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Is there any chance we might ever see a book like D&D's Deities and Demigods where they have the actual stats and how to build your own gods or cover characters how characters might actually become gods and the changes and benefits to their stats.
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From what I've read so far, that is not a product that the guys at Paizo have any interest in doing.
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I agree with Kthulhu and Lincoln hills.
Gods are (if they are true gods) beyond the reach of mortals to fight by mortal rules. They are the source of miracles (not just the spell) for a reason.
Demon lords, infernal princes, and demi-gods on the other hand, have not made that final transition. WotR has stats for some of the demon lords.
They do, however have cr's between 26 and 30.
Agreed. Gods don't need stats, because they a) should not be something that the PCs should fight (remember the old adage "if you stat it, they will kill it") and b) they are effectively omnipotent tools of the DMs. While not actually omnipotent, since they do have limits (they can be killed, they can't kill super powerful beings [see Rovagug], ect) but their limits far exceed what the game provide stats and rules for.
Moreover, just from a flavor standpoint, it lessens them. As cool as it is to have the great old ones in Bestiary 4, it really diminishes them to a (super powerful, I'll admit) stat-block.
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My reasons for hoping for a book that gives the stats and how to make and become gods in the future has been the creation of the mythic rules by the time you lv10 as mythic character if I remember correctly you effectively become a demigod which I could see potentially challenging and fighting a god.
Well, Mythic was a definite effort to 'scratch the godhood itch'. But I doubt you'll see stats for gods happen.
(Among other things, gods with stats would be very nervous. Any 3.x veterans here remember Vlaadkith, the githyanki queen? As the only high-level member of her race, she had a habit of killing any other githyanki who got past 12th level - before they started... getting any clever ideas. I can picture gods with stats taking the exact same precaution.)
I would say it would more likely depend on the god any of the good aligned gods probably not, the neutral ones it would depend on the situation, the evil ones I would lean more towards yes in killing of any potential threat.
Book of beasts Legendary Foes has stars for 3 deities in it. (If someone could linkify that for me, I'd appreciate it, I'm on my phone at the moment).
Meh. The vast majority of us enjoyed Deities & Demigods (both 1st and 3.x versions) purely as a reference and a means to get real-world mythologies into the game. We read the gods' stats for fun and as a means of comparing them against one-another.
Nobody I personally ever gamed with thought to fight the gods other than jokingly. The closest I remember anybody coming to this, were those fringe players who claimed to have fought Arthur (from the 1st Ed book), killed him, then ran around slashing innocents with Excalibur.
And nobody EVER liked those guys or played with them more than once. And I personally never met the DM who was letting those fools get away with such idiocy.
To me, a Deities & Demigods for Pathfinder would be great fun and a good reference. Fun to have, fun to read, fun to look at, and a means of getting Thor or Quetzalcoatl or (my personal favorite) Athena into the game with all appropriate domains and background info. Because, guess what? I don't like or use D&D or Golarion gods. I still use my old Deities 3.0 book for reference because I prefer Thor and Athena in my games.
The fact that so many of you immediately jump to the conclusion that those of us who want such a book want it so we can fight the gods says a lot more about you than it does about the rest of us. I love Paizo, but if you guys are speaking for them on this - really, as much as you claim you are - then they've just dropped a couple points in my view. Because it means they ALSO think we're nothing but a bunch of hooligans with the mental and emotional capacities of 12-year-olds.
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Bruunwald, you have a fair point, but I present another angle. When you start statting up gods, you also limit what they can do. As it stands now, they can do whatever the story needs. But when you start applying stats, you might end up with a situation where you want a god to do this thing that seems completely reasonable but is still not allowed. By keeping the gods nebulous, they basically function by plot, which I think is far more useful. They are gods. Thy should be able to do whatever.
I'd rather see something like the old Immortals Set, where gods have different stats: they can meaningfully interact with each other, but mortals have no real way to harm them.
Book of Beasts: Legendary Foes. Where the lowest level monsters are CR 15. Perfect for any high level game. Plus, three deities with full stats.
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Before we publish a book with deity stats, we'd need to publish a book that presents the rules we'd need to publish those stats, and thus the rules for how player characters could possibly challenge or stand up to or become those deities. And I'm not very interested in doing either of those books. Deities are more valuable to the game without stats.
Part of the reason we built Mythic Adventures is so that we could stat up demigods like demon lords and great old ones. Because "kill the evil god" is a great plot for a campaign. By saying that demigods have stats and deities do not, we get to have our proverbial cake and eat it too.
Meh. The vast majority of us enjoyed Deities & Demigods (both 1st and 3.x versions) purely as a reference and a means to get real-world mythologies into the game. We read the gods' stats for fun and as a means of comparing them against one-another.
