A discussion about stats for deities without house-ruling...some help?

[Reynolds-sama]

Hi guys, i am just curious to know how you would manage to create deities stats, without having to make big and tedious house-rulings.

I was thinking to just use regular class and racial hit dices, so i've deduced that it would be a good idea to divide deities in 4 main categories:

A)Nascent deities
B)Demigods
C)(Minor) Deities
D)Major deities

In order to make a comparison, i've looked in the tome of horrors: Lucifer has 51 HDs (39 class + 12 outsider HDs).
I think Lucifer could be considered somebody very borderline between being a Deity and a Major one.

So...depending on your experience and ideas, which kind of HDs range would you set for each of the categories above?

[Are]

You might want to take a look at 3.0's Deities and Demigods. It contains statblocks for a large amount of D&D deities, most of which have around 40 character levels (although some are lower or higher; the book advises 30-50 levels for self-created deities). In addition, each deity has 1-20 "divine ranks", which grant a host of additional abilities.

It's worth noting that the Pathfinder deities are not part of that book (both being created many years later, and by a different company), and that Paizo has deliberately not given game statistics to their deities. But if you do want to create statistics for them, that book might be a good place to start (albeit written for a system that has now been revised twice, first to 3.5 and then to Pathfinder).

[LazarX]

I have to ask the question why?

Are you planning on having your players fight them? If so, are you planning on having them having a chance of winning? Only if both questions are yes, would you need stats.

If you to pit one diety in a mano y mano fight, that's a GM story event, you have it come out the way you want it to come out. If you want random elements, have the diety fight be mirrored by a players vs the bad guy fight and let that one weigh the bigger fight.

No matter what you do, putting stats on dieties IS a house rule.

[Zhayne]

Anything qualified to be called a deity has little sideways figure-eights for all stats.

[Claxon]

I second what LazarX and Are said. Paizo has deliberately left deities without stats. Paizo wants deities to be unfathomably powerful. They also know if you write stats out you give players a target, a goal. You give them an idea of how they might defeat them.

For what it's worth, I beleive Bestiary 4 has stats for Lucifer in it.

[Tequila Sunrise]

Claxon wrote:

I second what LazarX and Are said. Paizo has deliberately left deities without stats. Paizo wants deities to be unfathomably powerful.

And we all know what happens when a rogue DM violates Paizo's wishes...

...Nothing.

As for the OP, doesn't PF has some new-fangled mythic rules? Sounds to me like a good place to start. Decide what the maximum possible level for a mortal in your campaign is -- probably 20 -- slap on some mythic levels, and then a few more class levels for good measure. Or maybe outsider HD instead of more class levels, if you don't want different deities' stats diverging even further.

[Claxon]

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

Claxon wrote:

I second what LazarX and Are said. Paizo has deliberately left deities without stats. Paizo wants deities to be unfathomably powerful.

And we all know what happens when a rogue DM violates Paizo's wishes...

...Nothing.

My point was not that he'll get in some sort of trouble for his action. That's preposterious. The accusation that such was my intent as evidence to indicate he should go about creating stats for gods is dubious.

My assertion was to say to him, "Think about the question you're asking and the way the game world is intended to be." It's fine if he wants to circumvent this, it is his world and his players game. I will never know the difference. But as LazarX said, does he really intend of having mortals fight a god? Does he actually want to give them a fair chance of success? If not, then their is no point in creating stats for them.

[Reynolds-sama]

I know that Paizo will probably never release deities stats because they want them to be extremely powerful. And I agree with them when they say "Gods can't be killed by mortals, because it's just concept and this isn't COD xD", but what i was looking for, is a sort of escape clause in case a player wants to attack...let's say...Cayden Cailean.

Probably LazarX is right...the best thing to do is to rule the "fight" as an event where the player will implode just after Cayden's free action xD.

Since I am a perfectionist, I would anyway love to have a stat block to do this, but probably this is just a waste of time involving 3.0 material. :D

[Jaelithe]

You could always rule that one or more of the other gods could extend power and protection to a mortal—far more than they'd grant to any cleric or paladin—enabling a direct attack on another god. If, say, five deities formed a coalition and each provided a portion of their divine essence, it'd likely be enough to synthesize a temporary apotheosis—one that'd last long enough to do the dirty deity destroying deed.

