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They don't have stat blocks.
In Pathfinder, their CRs are over 30, so there's deliberately no guidelines as to what that would entail.
(IIRC, 3E's Book of Vile Darkness actually has an Asmodeus stat block, but Asmodeus wasn't a god in 3E; just an extremely powerful devil.)
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If you stat it...they will kill it.
Gods in Golarion are beings of pure power, untouchable by any true mortal.
As such, no stats are given, as the PC's are not ever expected to go up against them.
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They don't have stat blocks.
In Pathfinder, their CRs are over 30, so there's deliberately no guidelines as to what that would entail.
(IIRC, 3E's Book of Vile Darkness actually has an Asmodeus stat block, but Asmodeus wasn't a god in 3E; just an extremely powerful devil.)
So their CRs can be anywhere from 30-40? Would you say low 30s or high 30s?
I am trying to create a backstory for a campaign I am running and it involves Aroden and speculating on his death. But in order to do that, I need to understand his "power level" when compared to other beings. My campaign involves the Demon Lord Kostchtchie a lot, and I am trying to tie the two together. But according to what I can find, Aroden would be much more powerful than Kostchtchie (I believe?). I cannot however figure out Aroden's power level when compared to Asmodeus (and other archdevils / major gods)
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Deities are as powerful as the story demands.
Yes, Aroden would be on a whole other level of power from Kostchtchie. The latter has stats (much like Treerazor), while the former (and all gods in Pathfinder) does not.
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If you stat it...they will kill it.Gods in Golarion are beings of pure power, untouchable by any true mortal.
As such, no stats are given, as the PC's are not ever expected to go up against them.
Asmodeus rallied the other Arch Devil's to take Hell from Lucifer, who later fled. This implies that Lucifer is more powerful than any of the Arch Devils by themselves. Lucifer has been stated at CR 39 (source link here)
Assuming the above to be correct, that would mean that Asmodeus would have a CR lower than 39. (Lucifer = 39, Lucifer > Asmodeus, CR39 > Amsodeus)
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If you stat it...they will kill it.Gods in Golarion are beings of pure power, untouchable by any true mortal.
As such, no stats are given, as the PC's are not ever expected to go up against them.Asmodeus rallied the other Arch Devil's to take Hell from Lucifer, who later fled. This implies that Lucifer is more powerful than any of the Arch Devils by themselves. Lucifer has been stated at CR 39 (source link here)
Assuming the above to be correct, that would mean that Asmodeus would have a CR lower than 39. (Lucifer = 39, Lucifer > Asmodeus, CR39 > Amsodeus)
That is 3pp, not by Paizo and not canon to Golarion or their design mindset.
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While it's true that the gods power levels vary according to plot, it has been speculated, and even hinted at by developers that certain gods are indeed more powerful than others. Asmodeus is considered to be one of the stronger gods, and depending on whether you believe him or not, one of the older gods as well. But since most reports of his power and history come directly from Asmodeus himself, who is known to be a proficient liar, who uses lies to further his own agenda, that might just be what he wants you to think.
So essentially, decide how powerful you want him to be and there's a canon reason for him to be that powerful.
Also, Lucifer isn't part of Paizo's campaign setting, so it's not fair to say that Paizo's Asmodeus isn't stronger than CR 39.
Pharasma is the most powerful God, Rovagug is probably second, though my head-canon says Shelyn is second.
Asmodeus says he was one of the first two Gods, and he killed the other one, but Asmodeus is a liar. He is one of the oldest Gods, and I assume he was stronger than Aroden, no idea how much or in what way though.
Since its your own campaign though, you don't really need CR. Can just say one was stronger than the other, but Asmodeus is probably one of the stronger Gods.
But he's weaker than Sarenrae. Because I say so. :)
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As was stated earlier, deities are nearly all-powerful, and as such, do not have stat blocks. Stories involving conflict with deities are fully under the purview of "GM fiat."
Because there are no epic-level rules for Pathfinder, there are no official PFRPG stats for creatures with a CR over 30. CR 30 is the power cap for statted creatures.
