Mortals can kill demigods. Mortals cannot kill full deities. Demigods can kill full deities. Demon lords are considered demigods.
I thought that even demigods aren't allowed to kill full deities.
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Let's everyone just try to remember that these are all reasonable approaches, depending on how you want your game. The aversion to god stats on the Deadlands principle is not crazy or unfounded, but neither is wanting to have stats to replicate epic battles like that between Sarenrae and Rovagug. If I want to know how that went down blow-by-blow, (and I do!) then it might make a great product!
Along the lines of Ashiel's herc rant, I think that the existing 20 levels plus 10 mythic tiers plus maybe a lesser/greater deity template are more than sufficient.
The template approach could even go a long way towards appeasing the people who want greater deities to be "trump cards", depending on the contents of that template. I mean, the template could simply include a explicit statement of what it takes to kill a god. Maybe you have to *be* a god. That can go in the template!
It also helps to abide by James Jacobs' intimation that the rules shouldn't add complexity, but rather reduce it. I'd be curious to see exactly what he means by that. I think a divine template would be a great way to round up the corner cases that Raving Dork and Ashiel bring up, while perhaps removing deities dependence on "mere mortal" stats like AC.
In any case, I think reading such stats would be *wicked fun*, and could be done in a way that keeps the gods sufficiently unkillable for those who are opposed to such things.
...you're not familiar with the term canon?
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Lamashtu killed an actual deity when she was still a demon lord. Curchanus was his name, I think.
And yeah, Arazni got retconned to a lower level of power just so they could avoid that being pointed out.
Ydserius was a demigod. Lamashtu vs Curchanus was a deity vs. deity case. Try harder :)
Also, Arazni was never retconned. From the first mention of her in Gods & Magic way back in 2008, she was described as warrior demi-goddess. I have the book in front of me now, and now you're looking silly for implying things that aren't just because you didn't bother to check the actual sources.
Reference Ydersius, I'm not entirely sure he was supposed to originally be a demigod. He currently is defined as one now, but I don't recall (though I could be wrong) ever seeing him referred to as anything other than "a very powerful god" until it came time to...
... in which case he's a demigod. Now, I'm not trying to say, "Aha, I caught you, Paizo!" or anything similar, so much as it just feels like the "demigod" apellation was kind of tacked-on afterwords, whether or not that's intentional. Even given that he's described as a powerful sorcerer doesn't really help, given the way that Aroden is similarly described as a powerful wizard on occasion.
Also, using canon against a god is just cheating (and also likely not very effective). Unless you're using divine cannon, in which case, it becomes awesome (and said god might want to have Geico from the get-go.)
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That was fun.
So... Stats for Gods?
I think we've actually achieved something of a consensus "maybe, but it's risky".
Considering that when I started this thread I thought the accepted wisdom was "no, never, not ever, and shame on you for asking", that's pretty cool. Thanks!
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Ashiel: you're awesome. I love your point about "less is more", and consistently reminding to calibrate expectations (which I wholeheartedly agree with).
Thank you sir. I appreciate your kind words.
I also believe it would be nice to have perhaps a system in place for building deities, but I felt the deities and demigods book goes too far. I never really found any use for them, other than aesthetics. I never really found a reason, or purpose, for including them in my games. Even in instances where you would fight deities, you'd end up fighting an aspect instead (such as in the case of the Red Hand of Doom) which was rarely more than CR 15 or so.
In general, I prefer statistics I can use. It's one of the reason I really hate the Gamemastery Guide NPCs. I'll never use them. I have no need for a common barmaid who is CR 1, or a 5th level bartender, or a town drunk who is more powerful/dangerous than a trained soldier, or a common prostitute who is also a 15 point buy heroic classed character. To me these things are clutter that only serve to confuse and muddy the scales (if your average beggar is a 15 point buy heroic classed character, then clearly the common orc warrior must be a 3rd level barbarian with a 21 strength, and if your common orc warrior is that, then your average ogre must be...) and before long what semblance of sense the world made falls apart and dies in a dark fire.
A CR 25 creature? I can use that. I've had groups reach levels where that is potentially capable of being defeated (level 20-25 is a good bet). I've found in my experiences that the game doesn't break down so badly post 20th if you stick to the basics, so something in that range is something that I can use. If I have an epic (as in 16th+ level gameplay) story where the party has to fight a deity at the end (as is popular in many JRPGs or in things like Forgotten Realms where characters in the pantheon ascended to godhood in the exact same way), then I would need statistics for this deity, plain and simple. And I would want that deity to be interesting to fight, and not just some brute.
The problem with deities and demigods (or any deity that is CR 30+) is that those are stats I will probably never, ever, use. Ever. If their stats are so high that they might as well not have stats you ruin everybody's fun. The people who want their deities to be infallible see that they have stats and that upsets them. The people who want usable stats see them and realize they are useless, and thus pointless to have. It's a lose/lose situation. By having reasonable statistics they can be used and present great, incredible, climactic points in a campaign that wishes to use them, while those who don't want stats just ignore them as yet another optional component that they choose not to (just like many people don't use Insanity).
I'm actually worried about mythic tiers as well, but I'm reserving my opinions on them until I've seen more (I haven't had the time to make my way through the playtest document yet), but at first glance it seems like yet more unnecessary inflation but it might make people happy, so if it's done and I don't like it, it'll be an option to use like Insanity that I simply won't. However, unbeatable entities are boring and aren't usable, so it's not an option but a falsehood posing as an option. I also feel that nothing should be impossible to overcome. That is the spirit of D&D. Progress and self improvement.
