What makes a god a god?

[DominusMegadeus]

Also, Lamashtu killed a god, I think.

[lemeres]

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

CommandoDude wrote:

Paizo just wants players to know that, no - you CAN'T kill a god (because if it has stats, that means you can kill it). I mean this literally, Gods have only been defeated on a near permanent basis (except for Aroden, who is the exception)

Not the only. at least two gods bit the big bullet during Earthfall, and apparently a whole bunch snuffed it during the sealing of Rovagug.

Aroden is just the most recent example of a divine death.

I think the problem is that you can't put stats without someone putting forth a pun-pun that decimates it.

I mean...wasn't the tarrasque supposed to be the 'like OMG- you can't fight this!' monster? The big unkillable... but when you look at all the options, you start having ideas.

I am fairly certain you can calculate just how much time a high level kineticist has to spend all day to put the tarrasque into a low enough negative hp that it can't get back up before the kineticist goes to bed, gets back up, drives his kids to school, and then mows the damn lawn. (favoring kineticist for this since their at will ability is good for just blasting away for arbitrary amounts of time with good damage).

And I am vaguely remember someone in a thread about mythic criticals complaining about how they one shot the demon lord Orcus. Because we all know that mythic can end up as a game of rocket tag where either you one shot or they one shot.

So putting actual stats out is just an invitation to murder that creature. And no matter what abilities you put on, someone will find some option specialized in doing so.

[Zhangar]

Serpent Skull AP and Deicide:

And in Serpent's Skull, the Continuing the Campaign section discusses, among other things, actually killing Ydersius, god of the serpentfolk.

So there's actually an AP in print where killing a god is on the table.

Said god is actually in pretty bad shape, but still, it's actually there.

[GM Rednal]

And this is why gods are plot devices, not statblocks. XD

[Nox Aeterna]

"If it has a sheet , then it can be killed."

Dont matter how absurd you believe a creature is , if you made a sheet for it , then it is bound to be mortal and can be killed.

A god to me is the being that doesnt have a sheet , it isnt CR 30/40/50/60...

It is just a god.

I still remember at a table , playing another system btw , the GM made a mage that should be godlike , but he decided to allow rolls and a fight (in this system we only used d6) , so this mage a had a defense system , for her to take damage , first she had to roll a 1 , then roll a 6 and THEN she had to roll a s&#+ty number like 1 again while I had to roll like a 5/6 to damage her a little.

Seems really unlikely that she would roll a 1 then 6 then 1 again and then i actually getting 5/6 multiple times right?

Yet it did happen (open rolls by the GM also , so i actually saw this happen) around 5/6 time IN A ROW and the godlike mage actually died before she killed my whole party.

[Goddity]

A god is a being that is so powerful, no one can tell it otherwise.

[Lord Twitchiopolis]

DominusMegadeus wrote:

Also, Lamashtu killed a god, I think.

You would be correct there. She killed Curchanus to gain rule over his dominion of Beasts

[Alleran]

Lord Twitchiopolis wrote:

DominusMegadeus wrote:

Also, Lamashtu killed a god, I think.

You would be correct there. She killed Curchanus to gain rule over his dominion of Beasts

Though to be fair, it took her a lot of effort, and even with her divinity she was still wounded quite badly by Pazuzu afterwards.

[The Raven Black]

And now we have to wonder who gave stats to Aroden

[Starbuck_II]

lemeres wrote:

Aelreth wrote:

DominusMegadeus wrote:

Are gods willing to prevent murderhobos, but not able? Then they are not omnipotent. Are they able, but not willing? Then they are malevolent. Are they both able and willing? Then whence cometh murderhobos? Are they neither able nor willing? Then why call them gods?

These are the things that haunt our age.

The problem with your statement is that in THIS world some of the gods are supporting the Murder Hobo. If say Iomedae wanted to stop said murderhobo directly, she would be directly opposed by Norgorber. Since Murder is kind of his thing. So the Gods are limited to working through their servants. If the gods started jumping into the material plane then they would be opposed by another God(s). Which would probably lead to the material plane being destroyed. That is why the gods need their cults, orders, etc. Because that is how they effect the material plane.

As stated by DominusMegadeus, it was originally a joke about Christianity.

Unlike the omnipotent, omniscient god with no competitors on his level presented in Christianity... Golarion has countless gods with their own rivalries and goals. Could that particular god strike you down? Sure- but that might take their attention from an important border allowing a demon invasion to rip apart the souls of everyone's grandmothers.

It all comes down to politics and strategies- where do you spend your resources. The part where motrals get involved is usually the tiniest place in terms of scope, as far as the grand scheme of things go.