Perhaps this is rarely if ever done because it'd make apparent that the gods are far more vulnerable than they wish mortals to realize.

[MMCJawa]

Well for Nascent dieties, those would have stats equivalent to Infernal Dukes, Daemon harbringers, Nascent Demon Lords etc. Inner Sea Gods has examples of those you could use to model (They will generally be CR 20-25)

Demigods will be CR-26-30. There are some example Empyreal Lords, Demon Lords, and Great Old Ones in Bestiary 4, plus Wrath of the Righteous and the Mythic campaign setting book.

Anything greater than that is outside the rulebook however, so you will either have to adapt 3.5 rules or otherwise houserule. Unless you want to play with the Epic level rules, probably not worth it (Mythic tiers only gets you to CR 25 assuming PC level wealth and stats)

[Quintessentially Me]

For what it's worth, if you absolutely want the players to "fight" a deity with a chance to "win", I would recommend that you combine both the story approach with mechanics.

For example, take Aroden. Seems dead right? But what if in fact he is somewhere else, on some other plane of existence, went there on purpose, stays there against his will. Trapped now. Suppose his divine essence is somehow being siphoned off to power something, something he initially agreed with but agrees with no longer.

Further suppose that this is taking place within some region on this plane that has protections etched by god-like beings themselves, the likes of which mere mortals could not possibly hope to duplicate, but which are part of the draining. But like ants marching into a fortress, the mortals are beneath notice and may enter this area and encounter a weakened Aroden.

All of this is fluff, hand waving stuff that the players cannot duplicate nor try to circumvent except in a way you very carefully devise.

Now within this region, they can fight an aspect of Aroden, badly weakened but still a massively difficult encounter. You could make it a simple tank and spank or build it up almost like he's built a demi plane with them fighting through multiple encounters, etc.

Finally they get to the final fight and win. But what did they win? Maybe by defeating the aspect they are hastening the draining, in essence they are pushing the divine process along ever so slightly further, speeding up the process. Did they really kill him? No, but perhaps they could say they eliminated his chance to escape by tipping the scales just that little bit. Or maybe they were defeating the part of him that was considering staying in place, still believing it was "the right thing to do". In which case his resolve is strengthened and in time he stands a better chance of escaping.

In the immediate sense, when the players step back onto Golarion nothing will have changed. Aroden is still missing in action, deemed dead. But story wise yes events have changed dramatically. And they would have no doubt had truck with other deities and come directly under the spotlight as a result. It's a compromise and allows a great deal of latitude in giving them a shot at a deity while still retaining that deity's status as being far above mere mortals.

[krevon]

To have a realistic chance of tackling deities is to do it through their followers. To take away the worship of a god is to take away it's power base.

Thats not a bad idea for a game actually...I could title "The New Gods" with the PCs earning class levels and mythic ranks to take over a pantheon.

[Jaelithe]

How likely is it that gods, who are quite aware of what's going on if they're at all concerned with maintaining their power base, wouldn't eliminate such PCs before they could amass sufficient strength to become a threat? It'd only be strategically prudent.

They'd have to have inside help, perhaps from gods who'd like to see a change at the top and offer partial protection from divine reprisal but plan to let the PCs in on the bottom floor of deification while they claim the power penthouse ...

... or perhaps outside help, from a rival pantheon or beings with power from non-divine sources that are inclined to see a shift in the cosmological power structure.

[Caius]

I believe on gilarion they don't need followers to sustain them anyway.

[Alzrius]

Claxon wrote:

My point was not that he'll get in some sort of trouble for his action. That's preposterious. The accusation that such was my intent as evidence to indicate he should go about creating stats for gods is dubious.

It's not dubious; it's the most logical conclusion that can be drawn when someone asks "how do I do X" and someone else answers, "Paizo doesn't want you to do that."

It's his home game, and he's not concerned with keeping things "canon" or "official" - so then the question becomes why did you or anyone else bring up Paizo, let alone their desires, in the first place? They have no input into this equation, so who cares what they want?

