Faith rod

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Faith rods are weapons which may have rituals bestowed upon parts of them. Different faith rods have different numbers of slots for rituals: batons have one slot each except the webbed baton which has three, canes have two slots each, rods and maces have three slots each, and the flails, staffs, crooks, poles and sceptres have four slots.

Most of these different types of faith rods can be found somewhat randomly on wandering npc priests but some are only found on specific named npc priests.

See the faith rods page for detailed information about specific rods.

Adding rituals to faith rods

To make an empty faith rod into one that can have a ritual performed from it, a priest who has the desired ritual must:

  • Consecrate the faith rod, if it is not already consecrated to their diety,
  • Bestow the ritual or rituals into part(s) of the rod, and finally
  • Charge the rod by holding it and praying for a while. The time this takes depends on skills and the GP of the ritual or rituals. Only priests can charge rods. N.B. Only prayer charges the rod, unlike prayer beads.

Bestowing a ritual uses deity points and will affect that rod's affinity.

If the rod is to be used by a follower of the same deity, it only needs to be charged until each ritual is "impressed" in it--at this stage the ritual will not disappear when performed from the rod. (If the ritual is only "imbued", it will disappear if performed from the rod.)

If the rod is to be used by someone of a different deity, it needs to be charged all the way, until each ritual is "imprinted" in it. At this point, it must be re-consecrated to the other person's deity. Re-consecrating will remove nearly all of the charge, and the rod will need to be charged all the way up to "impressed" again. (Any rituals that are not imprinted at this point will disappear from the rod.)

Charging a faith rod uses the faith.items.rod skill--more for higher-gp rituals. If your bonus is too low, you'll only be able to charge the rod very slowly and will get messages about stumbling over your prayers, etc. If your bonus is adequate, you won't get any messages at all while charging the rod. If your bonus is good, you'll get messages that your prayers flow into the rod "easily" or "very easily".

Linked slots

Some rods have multiple slots for rituals and those slots often are described as being "linked" to another when looking at the rod's long description. These rods require some forethought, as rituals can only be bestowed based upon the order of links and upon their GP size.

First, the core slot that "is not dependent on any other part" should be filled with the ritual whose GP cost is the greatest to perform. From there, any slot linked to this core slot can have a ritual bestowed upon it so long as it is equal to or less than the GP size of the slot it depends upon. Any remaining slots can be filled in the same way, with the same considerations for GP size. For example, a bronzed crook:

It looks like it could hold four rituals in its base, feathers, shaft and hook. 
The base is empty and is linked to the shaft. 
The feathers are empty and are linked to the shaft.
The shaft is empty and is not dependent on any other part of the bronzed crook.
The hook is empty and is linked to the feathers.

The order of bestowal for this rod would be: shaft, base or feathers, hook.

If an imbued ritual is performed and leaves the rod, all slots dependent on it will also empty.

Affinities

Faith rods have different affinities with different types of rituals (offensive, defensive, curing, or miscellaneous), and bestowing a ritual into a rod of the wrong type will make it take longer to charge.

When you bestow a ritual, you'll get a message telling you whether the affinity is good or bad. For a full list go to the faith rods page.

Removing rituals

You can remove rituals from faith rods by scouring them. This removes all rituals from the rod.

If a ritual is not imprinted or impressed, performing it from the rod will remove it. This will remove ALL the rituals from a faith rod and not just the performed one!

If a ritual is not imprinted, re-consecrating the rod will remove it from the rod.

Charging up the rod

When you bestow a ritual into a rod, it can only be used once!! So if you perform the ritual, it will dissolve from the rod, leaving an empty slot. It can be made to be used multiple times by pouring guild point into the rod. You can do this by praying whilst holding the rod. If you're holding two rods, the gp invested will be split over them. If you hold beads at the same time, all the gp will charge the rod, and none will charge the beads. To be able to charge a rod, you will need to be a priest of the same deity as the rod (use see consecration!). When you charge the rod, you will find that priests can see whether the ritual is "imbued", "impressed" or "imprinted" into the rod.

