Post/Author/DateTime	Post
april151978 10-24-07, 03:42 PM	Ok, this may have been asked before, but the search takes forever, and I don't think it even used for what I typed in the search... Anyway, how do some of you that have made gods/goddesses set up thier stats?... I guess more background would be appropriate, so my world is a standard world much like core D&D with many gods, some racial, some general, with no one god (except the overdeity, a concept I use to control who can become a god/goddess or not)... Now, how does one take say some hero's stats (not the PC's, but NPC's of the past) and make them more in tune to godhood?... I have looked at the stats, and the HD of the gods in the Deities and Demigods handbook and thought that manybe it's a combination of things... God/Godess stats minus thier divine rank Adjustment of stats based on HD (one point / 4 HD) and one or two stats that get an additional boost (but how?) I am not looking for a hard and fast rule per say, but rather some direction and structure rather than just assigning stats that I pick out of the blue... Also, this leads the possibility of a PC eventually making themselves a god/goddess if they get the backing in mortal followers after thier death... I await any ideas, no matter how far fetched, complicated, simplified, or homebrewed; I am at a loss...
ArcTan 10-24-07, 03:48 PM	What, precisely, do you mean by "stats"? What's unreasonable about the rules given in the D&DG handbook? (I don't like them very much myself, but I'm not sure what your issue is.)
Fireclave 10-24-07, 04:05 PM	If you want to stat up your gods, Dieties and Demigods already has rules for that, and those rules are are free in the SRD as well. It also depends on how you define "reasonable." By the time you PC's should even be concerned about a god's stats, reason has been left behind at least 20 levels ago. D&DG also has lots of suggestions (which are not in the SRD) on how gods, accession to god-hood, deicide, worship, adventuring after obtaining god-hood, and other related subjects can work. Simplest answer: Don't stat them. They're friggin' gods. It doesn't how high of level you get, you can't touch them. Being granted divinity is a plot reward that would probably only be achievable well into epic and be the crowning end-game achievement of a character.
Return of the Flumph 10-24-07, 05:12 PM	Personally, I've always thought that the gods as presented in DDG were too powerful. I find that CR 30-40 gods are more reasonable.
Salla 10-24-07, 05:26 PM	Gods don't need stats. :)
betrayor 10-24-07, 07:33 PM	Deities and Demigods has everything you need to stat a god except for their starting abilities. But in Deities and Demigods FAQ: Q:If I’m making my own deities, how do I determine what ability scores, Hit Dice, skills, feats, domains, portfolios, and salient abilities each deity should receive? A:You can determine these mostly by assigning them, just as you would with any other new creature or NPC. Deities receive skills and feats according to their outsider Hit Dice and class levels, just as a monster with a class does Most of the deities in Deities and Demigods started out as 13- HD outsiders; the designers used the titan from the Monster Manual as a starting point and worked from there. Domains, portfolios, and salient abilities, along with the methods for assigning them, are discussed in Chapter 2 of Deities and Demigods. All the deities in Deities and Demigods have a standard array of ability scores (similar to the standard array for NPCs in Chapter 2 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide). The standard array is 35, 28, 25, 24, 24, 24. To this standard divine array, the Deities and Demigods designers added +1 for every 4 class levels a deity had and +1 for every point of divine rank. Certain deities also received racial ability adjustments for the races they created or rule over. For example, Corellon Larethian received elf racial adjustments. All the deities in the book have ability scores generated this way, including the ones that are (or are reputed to be) ascended mortals. If you include divine ascension in your game and you want to use the standard divine array, you can require these scores before ascension (the Epic Level Handbook offers some ideas and information on how characters can acquire these high scores), or you can just give the characters the scores as a benefit of ascension. Of course, there’s no reason for you to give your deities any ability scores except the ones you think they should have. So there's your answer. I hope that helped.
