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The whole "if it has stats they will kill it" thing is rather silly.
"They" in this case are a type of player that will bring that same attitude to any game, stats or not.
And "they" are the last people I want dictating what is made available to me in game resources.
The whole "if it has stats they will kill it" thing is rather silly.
"They" in this case are a type of player that will bring that same attitude to any game, stats or not.
And "they" are the last people I want dictating what is made available to me in game resources.
Hear hear!
Has anyone else noticed how completely disassociated the standard "dungeons and dragons" / "pathfinder" domains are from real world historical domains? Every single old Earth pantheon had a God of Fertility. Fertility was a huuuge deal back then - like one of the three or four most important domains within a polytheistic pantheon - but there's nothing in Paizo for it. You have to hodge together Plant and Charm, even if there's also another plant and/or charm deity in the pantheon.
I figure the reason is they're trying to dream up domains based on the available spells and effects, instead of creating spells and effects based on the sorts of things that ancient priests were actually priests of.
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In every case it was deity killed by a deity or by <UNKNOWN>.
The only mortal-induced deaths were of a single demigod, IIRC.
Perhaps the Pathfinder wiki is in error (it lists sources) that describe Arazni as a warrior-goddess, and she was slain by the lich Tar Baphon. It goes on to note:
[4]↑ Sean K Reynolds. (2008). Gods and Magic, p. 3. Paizo Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-1-60125-139-8
"At the height of the Shining Crusade, the Knights of Ozem venerated Aroden and summoned Arazni, demigod and warrior-herald of Aroden, to aid them in their battle against the Whispering Tyrant."
Paths of Prestige, p. 30
I would say some of what I stated is supposition, some of it isn't
While Jason Buhlmahn has stated they haven't ruled out doing epic rules, note that only a few comments down, Sean K. Reynolds states that high level play is broken and that is why they are doing Mythic the way they are.
Which sort of implies that mythic is their way of doing "high-powered play" without needing epic. Which again, best case scenario, would put Epic rules pretty far back on the backburner for rulesets likely to receive extensive support.
Some of the statements on "not ruling out epic level" might also be caution, being careful not to rule something out if later they change their minds. People can be burned if they make statements like "No, we will never do this" on a public forum
IF we get epic level rules, my guess is they will be a section in a book on high level play (15+) and not an entire hardcover. The developers have stated an interest in doing a high level book, but from what I can gather are less interested in Epic level only.
As for Gods being 40+ CR, I don't think this is much of a supposition. Developers have flat out stated that Demigods are 20 something up to 36, and full gods are beyond this CR range. Okay, technically, there might be wiggle room for a CR 37 God, but realistically it's unlikely that demigods are just one CR step down from a true God, especially ancient beings such as Pharasma, Asmodeus, Sarenae, etc.
Has anyone else noticed how completely disassociated the standard "dungeons and dragons" / "pathfinder" domains are from real world historical domains? Every single old Earth pantheon had a God of Fertility. Fertility was a huuuge deal back then - like one of the three or four most important domains within a polytheistic pantheon - but there's nothing in Paizo for it. You have to hodge together Plant and Charm, even if there's also another plant and/or charm deity in the pantheon.
I figure the reason is they're trying to dream up domains based on the available spells and effects, instead of creating spells and effects based on the sorts of things that ancient priests were actually priests of.
Keep in mind that the domains are biased towards adventuring clerics and their allies. Fertility is primarily a concern of the non-adventurers who make up 99+% of the game world's population.
In every case it was deity killed by a deity or by <UNKNOWN>.
The only mortal-induced deaths were of a single demigod, IIRC.
Perhaps the Pathfinder wiki is in error (it lists sources) that describe Arazni as a warrior-goddess, and she was slain by the lich Tar Baphon. It goes on to note:
[4]↑ Sean K Reynolds. (2008). Gods and Magic, p. 3. Paizo Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-1-60125-139-8
"At the height of the Shining Crusade, the Knights of Ozem venerated Aroden and summoned Arazni, demigod and warrior-herald of Aroden, to aid them in their battle against the Whispering Tyrant."
Paths of Prestige, p. 30
I'm confused? What does it matter of she was a goddess in one book and a demigod in the other? Either way it scared the gods into creating a new god to try and protect them from powerful mortals. That's pretty telling right there.
The whole "if it has stats they will kill it" thing is rather silly.
"They" in this case are a type of player that will bring that same attitude to any game, stats or not.