In the old testament, there were countless gods that Rivaled the Father. But he beat them down when he people came in contact. Really, it was a bit mean since it was the followers fault, not Baals or other rival's. But the Father was a jealous god.

He showed up the Eygptian priests with Moses and his better snake staff.

[Alzrius]

No one seems to have pointed out that the Pathfinder Core Rulebook does note that the twenty deities listed in it are all intermediate deities, using D&D's classic demigod/lesser god/intermediate god/greater god breakdown.

It's right there in the description for the contact other plane spell.

[Zhangar]

Mr. Jacobs has noted that the lesser/intermediate/greater breakdowns only exist for the sake of backwards compatibility - if dealing with official setting stuff you ignore those classifications in favor quasi/demi/true deity.

But yeah, Pathfinder has not adopted the 3.X Deities and Demigods rules.

[Alzrius]

Zhangar wrote:

Mr. Jacobs has noted that the lesser/intermediate/greater breakdowns only exist for the sake of backwards compatibility - if dealing with official setting stuff you ignore those classifications in favor quasi/demi/true deity.

Did he? I mostly seem to recall him saying that he regretted not eschewing back-compatibility in the case of using that breakdown for that spell, but that's all.

[Zhangar]

Alzrius wrote:

Zhangar wrote:

Mr. Jacobs has noted that the lesser/intermediate/greater breakdowns only exist for the sake of backwards compatibility - if dealing with official setting stuff you ignore those classifications in favor quasi/demi/true deity.

Did he? I mostly seem to recall him saying that he regretted not eschewing back-compatibility in the case of using that breakdown for that spell, but that's all.

Lessee...

Power levels of gods deliberately left unranked.

Mr. Jacobs wanted lesser deity and greater deity removed from the Contact Other Plane chart.

"We don't use the lesser/intermediate/greater gods levels in Golarion"

[Alzrius]

Zhangar wrote:

Power levels of gods deliberately left unranked.

Mr. Jacobs wanted lesser deity and greater deity removed from the Contact Other Plane chart.

These first two are the same link, you know. I think that your second link was supposed to be to this post, where he also says:

James Jacobs wrote:

All deities for Golarion count as intermediate deities.

Beyond that, that's simply him saying that they don't use the D&Dg rules for Pathfinder, which we already knew. In fact, it's worth noting that although he wanted those lines removed, they weren't. Just because James Jacobs himself has an opinion doesn't mean that's the official stance for Pathfinder.

Quote:

"We don't use the lesser/intermediate/greater gods levels in Golarion"

There's nothing here about using quasi/demi/true deity levels either.

[Zhangar]

Here's the post I meant to link.

And I didn't mean to say use "quasi/demi/true" in place of the lesser/intermediate/greater chart for Contact Other Plane. My apologies if that's the impression I gave.

It's more that in Pathfinder, there's quasi-deites, there's demi-deities, and then there's true deities. There isn't any additional stratification between the true deities. (Unless you houserule it into your game.)

Edit note: The gap between quasi-deity and demi-deity is pretty thin.

[Icy Turbo]

I liken the what makes a god with what makes a fey in the Dresden Files.

These are beings, human risen to godhood or otherwise, who are near pure personifications of their aspect, domains and behavior. While Gods can fall and be corrupted, or purified and rise, at the end of the day they actually have very little choice in their behavior.

Mortal creatures however are much more flexible.

Also Gods for all intents and purposes are as powerful as they choose to be. I could see Cayden singing a song to give everyone a minor buff if he decided he liked the cut of the jib of a low level party, then heads off to decapitate pit lords with ease in cosmic battles. Little things like that.

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

Asking a rules based question about a being that inherently has no stats or rules that define it is kind of like trying to divide by zero.

[GM Rednal]

A god is whatever it needs to be for the plot to happen. Rule-based limits are inherently self-defeating.

[Errant Mercenary]

(Strong necromancy powers are a good start to godhood)

Having a horse with appropriate facial expressions in the background suits some folks.

And as stated above, a god is the voice of the GM. STOP GROVELING!

[RJGrady]

A god is a being who is immortal, is worshipped, and grants five domains. The term applies to a wide range of beings, from primordial creators to ascended mortals to Elder Gods. The concept is at least as broad as mythic, which covers everything from half-god heroes to minotaurs irradiated by ancient mythic artifacts.