Quote:

My assertion was to say to him, "Think about the question you're asking and the way the game world is intended to be." It's fine if he wants to circumvent this, it is his world and his players game. I will never know the difference. But as LazarX said, does he really intend of having mortals fight a god? Does he actually want to give them a fair chance of success? If not, then their is no point in creating stats for them.

The game world is "intended" to be whatever the GM and players want - again, this isn't a setting issue. Even if he is using Golarion, he's not bound to use any of the setting's intrinsic assumptions, tropes, or defaults. He's not circumventing anything - he's making the game his own, which is something that most people here seem to support, except for when it becomes something like stats for deities, which just seems to make many people start frowning and trying to explain why that's badwrongfun.

Your last sentence is a perfect example of that - you and LazarX have objectively set what the "point" of stats for deities is, and then questioned if the OP can possibly meet that. The idea that the point of this is to have fun - whether in a combat encounter, some other kind of encounter, or even just in making the stats themselves - suddenly isn't the most important thing anymore; now it's measuring them on a (rather harsh) scale of practicality, which can be objectively measured and critiqued.

Even that might have some merit if the OP had asked for a discussion about the merits-versus-faults of having stats for gods at all. But (s)he didn't; they just wanted to know how to do it, rather than have a debate.

Requests for help with something (at least something game-related on these boards) shouldn't have to be justified. If you don't want to help, just don't answer.

That said, Reynolds-sama, you might want to try checking out the Immortal's Handbook: Ascension for an alternate take on (3.5) stats for deities.

[Are]

I just remembered that the 3.0 deity rules are in fact open content, and are published online. So, instead of tracking down the Deities and Demigods book itself, you can check these links out:

Divine Ranks and Characteristics
Divine Abilities and Feats
Divine Minions (plus some regular domains and spells)

[Lyee]

If I were to stat gods for an 'eventuality' of a player attacking them when they had no chance to win, it would probably be along these lines:

God <X>

A god can take any number of full-round, standard, and immediate actions during a turn.

HP: A god can have up to 1,000,000(any arbitrarily large number) hit die. These hit die can be of any size up to d100. A god can change this number as an immediate action.

AC: A god can have a touch, flat footed and base armor of up to 1,000,000(again, any arbitrarily large number). A god can change these numbers as an immediate action.

ect, ect. It's an easy way to do it that gets the same results as actually stating them out. If you want gods players stand a chance against, then Pathfinder isn't really made for that, and the Deities and Demigods book would be as good of a starting place as you're likely to get.

[Jaelithe]

Caius wrote:

I believe on gilarion they don't need followers to sustain them anyway.

At least that's what the gods are telling you.

Whether I'm referring to deities or designers is up to you. ;)

[Jaelithe]

Lyee wrote:

If you want gods players stand a chance against, then Pathfinder isn't really made for that...

Which is the personal preference of the designers, and means precisely dick in a home-brew, where Pathfinder is yours and not theirs, but just as validly Pathfinder.

Just make the gods what you want them to be, OP. Lyee's take is great. So is another in which you reach Heaven's pinnacle only to find that Sarenrae is Britney Spears, and sings, "Oops, I did it again! Pay no attention to the babe behind the mirror!" when confronted.

[bojac6]

Well yes, a home brew campaign can have any rules it wants. Very good. But this question wasn't about that. It was about finding stats blocks for deities, so the answer was that pathfinder does not have those and an explanation for why not.

To the OP. If you're building these stats blocks you need to take into account Clerics and Paladins. If their power is really granted to them by a deity, and that deity can revoke that power the instant a misuse is committed, what does that look like on a character sheet? The feat tree to give someone access to 9th level spells across all planes hasn't even been published yet.

And there's the problem with stating gods. Their power, as implied by class descriptions alone, is so far beyond anything in the rulebooks as to be incomprehensible. Someone wants to attack Cayden? Cayden has to allow it, has to become manifest, and then his response can be anything. 20th level spells? Sure. Don't know what that looks like but its more than twice as high as Wish.

The 3.0 rulebook is just silly but it gets close. Pelor rolls a 40 on every d20 roll, for instance.