And "they" are the last people I want dictating what is made available to me in game resources.
If the DM wants his high level player characters to fight gods, he needs stats for them.
If the DM does not want anybody fighting gods, there should be an in-world reason not to do so. The easy way out is to say that they are inaccessible or so powerful that no mere mortal can take them on.
A more difficult way to handle this is to give them stats that make them superior to any level of ability that a mortal character could ever reach. But this approach will break down if the gods are poorly built or if you have epic level rules with indefinite progression -- then you get the question of why the campaign's villains do not take out the gods when they are clearly capable of doing so.
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I'm confused? What does it matter of she was a goddess in one book and a demigod in the other? Either way it scared the gods into creating a new god to try and protect them from powerful mortals. That's pretty telling right there.In every case it was deity killed by a deity or by <UNKNOWN>.
The only mortal-induced deaths were of a single demigod, IIRC.
Perhaps the Pathfinder wiki is in error (it lists sources) that describe Arazni as a warrior-goddess, and she was slain by the lich Tar Baphon. It goes on to note:
[4]↑ Sean K Reynolds. (2008). Gods and Magic, p. 3. Paizo Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-1-60125-139-8
"At the height of the Shining Crusade, the Knights of Ozem venerated Aroden and summoned Arazni, demigod and warrior-herald of Aroden, to aid them in their battle against the Whispering Tyrant."
Paths of Prestige, p. 30
A slight correction it seems that the mantis god wasent created in responce to that since he was worshiped by ancient Azlanti which existed millenia before the shining crusade.
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A slight correction it seems that the mantis god wasent created in responce to that since he was worshiped by ancient Azlanti which existed millenia before the shining crusade.I'm confused? What does it matter of she was a goddess in one book and a demigod in the other? Either way it scared the gods into creating a new god to try and protect them from powerful mortals. That's pretty telling right there.In every case it was deity killed by a deity or by <UNKNOWN>.
The only mortal-induced deaths were of a single demigod, IIRC.
Perhaps the Pathfinder wiki is in error (it lists sources) that describe Arazni as a warrior-goddess, and she was slain by the lich Tar Baphon. It goes on to note:
[4]↑ Sean K Reynolds. (2008). Gods and Magic, p. 3. Paizo Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-1-60125-139-8
"At the height of the Shining Crusade, the Knights of Ozem venerated Aroden and summoned Arazni, demigod and warrior-herald of Aroden, to aid them in their battle against the Whispering Tyrant."
Paths of Prestige, p. 30
Gods and Magic was 3.5 and a lot of the 3.5 stuff got ret-conned.
the god or demi-god issue is important, as with Mythic you can slay demigods...full gods not so much.
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There are people here who have expressed the opinion that if something is published by a third party, or especially Paizo that home GM's are lesser creatures if they don't support every single printed product out there or specifically the options THEY want to have added to a campaign.Playing Devil's Advocate, the problem is that once something is permitted in a setting, there are some who then take permitted sometimes to mean entitled always.
In exactly the way they interpret the rule, of course. The GM is like a the guy who runs the craps table in Vegas, just there to check the dice and hand out the loot.
So a logical question that follows would be what is the effect of a pantheon.
We know god can die. And we further know Gods can be killed (perhaps not by mortals, but they can and have been killed). And we know if you kill a god, you gain the pantheon of the God.
So what would that entail?
As I said before, unlimited Divine Spells at will, as appropriate to your pantheon seems like one logical effect (you hand them out to followers, so logically...)
Immortality seems like a given.
What else?
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I'm confused? What does it matter of she was a goddess in one book and a demigod in the other? Either way it scared the gods into creating a new god to try and protect them from powerful mortals. That's pretty telling right there.
Word of God regarding "can mortals kills full gods in Golarion.
Strange. Golarion is very inconsistent on the matter, then, as even in Achaekek's stat block it says
There are rumors of specific weapons or legendary monsters capable of dealing lethal damage to the Mantis God as well.
I'd lean towards the interpretation in the stat block over the fluff, but make of it what you will.
Edit: It's also possible that Achaekek, being an 'artificial' god created by other deities, is especially vulnerable. I don't know all that much about religion in Golarion though, so take that with a grain of salt.
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I'm confused? What does it matter of she was a goddess in one book and a demigod in the other? Either way it scared the gods into creating a new god to try and protect them from powerful mortals. That's pretty telling right there.Word of God regarding "can mortals kills full gods in Golarion.
