Blessings!

[Bennie]

With a new magic system coming in (at least I believe one is) It might be interesting to implement a blessings system for clergy. Only a few, but they, depending on piety, help give immunity to some hexes or such.

Depending on the level of the spell and the person's piety as well as the priest's piety, it might absorb damage from magic, deplete effects, or block it altogether.

Thoughts?

[Geras]

Personally I'd prefer to see this done through the preach command, though may it should be tweaked to be more feasible for just a couple of poses.

In terms of barriers to magic, I'd suggest that the effects on player-cast magic should be subtle at most. Everyone should be scared of witchcraft and that means no one should be safe. In terms of things like demons (which are coming back in I hear) by all means...

[Rabek]

I am still as against this as I ever was. Witchcraft is scary and unnatural. It should be fought by Inquisatorial means, as per the theme. Having holy magic of any kind makes it feel more like an outright war of magic vs. magic with the mundane people caught between. There is no faith if you can witness your god casting down mages via priests and blessings. Then it's just fact. If priests have power, why should mages risk life and limb to learn magic when they can do the same with no risk?

[Kinaed]

I respect the reasons for bringing this idea forth as it would seem realistic and historical. However, we've discussed this issue before, multiple times. Personally, I've always been very against priests having blessings, and remains so. To me, it seems like just another kind of magic, and worse, an easier kind than mages have.

Thematically, a part of magic is about shaping forces to one's will, which is why piety affects saving throws - it's about viewing the world in a way so powerfully that the view of the world can't be shifted - but even that has extreme limitations and is very passive.