[Thanael]

Check out the Dicefreaks forums and their revised Divine Rules (streamlining 3E epic rules with Divine rules). Most importantly they got rid of the cumbersome 20 outsider HD, leaving more room for class levels.

For PF you should probably start with defining CR/HD tiers, tack on Mythic levels and then additional abilities/immunities like from the old Divine rules.

For those uncomfortable with starting deities think of them as avatars.

[KahnyaGnorc]

I would just note the GOLARION is not built for that. Since Pathfinder is built upon 3.5 Ed and d20, and both have stated out deities, then Pathfinder would also be built for that.

[Jaelithe]

bojac6 wrote:

Well yes, a home brew campaign can have any rules it wants. Very good. But this question wasn't about that. It was about finding stats blocks for deities, so the answer was that pathfinder does not have those and an explanation for why not.

And since that had already been established earlier in the thread, I was tell the OP to do as he liked and feel confident in so doing.

Sorry you didn't feel that was applicable. Fortunately, it wasn't addressed to you.

[Elbe-el]

If you want an excellent baseline for statting deities, you might give a gander at Super Genius's Guides to the Godling, Mystic Godling, and the Godling Ascendent.

Of course, they won't give stats for the "Golarion" deities themselves, but it might be a useful starting point for figuring out HOW to stat the "Golarion" gods in a manner that would allow them to be used in a combat against PC's.

-EDIT-

As for your original question, you CAN'T stat the gods without house-ruling or 3rd party involvement. Paizo does not publish, or even indirectly infer, any stats for deities. Paizo regards them as story elements or background fluff, not as encounters players could actually have.

[Claxon]

Jaelithe wrote:

bojac6 wrote:

Well yes, a home brew campaign can have any rules it wants. Very good. But this question wasn't about that. It was about finding stats blocks for deities, so the answer was that pathfinder does not have those and an explanation for why not.

And since that had already been established earlier in the thread, I was tell the OP to do as he liked and feel confident in so doing.

Sorry you didn't feel that was applicable. Fortunately, it wasn't addressed to you.

You are coming across in an unpleasant manner. And rather than go further than that, or continue to argue with you in this thread about whom is right or wrong and what things to take into consideration I think I'm just going to pour myself a glass of bourbon and walk away.

Good evening to you sir, and thank you for sharing.

[Evil Genius Prime]

Claxon wrote:

For what it's worth, I beleive Bestiary 4 has stats for Lucifer in it.

Which entry are you referring to?

[bojac6]

Here's the issue with deities. The only concrete, tangible definition we have is that they are the source of divine magic. It says that in all the class descriptions, a cleric uses the power of her god, etc. Which means that killing a deity means all of the deities worshipers are cut off from power. If you kill a powerful being calling himself Nethys, but later on run into a cleric to Nethys who still casts divine spells and uses Nethys' holy symbol to do so, did you actually kill Nethys?

So, extrapolating from how divine magic works, that its source is something believed in by the caster (as opposed to Arcane magic, which is implied to come more directly form force of will), there are really only two scenarios. That a "god" is just a concept or metaphor, and a means of focusing one's faith, or that a god is actually manifest as a very powerful being.

If the first option is the case in your campaign, then the god only exists as a mental construct within the believers. In this instant, the divine magic comes from such strong faith in a deity or an ideal that the caster is able to alter reality to be more in accord with their beliefs. Losing your casting ability is not because a being deemed you unworthy, but because you feel such guilt over betraying your ideals that you no longer can make your faith manifest. There is nothing to stat out, the only way to fight that "god" is to get people to stop believing in it. This leads to the interesting question of whether it is really possible to stamp out an idea. You also should consider that some concepts are almost universal to intelligent beings, so the gods to this concept may be presented differently in different cultures, but still are the same source of power. So conflicts between different deities are just metaphors for society and development. Asmodeus and Iomedae working together to stop Ravagug is a lesson in the importance of order and civilization, no matter the flavor, overcoming pure, unadulterated chaos.

