Alex Garus's page

4) Regarding PC levels of 21+: There are currently no solid rules for this in the Pathfinder system. But you do have two main options available. The first is to use the system presented in the 3.0 edition Epic Level Handbook. A few people like these rules. Many do not. I'm in the latter camp personally. But if you want to check it out and see if it works for you then by all means go for it. The second option goes back to what I said in Point One - wait a month and then try the rules for Mythic levels being released on the forums as a playtest. The actual rulebook will be released next year at Gencon 2013 but the playtest should hold you over until then.

If you do go for the Epic Level Handbook to upgrade your players keep this in mind. Wizards of the Coast made the major mistake of developing the Deities and Demigods book at nearly the exact same time as the Epic Level Handbook. Because of this, the authors of each were not aware of the rules of the other which means there are two different rulesets for high-level divinities and characters. When you put them together it doesn't always work that well. All sorts of mechanical weirdness can ensue.

You might have just saved my ass completely, I'm almost as new to GMing as I am to Pathfinder itself, and I have no idea about most of this stuff. I think I'll wait until that playtest comes around and use whatever I can from it, instead of making love to a dozen different sets of rules, so to speak, and ending up with something totally, grotesquely, game-killing.

Faiths and Pantheons from the 3.x Forgotten Realms books has statted up deities and their avatars.

They generally have 20 outsider HD as well as 20-50HD of class levels. ~70AC. Saves of +50-60. etc. Various immunities, damage prevention, tonnes of hp. Also 'He/She is immortal'.

Avatars are basically the same as gods but lower divine rank so less SDA's.

Level 20 in Pathfinder isn't going to be high enough to kill a god of any real divine rank if they're like FR deities.

Maybe I'll have to shoot for greater than level 20 for my PCs by the time they get here. Fast XP? :3

His I think are more on par with Demi-Gods... or lesser Gods not so much full on Deities...

Yeah... I started this thread without any idea what rules and/or stats there were/are regarding deities. Much of the campaign is still in the making, and I've purposely left much of the details on the religions of the world unsaid.

There's probably no way for the PCs to take on these CR 40-50 guys that I am reading about in the Deities and Demigods book. But really only one thing has to be true of these deities so far: They have to form the center of religions.

So, adjusting my mental rough draft of the history and mechanics of religion yet again, I guess that it would make more sense for the deities to be "lesser gods" of sorts. And it could actually make some sense. The being responsible for the creation of the world would be the only deity i would call a "full-on deity." The rest would be considerably weaker, considering that they all came around since the time when the all-powerful God created the campaign world.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Azaelas Fayth wrote:

Though one must remember the easiest way to kill a God.

** spoiler omitted **

Depends on the world, actually.

In Golarion, gods exist independent of their worshippers, and are not meaningfully empowered by them, for example.

True, but what happens to a God whose church gets wiped out? Usually no one is willing to openly worship them. After awhile they just disappear into the history books.

I'd have to agree that a viable option for defeating or undermining a deity's rule would be to wipe out its followers. Unfortunately, in my campaign the "religious restructuring" that my players are part of doesn't take place until the end... And taking out an entire church is more of a full campaign deal, isn't it?

Yeah, I'm kind of set on having a shorter, decisive adventure in which the PCs cross blades with a powerful deity. I think that would really excite the guys I play with if I can pull it off, and it would be a great ending to what's going to end up a very long campaign.

Made with Pathfinder rules and whatnot? that would be helpful.

Alex Garus wrote:

When you say avatar... What exactly is that? And how would facing a god's avatar differ from facing it on the plane of existence that it resides on?

Helpful post, BTW.
I was thinking of using crazy items or equipment that would make the gods susceptible to damage from the PCs attacks, but something like what you mentioned is definitely worth consideration

An avatar is their physical form or one of them. A good modern example would be Percy Jackson where the Gods on Olympus are giants, but they become human sized and lose a little of their power when they leave Olympus.

Or to use a common theory. Jesus Christian being the avatar of Christianity's God.

GOTCHA. something I'll have to consider while putting this all down on paper.

When you say avatar... What exactly is that? And how would facing a god's avatar differ from facing it on the plane of existence that it resides on?
Helpful post, BTW.
I was thinking of using crazy items or equipment that would make the gods susceptible to damage from the PCs attacks, but something like what you mentioned is definitely worth consideration

Question. Are you starting this campaign from Level 1?

No, actually. It's a continuation of another campaign I did... I don't think I could come up with enough material to make the PCs 20+ lvl characters all while sticking to one theme, hahaha.

