Faith Healing

[ParadoxicalAnonymity]

The spirit of roleplaying is an elusive and mercurial creature, as roleplaying itself can vary dramatically from person to person, even to what the nature of such is.

Some people greatly appreciate the minutiae of mechanics, as it keeps people accountable, so you don't result in likes of Yahoo 'Roleplaying' chatrooms. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go visit one sometime.

The mechanics are there to give a world reliability and reasonable oversight, without someone sitting back and arbitrarily declaring what works and what does not. Do such systems account for any and every specific instance that might arise? Of course not.

But I don't believe that means we should just discount concepts because they somehow are used in a way that possibly wasn't originally foreseen by the creative juices of the originator. Using something in a new and creative route only speaks to the testament of ingenious roleplaying.

If anything, I believe Lothoir has opened up new potential through being creative in his/her purview. They're not breaking any rules. They aren't using the spell outside what it's dictated to be. They're a priest that recognizes their spell and is trying to make sure their organization is not infiltrated.

Personally, I think this is great. Just because someone else wants to infiltrate, it doesn't mean they should automatically be allowed to. And a priest of such a group trying to effectively root out such people is an intelligent priest.

From my personal perspective, this is the spirit of roleplaying.

my problem is with making conclusive statements about what is written on someone else's character sheet. (At least without using magic that is specifically designed for that purpose, ie divination)

I just wanted to address this.

The spell's limitation should be rather apparent, at least is seems very much so to myself. All it can do is tell the priest casting it is if the person he's casting it on has the same patron deity. Nothing more. It can't tell you whether they worship that deity still. It can't tell you how devout they are. It can't tell you alignment, or any number of other things.

But because of this, it still has a direct input. If you're arguing against Faerunian lore, fine. But arguing against the reasonable deduction that someone is not using your god as their patron when it doesn't work is entirely reasonable according to the spell, whether in NWN2 or in Faerunian lore. In fact, if the priest didn't react and draw such a conclusion from such, then he's just being terribly irresponsible.

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Lastly, I would like to say this. I'm disappointed in this topic not because of the nature of such, but because now this concept is going to be rather well known. Which means we might be seeing a ton of priests using it constantly, specifically for this reason, amongst almost every faction. DM inclusion might curb this activity, however, as GBX has proclaimed upon.

[cdnspr]

All it can do is tell the priest casting it is if the person he's casting it on has the same patron deity. Nothing more.

That's not actually what the spell does. What it does is it can heal someone if they're of the same deity. Saying for sure that because the spell doesn't work means they don't have the same deity as you completely ignores a whole whack of other possibilities that nwn2's game engine doesn't take into account, like the deity not giving a damn about that particular follower, etc.

But yeah, I've written that already, and I've made this point every way I possibly can, so that's about it for me on this subject.

[ParadoxicalAnonymity]

Once again, it's exactly what the spell does. I truly do not know how you can continually protest so loudly when one need only look back at the spell description that was posted in this very topic. It makes it abundantly clear that it does exactly what I mentioned.

The counter point you try to produce is in the realm of exceptions that are remote and not the norm. To be abundantly clear, they're situations that are rare, and don't fall in line with the vast majority of FR scenarios. Even the FR source books (the one you posted, no less) point towards this very concept.

Just because you continually try to stress a point doesn't make it true. In the end, it's a point that's created that only becomes relevant in remote situations where a DM must have performed something extraordinary. But with such a notion, this can be the case with anything. Any exception, however remote it might be, can be created at the hands of a DM.

Whatever way you slice the bread, the spell does exactly what has been mentioned. An "unless..." is only prevalent when a DM decides to change something. And if that's the case, then we needn't even worry about these rare and extraordinarily remote cases. As GBX has declared that now it needs DM oversight, so everything should be well and good.

[Pacwolf]

i really don't care to engage in mechanics-lawyering ("this didn't work on you therefore i know beyond any uncertainty you are that"). i think it really goes against the spirit of roleplaying.

The spell specifically states, and I quote:

The spell only works on
a creature with the same patron as you. A target with no
patron or a different patron than you is unaffected by
the spell, even if the target would normally be harmed by
positive energy.

