Forgotten Realms. Most people forget that Cyric was mortal when he slew Bhaal. Of course, Bhaal being Bhaal, he managed to get over being dead...
Deities and Demigods for 3.0 also had rules for such.
Cyric also slew Bhaal using another god as a weapon, during a time when the gods were specifically made mortal and vulnerable. He didn't kill the god when he had his divinity intact. /tangent
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I'll never understand why it's so taboo for a player character to battle a deity in a game of pretend.
More to the point, PCs are allowed to do whatever they and the GM want. You can always reboot, or what happens in your home campaign stays in your home campaign.
But Gods being killable in general starts making it difficult to actually treat gods as ancient or eternal. It's already hard enough to believe than any Dragon can live long enough to become a Great Wyrm. Consider a deity like Urgathoa. According to her lore, she's the very first undead thing, created when a mortal refused to be judged by Pharasma, because living was just too much fun.
And now consider that Pharasma hates her (and Pharasma is an even more ancient goddess.) All the Good Gods at least dislike her. And as 'Goddess of Undeath', every two-bit necromancer, lich, vampire lord, and ghoul king has some sort of incentive to try to take her place.
And yet, she has persisted, for eons.
Also, having rules for killing a deity sort of implies having rules for what happens when a deity dies. Aroden dying broke prophecy. What would happen if you killed Pharasma, who represents both birth and death, and is the backbone of the soul trade in the outer planes?
These are not things that can, or should, be handled by one-size-fits-all rules.
That's not my point. My point was the last sentence: generic rules do not serve deities well. Aroden didn't need a stat block to die when the plot demanded. Curchanus (Sp?) didn't need a stat block to die, and Lamashtu didn't need a stat block to kill him.
If your campaign includes going into Asmodeus's throne room and taking over Hell, make a stat block and go for it.
But publishing, for instance, stat blocks for the 'Big 20' deities will just lead to arguments over
'Why hasn't deity X just killed deity Y? It'd be a one-sided fight.'
'Deity X is completely defenseless against this spell combo I found!'
'Clearly Class X is broken: It can get a better attack bonus than the God of Y at Zth level.'
If I were in charge, I'd probably make the stats of a different style. For instance (using a deity of my own creation and Old-Mage Jatembe as presented in Mythic Realms as examples)...
Deity Statblock:
Physical: +7
Mental: +10
Spiritual: +4
Technological: +2
~~~
Tier: 17 (Rolls 1d10+7 as base)
Domains: Air, Chaos, Magic, Void, Water
Subdomains: Arcane, Divine, Ice, Isolation, Stars, Wind
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (Divine)
~~~
Category: Architect
Offense +14
Defense +14
Equivalent Mythic Paths: Archmage, Marshal
Mortal Statblock:
Physical: +1
Mental: +4
Spiritual: +2
Technological: +0
~~~
Tier: 6 (Rolls 1d10-4 as base)
Domains: None; this mortal has not chosen to become a Divine Source
Alignment: Neutral Good (Mortal)
~~~
Category: Archmage (Mythic Path)
Offense +4
Defense +2
And, for further comparison, a level 1 character with no tiers and scores of Str 10 Dex 14 Con 15 Int 17 Wis 8 Cha 13:
Physical: +1
Mental: +1
Spiritual: +1
Technological: +0
~~~
Tier: 0 (rolls 1d10-10 as base)
Domains: None
Alignment: Lawful Neutral (Mortal)
~~~
Category: Mortal (Non-Mythic)
Offense: +0
Defense: +0
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To ignore the issue of settings for a moment (anyone remember the adventure where you kill Vecna?), there is one problem with the idea that a setting must have a certain amount of stability from the gods not dying: Most settings don't have it.
Forgotten Realms is the best example. How many times has reality itself shifted in that setting because of the god of magic dying? Gods rise and die in that setting constantly.
Or Greyhawk... where Vecna himself altered reality by letting mortals kill him.