See, that's the kind of FUN reading I expect out of god stats.
And I've never once heard someone complain about how all the players tried to kill Achaekek. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, but the times it has happened are an astronomical minority compared to the number of people who have been amused by reading Achaekek's stats.
That's all. I'm not even pushing for Paizo to publish the stats, they should only do something like that if they have a cool plan for it. Maybe publish them one at a time in the APs or something.
I'm just saying that the game line will not instantly self-destruct if they did put something like this out.
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Strange. Golarion is very inconsistent on the matter, then, as even in Achaekek's stat block it says
There are rumors of specific weapons or legendary monsters capable of dealing lethal damage to the Mantis God as well.I'd lean towards the interpretation in the stat block over the fluff, but make of it what you will.
Edit: It's also possible that Achaekek, being an 'artificial' god created by other deities, is especially vulnerable. I don't know all that much about religion in Golarion though, so take that with a grain of salt.
He's a demigod, as stated in the blog post I linked above. Demigods are totally stat-able and killable, as happened to Arazni.
Ah. I see the confusion, then. Arazni was retconned to be a demigod, and the wiki didn't change that passage to fit.
Yeah, definitely un-killable in Golarion, then, unless we get rules for divinity at some point.
Actually, it wasn't really retconned at all. I mentioned that Arazni was a Demigod a couple times on the first page, but I'm apparently being ignored.
Anyway, I'll link to a post of mine here that has a quote from James Jacobs.
The term "God" was is basically a catch-all term for any being that grants access to domains and spells. Demigods are 'Gods', Deities are 'Gods' Empyreal Lords are 'Gods'. They all grants domains, they all grant spells, so they are all Gods. However, Deities have no stats. They are beings so powerful, mortals have no chance of defeating them. That is Paizo's official stance on the subject. A True Deity cannot be killed by a mortal.
Since God is a catch-all term, the 'warrior goddess' description of Arazni is still accurate.
I really hope they don't. Make house-rules for it if you want for your campaign, but I'd prefer they remain unquantifiable. As someone mentioned previously, if you stat it...someone is going to make a build to kill it. Let's leave the gods being godlike.Again this is not a reason to not stat the gods. More of the usual "I don't like it therefore Paizo should not publish it" type of reasoning. I get and respect that you want the gods to be untouchable. Some like myself want the option of a god that can be killed. Paizo should stat them up and the players get to choose imo.
Keep in mind, Paizo has stated they won't publish stats for Deities. Whether as a player or GM or not you like the idea of stats for Deities is irrelevant, since Paizo absolutely refuses to publish stats for the Golarion Deities. In their opinion, mortals shouldn't be able to kill Deities, because they are beings of such immense power, mortals can't hope to compare.
Keep in mind, Deity refers to beings like Sarenrae, Asmodeus, Nethys, etc. The 'Greater Gods' if you will, of Golarion. All of the Demigods and beings of similar power are fair game to be killed.
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I like this for a True Deity's stat block:
The perfect stat block for archdevils/gods:
Init He goes first; Senses all; Perception He sees you
DEFENSE
AC You don't hit him
hp More than you'll ever whittle away, even if you could hit him
Auto-Save vs Mortals
OFFENSE
Speed: Damn Fast
Melee: He kills you
Ranged: He kills you from across the room
Special Attacks: Lots of them
STATISTICS
Str High, Dex High, Con High, Int High, Wis High, Cha High
Base Atk His attack succeeds; CMB He gets you; CMD You don't get him
Feats: Most of them
Skills: Most of them Auto-Succeed
SQ: Lots of them
Combat Gear: Pretty much anything he wants
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I like this for a True Deity's stat block:
The perfect stat block for archdevils/gods:
Init He goes first; Senses all; Perception He sees you
DEFENSE
AC You don't hit him
hp More than you'll ever whittle away, even if you could hit him
Auto-Save vs Mortals
OFFENSE
Speed: Damn Fast
Melee: He kills you
Ranged: He kills you from across the room
Special Attacks: Lots of them
STATISTICS
Str High, Dex High, Con High, Int High, Wis High, Cha High
Base Atk His attack succeeds; CMB He gets you; CMD You don't get him
Feats: Most of them
Skills: Most of them Auto-Succeed
SQ: Lots of them
Combat Gear: Pretty much anything he wants
So Pun Pun.
why make a stat block for something that isn't intended to be killed?
any time you include a stat block, players will feel the following urges
to outright kill the creature, just because it has a stat block and an XP value
to loot the creatures stuff if they can actually manage to kill it. any absurdly powerful outsider, is bound to have some really valuable shinies.
in the case of gods, they may want the god's divine ranks, which requires them to actually slay said god.