The stat block you cited was from an early third-party supplement (Tome of Horrors from Frog God Games), that was originally written for OGL/3.5 and was later converted to PFRPG rules. It was one of the earliest monster books for PFRPG. If I recall correctly, when Tome of Horrors was published back in 2009, it hadn't been clear that CR30 was the power cap for statted creatures in PFRPG.
Lucifer does not exist canonically in the Pathfinder campaign setting; third-party stats for creatures over CR 30 are likewise non-canonical.
That said, if you want to play with creatures of deity-level power, go ahead and use the old 3.5 rules. Feel free to build your own cosmology, or play with the canonical system as you see fit. If you're the GM, it's your world, and as long as your players are having fun, there's no need to hew to the official rules of the game.
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So their CRs can be anywhere from 30-40? Would you say low 30s or high 30s?
30-40. 30,000-40,000. Who knows.
Pathfinder intentionally avoids statting out truly divine beings, since putting stats on them would make players try to think of how to kill them.
The tarrasque was a stat block that was meant to say 'no, don't even try'. But I've seen how it gets used as a practice dummy in some DPR olympics.
It either becomes a situation where they cheese it out somehow, or you put enough 'haha- sucks to be you' abilities in the stat block that it OHKOs the party no matter what.
So they jsut make the god a plot device and say you don't have a chance. Because that wastes less ink and paper then making a ridiculous stat block that says the same thing.
Generally speaking though, Asmodeus is probably stronger. He is an exceedingly ancient deity possibly living millions or billions or years. He has had enough time to...I don't know, level, learn spell. At the very least, with his entire plane devoted to pleasing him, he probably ahs the resources to get exceedingly powerful items that make very, very few deities a threat to him (other than the strange beasts like rovagug).
Aroden, by comparison, is a god that had a life span that could still be measured in the 1,000's. He was stuck on a single tiny planet for the most part, while even Asmodeus's generals are expected to take over planets. Asmodeus is at the top of an entire empire of planets across many solar systems. Aroden has a few nice things....for Golarion, I guess. But he didn't have the time or resources to get things with a lot of power.
Cheliax was Aroden's big project, which was to be his biggest work in this world. Cheliax is now Asmodeus's side project, while he is mostly busy managing an entire plane and countless servitor worlds. So you don't need mere numbers to tell who probably has more going on here.
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What is a good source book to read more on lore and how gods are handled in Pathfinder?
If you're looking for info on how the gods themselves interact and function, your best bet is probably Inner Sea Gods. Each deity has a small section on how they interact with the other deities - it's not much, but it's most of what's out there.
Given your interest in Aroden specifically, I also recommend Pathfinder adventure Path #100: A Song of Silver for its full-length article on Aroden. For more specific lore on Asmodeus, consider Book of the Damned: Princes of Darkness (although note that its contents may be apocryphal or unreliable).
I hope this helps. ^_^
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So their CRs can be anywhere from 30-40? Would you say low 30s or high 30s?
I am trying to create a backstory for a campaign I am running and it involves Aroden and speculating on his death. But in order to do that, I need to understand his "power level" when compared to other beings. My campaign involves the Demon Lord Kostchtchie a lot, and I am trying to tie the two together. But according to what I can find, Aroden would be much more powerful than Kostchtchie (I believe?). I cannot however figure out Aroden's power level when compared to Asmodeus (and other archdevils / major gods)
When Paizo kills off gods in the world's backstory, it's not like they rolled a set of dice for the outcome. At the level of the gods, things simply happen and that's that.
My advice to you is simply write the story you want to write and worry about the details later. No PC is going to be in the position to call you on account on who was more powerful or not.
And sometimes power doesn't matter. In the Forgotten Realms, Mystra was the all powerful God of Magic. Yet Cyric was still able to do her in... because he fights dirty and unannnounced, and on top of that, he had help. Make things work the way you want them to, even if it might appear to contradict an "official" source. That's the thing about gods... Mortals don't have the skinny in how they operate.
