Quick question–is there anything in the game that disallows a character being both Gifted and Faithful? A player in my game managed this in character burning (a Roden Prophet/Spirit Binder), and we were wondering about this.
Ugh. This happens.
[sarcasm]Add in some Grey-Shade stats and you’re ready to go![/sarcasm]
Tell Savage Hominid “NO!” for me. 
How…how did you know it was him?
Haha! Same way I knew the knight in your Trouble in Hochen game was him! Telling his wife not to swim in the black goo. For Shame!
I’ve gamed with him before.
This isn’t even difficult. Born Noble -> Arcane Devotee -> Religious Acolyte.
I’m not sure I’d disallow it. Just make sure your Sorcery idiom requires speech so you can’t pray and ensorcel at the same time.
I would disallow it.
After all, God is a jealous god.
No, no, no. Allow it…
…and have fun with it. Let’s say, for instance, a Faith failure curses your magic: your next miscast automatically jumps to “summon a critter”.
In one of our campaigns, Gifted and Faithful are different expressions of the same trait, so it’s effectively one or the other.
That’s a good point I’d forgotten about–as part of working out the adventure, you decide what magic is, of all stripes, and you can do things like “no Faith magic” or “no major miracles” or whatever (two examples from the book)…leaving allowances for players, if they give you the puppy eyes. Naturally.
So really…being Gifted and Faithful is what you decide it should be, based on how they’ve manifested so far in the game.
I think you can have a lot of fun with it. Even more so than with a regular Faithful character, though, keep your eye on “Why is this character Faithful?” It’s not just another kind of magic.
Keep in mind that Faith magic is already the most powerful and flexible magic in the game. Combining it with Sorcery makes it even worse. You’ll be fine as long as the other players in the group are happy to let the Faith/Sorcery/Whizballs guy resolve everything while they watch.
Looks like they’re combining it with Spirit Binding. Which I think has a bit of the opposite problem: if you have Faithful, there’s not that much extra that Spirit Binding can do for you, is there?
Nope. If you have the Magic Burner, you can go a long way by playing with the Idiom rules in the Religion chapter.
Unless the game is about mystic folks collecting different mystic traditions, doubling up on magic stuff in one character is just too much going on in one character. Not just in terms of effectiveness, but in terms of the sorts of things they’ll want to involve themselves in and the kind of consequences they bring down on themselves through their normal modes of solving problems.
Now if everyone is on board to play escort around the chosen one and influence them when they fully ascend, or whatever, you could probably model badass Messianic powers through Gifted + Faithful or simply expanding on Faith via the Magic Burner. That can be plenty fun, if everyone’s up for it. In those cases an extra life path or trait point or two for the regular escorts just to help solidify that they’re the right people for the job can work. Though I prefer not to enhance them and to have them be hilariously not the right people for the job. At least not yet.
Can you find some way to set the Sorcery and the Faith against each other? Like, the god in question hates Sorcery and views it as meddling in His domain?
If every use of Faith or Sorcery is making an important statement about where the character stands in the balance between the two, if every time the player wants to use either one it’s cause to stop and think, then maybe you’re in good shape?
I would also encourage some real, in-depth conversation around the Starting Faith questions. Use them to flesh out the idiom of the player, and of the group.
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Faith requires reliance on the Higher Power in lieu of other methods. This is especially brought out in those three questions.
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Sorcery and other magic forms, as expressed in the rules, are aligned with the concept of will-working. i.e., they fundamentally involve using your own force of will to change the world to your personal desires.
Depending on how this conversation goes, the two could be (and I would say often are) diametrically opposed idioms. Are you truly “trusting most in God” or “consulting God first for aid” if you are bending the spirits and binding them to your own will?
I would have the conversation with the player, lay the ground rules for your game, then follow them. If you determine that there are places that the Gods are offended by the lack of faith expressed by a Faithful who relies first on sorceries, then you are free to invoke the anti-Munchkin rule on that page of the book and convert them to Lost Faith as the Gods turn on them.
“Can” is a matter for character creation. “Should” can also play out in the game.
Yeah, same idea as what he said. 
Beat me to the post!
It’s also much less of a big deal if you scope Faith to fellow believers. This seems to fit well for Roden since their visionary/prophet stuff is so focused on the fate of fellow Roden.
The ability to use sorcery is called The Gift. But from whom? I could easily see a setting in which sorcery is supposed to be used only by the faithful. No necessarily the Faithful with the capital F, but Church-sanctioned magic is the only acceptable kind and outsider are hunted down as witches or worse. Meanwhile, oine of the Faithful should not call upon God for aid at all times. To do so is presumptuous at worst, but even at best it shows a lack of ability to use the gifts God has given to help oneself. Pray, certainly, but do not call for wonders from on high. Thus, the Gifted and Faithful are those most blessed by God. They have been given great power to use in His service, but when all their talents are not enough they can call out to Him directly for divine intervention.
A quick setting idea, but it sets up reasonable Gifted+Faithful. That could outshine normals, but maybe not, and there’s room for interaction with the non-Gifted clergy, the outcast Gifted nonbelievers, the laity, and of course other stocks with their own powers, God-given or otherwise.
It’d just make it more official.