ArcTan 10-24-07, 08:08 PM	Personally, I've always thought that the gods as presented in DDG were too powerful. I find that CR 30-40 gods are more reasonable. It depends for what purpose. If you want the gods to be just big people who walk around and can be killed, sure, I guess. That's not the only way to see gods, though, or even the most common.
vorpo 10-24-07, 08:51 PM	Personally, I've always thought that the gods as presented in DDG were too powerful. I find that CR 30-40 gods are more reasonable. On the contrary, in my campaign, a demigod is at least clvl 100 beings. A lesser god would be clvl 200 at least. Bottomline is, mortals shouldn't have such an easy time challenging a god to make their CR only 30...
The_Wild_King 10-24-07, 09:20 PM	Gods are just that, Gods. If a group of 4-8 mortals (albeit powerful mortals) could topple one, then you'd have pantheons changing every week.
ArcTan 10-24-07, 09:22 PM	On the contrary, in my campaign, a demigod is at least clvl 100 beings. A lesser god would be clvl 200 at least. Bottomline is, mortals shouldn't have such an easy time challenging a god to make their CR only 30... "CR 100" is a meaningless and dumb thing to slap onto a stat block unless you're actually going to have a party of ECL 100 PCs get into combat with them. Epic D&D swings and curves so wildly in power levels if you try to hew to the rules to make official builds for even, say, level 40 characters that unless you create your own, much more rigid system than the ruleset actually has, there's no way to even say how powerful "CR 100" actually is.
Return of the Flumph 10-24-07, 10:22 PM	On the contrary, in my campaign, a demigod is at least clvl 100 beings. A lesser god would be clvl 200 at least. Bottomline is, mortals shouldn't have such an easy time challenging a god to make their CR only 30... In some mythologies, a CR 100 baseline for gods is reasonable. In others, gods are far from all powerful, and can be bested by exceptional (read: epic) mortals. If there are tons of epic characters running all over your setting, CR 100 gods are best. In a lower powered world like mine, where a mortal will only reach thirtieth level once every century if that, CR 30 gods are best.
The_Cheeseman 10-25-07, 01:11 AM	There is nothing "reasonable" about a CR 100 being. Seriously, the most powerful creature I have ever run was a version of Velsharoon (Male lich wizard 25, archmage 5, red wizard of Thay 10, divine rank 5) that my party fought at around level 35. Even then, I had to intentionally avoid building him with obviously broken abilities like Alter Reality in order to make him even close to beatable. And you know what? He managed to off the entire party, sans the demilich character who was there to steal his divine spark, within the first 3 rounds. The demilich only survived due to its magic immunity and ridiculous AC. Keep in mind that Velsharoon was an ascended mortal, so I used stats similar to Vecna, meaning that he didn't even have the normal 20 outsider Hit Dice that most gods start with. I guess you could say that, as demigods go, he was rather gimpy. Still, once you start getting into intermediate and greater deities, the salient abilities and sheer number of other attacks and immunities make them virtually untouchable by any mortal, regardless of level. Even a 500th-level epic bad-arse dies instantly with no save when within range of Divine Splendor. Anyway, to get back on-topic, the FAQ guidelines pretty much lay bare the methods used to generate deity stats in Deities and Demigods. If you're looking for some way to extrapolate a deity's CR, you're treading on unstable ground, as the book specifically states that CR doesn't apply to deities (their abilities are simply too potent and varied to be accurately judged). However, some issues of Dungeon and Dragon magazines have included deities as opponents, including a Rank 1 proxy of Lolth (Dragon #298) and a rank 5 death god (Dungeon #123). The proxy was assigned a CR of 25, but the actual demigod had no CR, merely a suggested ad-hoc XP reward equal to a CR 34 encounter. I take that as to mean that a standard, by-the-book demigod is a challenge for a mid-30's party, and that is about right from my own play experience. However, demigods can't use a lot of the more broken Salient Divine Abilities, so once you hit lesser deity status, all bets are off. I have never personally attempted to run a being of that caliber.
vorpo 10-25-07, 01:24 AM	If a god is able to be killed by a bunch of lvl 35's, I'd say he's too weak to even be a god. Personally, a god that weak can't possibly have control over domains which are basically some aspect of the laws of multiverse. And a god that weak shouldn't be able to grant spells and thus would not have any clerics that can pray on him to receive spells. In turn, probably it will being lacking worshipers. That said, the "god" in your campaign is not a real god but just a more powerful being just like a great red wyrm dragon to a bunch of lvl 5s. I guess the debate can go on about what is really a god...
