kiralon wrote:Doesn't sound like it from what KM has said, also I am slightly biased having just played a priest. Because the prayers have no real cost to the player they will usually do at every dangerous situation, as they aren't commonly happening 3 times a day, the percentage is %10 + %8 per level with another bonus %8 from prayer of strength, that gets its out often enough at level 4-5 to make encounters hard work for the dm as the party may or may not get the priests level in lesser demons to help, and he can do it every day just by muttering a couple of words. DM throws enough bad guys at the party to take the demons as well, the priest fails and the party gets eaten. The dm throws a normal group of bad guys at the party, priest summons demons and the bad guy might as well not been there for the threat level. Divine Intervention for the good priests is the same. It can massively unbalance any encounter for no real cost to the wielder of said power, I know my priest could.
Priest have always been my favorite PF characters because what they can do. However, both
the Priest of Light and Dark have prayers that get really abused. The Summon Minions of
Darkness and the Prayer of Intervention. I had a player who was constantly using the Prayer of
Intervention all the time. It was driving me crazy. I keep saying to myself I can't believe you
are allowed to use it all the time. I felt in my bones something was wrong. That's when I pulled
out my PF 1ST EDITION copy. Sure enough, Prayer of Intervention: Limited to: Once per day
(24 hour period). Success ratio: 9% per each level of the priest' experience. Summon Minions
of Darkness: Limited to two attempts/ prayers per day (24 hour period). Duration: 5 melees or
special tasks/quests. Success ratio: 8% per each level of the priest's experience. Apparently
Kevin decided to increase the Priest's Prayer ability, but he forgot to limit the use of the
ability. So that could be a way to stop your player from summon demons ALL the time.
Here's another though. Remember all the power a priest receives comes from the deity It
doesn't make sense for there to be a battle of wills. Remember the priest is spreading the
word of the deity (just like clergy in real life). He's preaching to the
faithful. Why would a god give his servant (priest) the power to summon minion to serve him
faithfully and help spread the word of the deity if the minions he summons kill him before the
crowd of worshippers? The deity is sending the minion because they are suppose to be
minions.
Think of this. Cardinal Medean (Leader of the Church of Light and Dark in Timiro) is a 13th
level Priest of Darkness (Thoth). When he uses his ring (+5% bonus to prayers), he chance to
summon minions is 111%. So 13 demons show up for twice in a 24 hours period for 65
minutes. In theory he can make these demons do anything he want them to do. But remember
GMs you duty during the game is play the roll of deity and demons.
Now I do believe as eliakon said, summoning these minions should count for something. I can
imagine a priest summons his minions and says, "Go chop me some firewood." These demons
are like "Are you serious?" Then one says, "Hey the master says we do whatever he says. I'm
no disobeying him and killing this guy. He got that surmon to perform at the mount tomorrow
before 10,000 orc followers before they storming the castle." Now suppose the priest keeps
doing this for a week, having the demons constantly doing demeaning chores, washing the
floor, paint the house, do his laundry and so on. I can see the demons saying, "That it we're
not doing what he says. Let's kill him and eat him." Later on the deity kills these minions after
the faithful choose to stop worshiping the deity because the minions killed the priest while
performing the marriage ceremony between the orc war chief and his orc bride.
But definitely think about how you player is using these minions. Just because he rolled
successful doesn't mean the end result is what he gets. Remember just because you have a
98%prowl doesn't meant you the 8 foot wolfen can automatically sneak into a room full of
humans and stab a guy in the back without anyone noticing. As G.M. You control the deity and
the minions, regardless what the dice roll turn out to be. Don't let your player acts like its a
video game where he presses a button and his minions show up ready to serve. He needs to
act like a priest and use those minion properly and purposely.