Golarion is also a good example. How many gods have died in Golarion's history? I am not certain even the developers know.
Now, what one setting is there that has divine stability? Eberron... where, by all evidence, it's entirely possible the gods don't even exist.
So we have all of these settings where the gods themselves die on a regular basis, and the one setting where they don't has a good chance that godhood is a fiction.
Now, James Jacobs saying he doesn't want mortals to kill gods in Golarion? No problem. Saying he doesn't want to write up the specialized rules? No problem; it just means I can't use Pathfinder for that kind of game. It's not like the world is lacking for rulesets. Just means I have to invest in a different one if I ever play that kind of game.
But the idea the gods should not be killable by mortals for the purposes of stability when most of the settings don't have that stability even without them killable by mortals is faulty logic.
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Except that none of the settings I mentioned have metagame stability, either; the mechanics are part of the metagame, and even Golarion has been subjected to the metagame instability of a mechanics shift. Golarion just hasn't been subjected to shifts as harsh as Forgotten Realms or Eberron. In fact, on the metagame side, they had to retcon 4E entirely for Forgotten Realms because the plot simply wasn't working.
Yeah...but the publishers don't want to incorporate Metastory changes into the plot, and would rather AP's be set up so that any order anyone wants.
Even when they advanced the time line for Shattered Star, the explicit details were left pretty vague on what happened in previous APs.
To be honest, I think the decision to do major setting events with every system update for Forgotten Realms was a bad idea. It meant that areas of the campaign setting had to be retread to cover that material (meaning less new material overall), and caused chunks of the fandom to get angry and just not buy any more product. At least with Golarion, if you don't like that X event happened in an AP, it will have absolutely no bearing on future products unless you want it to.
I personally don't want to see it and wouldn't buy it. They've already cheapened the setting and destroyed the concept of what deities are by debasing Arazni into a mythic pile of stats in one book and then going on to still list her as a now evil demigoddess in Inner Sea Gods. That's enough for me to be disgusted with the stat listing of the gods. Whats the point of even having gods if you can just walk in and blast them to smithereens?
Sorry to be harsh, but it seems that Paizo is willing to just turn the gods (demigod in this instance, and yeah, I know that she supposedly lost her godhood when she died, what did she do then, re-ascend with out the Starstone???) into big bosses.For what purpose? To sell a product???? I'd really like to see an actual fantasy setting where the deities weren't just big bad end bosses. Eberron in my opinion isn't a real traditional fantasy setting and so isn't included in this post.
I don't mean to imply that others here don't have valid arguments for the purpose of their own concept of Golarion. Only just that it makes it difficult to even imaging why you would have immortal holy power and spell granting beings that define the entire fantasy cleric concept and what it represents. Why not just have clerics become a wizard class that grants their powers to them selves?
To even have gods mean any thing in a world you have to have them be believable and untouchable beings. That one was killed by a mortal is terrifying, unthinkable and a reality shaking event. Not something that should happen regularly.
Now that I've likely seriously irritated all of you I'll end my rant.
Just my opinion. I don't want want to start a post war, but I'm not happy with the idea of stating up the gods at all. It's one of the reasons that I seriously don't like most of the other settings.
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I personally don't want to see it and wouldn't buy it. They've already cheapened the setting and destroyed the concept of what deities are by debasing Arazni into a mythic pile of stats in one book and then going on to still list her as a now evil demigoddess in Inner Sea Gods. That's enough for me to be disgusted with the stat listing of the gods. Whats the point of even having gods if you can just walk in and blast them to smithereens?
Sorry to be harsh, but it seems that Paizo is willing to just turn the gods (demigod in this instance, and yeah, I know that she supposedly lost her godhood when she died, what did she do then, re-ascend with out the Starstone???) into big bosses.For what purpose? To sell a product???? I'd really like to see an actual fantasy setting where the deities weren't just big bad end bosses. Eberron in my opinion isn't a real traditional fantasy setting and so isn't included in this post.
