What happens on a disapproval roll of 0 or less?

Question

The Deity Disapproval table on page 122 lists the penalties for a Disapproval roll of 1 through 20+.

However, it appears to me that a roll of 0 or less is not only possible, but highly likely. The roll is

• Nd4 where N is the number on the failed spell check
• Less the cleric's Luck modifier

Since Luck is a basic stat (within 3-18) it seems like Disapproval rolls will be 0 or less until the cleric suffers several failures in a day (hence increasing N).

Does that mean there is no actual Disapproval?

Answer 1

Since the rules don't actually say, you're going to have to make a judgement call. If it were up to me, I'd say that a roll of zero has no effect.

Here's why I'd make that call:

The results on the table aren't predictable.

Imagine if it said:

• roll 1: chant for 10 minutes
• roll 2: chant for 20 minutes
• roll 3: chant for 40 minutes
• roll 4: chant for 80 minutes

Even without a listed result for a roll of zero, you could still predict that it would say "chant for 5 minutes", following a regular, predicatble pattern.

The results mostly tend to get weaker as the roll goes down.

Though the table isn't predictable, the results at low rolls tend to be much weaker than the results at high rolls. Chant for 10 minutes, once you're out of battle isn't a very hard thing to do. Lose 1 point of Strength, Agility, and Stamina due to illness is a much stronger effect.