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Accurate stuff about Lamashtu vs. Curchanus
In addition to this, Book of the Damned: Lords of Chaos tells a tale about Desna foolishly provoking all of the demon lords at once; the suggestion was that, with their forces combined, they could do very serious damage to the deities of good. Multiple casualties, that sort of thing. (Fortunately, their alliance fell apart at the last second - said to be due to the conniving of Calistria.)
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So their CRs can be anywhere from 30-40? Would you say low 30s or high 30s?
I am trying to create a backstory for a campaign I am running and it involves Aroden and speculating on his death. But in order to do that, I need to understand his "power level" when compared to other beings. My campaign involves the Demon Lord Kostchtchie a lot, and I am trying to tie the two together. But according to what I can find, Aroden would be much more powerful than Kostchtchie (I believe?). I cannot however figure out Aroden's power level when compared to Asmodeus (and other archdevils / major gods)
When Paizo kills off gods in the world's backstory, it's not like they rolled a set of dice for the outcome. At the level of the gods, things simply happen and that's that.
My advice to you is simply write the story you want to write and worry about the details later. No PC is going to be in the position to call you on account on who was more powerful or not.
And sometimes power doesn't matter. In the Forgotten Realms, Mystra was the all powerful God of Magic. Yet Cyric was still able to do her in... because he fights dirty and unannnounced, and on top of that, he had help. Make things work the way you want them to, even if it might appear to contradict an "official" source. That's the thing about gods... Mortals don't have the skinny in how they operate.
And in Golarion we had the mortal Savith who slew the serpent God Ydersius.
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When Paizo kills off gods in the world's backstory, it's not like they rolled a set of dice for the outcome. At the level of the gods, things simply happen and that's that.
My advice to you is simply write the story you want to write and worry about the details later. No PC is going to be in the position to call you on account on who was more powerful or not.
Best advice yet, really. ^_^
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Is there any sources on how a mortal would logistically slay a god? (Do gods have souls and/or physical bodies? Do they cease to exist upon death? If not where do they go? Are they judged by Pharasma?)
The Serpent's Skull Adventure Path is the best place to find this information. ^_^
(In short: Sort of/yes; unknown; also unknown; and yes, under the right circumstances.)
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The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game doesn't scale up to that level very well, which is one reason we've never statted up anyone stronger than demigods.
It sounds like you might be better served by a game like Mythender (a free game designed by former Paizo editor Ryan Macklin). A few years ago, Developer John Compton even made a blog post about a Community Use add-on to Mythender that allowed one to play the game with Golarion's pantheon. Check it out here.
TL;DR: You're not going to find official Pathfinder RPG material about mortals taking on deities, but other game systems or community-generated material might get you a close approximation.
Is there any sources on how a mortal would logistically slay a god? (Do gods have souls and/or physical bodies? Do they cease to exist upon death? If not where do they go? Are they judged by Pharasma?)
You're asking for rules answers on a subject that's not bound by rules.
You need to read your mythology a bit more to understand. Slaying a god is not something a mortal can plan the logistics or the method for. It's literally a story event and it's up to the GM really whether first the story event can actually HAPPEN, and if so, they'll lay out the story path, most of which will be hidden from you even as you walk it.
I tried measuring their power levels but the scouter exploded.
There is also a secondary reason why Gods don't have a CR. Apart from the fact that, as we all know, the more CR goes up, the more inaccurate it becomes, it's utterly impossible to define a CR for beings who, beyond their own immense personal powers and intellects, have been around for aeons and may have all sort of protections, traps and contingencies (I'm not talking about the Contingency spell), and hosts of powerful minions with the same wards (though in lower scale/scope/power).
Think that any single Deity has to keep itself protected against *at least* all the evil deities (including the evil ones themselves, since there are no friends in the darkness of the Spiritual Pit... convenient alliances, at best).