Nobody I personally ever gamed with thought to fight the gods other than jokingly. The closest I remember anybody coming to this, were those fringe players who claimed to have fought Arthur (from the 1st Ed book), killed him, then ran around slashing innocents with Excalibur.
And nobody EVER liked those guys or played with them more than once. And I personally never met the DM who was letting those fools get away with such idiocy.
To me, a Deities & Demigods for Pathfinder would be great fun and a good reference. Fun to have, fun to read, fun to look at, and a means of getting Thor or Quetzalcoatl or (my personal favorite) Athena into the game with all appropriate domains and background info. Because, guess what? I don't like or use D&D or Golarion gods. I still use my old Deities 3.0 book for reference because I prefer Thor and Athena in my games.
The fact that so many of you immediately jump to the conclusion that those of us who want such a book want it so we can fight the gods says a lot more about you than it does about the rest of us. I love Paizo, but if you guys are speaking for them on this - really, as much as you claim you are - then they've just dropped a couple points in my view. Because it means they ALSO think we're nothing but a bunch of hooligans with the mental and emotional capacities of 12-year-olds.
You know ignoring the fact that the last part of your message is a little rude, condescending, and insulting i can some of your points. I was thinking of the concept of the possibility of using someone like Lamashtu as end boss for a epic campaign. I wasnt jumping to any conclusion other than it would be cool to have such a book that would bring the gods to a more tangible aspect in the game.
Before we publish a book with deity stats, we'd need to publish a book that presents the rules we'd need to publish those stats, and thus the rules for how player characters could possibly challenge or stand up to or become those deities. And I'm not very interested in doing either of those books. Deities are more valuable to the game without stats.
Part of the reason we built Mythic Adventures is so that we could stat up demigods like demon lords and great old ones. Because "kill the evil god" is a great plot for a campaign. By saying that demigods have stats and deities do not, we get to have our proverbial cake and eat it too.
I can completely respect those reasons and understand why it hasn't happened.
Relevant repost:
I like this for a True Deity's stat block:Spoiler: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 wantsOkay, 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.
I apologize: I wasn't trying to be dismissive. I merely thought this was humorous and wanted to share, and I wasn't replying to anyone in particular.
However, since you raise the question, I might as well answer.
Note, I'm a software dude, this is my opinion only, not that on anyone in editorial.
This is a stat block for Gods vs. Mortals. In the case of Gods vs. Gods, one of two things happpens:
1) Gods have stats that can be directly compared to each other, but are so far above mortals that they round up the the 'auto-win' statblock above. Basically, in this model, Gods can fight each other in a relatively short timeframe, but they're in an entirely different rules system.
2) Gods are more or less invincible to each other as well: at least on timeframes as mortals see them. We already know that Gods have seen whole worlds rise and fall. Even extremely long-lived races like elves and dragons are mayflies to the Gods. A God in direct combat with another God would seem locked in a stalemate to any mortal looking in. Their fight will have a winner, eventually, but that will come so far off in the future it isn't worth thinking about.
Actually, I think the truth is probably closer to 3) The state of divinity is fundamentally foreign to a mortal mind. A mortal has a singular soul, a body, a certain lifespan. A deity is more a name given to a concept. Even ascended mortals like Nethys or the Starstone foursome had to undergo a fundamental change that made them completely different than their mortal selves. Think about it: If (the mortal) Iomedae suddenly found herself with a CR of 40+, I can think of a few places that would have been wiped off the map pretty quickly. Instead, she pretty quickly became a name for a power source in the heavens, letting empowered mortals do anything that actually needed doing in a mortal timeframe. (Similarly Aroden created Absalom while drawing power from the Starstone, but couldn't keep it up for long before becoming an abstraction more than a man.)
If Gods actually retain a sense of self-motivation at all, it operates in a scale much larger in time and space than mortals are equipped to deal with. They simply don't have a body that can be killed. Mortals can't kill Gods because there is nothing to slay with steel or magic. You can't go into Pharasma's court as a mortal, because to a mortal, such a place simply does not exist. Even if you go to Asmodeus's throne room, all you can speak with would be an avatar, or aspect, or some other reduction to mortal scale. That is, the 'I appear in this form for your comfort and understanding' cliche. Slaying such a manifestation might be possible, but matters nothing on a cosmic scale.
The beings that can directly interact with Gods are demigods and outsiders - essentially, immortal beings that are already part abstraction themselves.TL:DR version - The reason Gods don't have stat blocks isn't because they're so tough mortals can't possibly win in a fight: it is that you can't fight them at all.
Aroden, at least, seems like he didn't go straight to full godhood; he was remarkably active in the Inner Sea for something like two thousand years before retreating to the Outer Planes.