ArcTan 10-25-07, 02:10 AM	In some mythologies, a CR 100 baseline for gods is reasonable. In others, gods are far from all powerful, and can be bested by exceptional (read: epic) mortals. If there are tons of epic characters running all over your setting, CR 100 gods are best. In a lower powered world like mine, where a mortal will only reach thirtieth level once every century if that, CR 30 gods are best. "CR 100" is never reasonable. If you want your god to be that powerful, just say "He's really powerful, don't try to fight him". I respect that Dicefreaks wants to put an insane amount of effort into coming up with a system by which you can say "Asmodeus is CR 50" and actually *mean something* by it, but I see no reason to go into that amount of effort. In any case, D&D by itself does not provide you with the tools to do so.
Lankaster 10-25-07, 06:38 AM	I agree with ArcTan, Dicefreaks have done a very good job concerning cosmic and divine entities. The top limit for medium-sized characters for Str, Dex, and Con is 70, while the top limit for all beings for Int, Wis, and Cha is 60. Keep in mind the Dicefreaks` suggestion - mortals can reach only up to 50 HD. My personal note after these levels in terms of HD are as follows. Quasi-Deities: HD 50 - 52. Demigods: HD 52 - 60. Lesser Deities: HD 60 - 68. Intermidiate Deities: HD 68-76. Greater Deities (Divine Rank 16 -17): HD 76 - 80. Greater Deities (Divine Rank 18 - 19): HD 80 - 85. Greater Deities (Divine Rank 20): HD 85 -90. Overgods: HD 100+. Keep in mind, mortal should have an extremely hard time when facing a divine entity, even of a Divine Rank 0. I personally aspouse the Dicefreaks` Rank check system. Perhaps you should consider it, and ALWAYS keep in mind the gods` divine immunities against mortals and - perhaps - other gods. Finally, Do avoid the mistake of allowing your PCs to challenge an Overgod. I have run a game in the past where my PCs faced the avatar of a custom-made Overgod of mine... It was nasty... REALLY nasty... And painful...
april151978 10-25-07, 10:32 AM	What, precisely, do you mean by "stats"? What's unreasonable about the rules given in the D&DG handbook? (I don't like them very much myself, but I'm not sure what your issue is.) Well, I am looking for some ideas on how to take the heros of the past in my world (after a great war, etc) and make them gods/goddesses... If it were to happen, I would like to have a base idea on how to get them to stats that are similar to the ones in Deities and Demigods... I have seen some great ideas, and also seen some great references to look into (it's great to have a weekend off this weekend :))... In particular, Lankaster, betrayor, and others for thier insight into this... As for gods not needing stats, I mainly want them for Avatars... To get a an avatar, you should have an idea of the stats of the god/goddess they are attached to... Am I going to put my PCs up against a god/goddess, well, that is up to them...
awaken_D_M_golem 10-28-07, 04:17 PM	The Epic Boards reached a concensus, perhaps 3 years ago by now, that DvR Zero is worth LA +6. Getting an LA of +6 all at once, might over-balance a character. Trading 6 character levels for an LA+6, would have to be cleared with an Overdeity/ DM. But that is completely reasonable. Level Adjustment Buy-off can start at 18HD + LA6 = 24th level. And it's worth it. Getting a DvR of 1, oh boy :( It's almost impossible to assign a reasonable # to that one. 3 or 4 or more, at-will 9th level spells ??? !!! And some of the Domains have Time Stop. And some of the Domains have Miracle. Have fun.
Deamon 10-28-07, 04:22 PM	"CR 100" is never reasonable. If you want your god to be that powerful, just say "He's really powerful, don't try to fight him". What if you're running a game with level 100 PCs?
