The closest I have ever come was useing the celestial template and removeing all the other benifits except for stat bumps. We dropped the ECL from 4 to 2 that way.
I am of the mindset that after 20+ levels players should let their charecters retire and then start a new race/class combo.
With the exception of the forgotten realms god Talos the destroyer I know of no other god that activly allows mortals to ascend to godhood. The only reason talos does it is so he can drain the new demi-god of his power thereby increasing hios own.
As far as updateing the rules for ascension the rules I've heard are if it hasn't been updated from 3.0 to 3.5 then it is still in play as is. Which if you look at the 3.0 class expansion book means that some really awesome spells are still around.
I am not impressed with the rule set for Gods (even when updated for 3.5). Since this was a pre 3.5 product, it never got a full treatment. Now that I've been gaming a group of experienced power players, it seems both too much (too many rules) and too little (too many basic characteristics and capabilities are ignored).
It really seems like divinity should be a template, also incorporating divine rank. Has anyone done something like this or given it any thought?
Is "Gods" an actual product you're referring to? I don't know it if it is. As far as divinity being a template, I play in Greyhawk, and there you have both quasi-deities and (1 slight step above) hero-deities. Demigods et al would come later. Anyway, I've been toying w/ the idea for a template for these quasi- and hero-deities, but not for "actual" deities if that makes sense. Both groups would be epic-level, which I somewhat arbitrarily cap at 30th level. So 21st-25th levels MIGHT qualify for quasi-deity status, while 26th-30th levels...hero-deity status. But in both cases you'd probably have to be sponsored by an actual deity; it's not enough to reach epic levels.
I haven't put pen to paper yet, but that's just my general idea.
BenS,
which rulebooks are the Greyhawk rules in, especially for the quasi-deities and the hero-deities? Is it v3 or v3.5?
The book - name escapes me as I'm at work - yes still this late - was originally v3 but focused entirely on deities and creating your own pantheon.
The Greyhawk deity rules would have been for AD&D 2nd edition, since there was nothing that I know of specific to Greyhawk deities that was released at any time during 3rd edition. (Unless something was listed in some of the Living Greyhawk adventure modules or Journals. Nothing was in the D&D Gazetteer or LG Gazetteer. )
The other book you're thinking of is 'Deities and Demigods' for v3.
The divine rules were included in the System Reference Documents for 3.5, and so were mostly updated. (Same with the parts of the Epic Level Handbook that were left out of the DMG.) The SRD rules are all available at http://www.d20srd.org
The biggest problem everyone had with the deity rules is that they ignored the Epic rules, since the WotC design guidelines at the time stated that every rulebook could only require having one or more of the 3 core rulebooks and nothing else. The result was that epic level characters could quickly gain enough power to be better than the deities at nearly anything.
BenS,
which rulebooks are the Greyhawk rules in, especially for the quasi-deities and the hero-deities? Is it v3 or v3.5?
Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to imply there were actual rules in place. Just that Greyhawk had those distinctions of quasi-deity & hero-deity, which preceded Demigods on the divine scales.
I think the Deities & Demigods book, 3.0, has something about quasi-deities (was it the entry on Valkyries?), but I don't have time to look right now. That might be a base for you to work off.
There's also a prestige class for dragons in the Draconomicon that leads to godhood. (Quasideity)
Thanks for pointing that out. To the OP, it's the Dragon Ascendant. You might pull some ideas (i.e., abilities) from that prestige class that aren't intrinsically "dragon" abilities.
Also, the 3.0 Deities & Demigods outlines what "Quasi-Deity Traits" are (Divine Rank 0 btw). See p. 199 for example. Beyond changing the DR formula from 3.0 to 3.5, you could use that for quasi-deities (and if you wanted hero-deities as a slight step up, just increase the DR & SR a little bit).
I don't have advice for more powerful, true deities, as I don't have campaigns in which one fights them. Anyway, good luck to you.
I never did, I thought the rules from 3.0 were pretty much just fine for gods, with a slight exception. I decided that gods could use epic spells and create their own with ease. On top of that the epic book lists you use extra casters. Well in my campaign the gods can take some of the spells they have granted back from their followers to power epic spells. So if a cleric finds his spell slots suddenly emptying on their own it means their god is doing something massive....