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Your powers are meant for combat, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find applications for them off the battlefield. Over the next few weeks, I will present an at-will power from each of the core classes in PH1 and how they can be used to personalize your character outside of combat.
The Cleric
Divine flame
Father Zossima knelt next to his ill companion. His attempts to rid the knight of disease by medicine had failed and now he readied the only power left in his arsenal—faith.
The priest spoke in a conversation tone as he rummaged through his pack “The Gods do not always answer my prayers. Sometimes ill fortune is by design and we do not understand it.” The old man paused for a moment before producing a thick stick of incense. He pressed the end of it in the ground before continuing. “But, if it is decided, then you will be purified of evil.”
With a wave of his hand, the tip of the incense lit with a golden flame. The fuel was greedily consumed and a pleasant scent filled the air. The knight inhaled deeply then retched up black phlegm as the disease fled his body.
Using divine flame in combat lets a character light something on fire and give an ally temporary hit points, or a saving throw. In this case, the cleric has used a heal check and the at-will power on a stick of incense to give the knight two saving throws against disease. All it cost him was a bit of cheap incense, a much better bargain and much faster than a ritual.
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I started Dungeon Mastering with secondhand AD&D materials in 1996 and have run a vast number of D20 campaigns, from cliche' medieval adventures in a kingdom made of Lego bricks to fighting zombies and the mob in the mid 1930s. I try to make the gaming experience as enjoyable, fast-paced, and easy to play as humanly possible. 
That’s a very cool idea. I’ve been thinking along similar lines, since one of my players purposefully picked Command for his third level Cleric prayer so he’d have a power he could try using out of combat. This is a great example of one that’s less obvious, and I’m looking forward to more! I’ll think up a few of my own, too.
Great idea! I’ve been thinking of ways to better incorporate the powers of each class into non-combat encounters and interactions, and that’s exactly the sort of thing I think would work really well, taking the flavor text of the power and using it to help generate non-combat uses of the power. Well done.
Very good idea ethan and I’d like to translate this articles to my site with credits and links to the original post. May I?
@McKenzie Command is a good power to have all the way around. If you’ve got any other ideas for cleric powers that have off-the-grid applications. post them in the comments.
@Jeremy Thanks. Gamefiend gave me the idea originally.
@araujo I’m always happy for the relink. Come back next week and I’ll have an off-the-grid at-will for the fighter. Say that 10 times fast!
Thanks a lot and I’m always here.
While this does make a nice bit of RP text to read, isn’t it disallowed by the bag-of-rats rule in the DMG?
@darkInertia I apologize for taking so long to reply to your comment, but I wanted to have some good feedback.
You are correct. This power does defy the rules for legitimate targets (DMG, p. 40). If you’re a DM by the rules or have a rule lawyer at your table, this won’t fly at all.
But, as was suggested by a friend, a significantly threatening situation should count as a legitimate target unto itself. In this case, the true target of the power is the knight’s disease.
Coolness.
Actually, this wouldn’t work because diseases don’t have “saves”. You recover from diseases by making an Endurance check at the end of each extended rest, and someone can use their Heal check to replace your Endurance check, but once you have got the disease there is no saving throw.