I don't mean to imply that others here don't have valid arguments for the purpose of their own concept of Golarion. Only just that it makes it difficult to even imaging why you would have immortal holy power and spell granting beings that define the entire fantasy cleric concept and what it represents. Why not just have clerics become a wizard class that grants their powers to them selves?
To even have gods mean any thing in a world you have to have them be believable and untouchable beings. That one was killed by a mortal is terrifying, unthinkable and a reality shaking event. Not something that should happen regularly.
Now that I've likely seriously irritated all of you I'll end my rant.
Just my opinion. I don't want want to start a post war, but I'm not happy with the idea of stating up the gods at all. It's one of the reasons that I seriously don't like most of the other settings.
Maybe you know this, but Arazni was never a full god. Ever. She was herald to Aroden. Yeah, just a herald. And on top of that, her death was still incredibly significant. It was just anyone that killed her. It was Tar Baphon, who terrorized avistan for 500 years. So, your anger about "debasing a god" seems a bit misplaced as she was never a goddess.
Actually she has been listed many times as a demi goddess. So, she was actually a god, a demigod, but still a god.
Shadows of Gallowspire page 70
Inner sea world guide pages 1 and 75
Gods and magic page 53
Most sources that either talk about Iomedae or The Shining Crusade I think list her as a demi-goddess. Some places, I don't remember where at the moment, list her as a demi goddess in her own right. I'll have to find the ref. when I can get to my book shelves.
Sorry I don't have all of the references with me. Only the books that I'm working with.
Actually she has been listed many times as a demi goddess. So, she was actually a god, a demigod, but still a god.
Shadows of Gallowspire page 70
Inner sea world guide pages 1 and 75
Gods and magic page 53
Most sources that either talk about Iomedae or The Shining Crusade I think list her as a demi-goddess. Some places, I don't remember where at the moment, list her as a demi goddess in her own right. I'll have to find the ref. when I can get to my book shelves.
Sorry I don't have all of the references with me. Only the books that I'm working with.
Demigods != gods.
Actually she has been listed many times as a demi goddess. So, she was actually a god, a demigod, but still a god.
Shadows of Gallowspire page 70
Inner sea world guide pages 1 and 75
Gods and magic page 53
Most sources that either talk about Iomedae or The Shining Crusade I think list her as a demi-goddess. Some places, I don't remember where at the moment, list her as a demi goddess in her own right. I'll have to find the ref. when I can get to my book shelves.
Sorry I don't have all of the references with me. Only the books that I'm working with.
Hm, it seems you are correct in the reference to her as a demi-goddess, but as has been stated by Miss Price, demigods are still very much not gods. In fact, they frequently stat up demigods. In fact, there last 3.5 adventure path statted up Ahriman, so "killing demigods" has been a part of the system for a long time.
Sorry, my misunderstanding. I didn't mean to sound cranky.
EDIT: I'm not really a loon, I was going by what it says on page 3 of Gods and Magic, which was my first source. If that has been since rendered inaccurate, my apologies.
Sorry, my misunderstanding. I didn't mean to sound cranky.
EDIT: I'm not really a loon, I was going by what it says on page 3 of Gods and Magic, which was my first source. If that has been since rendered inaccurate, my apologies.
Holy crap, I see what you mean there. They say "god slain by mortal hand", but in reality, Arazni wasn't a god and Tar Baphon wasn't a mortal.
So, yeah, the setting marched on with that. It was a 3.5 setting book, so they didn't quite have their sea legs yet. I'd take anything for the 3.5 era with a grain of salt, as it could easily have been retconned.
That's still not the kind of instability I'm talking about; I'm referring to the, well, the canon. When a writer writes in a published setting that a god has appeared - or died - or changed alignment - or got heartburn - or whatever, it's a scripted event. Canon. Making them impervious to harm makes them a reliable constant in terms of writing for that world.