The other option is that a physical being actually exists that is the deity. This being could have stats. But lets think about what those stats would look like for a minute. This character is granting every cleric, paladin, oracle, etc, every class ability and spell slot that they have. I admit I don't have a complete knowledge of the rules, but is there any ability that grants an ally an extra spell slot? If so, a deity has that, only the range is infinite, the duration is infinite (D), the targets are all allies across all the planes, and the effect scales with the targets level. How long is that feat tree? How many levels must a character have to even begin doing that?

So yes, after a long quest to find Sarenrae, the cleric could find Britney Spears. But unless Britney Spears is the source of that cleric's abilities, that is not Sarenrae. Maybe its her avatar, though I think a lot of parties would call bs if you did that.

Here's the best part of it, though. It doesn't matter which one of these systems is "true". A well educated mage could very well argue with the cleric that the cleric's power comes from the same place as the mage's, just using his faith as a crutch to cast spells. Meanwhile, the cleric absolutely believes that Iomedae is actually out there watching over him. A wizard might also believe in the gods as physical beings, but recognize them as so powerful as to be incomprehensible.

And ultimately, that's why there are no official stat blocks in Pathfinder. Because whether they actually exist personified or not, they are beyond the numbers on the sheet. Its what makes them gods. Any system of quantifing them has to be homebrew, and I would argue will also come up short of their power.

After all that, here's what I'd do for your situation of wanting a stats block for a deity. Pick the highest CR outsider that is appropriate to the deity. You mentioned Cayden earlier, so I'll use him as an example. Cayden would probably be some kind of male Brijidine Azata. Then give that creature 20 levels of Cleric and 20 levels of an appropriate class. Cayden would be Rogue, Have that figure deal with the party. If they pull anything, that figure deals with them in an appropriate manner (Cayden would probably strip them naked and teleport them to the center of a busy city) and then explains that they are just an avatar of their god, because mortals are unable to survive in the awesome presence of the real deity. Then the avatar turns to whomever was stupid enough to start the first fight and burns the eyes out of his sockets by simply allowing more of the power to slip through (if you really need a stat, make it Fort save: 10 + HD + cha mod, somewhere in the 50s I should suspect) and disappears. Any attempt at healing this blindness needs to penetrate the avatar's SR (make it the same as the Fort save).

[Mikaze]

Evil Genius Prime wrote:

Claxon wrote:

For what it's worth, I beleive Bestiary 4 has stats for Lucifer in it.

Which entry are you referring to?

Probably Tome of Horrors Complete, actually.

[Mikaze]

Also, this topic led me to imagine Cayden Cailean ignoring some Hellknight being belligerent to him on Elysium up until the guy threatened someone else. Leading to Cayden sighing and throwing his rapier into the air, kicking the Hellknight five miles into the air, leaping up to meet the Hellknight at the apex of his rise and dropkicking him back down to the surface before rapidly fallig and landing upon the Hellknight's back to surf him down a mountain to the adulation of onlooking petitioners, azatas, and angels as the HK's armor is ground to dust, leaving him with only his underclothes; and finally kicking off and launching the HK to embed him in a cliffside. All while he's divinely protecting the HK from lethal damage.

He nonchalantly makes a 4 point landing right in front of the HK, casually holds out his hand and catches the rapier, holding it where it lands-pointed at the HK's throat and then lecturing him on manners and then ending it with a gentle slap on the cheek and a motherly "You should be ashamed of yourself."

So thanks for that. :)

[Claxon]

Mikaze wrote:

Evil Genius Prime wrote:

Claxon wrote:

For what it's worth, I beleive Bestiary 4 has stats for Lucifer in it.

Which entry are you referring to?

Probably Tome of Horrors Complete, actually.

I don't actually have a copy, but I could have sworn that he was in the latest Bestiary when I looked through a friends. Of course...I have a horrible memory.

[Zhangar]

"Without house-ruling..." You'd basically have to do SOME houseruling, since the rules aren't written. Unless you use the 3.X Deities and Demigods rules, which leave a great, great deal to be desired.

Yet, there is precedent in the canon for gods being challenged, gods getting whupped by non-gods, and gods even being killed by non-gods.

The most relevant example is probably Savith, a mortal Azlanti who seriously crippled the actual god Ydersius at the cost of her own life.