You have very valid points Ross but what about a 10th level mythic character? At that point the characters are I'm pretty sure demigods which would give them a more likely chance of possibly encountering gods in a physical sense. I admit that the odds of a maxed out character with mythic levels currently wouldn't last long in fight against a god with out some kind of rediculously powerful artifact to bring the god down to a beatable level of power.
My reasons for hoping for a book that gives the stats and how to make and become gods in the future has been the creation of the mythic rules by the time you lv10 as mythic character if I remember correctly you effectively become a demigod which I could see potentially challenging and fighting a god.Not quite. Their is still a major undefined gulf between the most powerful Mythic 10 and the least powerful demigod.
But according to James Jacobs, they are statting up demigods (but will not be doing the same with gods), unless demon lords and great old ones are somehow different from other demigods?
Part of the reason we built Mythic Adventures is so that we could stat up demigods like demon lords and great old ones. Because "kill the evil god" is a great plot for a campaign. By saying that demigods have stats and deities do not, we get to have our proverbial cake and eat it too.
Really the idea of gods being untouchable is not as universal as people seem to think. There are instances in mythology where the gods have been bested by mortals. Many mythological deities are certainly not able to just overpower mortals with no effort. How do you determine if a deity can defeat a particular mortal without stats? And don't say "story" because that really only applies in certain kinds of games.
Really the idea of gods being untouchable is not as universal as people seem to think. There are instances in mythology where the gods have been bested by mortals. Many mythological deities are certainly not able to just overpower mortals with no effort. How do you determine if a deity can defeat a particular mortal without stats? And don't say "story" because that really only applies in certain kinds of games.
If it's a mythological being that can't just overpower mortals, then it's probably a demigod, and it can have stats.
The Gods that don't have stats are the ones that are a voice in the heavens, rather than a physical being.
I'm kinda confused when people keep referring to pathfinder characters as mortals. These are characters that could change the weather, cause natural disasters, raise the dead, fly through space, or even create their own dimensions. Not to mention that their are immortal beings that still are weaker than mortal PCs. I 'm not too sure what mortality has to do with raw power.
Before we publish a book with deity stats, we'd need to publish a book that presents the rules we'd need to publish those stats, and thus ... become those deities.
Does this include (more) details about the (or one of, since IIRC, it differed for each person) "Test of the Starstone", as that comes under "potentially becoming a deity"?
I can see this being something left to individual campaigns, because it is supposed to differ for each person.
To me 'mortal' includes undead, native outsiders, and humans who have somehow evaded the reaper. Those things still die. They just have to wait for violence or an accident. They are bound by entropy.
In contrast, gods and true outsiders are as much concepts as they are creatures. They are ageless on the order of eons, not millenia. They are not subject to sudden, violent ends.
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Before we publish a book with deity stats, we'd need to publish a book that presents the rules we'd need to publish those stats, and thus ... become those deities.Does this include (more) details about the (or one of, since IIRC, it differed for each person) "Test of the Starstone", as that comes under "potentially becoming a deity"?
I can see this being something left to individual campaigns, because it is supposed to differ for each person.
It does not.
With the publication of Mythic Adventures... we have pretty much all the rules we'd need to do a full-on Test of the Starstone adventure. Doesn't mean we'll do one anytime soon... but the building blocks now all exist.
Really the idea of gods being untouchable is not as universal as people seem to think. There are instances in mythology where the gods have been bested by mortals. Many mythological deities are certainly not able to just overpower mortals with no effort. How do you determine if a deity can defeat a particular mortal without stats? And don't say "story" because that really only applies in certain kinds of games.If it's a mythological being that can't just overpower mortals, then it's probably a demigod, and it can have stats.
The Gods that don't have stats are the ones that are a voice in the heavens, rather than a physical being.
So Ares, Aphrodite, Athena and Poseidon, just for instance, would be demigods in the Pathfinder rules?
So Ares, Aphrodite, Athena and Poseidon, just for instance, would be demigods in the Pathfinder rules?Really the idea of gods being untouchable is not as universal as people seem to think. There are instances in mythology where the gods have been bested by mortals. Many mythological deities are certainly not able to just overpower mortals with no effort. How do you determine if a deity can defeat a particular mortal without stats? And don't say "story" because that really only applies in certain kinds of games.If it's a mythological being that can't just overpower mortals, then it's probably a demigod, and it can have stats.
The Gods that don't have stats are the ones that are a voice in the heavens, rather than a physical being.
It would make sense. Cernunnos is a real world god and he's a demigod under pathfinder rules.
The problem with Pathfinder lacking rules for deity stats is that it means there are some campaign worlds you cannot play using Pathfinder. Of course, that's because killing deities and stealing godhood is an intentional part of those campaign worlds.