Thanks for letting me know about that 4E Faerun retcon; it amuses me. I had a feeling there would be a general uprising about that one...
I do have to concede that there are a few stats that gods need even if they're invincible; it would be nice to know what sort of Diplomacy or Bluff or Sense Motive checks you need, for instance. (Intimidate... well, honestly, I don't think I'd try Intimidate. Ahem.)
Yeah, even some of the authors rebelled on the 4E Faerun plot.
The problem with what you're talking about with it being a scripted event: Usually, it's not. It's just something they decided on. The jump from 2E to 3E? Vecna's death plot was used because they realized they didn't have a plan for how to pull that off plot-wise and had to make something up on the spot. The same thing with Faerun losing all of those divinities; this wasn't so much planned as necessitated by the change in mechanics to have a storyline that made sense with how the game itself plays.
That's part of why people had such of a problem with accepting some of the Faerun shifts; they were so rushed they ended up badly written.
Now, James Jacobs saying he doesn't want mortals to kill gods in Golarion? No problem. Saying he doesn't want to write up the specialized rules? No problem; it just means I can't use Pathfinder for that kind of game. It's not like the world is lacking for rulesets. Just means I have to invest in a different one if I ever play that kind of game.Absolutely you can use Pathfinder. You just have to decide a few things.
1. How common do you want godslaying to be? Is godhood a relatively temporary and short-lived affair? In FR, Talos would raise a lot of beings to demi-godhood... and then consume them. Do you want gods falling left and right, or as singular events?
2. How easy do you want it to be? This ties into the next question as to how powerful you want your Gods.
3. Living Divine uses very easy rules for Gods... they just use the standard rules set with the idea that the characters have a story-based spark for the potential for Godhood. So for the most part Gods aren't any more powerful than regular characters until they unlock their potential.
4. After that, the next step is building on the existing rules, perhaps supercharging Mythic, or ramping it's tiers beyond 10. Or using something like the Primal Order on top of it.
Pathfinder can certainly be used as the foundation, how much work you need to do depends on your answers. The only reason you wouldn't be able to do it is an insistence that the means come pre-packaged.
"As a foundation" != "using the rules as they exist"
So, by your own words, I can't use Pathfinder; I have to use a homebrewed set of rules intended to work with Pathfinder.
Another thought occurred to me today when I was supposed to be working. It doesn't necessarily follow that beings who can threaten and even kill demigods can also threaten and kill gods, it's possible that there is some inherent quality to being a demigod (like a demon lord, archedevil, or similar) that makes them able to affect gods in a way that mortals, no matter how powerful, simply cannot. Maybe their atoms vibrate on the proper frequency or something equally unknowable.
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Maybe their atoms vibrate on the proper frequency or something equally unknowable.
I look at it as Gods are as much an abstraction as an actual being, especially the ancient gods. Pharasma is the concept of death itself. You can't kill her any more than you can stop death. You cannot kill Erastil anymore than you can erase communities. You cannot get rid of Lamashtu without getting rid of all monsters. And so on. This is reflected in canon: when Lamashtu slew Curchanus, it changed the nature of the relationship between mortals and beasts.
Demigods are part abstraction, especially the assorted outsider paragons. For instance, Nocticula has a particular connection with lust, Abraxas with secrets, Mammon with greed, and so on. But they still have bodies that reside in a single location at a time, even if that body is an outsider (which isn't quite a real creature) that resides on an Outer Plane (which isn't quite a real place.)
Demigods can threaten Gods because they are god-like themselves. But they can be killed by (powerful) mortals because, fundamentally, they have a solid bit that you can put a sword through. Demigods sit on both sides of the fence, essentially.
I was just trying to answer Squeakmaan, there.
But to respond to you, Starsunder, Gods can be killed. They've done it to each other. Who knows what was erased from the multiverse when Rovagug had his rampage. They've been usurped by demigods.