Sorry for the following book of a post:
That bit of history there is very interesting.
I definitely agree that combat against deities, physical or magical, should not be common in Pathfinder gameplay. I totally understand why stats for combat aren't given, and am just as horrified at the image of players cutting down multiple godly beings in combat. And as a side note, no, this is not the total focus of the campaign, but it does form much of the climax of it.

As far as being willed out of existence or instantly disintegrated... well it stumped me for a second; Until I remembered that the 1 or 2 deities the PCs are supposed to fight simply don't have that kind of power. Religion in my campaign is different than what is given in the pathfinder rulebooks.

I have it set up so that there are over 10 different religions. All these have their own sets of gods. These different religions are vary greatly in terms of beliefs; there are Polytheistic, Monotheistic, Animistic, and even Deistic religions. And just like in our own world, these religions tend to disagree and quarrel with each other to the point of violence and even "holy wars." Well that all led to the question of whether or not members of a given religion thought another religion was "fony" or made up.

The answer had to be no, and that the different religions simply involved different customs and beliefs and sets of gods, and that all the gods of the different religions are "real." Also, un-coincidentally many times conflicts in the mortal world coincided with conflicts in the domains of the Gods. (Religious division between mortals results from division among the Gods)

With so many deities at odds with each other, how can they all have abilities as powerful as just... "willing people out of existence"
If they have powers such as that they have to be limited. In my world they have to and will be. Actually, a God's power would probably be limited BY the other gods.

This thread, and my campaign's climax, really just pose the question of "What defines a God, and what power do they have?" Though these deities (probably talking strictly about my own campaign at this point) might not be able to be harmed by NORMAL physical combat weapons, they can be harmed. Immortality, as defined by good 'ol wikipedia, does not protect you entirely from physical harm, but from aging or most other lethal forces. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortality#Causes_of_death

So, can't a God be, at least in this funny campaign world of mine, an extremely powerful extra-planar being, that has obtained true immortality, is really f~+#in hard to kill, rules in another plane of existence, but has interest in the affairs of man, and aids or inhibits those affairs?

You might check out Deities and Demigods it is a 3.x sourcebook. Though you will want to figure out some epic experience or try to get the playtest for Mythic Adventures.

Thanks for the reply I'll have to look into that stuff. All of you, thanks for replies, BTW.

If your talking about exp points I found a formula somewhere in these messageboards for epic level XP, and Im going to use that as a reference to figure XP rewards for the "Gods"

They don't have the gods statted up because it's just not possible to. After awhile you just run out of feats and spells to throw at them to make them tough... then what? Plus you'd be looking at CR36+ beings, the lowest being the weakest.

In a month, though, there's going to be a play test for Paizo's version of the epic rules called Mythic Adventures. Should allow you to take on Demon Lords and Demigods, but not gods.

That makes a lot of sense. No PC's can be as powerful as gods, so theres no abilities to represent all the power a god would have.. just makes sense.

But that leaves me with a bigger dilemma. At that point in the campaign the PCs are supposed to somewhere around lvl 20, and will be bashing through some of the biggest, baddest monsters the game has to offer. And i wanted this epic-proportioned fighting to culminate in the PCs facing off with one of the LG gods (Mind you, the term GOD maybe being used loosely here) of my world... I really have to find some way for them to do that, at this point.

And if it was unclear, i wasn't talking about the gods that you find in the pathfinder books. ambitiously, Im going to be creating my own, which will tie in with the history of my campaign world.

Couldn't I make them have a CR of, say, 27? 28? Even 30? Could I maybe use the bestiaries and the monster creation rules to make something that could be considered a god?

Final thing, I didn't really want this entity the PCs fight to die... I thought once this guy loses so many hit points he will end the fight and begin to reason with the PCs...

Is this at all possible or am I just a noob trying to push the limits too far?

Hello. I'm preparing a campaign and I was wondering what stats/races/beast species(?) would be good for the Gods of the world. I plan on having the PCs actually fight a few of them deep into the campaign.

I am looking more at LG Gods and the other Good alignments than any evil Gods (Yeah, the PCs aren't going to be on the Good side all the time, and they'll all probably have to be somewhat neutral).

I have been doing some heavy planning this last week as far as the religions of my campaign world, but really have no idea what it would be like to fight a Pathfinder God, if it's possible, and what they would look like... if someone could offer suggestions, ideas, or even just point to a page in one of the Bestiaries it would help immensely.

This is likely a ridiculous or stupid question, as i'm new to pathfinder, but the guys i usually go to for help are going to be playing this campaign and i dont want to give this much away to them