What level and what kind of resources do you think a mortal character should have to surpass the power of the alliance of Gods that would be required to break through the wards of any single God? Mortals would probably need to get the favor of other Gods themselves, practically being elevated to Gods on their own right... at which point CR loses significance (which it didn't have already) in a different way...
Not talking about the multiversal war that would be sparkled by some deities fostering a new one just to unleash it against an older one.
As said above this post, the murder of a God can happen. But it's something else entirely than slapping a CR on a stat-block and moving minis on the board.
Also, who knows if a God can truly, actually die permanently?
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Also, who knows if a God can truly, actually die permanently?
Everyone.
Lamashtu killed one to ascend, two died during Starfall, Ydersius can be killed after Serpent's Skull, etc. Gods dying isn't super common, but isn't unheard of.
Also, who knows if a God can truly, actually die permanently?Everyone.
Lamashtu killed one to ascend, two died during Starfall, Ydersius can be killed after Serpent's Skull, etc. Gods dying isn't super common, but isn't unheard of.
Except you might get any day an adventure where some dude is trying to revive a dead God and must be stopped because otherwise it might actually happen.
There is no word anywhere about dead Gods being truly, actually dead permanently.
Also, who knows if a God can truly, actually die permanently?Everyone.
Lamashtu killed one to ascend, two died during Starfall, Ydersius can be killed after Serpent's Skull, etc. Gods dying isn't super common, but isn't unheard of.
Except you might get any day an adventure where some dude is trying to revive a dead God and must be stopped because otherwise it might actually happen.
There is no word anywhere about dead Gods being truly, actually dead permanently.
None of them have come back. Until that happens, death being perma-dead is a safe assumption.
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Aside from the examples already mentioned, Rovagug provoked a war between the gods that resulted in many deaths on both sides. The names of the dead gods are long forgotten, but we know that Rovagug was opposed by Abadar, Apsu, Asmodeus, Calistria, Dahak, Desna, Dou-Bral (later became Zon-Kuthon), Erastil, Gozreh, Pharasma, Sarenrae, and Torag. And they maybe couldn't defeat Rovagug even then, as Rovagug was imprisoned rather than killed outright. It is strongly hinted that Golarion is his prison, and Asmodeus has the only key.
Lore on the gods of Golarion is strewn throughout the product lines that cover Golarion. If it's not part of the Core line, there's a good chance it's got deity-related lore. Some of the main sources besides the Inner Sea World Guide and Inner Sea Gods are the Book of the Damned line of books and the Adventure Paths. While the deity articles presented as backmatter in the AP issues were reprinted and expanded in Inner Sea Gods, the info about Rovagug that I posted above originally comes from the inside covers of the Legacy of Fire AP.
The PathfinderWiki is a searchable lore wiki, with helpful citations that can help you find Paizo products that contain the material you're looking for.
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...you might get any day an adventure where some dude is trying to revive a dead God and must be stopped because otherwise it might actually happen...Does it strike anyone else as odd that only the forces of evil ever do this? You'd think the good guys would be just as eager to declare 'backsies' in cases of Sudden Immortal Death Syndrome.
If nothing else, you'd think PCs would be trying to raise dead gods because "How else are we supposed to learn what domains he offers?"
I think it is because the PC's are good guys who tend to be reactionary, and not proactive. That is how must fantasy stories are.
But having to go through bad guys to gain plot items to revive a deity could be a great idea. The forces of evil would be trying to stop you, once they found out what was going on.
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Aroden's power level depends on what period your looking at. before he was god he was just a man i'm assuming an Azlanti with 20 levels of paladin and possibly mythic. What ever he was he was powerful enough to fight Deskari and his legions BEFORE his divinity. After he raised the Starstone his power level would be that of a major deity. if you look at the Demon Lords their CR is 25-30 so a Gods has to be at least 31. and i would say that they would range from 35-50. But ultimately there aren't stats so it is GM's prerogative.
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He was a LN Wizard with a bizarre penchant for swords and melee fighting, not a paladin.