And the whole thing is muddied by humans lumping all kinds of things together under 'God' that may or may not work the same way. Lots of monster races canonically worship demon lords or barghest paragons as if they were full deities. I recall James Jacobs saying that the Azlanti worshipped a different 'Big 20' set of gods, some of which are considered mere demigods now. The Starstone deities are highly important on Golarion, but not elsewhere in the universe. Nethys and Irori both ascended by reaching different kinds of enlightenment. Gorum appeared relatively recently and might be an orcish deity with a makeover. The next AP has AI-powered 'Iron Gods'.
Inversely, Baba Yaga created a demon lord as a hobby, but doesn't grant spells herself. (Well, being a witch patron isn't quite the same as being a Divine Source.)
Anyway, my point is that these things might be best left nebulous, the same way Paizo has given us contradictory, biased, or limited creation myths that can't all be true. Putting out a book with a bunch of Gods in it is inherently limiting, because all of a sudden the stuff that isn't in the statblock is stuff they can't do, even if the story calls for it. Alternatively, they could be given nigh-omnipotent statblocks like the 3.0 Deities and Demigods did, but then they are impossible for mortals to fight, period, because they're 60 HD outsiders with rules that say they always roll 20s, see everything, and can cast whatever they want as a free action. Either way ties the authors hands for future adventures, which isn't a good thing.
A god (and most demigods) needs a stat block in the adventure in which you are supposed to fight them, and not until then.
I disagree that mythic and demigod are interchangeable, that distinction wasn't made prior to the advent of Mythic, but once Mythic was released much of that changed.. Arazni would be more of a quasi-deity, if that, I don't remember if she can actually grant spells.
That is not to say that your interpretation is not equally valid.
Iomedae was a paladin of Arazni, as of the Inner Sea Gods book which was the most recent reference that I have. Unless that reference is also obsolete now. So I would assume that she did grant spells.
Creative Director
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Okay folks... let's not get too worked up here! Remember, we all love gaming and RPGs... we shouldn't fight!
In Pathfinder, and by extension in Golarion, we essentially have what works out to be three "Power Levels" of god/goddess. They are, in descending order of power...
Deity: Deities do not have stat blocks. They are the most powerful of the three categories as a result, since you can't "kill" them using the rules. They grant 5 domains and 6 subdomains to clerics. Some deities are made up specifically for Golarion (like Sarenrae or Urgathoa), while some are inspired by real-world myth (like Asmodeus or Lamashtu). A deity CAN die... and several have over the course of the eons in Golarion, such as Aroden.
Demigod: A demigod does have a stat block. That means they can be defeated, in theory, by powerful mortals or heroes or whatevers who also have stat blocks... but some demigods (see the Great Old Ones for example) have methods of coming back from death such that even killing them only delays them or temporarily inconveniences them. Others, like demon lords, have ways of being instantly resurrected if they die. Demigods are generally in the range of CR 21 to CR 30, but most of them are CR 26 or higher. Demigods grant 4 domains and 4 subdomains to clerics. Some demigods are made up specifically for Golarion (like Cyth-V'sug or Brigh), while others are inspired by real-world myth or literature (like Charon or Cthulhu).
Quasi-Deity: This is the most ill-defined of the three categories. As a general rule, a quasi-deity is anything less powerful than a demigod who can grant spells to clerics. This includes anything that gains the mythic ability of Divine Source. It also may or may not include low-powered demigods, such as nascent demon lords. Quasi-deities are usually below CR 25 in power, but can creep above that if the story needs it.
Now, these rules DO differ from those presented in D&D, and as a result, if you want to use Pathfinder to run certain games or certain story lines, you'll need to either resort to using D&D's Deities and Demigods book, or simply build stats of your own. Just because we've never statted up a CR 50 creature doesn't mean you can't do so!
