How do you handle the accumulation of PPs in your campaigns?

I took a glance at HarnReligion and noticed that a cleric (or even a layman!) can accumulate a significant number of Piety Points just by attending mass or cleaning the abbot's room, or washing the cloister's toilets. It says in HarnReligion that the basic amount that a cleric receives by attending Daily Mass and High Mass is 30 PPs per month! A cleric who had a year to spare could thus collect a vast reserve of PPs to keep him and his group safe in bad times.

That means quite a leap of faith without any significant religious progress!

Combine this with the rules for Divine Intervention and you get clerics (or pious laymen) who can call upon the divine protection in just about every adventure!

I find this approach very boring and mundane. Have any of you found any good alternatives on how to handle Piety without making clerics just pious spellcasters? I would really want to keep religions mystical and miracles, well, miraculous without simply stripping clerics of their powers!

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"The greatest sport ever: the Biathlon - cross-country skiing interspersed with rounds of shooting Russians." - HierophantX on Finnish winter sports

I and (gladfully) my players have overread this passage... Where does HMR state this?

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Með kveðju, Thorvald
http://www.last.fm/user/hrafnsbjarg

It's onone of the sidebars.

I personaly alow the priests or (pious laymen) to use PP but when tey do I roll the dice secretly. I've limited the max PP to dubble ritual ML. I don't belive you get more atention from the gods doing what they expect you to do; priest praying every day. Mayby you can impose PPpenalty if they don't pray

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Your "friendly" neiborhood doc!

I found it. HMR, Religion 11, Sidebar. It is an optional rule.

The players who played priests IMC always had (and will have) a hard time getting piety points. They are easily spend, but not as easily got back...

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Með kveðju, Thorvald
http://www.last.fm/user/hrafnsbjarg

I allow all characters to burn PPs rather freely to get "luck bonuses" on almost any stressful die roll. (Well, not if they're trying to do something directly impious, like a Peonian trying to murder someone, for instance). Also they get to scream for divine intervention when things are getting really hairy. I figure a pious layman would accumulate about 10 PP per month, to a priest's 30. Sure, it's a sort of metagaming, but who cares; it makes the players happy and isn't enough to really unbalance anything.

The 30 Piety per month (Religion 11) is an optional short cut rule for those who do not wish to use the piety gain table.
Irregardless of how much piety a character may be entitles to it is still up to the GM to regulate it, since it is the gods whim to give piety so to is it the GM's.
How that piety is used is also up to the GM, such as invocation piety cost, piety spent to learn a ritual invocation, sinful acts, etc.
To prevent priests from being walking hospitals you could make the piety cost of healing rituals require double piety if the patient is not of the same faith (triple if of an opposing faith ) and/or have the patient lose some piety for the task as well.
Another way to have rituals not always succeed (but still cost piety) is if the reduction of piety used in the ritual (for either the priest or patient) would reduce the character below the level for divine grace (just a suggestion )