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Why do some in this thread automatically assume that once a god is statted that means that every player wants to kill one. Maybe in your games. Most definately not in mine and other 3.5/PF games I have played in. We had gods that were written up in the FR setting for 3.5 as well as the 3.5 Deites and demigods book. I'm pretty sure that their was no rise in players suddenly wanting to kill gods. Even then so what. Just say no to killing a god if as a DM you don't want them to. At the same time for those who want to tackle fighting the gods Paizo should eventually publish a book with stats for gods.
Come up with a better reason for not statting gods. the whole "if you do then everyone wants to kill one" is not imoa good enough reason for Paiz not to do so. Almost as bad as "you can't publish a advanced race guide because no one is going to play the core anymore!!". They can and did and from what I can see no one games came to a crashing halt because of it.
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Come up with a better reason for not statting gods.James Jacobs said so.
Reason enough for you?
As Cpt Kirstov said they don't have the rules to stat them up just yet. And just because "James said So" well as a designer he can change his mind. Espcially if if their is enough demand for such a product. The Mythic book is proof of that imo.
For me I'm just getting tired of hearing "if paizo includes more options it's going to ruin my game and by extension Pathfinder in general" alarmist doomsday predictions that keep showing up on these boards everytime Paizo tries to add something new to the game. PF survived the Ultimate guides. The APG and the ARG. I doubt that writing up the gods in full is going to destroy the game this time around.
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Actually another reason they may not want to stat up full gods is because it then creates a whole other list of problems a few off my head include
1. Do they use Golarion gods or make up whole new Deities.
2. Is it a hard back book (Which they only do 3 a year of) or a campaign setting book (which are only 64 pages)
3. Assuming they stat up the Golarion gods that then limits them to what they can do according to there stats.
4. there really dosent seem to be much enthusiasm for stating up gods at Paizo (I know one or two of the staff/freelancers had a bad experiance when doing one of the D&D god books) and I'm of the belief that if someone dosent have much enthusiasm for something it is better not to do it than try to do it and make a mess of it.
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They could always put the book up as a kickstarter to see if their is enough interest. At the same time as devs they could always feel free to ignore what is in the book. If they don't stat them up I do think a full hardcover treatment of the gods in Golarion is imo needed. Gods and magic is a decent book yet could be expanded on a hell of lot more. They could do a product similar to Green Ronin book of righteous. A huge hardcover book including a full written up pantheon. Imo blows Paizo god and magic out of the water. Everything you need without the stats. Just with a lot more information. As for enthusiasm on the devs part I think that now wothout having Wotc breathing down their necks and being able to do theor own thing they maybe more willing to tackle statting the gods. After all not much enthusiasm for mythic at first and now we are getting a mythic book.
I am just not seeing this happen. There really doesn't seem much interest at Paizo to stat up dieties, and if there isn't a gung-ho supporter, things don't get pushed forward.
I do think we will get a hardcover dieties book (Some of the developers have almost out and out said it), but like the hardcover inner sea guide, I think a lot of it will be fluff, with crunch in the form of heralds, diety related prestige classes, etc. I doubt diety stats will appear in this volume.
Really the best bet is to get one of the more dependable 3rd party ppp's interested in statting up dieties as 40+ CR beings. They couldn't stat up Pharasma, but they could stat up a goddess of death for instance.
I like this for a True Deity's stat block:
The perfect stat block for archdevils/gods:
Init He goes first; Senses all; Perception He sees you
DEFENSE
AC You don't hit him
hp More than you'll ever whittle away, even if you could hit him
Auto-Save vs Mortals
OFFENSE
Speed: Damn Fast
Melee: He kills you
Ranged: He kills you from across the room
Special Attacks: Lots of them
STATISTICS
Str High, Dex High, Con High, Int High, Wis High, Cha High
Base Atk His attack succeeds; CMB He gets you; CMD You don't get him
Feats: Most of them
Skills: Most of them Auto-Succeed
SQ: Lots of them
Combat Gear: Pretty much anything he wants
Okay, so what about this statblock vs. this statblock?