How is that mechanics-lawyering. It either WORKS, or it DOES NOT work. The actual wordage they use is "unaffected by the spell". How in the world is that mechanics-lawyering. Its not saying everyone has to have a patron deity, its not saying anything about multiple patrons. But if you LIE and say you worship a god/goddess and do not, then this spell does not work on you, period.

[Doubtful]

You could be happily worshiping that god, they may just not like your face. Or another god could like your face more. Doesn't mean that you have to be lying.

[Pacwolf]

Personally, I think this is great. Just because someone else wants to infiltrate, it doesn't mean they should automatically be allowed to. And a priest of such a group trying to effectively root out such people is an intelligent priest.

From my personal perspective, this is the spirit of roleplaying.

Well said. I wish I could have articulated this point myself.

Just because you want to try and infiltrate, does not success guarantee.

Some people just don't understand this point.

[GodBeastX]

Cdnspr does make a point. It seems like he's saying "You're assuming they're not the same god but there could be other reasons the spell doesn't work."

I agree with this point Cdnspr which is why I said a DM should oversee it. However, what you have to understand is two things Cdnspr, 1) People can assume anything they want. This RP, they can assume truth, lies, god worship, stat points, hit points, etc. 2) What is the most likely reason the spell doesn't work? The simplest explanation is often the most valid one.

While character sheets are hidden, the cause and effects of them aren't. If someone cleaves through a monster, you can generally assume they have cleave feat. If someone casts the arcane spell of fireball you can assume they're an arcanist. Sure there's other possibilities, but the most likely is going to be assumed. Just like if you see me writing C++ code that executes efficiently, you can assume I'm a level 30 programmer in RL.

The spirit of roleplay isn't to let everyone do anything they want to do or stop assumptions, the spirit is freedom to act as your character would. This is something that many people miss sight of on PWs. The thread about which alignments are played poorly to people is an example of this to me. People are personalities, not alignments, not their gods, etc. These are values on a character sheet that can change to reflect your roleplay, not a wall you have to slam into.

He's free to assume based on the spell just like you're free not to assume based on the same spell. If one cleric decides this is the best way to detect someone, he'll just find himself in a conflict when the method fails, that's all. It's important people don't dictate to each other what is good and bad RP. To me anything plausible that happens IC is good RP as long as it doesn't break rules. If it goes OOC or becomes implausible, then it's poor RP to me. That's all people need concern themselves with.

And as already stated, just because you want something to happen doesn't mean the engine should be setup to make it possible. If you want to infiltrate a priesthood, you just have to consider the hurdles you have to jump and figure out how to jump them. If you find a plausible means and are able to execute them, it'll happen, it's that simple.

[grant]

Since I was the player that "passed" the test I have been silent.

It is a first level spell, there is no reason that an infiltrator would not be prepared for this spell in some way that does not reveal them false. If a god can give spells in another gods name there is no reason a god could not protect an infiltrator from a first level spell.

I concede that maybe Shar and Lliira do(did) not grant "Faith Healing" to the clerics of Ibrandul and Waukeen (respectively) because it would not work properly, (a DM call as far as I can tell). They both granted spells to the other deities followers; Shar secretly and Lliira openly. If they can grant a working version of this spell to another gods faithful, there is no reason to assume that a deity who's priests specialise in infiltration can not grant them "membership" in another faith at least so far as to fool a first level spell.

This piece of information has been lacking, and I must confess that I do not know it. The player who failed said that his character follows a deity who's clerics routinely infiltrate if this is the case then they must have some way of passing tests such as this.

[cdnspr]

just wanted to say i'm glad there was a quick dm decision on this one, and i think it was the right one. dm oversight, while adding a bit more burden onto the dms' shoulders, is probably best since it is a bit of a tricky subject.

and yeah, like i wrote earlier, i am cool with assumptions. (only restating this cause i think gbx may have missed that part) i dont think a spell like this should grant instant infallible knowledge, but yeah, if something doesnt work when it should, then an intelligent player/character should definitely follow up on it.