This means:

  • imbued: ritual can only be used once
  • impressed: ritual can be used multiple times, but the ritual will disappear when you consecrate the rod to another deity
  • imprinted: ritual can be used multiple times and it will remain on the rod when reconsecrated

When charging a rod, priests will see these levels of charge:

  1. imbued, barely visible light
  2. imbued, faint light
  3. imbued, dull light
  4. imbued, pale light
  5. imbued, dim light
  6. imbued, moderate light
  7. imbued, softly pulsing light

"The <rod name> trembles momentarily as its bond with the ritual <ritual name> is strengthened."

  1. impressed, softly pulsing light
  2. impressed, brightly pulsing light
  3. impressed, bright light
  4. impressed, strong light
  5. impressed, brilliant light
  6. impressed, dazzling light
  7. impressed, radiant light

"The <rod name> throbs with power as its bond with the ritual <ritual name> is fastened tight."

  1. imprinted - no light level!

To reach the impressed stage, on a baton with good affinity, takes around 260 times the bestowal gp cost of the ritual itself. To imprint a ritual takes around an additional 360 times the bestowal gp cost, for a total of around 620 times the bestowal gp cost. If you are trying to charge a rod that has a poor affinity for a ritual, it will cost even more gp to charge. Charging rituals on multiple slot rods also takes longer.

Charging up to and including "moderate light" takes around 32 times the bestowal gp per visible stage of charging. Charging beyond this point takes around 64 times the bestowal gp per visible stage of charging. The change from Imbued to Impressed takes place part way through the "softly pulsing light" stage.

Using rods with affinity for a different type of ritual can increase the gp cost of charging by up to 100%. Using a rod with neutral affinity can increase the gp cost of charging by up to 44%.

If a rod has multiple rituals which are not at the imprinted stage, the ritual with the lowest GP cost will be charged first. A linked ritual cannot be charged to a higher bond strength than the ritual bestowed in the slot it's dependent upon. The linked ritual will remain at the maximum bond level for it's current stage until the ritual it is dependent upon reaches the next stage.

Transferring rods between gods

Only followers and priests of the rod's deity can use a rod to cast rituals. But you can consecrate a rod to change its deity, and allow other gods to use the rituals. However, the rituals must be really well-connected (imprinted) to the rod to survive the consecration, else they will leave the rod. When you reconsecrate a rod, all rituals drop to the "imbued" level!! So you have to recharge the rod before being able to use it multiple times!

When a rod changes deity, the new deity takes on the responsibility for paying for the deity point costs.

Using rods

To perform a ritual from a faith rod, you must first hold it, which uses the faith.items.rod skill. Then, you use a special syntax:

perform <ritual> {from|using|with} <rod>
perform <ritual> {on|at} <target> {from|using|with} <item>

So, for example:

perform find on ilik with ribboned baton

Performing a ritual from a rod uses up deity points, meaning that you can only use batons if there are enough deity points available and you have not been excommunicated.

Furthermore, High Priests can use Obsecrate to do one or more of the following:

  1. Forbid priests and followers of their own religion from performing specific rituals from faith rods
  2. Forbit priests and followers of their own religion from using all faith rods made by priests from another specified religion
  3. Forbit priests and followers of another religion from using a specific ritual from faith rods created by priests of the High Priest's own religion


Faith rods as weapons

Faith rods are generally sub-optimal in terms of dealing damage and many cannot be used for special attacks. For more information consult the List of Faith Rods.

These do count as weapons and will therefore be confiscated in Bes Pelargic if you aren't careful. Luckily, however, they're generally cheap to buy back.

A faith rod containing one or more (charged or partially charged) rituals isn't a particularly good choice of weapon, as it takes faith gp and a skillcheck to hold it successfully.

External links