This is a funny answer, but it's also dismissive. It doesn't address my point at all.
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I don't think that, even if deities cannot be killed, that they should automatically win any fight. If the players have a goal and a deity is opposing them directly, they should still have a chance. Furthermore, stats govern things outside of combat as well.
If Gozreh tries to strike down the PCs with a manifestation of nature's wrath, do the PCs survive? If Shelyn tries to charm a PC does she succeed? What happens if the PCs tries to deceive Asmodeus or face Cayden Cailean in a drinking contest? Let's assume that "whatever the story says should happen" isn't a concern, mostly because not everybody plays that way.
After playing Dark Souls, I am definitely down for some rules on deicide.
@Tacticslion: I can see you really loving the Deity Rules in some of your homebrewed settings...
It's like you know me! (Also, good point about the myths.)
@Tacticslion: You are the win beneath my wings.
(No, that's not a typo.)
Wow, thanks! :D
I could see Lesser and Greater Deity being templates, actually.
Just assign them to high level, high mythic tier characters. They needn't even be 20th/10th, for a little variety.
What would that template approach necessarily include?
Well, here's one idea of mine for a start...
Nice... And now I want a Hand of Midas Relic...I meant simply they touch things, and it's full of Win!Did Paizo track down and find the Gamer Success version of the Hand of Midas?Not quite sure what you mean by that?
Though if it is what I think I think it is more of they seem to have learned (for the most part) from the mistakes of their predecessors.
BAM! There you go!
... created Acheakek...
Achaekek is strange, though, in that the Azlanti worshiped him long ago as a NE god of blood and monsters instead of assassins. So, that's a strange contradiction in the lore, there (not something that you did wrong, I'm just mentioning).
Anyway, out of time, for now, but I'll get to reading this more soon.
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So essentially this thread was TL:DR and after the first page, I basically skipped to the third, scanned through this page, and now I'm posting.
I can assure you that if deity stats gets posted, Ravingdork will post a level 6 build that capable of killing some god in 4 rounds within 48 hours of those stats going online.
I challenge that.
Hey, Ravingdork. After you convert it,
Manifestation of Hecate (CR 62)
Medium Outsider (Extraplanar)
54th-level Sorceress
Hit Dice: 54d20 +486 (1566 hp) or 3132 hp within her divine realm
Initiative: +20
Speed: 90 ft. (18 squares)
Armor Class: 70 (+9 bracers of armor, +20 deflection, +10 Dex, +8 divine, +13 natural), touch 48, flat-footed 60
Base Attack/Grapple: +27/+42
Attack: Dagger of Hecate: +17 dagger +60 melee (1d4+24/19-20)
Full Attack: Dagger of Hecate: +17 dagger +60/+55 melee (1d4+24/19-20)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Spell-like abilities, spells
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 20/epic, darkvision 60 ft., divine traits (Lesser Deity), spell resistance 72
Saves: Fort +46, Ref +47, Will +46
Abilities: Str 24, Dex 30, Con 29, Int 26, Wis 28, Cha 44 (50)
Skills: Bluff +85, Concentration +74, Craft (Alchemy) +73, Decipher Script +35, Diplomacy +47, Handle Animal +47, Knowledge (arcana) +73, Knowledge (religion) +35, Knowledge (the planes) +35, Profession (?) +73, Sense Motive +36, Spellcraft +86
Feats: Augment Summoning, Brew Potion, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, Empower Spell, Enlarge Spell, Extend Spell, Greater Spell Penetration, Heighten Spell, Improved Counterspell, Improved Initiative,Maximise Spell, Quicken Spell, Silent Spell, Skill Focus (spellcraft), Spell Focus (Conjuration), Spell Penetration, Still Spell, Widen Spell
Epic Feats: Automatic Metamagic Capacity* (x8), Epic Spellcasting, Epic Skill Focus (spellcraft), Metamagic Freedom*
*New Feat from Chapter 4
Divine Abilities:
• Divine Sorcery: Cast twice as many arcane spells per day.
Cosmic Abilities:
• Ensorcelled: Can cast any number of spells per day.