Maybe he used the gestalt rules instead of single-classing like everybody else? XD
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Maybe he used the gestalt rules instead of single-classing like everybody else? XD
Most assuredly not. He was a single class wizard who probably made use of transformation and other unrevealed spell magic to make himself an efective fighter. After he raised the Starstone (and incidentally the entire island of Kortos) he was mythic and presumably offered the godhood gig right afterward.
Presumably he used an heirloom trait to give himself sword proficiency and the rest is pretty much history.
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It's worth noting that he was a craftsman from Azlant well known in Thassilon at the time of Earthfall. What was he known for? Crafting swords. Specifically, he was making a sword that would help determine the rightful heir of the empire of Azlant, so that when the old emperor died, the new one would take its place - at least, that's what it seems Thassilon believed about him, if we accept the Dynamite comics as canon.
In that particular line, it was noted that he was the object of some sort of cult of hero worship; then, when presented with the possible heirs, he found none of them worthy of the blade (or maybe the blade found none of them worthy - it's a bit hard to say, as I'm doing this by memory of a page following two Thassilonian rulers talking about Azlanti stuff, so... do not rely on me as a perfect resource; get the comics and check for yourself). In any event, he kept the blade. Probably caused quite a stir.
Does anyone know how canon the comics are considered to the setting history? Because everything up there is just from the comics, so if they are not canon or are questionable canon... nevermind! XD
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Pretty sure that section of those comics are canon - IIRC, both James Sutter and Erik Mona wrote that.
Aroden's article from A Song of Silver also mentions the sword, called the Azlanti Diamond. To paraphrase stuff from the article -
The dying emperor of Azlant failed to pick a successor and asked Aroden to chose.
Aroden rejected all of the candidates as unworthy and kept the sword for himself, quite possibly provoking the Aboleths who rules Azlant from the shadows into panicking and calling down the Earthfall.
After Earthfall, Aroden became immortal and tried to save the surviving Azlanti while preserving Azlant's magical traditions. The Knights of the Ioun Star, the personal guard of the Emperor, swore themselves to Aroden at this point. Aroden was probably mythic at this point, and gained a cult following, though he could not grant spells.
About three hundred years after Earthfall, Aroden led an army into the Abyss to kill a demon lord who'd been hounding the surviving Azlanti. After victory, Aroden returned his army to Golarion but chose to remain in the Outer Planes to seek power and allies. At this time Aroden decided to become a champion for humanity in general, not just the Azlanti.
Aroden returns, founded Taldor, and then raised the Starstone, finally becoming a demigod in the process.
Aroden would later go on to make his realm in Axis and transition to full godhood over the course of several millenia.
In comparison, Asmodeus was a full-bore god with reign over an entire plane of existence quite possibly before human beings ever existed. (Asmodeus is a very old god, though probably not as old as he claims to be.)
I guess a way to compare to the two in power - Asmodeus has a true god reigning over the infinite dimension of Hell for potentially hundreds of millions of years. Aroden only lived about 10,000 years, and for most of that time was only as powerful as one of Asmodeus's servitor demigods. Once Aroden transitioned into true godhood he might have stood as a peer to Asmodeus (and to be completely fair, they would've gotten along), but he only had a fraction of Asmodeus's influence and resources.
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Asmodeus is considered to be one of the stronger gods, and depending on whether you believe him or not, one of the older gods as well. But since most reports of his power and history come directly from Asmodeus himself, who is known to be a proficient liar, who uses lies to further his own agenda, that might just be what he wants you to think.
Asmodeus is lying .... He is older and more powerful than he admits.
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Asmodeus is considered to be one of the stronger gods, and depending on whether you believe him or not, one of the older gods as well. But since most reports of his power and history come directly from Asmodeus himself, who is known to be a proficient liar, who uses lies to further his own agenda, that might just be what he wants you to think.Asmodeus is lying .... He is older and more powerful than he admits.
Actually, Asmodeus is lying about that too. He's actually a fifth aspect of Norgober, who is himself just three halflings in a trench coat.
