity is quite another.

I think the current faith system is a great setup. I think it was very well-built. But as long as we're suggesting changes, the above is my idea of an ideal faith system. We're already warning against people joining faiths for cool items or easy power-- and I think we've all agreed the players who will do that aren't really the FK breed anyway. I certainly don't expect my idea to be implemented, but I hope if the faith system does changed, it's taken into consideration as a possible influence for that change.

While I salute the merit of an idea suggested to put more emphasis in the much abused(or should I say neglected? Neglect is a form of abuse, right?) stats of charisma and, to a lesser extent wisdom, I am inclined to disagree with the idea of limited faith levels. Should a faith manager be wise? Well, it certainly helps. Should they be charasmatic? If they want to gather a larger following. But thinking of all the faith managers the game has already... I would say if not all, most already possess said attributes. After all, they're chosen for a reason, right?
But wisdom and charisma aren't the only factors that should go into a person's rank. Like has been mentioned before, in many faiths there is the option of corruption, bribery, and treachery to rise through the ranks. In fact there are many uncharasmatic people in FR lore that hold positions of power.(Think of the Lords of the Moonsea or Luskan - powerful, influential, but they only rose through the ranks with treachery and backstabbing, not charisma)
A rather common saying is that "actions speak louder than words" and I think this applies well to the faith structures. Should a faithful, zealous, earnest and sincere follower who might not be a priest, but has done far more for their church than other priests of their faith be denied a rewarding position just because they chose in life not to study prayers? When it boils down to it, I believe that a character should be rewarded(in terms of faith) for what they've done for their church, regardless of class. If a thief of Tymora (completely arbitrary choice, by the way ) goes around the realms building temples, recruiting members, and ousting faith enemies from their territory, while the priests of the faith are sitting on their bon-bons or out adventuring, should the priests be given a higher position just because they can channel their prayers into blessings, healing, sonic blasts etc.?

Well, it's a little longwinded, but I guess my main point is that I believe every faith member should have an equal oppertunity to become a faith manager or high-ranking member, so long as they deserve it.

I'm basing this off the assumption that a god grants favor based on an individuals actions to furthering the gods agenda and becoming closer through faith to that god.

As players we're all capable of looking things up online about the god, or finding through guess and test what actions grant favor. But for your character (who shouldnt be able to act on ooc reasoning) wisdom is their attribute to show their capacity to understand their faith...this capacity, under what I was speaking of, would be mechanically represented by favor ceilings.

Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma all have direct mechanical representations...and in my opinion, reasonably balanced. A pc with a strength of 12 will never be able to carry as much as a pc with a strength of 18...but no one calls this unfair. That's because strength is a concept that can be easily measured, while wisdom is more abstract - this doesnt mean that it should be written off as an unfair mechanical advantage.

PC has wisdom of 16 and another has a wisdom of 12, the wisdom 16 pc /has/ to have a greater capacity to understand their faith...it's the reason wisdom is the divine magic modifier. That doesn't mean they currently do understand them better, it means they have that ability to in the future.

I know the system has been around for awhile, and it seems to be working. But if we're talking about ways one feels the system can be improved, I believe this would be a step in the right direction to ensure pc's are judged based on IC properties and OOC properties...not just how much a player knows about the setting and how to gain favor.

For what it's worth, I agree wholeheartedly with your take on priests, Amalia.

I also agree that seeing faith managers who are priests make much more sense than seeing non-priests faith managers. No matter the deity.

In my opinion, the problem comes from the fact that technically, "priest" is a class that you pick up like "fighter" or "wizard" or "rogue". While "I want to train to become a ..." works well in the cases of fighters/wizards/rogues, it does not work like that for priests. As you pointed out, the character does not decide he is going to be a priest of deity X, but it's the other way around: deity X decides to grant priestly powers to the character. With that in mind, it is natural that priests should be "more favoured" than any other character class. As you write, if Mystra likes how a wizard serves her, or if Mask likes how a rogue serves him, or if Mielikki likes how a ranger serves her, then they will make them priests!

That being said, this is now how it currently works. Currently, anybody can make a priest and either be favoured or not favoured (that too does not make any sense: a priest with no favour is ... well, he's not a priest anymore). Perhaps we should add some kismet requirement to priests, or only allow players who have shown that they know the faith well enough to create priests. But that's a completely different debate - that you or anybody else is free to start in another thread -.

It's kind of hard to balance practicality with realism/consistency without going overboard towards a nonsensical world or an elitist game. In this case,

• practicality = "making it so that people can relatively easily find someone to faith them, and so they can get some nice deity-given items",
• realism/consistency = "having a consistent favour system, rewarding those who deserve it and not rewarding those who do not deserve it",
• nonsensical world = a world where you wouldn't even have to know what your deity stands for to be faithed and get favour
• elitist game = a game where only those who have extensively studied the FR lore and are grandmaster roleplayers are welcome.

...should the priests be given a higher position just because they can channel their prayers into blessings, healing, sonic blasts etc.?

You are taking the problem in the wrong direction. The priests can channel prayers into blessings, healing, sonic blasts, ... BECAUSE they are favoured by the deity. That's how a deity shows that (s)he favours someone: (s)he grants them priestly (or paladinish) powers. So, yes, the priests should always be higher up in the faith than the non-priests in a consistent world or - rather - those who are higher up (in favour) are priests.

The thing is... you can train and practise and learn weapon moves to become a good fighter; you can train and practise and learn spells and arcana to become a good wizard; you can train and practise and learn stealth and tricks to become a good rogue. But you don't train or practise or learn to become a priest... you are MADE a priest by the god ICly. That's the key to see Amalia's and my point of view I think.

That being said, at this point, I'm not really advocating any change to the faith level system because we would have even fewer FMs if it wasn't for non-priests.

How about Elminster, then? He's has what, 1 or 2 levels in cleric, yet he's a chosen of Mystra and higher up than quite a few priests. Why doesn't Mystra just make him a priest if they're so much more representative of their deity? I guess that leads to the question - should higher ranked faith members be "turned into" priests?

I would be of the opinion that every PC would be given the option of priesthood at the point that their deity sits up and takes notice. If, like Elminster (who could not possibly have a couple levels of cleric in FK, since we don't allow multiclassing...), the PC chooses to continue to serve in their current capacity, the highest of the priests will still be above them. Yes, Elminster is beloved by Mystra, but he's been in plenty of those heroic situations. And yet, as far as I know, he doesn't go around telling other Mystran's what's what, at least not nearly to the degree that a Faith Manager ought to.

The point is not that all priests should be above all other characters in a faith, but that the absolute top rank of the faith should be a priest, and that on average, priests will have a better understanding of their faith and be better representatives of it.