Environment: Nine Hells Organization: Solitary, or with her two favored hell hounds (huge, incorporeal, maximum hit point 24 HD Nessian warhounds) or with a pack of a dozen hell hounds (large, maximum hit point 12 HD hell hounds) led by her favored two Challenge Rating: 62
Treasure (Artifacts): Dagger of Hecate, Key to the Underworld, Rope of Regression, Torch of Enlightenment
Treasure (Non-epic Items): Bracers of Armor +9, Cloak of Charisma +6, Ring of Spell Turning
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Advancement: By Class Level
Effective Class Level: 94 (with listed equipment)
This incredibly beautiful woman has long black hair down to her waist. But for her cloak and jewelry she stands unashamedly naked before you.
Hecate’s Manifestation stands 6 feet tall and weighs 113 pounds.
COMBAT
As the queen of sorcery Hecate understandably uses her magic to fight her battles.
Hecate’s natural attacks or any weapons she wields, are treated as epic, evil-aligned and lawful-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Divine Traits (Lesser Deity) (Ex): As a lesser deity,Hecate gains a +8 divine bonus to: armor class; attack rolls; checks (ability checks, caster level checks, skill checks, turning checks); difficulty class (for any special abilities, spell-like abilities, spells); initiative; saving throws and spell resistance.
Spell-like Abilities: At will - anti-magic field, dispel magic, greater teleport, identify, imbue with spell ability, magic aura, planeshift, protection from spells, spell resistance, spell turning. The save DCs are Charisma based.
Spells: As 54th-level Sorcerer (Caster level 62nd). The save DCs are Charisma-based.
Sorcerer Spells per Day: Infinite.
Sorcerer Spells Known: Hecate knows all spells; save DC 38 + spell level.
Favorite Spells: meteor swarm (empowered, maximised and widened); power word kill (empowered x4; 400 hp), summon monster XVII (CR 25 monster) Epic spells per day: Infinite Favorite Epic Spells: Animus blizzard, epic counterspell, greater ruin, hellball, momento mori, superb dispelling.
For those who are wondering where I got that, it's a 3.5 book called Immortals: Gods and Monsters by Eternity Publishing. It's not 100%, but rather something they sent out to people for free. Essentially this never got officially published as complete. However, what did complete was the book that created this. It's called Immortals Handbook: Ascension. With it, you can become or create any kind of god you want to (Demigod, Lesser, Greater, Elder, etc). Heck, you can even make NPCs and PCs partial deities as their god's power is literally transferred to them for a time (heralds, prophets). There's also HD minimums. Not unlike that of the Deities and Demigods 3.5 book that WotC made.
For example, Hercules would be considered a Hero-Deity. This is because they are considered deities who walk among mortals and get directly involved with their affairs. The requirement to be an actual hero-deity is to have a minimum of 15 HD. As for what happens, well, it's fairly lengthy. I'd suggest getting this book if you're looking to actually build gods with stats. But to give you a bit of a preview as to what you can expect, your type changes to outsider, you have maximum hp per HD, you gain a deflection bonus equal to your CHA-mod, gains a few listed SLA at-will and 3/day, DR/Epic, SR, and +6 to all ability scores.
In contrast, a Lesser Deity gains +16 to all ability scores, and a Greater Deity gains +32. Of course the CR and the ECL goes up as well based on the amount of equipment and items you give them as well.
I enjoyed this book when I had to have my PCs fight a fallen god last cycle.
No dicefreaks here? Let me dig up my compilation of the stat the unstatable manifesto...
Dicefreaks did a lot of work on integrating 3E Deities & Demigods rules with the Epic Level Handbook rules and making it all work with the flavour from earlier D&D. Their Archfiends are on par with lesser gods as it was always protrayed in the flavour of D&D and they made their rules-representations fit that. They also revised the rules for deities (brilliantly getting rid of those 20 outsider HD for deities, thus giving more class levels and more room to build flavour). In their Cosmology Demigods start at CL30 iirc.Let me explain a bit where I'm coming from. Yes, the 3E WotC Archfiends have a CR, and can be killed by low-level epic PCs. Which is a gross error on part of WotC. That's why they somewhat nebulously stated those stats are only aspects of the real Archfiends who are probably a bit higher in CR and release the next stats which were equally insufficient. WotC botched it all up massively by making those stats for PCs to kill as they thought that's what the players want. (Which is probably true in some cases) But the flavour given to these beings in the past settings and even in 3E does not fit with their stats. The D&D Cosmology hinges on the fact that Planar Lords like Graz'zt or Asmodeus need to be on par with the gods at least in their homeplanes. Else why has not Kurtulmak conquered all of Hell yet? (This is the so called Special K problem).