[IsawaBrian]

I forget who said it upthread, but I think-- within a more-or-less standard Golarion/Pathfinder game-- that the person who said that it was story mechanics, not game mechanics, was right. The spoiler about a certain AP is the genesis of millenia of actions, and who knows what happened before that? Rovagug is only tangentially divine; he's an alien Outer Thing that exists in some manner as an agent of elemental destruction, but the same rules apply-- and virtually apply to his Spawn. The aboleth whose Starstone attack had spent countless aeons trying to deal with the god problem, and while those deaths were more or less side effects, the aboleth didn't entirely control the whole incident and the divine deaths were more or less voluntary.

I think it would be better to think of the god as not an encounter to CR, but an adventure with goals to be completed. The Ring must go into Mount Fate (after millenia ago Norgorber forged his identity and power into it to protect and magnify it) and only then can the shadow be seen and destroyed. If PCs are a part of it, it should be as the crest of the wave, and then the change, death, usurpation, etc. is either inevitable or resolved through some true abstractions.

Just plain thwarting such an entity or pursuing their goals is again, a matter of shaping the mechanics. They don't directly interfere and the amount of attention their mortal allies-pawns-proteges can put is limited within the scope of all the other things that are needing to be done.

What makes a god within the universe is basically 'functions as a minor GM'. They exist on some fundamental level that, while they can be thwarted or stopped, they cannot be simply directly confronted directly. To go back to the Olympians, even so much as viewing Zeus unveiled in his true self could fry a mortal.

They simply operate on such a substantially different scale that you could be a level 2000th conjurer/Tier 100 Archmage and not really dent them directly (though thwarting might be easier or even harder, depending on how the rest of the gods see directly stopping -you- vis a vi mortality.). You simply don't have the tools for a direct confrontation; you have to complete it like any other fundamental shift in the world: adventures and consequences.

[Mangenorn]

Returning to the question of murderhobo god of murderhobos, it's hard to see why nobody mentioned Gorum. His whole philosophy is that violence should be used as an answer to all problems.

He is also supplied with weapons from Hell by Asmodeus, to get him to leave him alone. Asmodeus probably has an interest in keeping Gorum around so he can offer a limited protection from murderhobos for $soul.

More Serpent Skull spoilers:

The thing about this AP is that the god PCs have to kill has spent ages mostly dead from being decapitated. PCs are expected to return him to the mostly dead status, and not much more.

That said, he is the major source of TPKs in the campaign, so he's not exactly a pushover.

Even more Serpent Skull spoilers, how to really kill a god:

Note that this should be hard to learn, so:

Spoiler:

The way the PCs can kill the god is, after killing him, they have to take his skull (which is a giant thing) to the Boneyard, haul it up to Pharasma personally, and then resurrect Ydersus, kill him again so that Pharasma can judge him in the moment of his death.

[quibblemuch]

Mangenorn wrote:

** spoiler about how to kill a god in Serpent's Skull omitted **

Spoiler:

We created a gate to Groetus and my inquisitor took the skull there. Hard to bring back your god, when he's sitting on another god who destroys or drives mad all who visit him.

[Mangenorn]

Odraude wrote:

Alleran wrote:

Scavion wrote:

CommandoDude wrote:

Thelemic_Noun wrote:

So Paizo seems to have a thing for not statting their deities

There's a very good reason for that

Paizo just wants players to know that, no - you CAN'T kill a god (because if it has stats, that means you can kill it). I mean this literally, Gods have only been defeated on a near permanent basis (except for Aroden, who is the exception)

That is the difference between a 10th tier mythic and a God, the Hero can always die, it just gets REALLY tough.

Interestingly, a 20th level/10 MT character is CR 25 and could get 4 Domains and 4 Subdomains. CR-wise, just barely short of being considered a full on Demigod.

Already noted, but they'd be CR 24 normally. PC wealth kicks them up to CR 25. Then they could do something to gain that extra point or two of CR they need. Viable options are lichdom (+2), vampirism (+2), or, to swing it close to the Mythic, they could go to a Mana Well. By standing in it to accept the power and getting the right roll on the table, they will immediately gain the Mana Wastes Mutant template, which provides +1 CR. Sure, you're a deformed wreck half-destroyed by primal magical forces, but you're CR 26 and thus a demigod. Sort of a baby-Nethys, perhaps.

If becoming said deformed wreck is unappealing, however, then you can always politely ask the right person to give you the tribal tattoos and scarification necessary to become a Runescarred warrior. That's another +1, which would also do the trick.

At level 20/MR 10, the best bets are the Half Celestial/Half Fiend templates. Both would give a +3 to CR and be fitting for PCs that want to step into godhood.

Lich and Shadow Lord would be cool, clocking in at +2 CR.

Half Balor and Half Marilith give +4 CR.