Thoughts on Prayers

It's time to ponder D&D once again. I was thinking recently of the Turn Undead and how odd this ability is. Yes, it makes sense because the undead are generally unholy creations, yadda yadda, there are other Channel Divinities too, even more with 5.24e. But you can only do this a couple of times in a day. Plus, there's something that's certainly missing from the Cleric class to me.

Prayer, by Alex Petruk

Prayer

Picture this: at level 1, a cleric gets the ability to Pray. A prayer requires the cleric to keep talking, they can do it any number of times in a day, and for as long as they manage to do this, they get some kind of benefit. My initial thought was +1 AC, but it could be other minor boons too, maybe depending on the portfolio of the deity you pray to. Maybe you could also have multiple possible prayers, or a prayer book. Just keep the prayer itself as a relatively minor thing. I'm so unused to thinking in D&D terms, I'm not even sure whether I'd make this a bonus action, a reaction, or no action whatsoever. But, here's the juicy part.

The monsters could have a trait that reads something along the lines of...

Unholy. You can't willingly move closer to any creature who is Praying to a deity who doesn't have the Death in its portfolio.

Use Praying with a capital P as a keyword. The monsters could react differently to different kinds of prayers. Maybe a fiend is blinded if it looks at the cleric Praying to a Light deity, maybe a celestial can't attack a cleric who's Praying to some evil deity, maybe the prayer to the deity of War makes specifically the giants frightened.

I know what you might be thinking. Isn't this done kind of backwards? Why make it traits instead of just saying these things in the prayers? Well, firstly, because I think that a trait called "Turn Immunity" is kind of weird. But secondly and far more importantly, because this way the player doesn't necessarily know what extra effects their prayer will have, leading to moments of discovery and awe at their deity's powers.

Another thing you might be considering is... why not make this a cantrip? "Divine Protection", bonus action to cast, Verbal component, ... My reason is simple: I don't want this to be treated like magic. I want this to be treated like a miracle. No anti-magic field or counterspell could possibly stop the deity's power. Isn't it too good then? To make a prayer that's unstoppable like this? Not if I remind you of the requirement... the cleric must keep talking. If they stop, during or out of their turn, the prayer is done. How do you silence them? That's the best part: you tell me. You could put a rag in their mouth if they are sufficiently immobilized. You could try to suffocate them. You could shove their head underwater. You could of course also use the good ol' reliable silence spell. My point is that this condition is open-ended, and both the GM and the players could have tons of fun coming up with ways to stop it.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure about the monster traits part and whether it's better than just saying "all the undead run away from you". But it's a neat idea that I came up with recently, and I am trying to overcome my blog posts personal record here, so onto the blog it shall go! Maybe I'll get a cool game idea next year where I could use this without relying on the D&D as lingua franca to communicate this idea.

Thank you for reading my minor rambling, and have a great day!