Gonna be odd and take some elements from 4E.

By and large the essence of a deity is intangible - the closest you'll come to seeing all of a deity is if you could view an entire divine realm at once.

However, deities often chose to manifest a body that can more meaningfully personify the deity and interact with mortals.

If you're actually powerful to interact with that body in a hostile manner (probably by being an empyreal lord, a demon lord, an archduke, a Horseman, a great old one, or a ridiculously bad-ass mortal like Baba Yaga or Savith), the best you could possibly normally do is disperse it. [In 4E, a god who actually lost badly enough to get discorporated couldn't form a new body for several months, but otherwise was no worse for wear]

But under really special circumstances, you might have something that lets you treat that body as the loose thread that unravels the entire tapestry.

Savith faced Ydersius with a artifact sword, and when she chopped his avatar's head off she wrecked him. Ydersius still lives, but he's barely better than a zombie that grants spells, and a group of brave mortals that secured both his skull and his body could bring him before Pharasma to kill him for good.

Lamashtu the demon lord had something that let her actually unmake and consume Desna's friend Curchannas, god of beasts, becoming a true goddess in the process.

The Four Horsemen managed to overthrow and bind their creator, the Oinodaemon, making themselves the undisputed masters of Abaddon.

A non-god fighting a god pretty much needs something that brings the god down to a manageable level, as the gap between a god and a non-god is staggering. Cthulhu and Pazazu and the rest might have mythic wish, but the gods perform feats that make wish look like a child's toy.

Asmodeus can create layers of Hell on the fly. Desna created Black Butterfly, an empyreal lord, while playing at star-arranging. Urgathoa caused the state of undeath. Yog-sothoth is time itself.

To pick a fight with that level of power should be a suicidal act, and only under incredibly special circumstances should victory be possible.

Otherwise, you're just throwing spit balls at the sun.

For trying to assign numbers to a god actually brought to a life or death battle, I'd probably look at the numbers for a CR 30 creatures and multiply them by anywhere from times two (for like a really young deity, like Milani - she's only been a goddess for a century) to times ten or more (Pharasma, Desna, Asmodeus, Sarenrae - the old guard). Rovagug, Destroyer of All, should probably be a x50 or more.

Obviously, you'd go with lower numbers than that if you don't see the gods as being quite that strong. All about what you're actually going for in the campaign.

[Mechagamera]

I agree with Paizo about not stating gods, but an avatar is something different. For a greater avatar, I would pick whatever race and class seemed a good fit, stat up a 20th level player character with that race/class, add all the domain spells for the god's domains, and add Aura of Gouda (real name Living Demiplane) which makes it so that the avatar only takes damage from attacks that originate within 100 feet of him/her, so that the theory-crafters whose whole gimmick is "I can nuke him from 5 miles away" are SOL, and go from there.

[Evil Genius Prime]

Claxon wrote:

Mikaze wrote:

Evil Genius Prime wrote:

Claxon wrote:

For what it's worth, I beleive Bestiary 4 has stats for Lucifer in it.

Which entry are you referring to?

Probably Tome of Horrors Complete, actually.

I don't actually have a copy, but I could have sworn that he was in the latest Bestiary when I looked through a friends. Of course...I have a horrible memory.

I own Bestiary 4. He's not in there. Which is why I was wondering what entry you were referring to.

[LazarX]

Zhangar wrote:

"Without house-ruling..." You'd basically have to do SOME houseruling, since the rules aren't written. Unless you use the 3.X Deities and Demigods rules, which leave a great, great deal to be desired.

And since they're not part of the Pathfinder ruleset, would still be using a houserule.

[Canadian Bakka]

As a player in a campaign where one of the pcs actually gained ascendancy to godhood (demigod status), it has been my experience that when it comes to deities and similar entities, statistics actually begin to matter less and less. In fact, the higher the divine rank (which usually dictates the scale at which a deity can do something awesome), the less important the actual numbers and dice-rolling needed.

