Miraculous Effects

I have been having a lot of fun pouring over RoP: The Divine recently, many parts being incorporated into my saga in the Iberian Tribunal, but I keep stumbling over one section.

Miraculous Effects

Now I understand the basic mechanics of how they function. What confuses me somewhat are the levels of these Effects, as laid out in the various Guidelines, versus the probable levels a character would have in the appropriate Abilities.

The Methods and Powers are treated like Abilities. This means that gaining a score much higher than about 7 is going to be terribly difficult, to say the least. Conversely, the Guidelines read like Spell Levels, in that they range, in come cases, to Level 50 and above ... and that assumes base Range, Duration, and Target!

The Ceremony Ability adds to the score, but this is a Favoured Ability of only Sol Invictus and the Sufis, at least currently.

Unlike Hermetic Magic, the wielder of a Miraculous Effect must equal or exceed the Level of the effect for it to take place; if he fails this, he (most likely) suffers a Tragedy of Hubris.

So are higher level effects merely a matter of hoping for a terribly lucky roll? Is this something that should be left to Mythic Companions, and then only ones who have no limits on how high they may purchase Supernatural Abilities?

Just looking for a bit of guidance! :slight_smile:

Its not so hard as its seems: True Faith 4 (an old bishop/ aholy man), Confidence Score 3 (if you become bishop it shold be so high, if you are a holy man it may be higher), Relict with 3 Faith Points (the medivial world is so full of relicts : a bishop should get hands on a thing like this), Divine Aura of 7 (altar of a kathedral) make it to a +37 bonus... and in theory you can add a +28 to your rolls every day because true faith und relict points recover every day.
Then add a +2 characterisic and a +14 for two ability with 6 and proper specialisatuzin and without roll you get a: 53/44 without rolling... so you can imagine what an angry archbishop (with more in his scores) could do to a covenant...

During playtest, the concern was that holy characters would regularly outstrip Hermetic characters, as their magic required no vis, and could ignore Hermetic limits.

Thus, the trade off for that is that the truly spectacular miraculous effects are extremely difficult to do.

As has been said, in order to perform high level (30+) miraculous effects, the character would need True Faith, relics, a decent Dominion and confidence. High level miraculous effects are not something that (like Hermetic mages do) can/should be performed every day; they are special and unique.

Alex

I should also point out that many holy characters don't get a stress roll. Those with Invocation may, but for everyone else it's a simple die. This means there's less chance of a spectacular roll, but there's also no chance of botching. Miracles are not so much for the lucky as they are for the righteous, and God doesn't typically punish those who just roll badly. :slight_smile:

You know, Erik, I was looking at the book (p.46) and, due to the Tragedies of Hubris chart I missed the fact that you only roll a simple die.

Huh. That being the case, in all but very, very strange cases involving Miraculous Effects, only the first rank of Tragedies of Hubris could ever even apply, unless someone were obviously trying to do more than they possibly could. Quizzical...

Here's some situations where Major and Ultimate Tragedies might come into play: Players with Invocation can roll a stress die if they choose, and if they botch the roll, their total is 0, which can often lead to a result far less than the intended effect level. It could be important to save face in front of believers that you try to summon an effect far above what you can do, knowing that you will be punished, but that it will still be miraculous. There might be a holy ceremony that you must perform, but without enough people, so that your total isn't nearly high enough. You could misjudge the strength of the aura, especially if it is tempered in such a way as to discourage holy effects. Confidence and Faith can be added after you roll, so you might be aiming to roll higher than a 5 and planning to spend Faith to make up the difference, but you roll a 2. You're going to suffer a Tragedy either way, and so you might decide to take the Major one and save your Faith Points for later. Or maybe, like Moses, you strike the rock in anger and your Faith Score takes a hit, giving you less Faith Points than you had planned to bring you to the total.