ArcTan 10-28-07, 05:29 PM	Then you already have problems. The reason CR 100 isn't reasonable is that the Epic rules are very badly written, and two level 100 characters built according to reasonable interpretations of the Epic rules can differ incredibly wildly in power. It takes the already-burdensome issue of level 20 Wizards making level 20 Fighters into dead weight and increases it exponentially.
Amon_V 10-29-07, 01:41 AM	Well, I use this approach. The weakest deities are Lv 15/1 Divine Rank and are Low Epic. They can do cool stuff, but they are very far from invincible. These guys are generally servants to the gods, members of a pantheon, or extremely marginal characters whose worship is essentially a cult. The Higher the DR gets, the more awesome the Deity gets in terms of CR. DR 20 is going to have 45-50 character levels behind them; and those character levels are not going to be Cleric 20/ Wizard 20 (How lame and extremely unoriginal) I'd redo most of the deity stuff anyway; the SDA's need some kind of equivalence in terms of how powerful they are designed to be. Alter Reality can be fixed by a strict ruling invoking 'Wish'. The Deity gets to use Wish freely; but Wish is merely a 9th level spell with fixed limits. It might force a PC to save or die, but it can not do anything that a Wish could not normally do. Alter Reality would quickly grant a deity +5 stats across the board, as well as slowly increase the quantity and quality of Magical items.
pigknight 10-30-07, 08:25 PM	In my campain mortals (and non-deity outsiders) max at level 25 (mostly elves and people blessed by gods) and uses gesalt rules. For fun I made a list of stats for the deities using these guide lines: 1. All deities have 5 classes one of which is cleric of themself (i.e. Vecna is a Wizard/Cleric/Archivist/Rogue/Warlock) 2. All deities have levels based of this table: demigod: 40th lesser: 80th intermediate: 100th greater: 150th over-deity: 250th 3. Deities have maxed hp per hit die. 4. All deities start with 35 in all stats. 5. Deities of races get the stat adjustment of their race. 6. Deities of atleast lesser status reform 4d12 days after destruction, during that time another deity of similar beliefs will take control of their porfolio (Boccob dies Vecna gets brief power, Nerull dies Wee Jas gets brief power). 7. Something can become a demigod by being the son/daughter of a lesser or higher ranked deity or is appointed by 5 deities of intermediate power or higher of a jury containing 1 good deity, 1 lawful deity, 1 evil deity, 1 chaotic deity, and 1 true neutral deity. 8. A demigod becomes a lesser deity by having atleast1,000,000 followers and 100,000 clerics and approved by a true neutral deity. 9. A lesser deity becomes an intermediate deity by having atleast 10,000,000 followers, 1,000,000 clerics and 1,000 temples and approved by a true neutral deity, an lawful deity, and a chaotic deity. 10. An intermediate deity becomes a greater deity by having an aditional 2,000 17th or higher level clerics and 2,500 aditional champions of 15th or higher level of the deity's church, and is approvied by a true neutral deity, a evil deity and a good deity. 11. The most worshiped greater deity becomes an over-deity if there is no other over-deity and is appointed by all other deities. That deity then changes alignment to true neutral and becomes the over-deity and gains a bonus of 50 to all stats and an additional 40 to one stat of the deity's choice. Now looking at that one is going to be able to take on a demigod with about 40 25th level people and expect a good amount to die and kill it if they get lucky (Oh my St. Cuthbert sounds like Black Temple in World of Warcraft), and a group of 100 level 25th people and 1 demigod can expect to temporarily destroy a lesser deity. An intermediate or higher deity will obliterate anything that trys to attack it. Also it is a lot harder to become a deity, so your epic champion will have almost no chance to become a deity. This also makes Boccob and Obad Hai more powerful because of their influence. Also to become atleast a demigod requires a lot, then moving up in ranks requires the approval of quite a few gods. The thing that really seperates this from the other ways people creates deities is that lesser and higher deities are immortal.