So Ares, Aphrodite, Athena and Poseidon, just for instance, would be demigods in the Pathfinder rules?Really the idea of gods being untouchable is not as universal as people seem to think. There are instances in mythology where the gods have been bested by mortals. Many mythological deities are certainly not able to just overpower mortals with no effort. How do you determine if a deity can defeat a particular mortal without stats? And don't say "story" because that really only applies in certain kinds of games.If it's a mythological being that can't just overpower mortals, then it's probably a demigod, and it can have stats.
The Gods that don't have stats are the ones that are a voice in the heavens, rather than a physical being.
Yes.
The problem with Pathfinder lacking rules for deity stats is that it means there are some campaign worlds you cannot play using Pathfinder. Of course, that's because killing deities and stealing godhood is an intentional part of those campaign worlds.
Or you just make the gods demigod level for such a campaign...
Yes.So Ares, Aphrodite, Athena and Poseidon, just for instance, would be demigods in the Pathfinder rules?Really the idea of gods being untouchable is not as universal as people seem to think. There are instances in mythology where the gods have been bested by mortals. Many mythological deities are certainly not able to just overpower mortals with no effort. How do you determine if a deity can defeat a particular mortal without stats? And don't say "story" because that really only applies in certain kinds of games.If it's a mythological being that can't just overpower mortals, then it's probably a demigod, and it can have stats.
The Gods that don't have stats are the ones that are a voice in the heavens, rather than a physical being.
Okay. That's absurd, but okay.
Yes.Okay. That's absurd, but okay.
I think it's really a matter of definitions. Pathfinder has specific definitions of what constitutes a god and demigod. The fact of the matter is, Demigods of Pathfinder all match up well with the gods of Greek mythology. Full gods of Pathfinder are so much stronger than that.
I think it's really a matter of definitions. Pathfinder has specific definitions of what constitutes a god and demigod. The fact of the matter is, Demigods of Pathfinder all match up well with the gods of Greek mythology. Full gods of Pathfinder are so much stronger than that.Yes.Okay. That's absurd, but okay.
I dont know that would be debatable.
The problem with Pathfinder lacking rules for deity stats is that it means there are some campaign worlds you cannot play using Pathfinder. Of course, that's because killing deities and stealing godhood is an intentional part of those campaign worlds.Or you just make the gods demigod level for such a campaign...
Which creates problems when they're killing the guy who supposedly created all of existence, only to realize that under RAW he's just a demigod.
It's part of the "stick to RAW" that the complexity level of the ruleset encourages.
It's more that a level system really isn't going to emulate greek myth that well. THe greek myths were not created with the ideas that a level x character should totally pwn Hades.
Not to mention that a CR 25-30 "god" is going to heads above practically any character from Greek myth. Remember, Greek myth doesn't really include all that many examples of casters, and those that do exist are a few high level NPCS (Circe and Medea). As far as martial classes go, Hercules is probably the most powerful example, and I am not certain if there is anything he did that a 20th level Barbarian couldn't do. The vast vast majority of Greek characters are probably don't have more than 10 levels of a PC class, and very few are really above 5 levels.
I'd say that if you want to play in a "authentic" Greek myth setting, you would be better off using E6 or a derivative.
Really most anybody but Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades could easily be covered by demigod rules. They always seemed the most powerful.
I love Paizo, but if you guys are speaking for them on this - really, as much as you claim you are - then they've just dropped a couple points in my view. Because it means they ALSO think we're nothing but a bunch of hooligans with the mental and emotional capacities of 12-year-olds.
Why would you assume that people who don't work for Paizo are somehow speaking for us?
See James' answer.
If that's not the case for most of your group, can I trade? I don't think i've ever played in or ran a game that didn't include at least one person who seemed to have the mental and emotional capacities of a 12-year old.
And there's the component of every game's player base who see stats as a challenge to make something even stronger.
I love Paizo, but if you guys are speaking for them on this - really, as much as you claim you are - then they've just dropped a couple points in my view. Because it means they ALSO think we're nothing but a bunch of hooligans with the mental and emotional capacities of 12-year-olds.Why would you assume that people who don't work for Paizo are somehow speaking for us?
See James' answer.
Because he did just that when nobody but the people who work for Paizo were actually speaking for the company we posting our own personal views and comments.
My reasons for hoping for a book that gives the stats and how to make and become gods in the future has been the creation of the mythic rules by the time you lv10 as mythic character if I remember correctly you effectively become a demigod which I could see potentially challenging and fighting a god.Not quite. Their is still a major undefined gulf between the most powerful Mythic 10 and the least powerful demigod.
weakest demigod i can find is the CR 14-or-so Prince in Chains. you don't need to be mythic at all to beat him.