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Asmodeus is considered to be one of the stronger gods, and depending on whether you believe him or not, one of the older gods as well. But since most reports of his power and history come directly from Asmodeus himself, who is known to be a proficient liar, who uses lies to further his own agenda, that might just be what he wants you to think.
Asmodeus is lying .... He is older and more powerful than he admits.
What's humorous is that it's implied that he's not really all that ancient - at least not in the manner it's implied in his self-published stuff.
Supposedly he and his bro Ihys were the oldest two ever - he was Order and Ihys was freedom and they were of one accord. Ihys brought sentience and freedom, Asmo got ticked and betrayed, tricked, and murdered him; alt story was tricking the other gods into signing the Contract of Creation to handle the evil stuff that happened from free will, with the line, "Check the fine print."
Neither of those are true. We know from the history of others that he was basically a potent (but finite) archon empyreal lord who, through ambition, pride, confusion, or something, became corrupt; he then went around and deceived a number of his fellow archons, cleverly subverting their orders and chains of command and such.
How do we know this is correct, and not the other? Simple: Moloch has a history, he's not a liar, and his is easily verifiable. And it involves Asmodeus before he was Asmodeus.
How do we know that Asmodeus isn't all that and such a super-genius that he just tricked all of Celestia early on? Simple: a non-demon lord demon overpowered him and stole his stuff, after Big A had carved his own symbol on said demon's forehead and placed said demon under his power. Said demon rose to demonlord for the chutzpah. (That was Baphomet, by the way. He's not a particularly impressive demon lord, as far as demon lords go. He's actually kind of weak, though he's not terrible in every way.) And A-rate was super ticked off about it, too.
I mean, it's hypothetically possible that A-guy is just that good of an actor, but if that's the case, he's just boring, and I don't care about him anymore, because there's not any point.
Effectively, there comes a point that, if you just keep scaling Asmodeus up, you're just talkin' 'bout Sephiroth and it's kind of silly.
A: "No:SephirothAsmodeus is totally so awesome that henever really lost any of his sword fightsfooled all of heaven, allowed a demon to become a demon lord and steal his super-valuable stuff, as well as a number of good-aligned PCs to gain mythic tiers, and eventually <other stuff happen>! It's all part of his master plan! He could totallydefeat Cloudrule all of reality any time he wanted!"B: "Sure: okay. Then who cares. It's all part of his master plan, there's nothing we can do about it, and so he's worth ignoring now."
Same thing with Cthulu or other mythos elements. They're really cool, and deserve to be super terrifying and awful; but at some point, fandoms generally put them on this weird pedestal upon which they cannot be assaulted, despite the fact that, in the books, they can be effectively defeated. To the point where (very clever) arguments are made that what's in the books are unreliable due to the unreliability of the narrator... but if that's so, then you must throw out everything, including the supposed inability to win against said entities.
Then, unfortunately, you've got the actual star spawn, and the actual Cthulu and I just kind of scratch my head and remain uncertain of what, exactly, I'm reading.
(I'm still super excited about the Strange Aeons AP, though! Woo~!)
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The trick is that the "Doesn't care about humanity" stuff is wrong - Cthulhu hates us. Cthulhu hates us a lot. Only a handful of the intelligent Outer Gods and Great Old Ones aren't utterly hostile.
Think of the typical American arachnophobe coming home to find the house completely covered, inside and out, with spiders.
The spiders probably don't pose any actual threat, but the arachnophobe would still whig the f#$* out and probably start mass extermination.
To be super explicit, Cthulhu's the home owner, Earth's the house, and humanity's the invasive but largely harmless spiders =P
While I'm a fan of the Mythos, I don't hold with putting the Mythos entities on a pedestal above everything else. I don't think the Mythos entities having peers cheapens them in the slightest; if anything, it makes the Pathfinder universe more horrifying, because its chock to the brim with numerous entities and threats that are just as bad as the Mythos.
Asmodeus origin - I'd guess he was an angel like Sarenrae rather than an archon. He was most certainly an lawful Empyreal Lord of Heaven, though, and as such had authority over lawful angels and archons alike.