Fireclave 10-31-07, 03:23 AM	Well, I am looking for some ideas on how to take the heros of the past in my world (after a great war, etc) and make them gods/goddesses... If it were to happen, I would like to have a base idea on how to get them to stats that are similar to the ones in Deities and Demigods... I have seen some great ideas, and also seen some great references to look into (it's great to have a weekend off this weekend :))... If that is your intention, you could do worse than using the information provided in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/divineRanksPowers.htm). Since most deities have 20 levels of outsider plus 30 to 50 character levels, you could simply take your past heroes, add about 20 levels of outsider, bump up their class levels if need be, and go from there. Then simply build them up from there as if they were regular NPCs. As for gods not needing stats, I mainly want them for Avatars... To get a an avatar, you should have an idea of the stats of the god/goddess they are attached to... Avatars (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#avatar) are still gods; not technically, but they're stated as their originating god, but only (only :rolleyes: ) minus a few divine ranks. Unless you really do want your PCs going up against gods, you don't really need stats for them either. Unless you're talking about aspects, which are mentioned in the Miniatures Handbook, which are basically large-sized, CR10-ish versions of gods they represent. Different aspects of the same deity can represent different portions of the deity's focus, powers, and abilities, so their's no need to be exact with their build so long as they are representative of the god they originated from. Now these things your PCs can actually face, so just take your past heroes, up their size a category or two, stat them up as 10th level characters, equip them, and go to town.
april151978 11-01-07, 08:57 AM	If that is your intention, you could do worse than using the information provided in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/divineRanksPowers.htm). Since most deities have 20 levels of outsider plus 30 to 50 character levels, you could simply take your past heroes, add about 20 levels of outsider, bump up their class levels if need be, and go from there. Then simply build them up from there as if they were regular NPCs. Avatars (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#avatar) are still gods; not technically, but they're stated as their originating god, but only (only :rolleyes: ) minus a few divine ranks. Unless you really do want your PCs going up against gods, you don't really need stats for them either. Unless you're talking about aspects, which are mentioned in the Miniatures Handbook, which are basically large-sized, CR10-ish versions of gods they represent. Different aspects of the same deity can represent different portions of the deity's focus, powers, and abilities, so their's no need to be exact with their build so long as they are representative of the god they originated from. Now these things your PCs can actually face, so just take your past heroes, up their size a category or two, stat them up as 10th level characters, equip them, and go to town. Again, I personally will not throw anything at them that they don't upset in game... If they constantly attack the followers of a particular god, they yes, I would like to have that information handy just in case they decide to do that; I don't railroad, and I use good judgement to decide what happens when they decide to go crazy or whatever...
Fireclave 11-01-07, 01:44 PM	Again, I personally will not throw anything at them that they don't upset in game... If they constantly attack the followers of a particular god, they yes, I would like to have that information handy just in case they decide to do that; I don't railroad, and I use good judgement to decide what happens when they decide to go crazy or whatever... I didn't mean to imply at all that you were intending to railroad them or that you were thinking about carelessly throwing stuff into your campaign. I was merely trying to point out that avatars are not much weaker than the gods who created them. If you weren't planing on having the actual god's stats come into play (which is likely if your players aren't high-epic), their avatars' stats would probably not need much consideration either since they still have many of the damn-near-auto-win abilities their creators have. I suggested using aspects because, again unless you are playing epic, it is highly unlikely that a typical D&D god will become directly involved in the affairs of mortals. They either affect the world indirectly or get their minions, worshipers with class levels, or adventurers to take care of a problem. It's rare that their stats won't become an issue. Unless you're in Greece (where you can't take two steps without tripping over some god), it takes something extreme (like the unavoidable genocide of their followers, or something that upsets the cosmic balance of the universe) to get a god of his throne and pay you a personal house call. Aspects, on the other hand, are much more likely to see play. Not just because they are easier to stat out and lower on the CR-o'-meter, but also because it is possible for mortals to summon them with the right spells.