So if you want to have stats for gods and planar lords you need to have them make sense in relation to each other and fit with their flavor. This is what Dicefreaks spent considerable effort on in imho they excelled at it. Maybe the power level is a bit too high for some people taste but it fits with the levels that the gods where given in 3E Deities & Demigods. The flavour is also generally resonant in much of the Planescape campaign, which made some Demon Lords lesser deities and even more powerful on their homeplanes.
Imo it's fun to have stats for gods to paint a more detailed picture about them and their interactions. If you don't want that in your game ignore it or say they are only avatars.
P.S. Cayden is totally an urban drunken brute barbarian.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So essentially this thread was TL:DR and after the first page, I basically skipped to the third, scanned through this page, and now I'm posting.
I can assure you that if deity stats gets posted, Ravingdork will post a level 6 build that capable of killing some god in 4 rounds within 48 hours of those stats going online.I challenge that.
Hey, Ravingdork. After you convert it, ** spoiler omitted **...
Mind you, I'm not familiar with some of the abilities, being a v3.5 stat block and all, so I might have overlooked an immunity or two, but here's my first go after glancing at the statblock and giving it about 10 seconds of thought.
Get a 6th-level rogue or fighter (possibly lower) min/maxed with stealth and several bags of dust of sneezing and choking (only 250gp a pop) to take care of this guy. Your "god-thing" has +16 Perception (+8 Wisdom modifier, +8 deity BS). Rogue gets in close enough with Stealth (automatic success if built right) to hurl the dust of sneezing and choking into the godling's face. While the enemy is stunned for SEVERAL rounds, smash it in the face with sneak attack, vital strike, a big two-handed weapon and/or whatever else is needed to brute force your way past the DR. Every five rounds or so, back off and hit it with another bag of dust to keep it stun-locked.
Depending on the build, it may take a while to chip off all those hit points (especially with the DR), but it's not much of a concern since, with 6th-level starting funds, you have about 320 rounds to find a way to kill the godling, so if you're doing about 25 damage each round, you're going to have a dead deity in about half an hour.
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This is one of those days that I'm glad we have Ravingdork around :)
What would follow (if Paizo publishes god stats) would be an epic flame war along the lines of:
"James Jacobs you said gods can't be killed by mortals but here's a level 6 build that does so lol Paizo fails @ statblocks"
"Book X says deity Y did Z, but her statblock totally doesn't make that possible so lol Paizo fails @ statblocks"
"Why doesn't Iomedae just kill every evil deity, her stats totally allow that lol Paizo fails @ logic"
etc. etc. etc.
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That deity can be killed by a level 3 wizard, based on her statblock alone (unless there are immunities that aren't listed). The wizard merely has to encounter a Shadow (CR 3) and cast command undead which lasts a minimum of 3 days, but the shadow can be re-commanded afterwards with little to no effort. The wizard has the shadow slink into an orc encampment and coup de grace an orc, then him and its new minion do the same, and multiply the shadows until the orc encampment is dead (likely within minutes with no real way to retaliate). The wizard clears the orc encampment through the use of class abilities but doesn't level up yet (probably has plenty of XP to do so). The wizard now takes his army of shadows and decides to kill Hecate.
At Str 24 with no listed immunity to the shadow's touch, and a touch AC of 48, 1/20 shadows should hit her per round. The wizard keeps his friendly shadow who controls all of them sitting back and the two play a game of chess while his minions murder the goddess by swarming her with possibly hundreds of strength-draining undead. Statistically the goddess is dead after getting hit by 6 shadows, though it could take as many as 24 or as few as 4.
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@ Ravingdork and Ashiel -- You two are hilarious. Your builds mean nothing to Hecate.
1) Dust of Sneezing is 2400g a pop. At 6th level, you'd have a max of six of them and no other defenses. Even if you were able to stun her, you'd never be able to hit her because her flat-footed's so high. You'd have to roll natural 20s nonstop ever round. However, you'd never critical.
2) Hecate's not blind. She'd see an army of shadows coming. She has unlimited spells. Shadows are mere low level undead. Command Undead works wonders. Especially when you've got an unlimited number of uses. And she's got Summon Monster CR 25 at-will. Lots of dracoliches for her to command. Then there's the fact that she's the god of the undead. Surely with her unlimited spells she could turn them or command them. Worst case scenario, lots of hellball spells come down. She's not just going to sit there for an unlimited number of rounds waiting to be bad touched.