At a certain point (not far along, actually), what matters most is what the deity in question is actually capable of; in other words, his/her/its divine rank and divine salient abilities generally trumps almost everything else that is a statistic in terms of how an encounter is going to turn out. This, plus a bunch of other stuff, is why you rarely have actual combat between the gods (in terms of one on one), unless it's part of their portfolio or history (or destiny, fate, what have you). Generally, any disputes between deities tend to be resolved through their respective clergy and assorted minions, or a large scale holy war.

That being said, IF you truly want statistics for a deity that a bunch of mortals want to fight (there is historical evidence of epic level characters defeating a god but in such instances the odds were heavily stacked in the characters' favour), I suggest using the materials that we use in our deity-level campaign. You will need access to 3.0 Deities and Demigods (Faiths and Pantheons, the Forgotten Realms version is also handy for nifty ideas, fluff-wise), 3.0 Manual of the Planes (when your character starts travelling through multiple cosmologies, you need a reliable framework of how everything works), the 3.5 Update booklet for Deities and Demigods and Manual of the Planes, and 2nd edition sources such as the Immortal Rules boxed set, Deities and Demigods, etc.

The 3.0 Deities and Demigods is for building the stat block. The Immortals Rules boxed set is what introduces you to the concept of power points (kind of like experience points, but for gods and immortals only). Power points let the deity do ANYTHING, but at a cost. Most of the time, a new deity has no idea as to how much power points he needs to spend to acheive something until he tries it, and every new deity starts off with a tiny number of power points (in some cases, you can start off with zero power points but they don't know it at first - it's how some new gods end up killing themselves by spending power points they didn't have in an attempt to create, oh say, a fruit fly).

The nice thing about the power point systems introduced in the Immortals Rules boxed set is that it can be used in any game rpg setting/edition. This is really relevant because your god may decide to travel to the prime material world where Mario, Luigi, and the Magic Mushshroom Kingdom exists or maybe he traveled to Final Fantasy I, or even Transformers. The limit here is really only your imagination.

At any rate, once you build the stat block based on the 3.0 Deities and Demigods guidelines, in order to make it 100% balanced with Pathfinder, just update the classes and creature types. However, like I said earlier, class features and other mortal abilities become redundant and pretty much useless in the face of actual deity-level powers. For example, Divine Blast. The only thing that stops Divine Blast is Divine Shield, and that is it. Divine Blast goes right through any mortal protection, and the deity is firing that "freaking laser-beam" from somewhere that the mortals cannot readily pin-point, dealing ridiculous amount of damage. Some gods can merely wave a hand and snuff out the mortal's soul, with NO SAVING THROW allowed. They are called gods for a reason; scale is everything.

There are houserules that we do use that I think really helps distinguish the flavour between deities and mortals. (1) Deities get two rounds worth of action on their turns (they can only still use a given divine salient ability or spell-like ability granted through domains, etc., only once each turn) - this means a deity can do two full-round actions if desired; and (2) using magic items created by mortals on a long term basis actually hinders the deity - this is more of a mental thing where his continual reliance on mortal magic (a crutch, if you will) is eroding his self-confidence and ego, thereby losing access to powers. That is why deities generally only use artifacts that they create or have created for them (so long as they have invested some of their own power points in the creation of the artifacts).

I hope I was able to provide some assistance here for the OP, and other similarly-interested fellows. Bear in mind that what I listed is a combination of rules and guidelines from previous editions (that still carries over nicely to PF) and a few houserules. Good luck and have fun.

CB out.

[Cthulhudrew]

Reynolds-sama wrote:

Probably LazarX is right...the best thing to do is to rule the "fight" as an event where the player will implode just after Cayden's free action xD.

You know, I know this isn't quite how you intended this, but it got me to thinking- what if fighting a deity *was* an event? Like perhaps a whole adventure in and of itself?

You could structure it like a typical adventure, but one in which each encounter was actually a part of the conflict as a whole, with the final "BBEG" the last nail in the coffin of the deity.

I guess I'm envisioning something along the lines of antibodies fighting a disease or something. Rather than the conflict just being one uber-god fighting in a giant melee conflagration against the PCs directly, instead its more of a metaphysical fight; they're destroying key artifacts/relics of the deity and his cults/followers; they're tearing down parts of his deific realm as he sends his avatars against them; etc.