Spells vs. Prayers?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

This question just popped into my mind and I find it kind of interesting. In D&D, why is it that clerical/divine magic is referred to as spells and not prayers? When I think of religion (albeit in a modern context) the only time I can think of hearing about spells is in reference to evil spells, witchcraft, demon possession, etc. Why is it that D&D refers to what I would consider prayers as spells?

On a practical gaming level, I think the term prayers has a whole different connotation than does spells. The former smells of deities and godly gifts of powers whereas the latter seems much more independent. When I think of spells I don't think of them as being granted by a divine power. When I think of prayers, I do.

The end result of all this, in my mind at least, is that I often see players treating divine magic as simply resources to be used vs. gifts bestowed by the gods. You've got a papercut? Cure minor. Sniffles? Cure disease. Beheaded? Raise dead. And so on and so forth.

I'm not saying that using the term prayers would fix all that with one fell sweep, but I do find that a lot of the "balance" to the cleric class gets lost when divine magic is simply viewed as "spells".

Thoughts?

(edit: and I do realize that there are really two issues here; the use of the term spells vs. prayers, and the divine powers bestowed upon clerics and how they are utilized)

 

[Jdvn1]

Consistency's sake? I don't know, you could easily change it for more color.

 

[Alzrius]

Probably for ease of reference. Clerics and other worshippers of the divine can still pray normally - that is, they can silently (or verbally) intone their god's praises and ask for things, etc. It seems normal that the designers would want to make it clear that sort of thing can be done without accidently making people think they were tossing around holy magic.

 

[Jdvn1]

Yeah -- I always thought they prayed to get their spells, but.

 

[Starglim]

As Alzrius said, anyone can pray, since prayer connotes praise to the gods and asking them either to be nice to you generally or to grant a major one-time favour.

Performing a formal clerical rite to bring about a specific known effect is better described as a ritual. An exorcism would be a real-world example.

Wizards also perform rituals that, in the real world, substantially overlap in method and alleged source with formal priestly rituals. Thus, it's less of a stretch to call these actions by the same name (a spell) than to describe fire-and-forget daily casting as prayer.

 

[Starglim]

In addition to the above, I've sometimes referred to clerical magic as miracles. Miracles are granted to the cleric as an answer to prayer, which is what he does in the morning to receive his magic. Unfortunately, miracle is now a spell name, as is prayer.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I'd say the difference is the same as the difference between the mechanisms you should use to handle each.

A divine spell is a piece of divine power your cleric asked for in advance each time after resting, meditating and finishing his liturgic preparations, and it is then invested in him. This means that the resulting divine "special effect" is a little more independent from the deity in question having to watch his clric all the time and listening to his requsts for support. It grants him some power ina dvance and basically lets him do with it what is necessary.

A miracle would be the spontaneous intercession of a deity on behalf of his cleric's momentary problem and subsequent prayer for support. You'd be better of handling it like the sorcerer's spontaneous casting ability, with the "Spells Known" list being the cleric spell list + domain lists. That way, the cleric still has to go through his liturgics, praying and showing faith, but he wouldn't have to prepare his divine "special effects" in advance, but call on his deity in times of need...and the deity in question would have send the requested bit of power to his cleric each time.

Now, if you were a deity, with thousands of adventuring clerics...which would you choose, after a century of having to answer calls for help by the second, being aware of all your clerics at the same time? Which one would give you less holy static in your mind, and actually let you get on with some real divine business...like seducing mortal females in the guise of a bull, or clobbering a neighbouring deity?

 

[fusangite]

The reason these things are called spells is that they function like spells. They don't function like miracles, with the exception of the spontaneous cures that good clerics use. A miracle entails the deity empowering a character based on the specific needs of the situation in which he finds himself. A miracle does not normally refer to a pre-memorized unalterable set of magical effects.

However, this isn't that much of a problem because often in polytheistic systems, priests are spell casters. They receive secret knowledge from their deities to allow them to manipulate the physical world through spells. Even early Christian and some Judaic understandings of magic and prayer had these categories comfortably cohabiting. The figure of Simon Magus in is an example of a heretical Christian magician whose power came from secret knowledge conferred by the godhead (possibly through hypostasis with the god).

So, I don't have a problem with clerics who cast spells. I do, however, have a problem with the fact that there are no additional/separate rules for praying for miracles.

I recently produced a set of rules for Christian prayer for a D20-BRP hybrid game I'm running these days. I'd be happy to pass these on if people are interested in what Christian prayer looks like.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

My group calls them prayers, cause the Cleric is distrustful of arcane magic.