And as for the relative power levels of someone like Ares or Thor or any other real-world mythological figure... there is no blanket statement that says they're all deities or demigods. We'd make that decision on a case-by-case basis if and when we include them in the game. We haven't yet... but that might change some day—we did, after all, just do up 20 of Egypt's deities!
I hope this cleared up some questions and the like. I'd love to answer more if folks had specific queries or concerns that I missed in my previous skim through this thread!
But let's all be nice to each other while we ask! HUGS!!!
Sorry =(
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something else to consider:
Design space: If you were to add on some sort of "divine adventurers" rule book, which covered rules for gods and allowed PCs some sort of additional ranks or levels to challenge foes, than suddenly you have more space you need to fill with creatures/challenges. And all that design work is going to be directed towards an ever smaller pool of players. What percentage of players continue playing beyond 15th level? 20? 20 with ten mythic ranks? At some point it's no longer feasible or productive to expand the rule system to ever greater levels. And from a game play level...thinks just get ridiculously number wise the more powerful a PC is.
Really...at this point I think a book of rules for fighting deities is best handled by 3pp. Or just straight up use epic rules from 3.0, which shouldn't be THAT hard to update or use.
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.Holding up the sky would be one example. Herakles was probably mythic, and after his own death he did ascend to full godhood.
There's an example in the Iliad where Diomedes was attacking Apollo, who said something along the lines of "no, you're a mortal, don't be stupid, you're not going to win this" - actually, the way that whole encounter between the two of them played out reminds me of what happens to people who attack you-know-who in Book 5 of WotR (except Apollo didn't inflict permanent injury/debilitation on Diomedes for daring to attack him).
I was thinking of the episode in which Athena buffs Diomedes, who then slashes Aphrodite's arm. That seems to support the idea that many of the Greek gods are comparable in power to PF demigods.
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something else to consider:
Design space: If you were to add on some sort of "divine adventurers" rule book, which covered rules for gods and allowed PCs some sort of additional ranks or levels to challenge foes, than suddenly you have more space you need to fill with creatures/challenges. And all that design work is going to be directed towards an ever smaller pool of players. What percentage of players continue playing beyond 15th level? 20? 20 with ten mythic ranks? At some point it's no longer feasible or productive to expand the rule system to ever greater levels. And from a game play level...thinks just get ridiculously number wise the more powerful a PC is.
Really...at this point I think a book of rules for fighting deities is best handled by 3pp. Or just straight up use epic rules from 3.0, which shouldn't be THAT hard to update or use.
Well, there is Mythender for Golarion.
Personally I'm okay with the killing of deities. I think I've played enough video games (God of War, Devil Survivor) and seen enough examples in both real-world mythologies and Golarion to know that deicide isn't really as big of a deal. Especially since in most mythologies, the gods are not infallible and can be struck down by those of lower power. I think only in monotheistic religions is the god deemed omniscient and unkillable. And Golarion already has an example of a demigod killing a deity and becoming one. I think that'd be an awesome end to a long, mythic campaign.
I've tinkered a way of mythic players fighting a god. I'd probably allow the players to have templates to bring them beyond CR 25 (things like half-fiend/half celestial). And have the gods the subconscious of powerful (CR30+) beings that have forced themselves into a slumber for ultimate power. Find the sleeping body, wake it up, and instead of fighting a god, they fight the (still powerful) outsider that they just woke up.
Though Mythender might just be easier to do hehe.
something else to consider:
Design space: If you were to add on some sort of "divine adventurers" rule book, which covered rules for gods and allowed PCs some sort of additional ranks or levels to challenge foes, than suddenly you have more space you need to fill with creatures/challenges. And all that design work is going to be directed towards an ever smaller pool of players. What percentage of players continue playing beyond 15th level? 20? 20 with ten mythic ranks? At some point it's no longer feasible or productive to expand the rule system to ever greater levels. And from a game play level...thinks just get ridiculously number wise the more powerful a PC is.
Really...at this point I think a book of rules for fighting deities is best handled by 3pp. Or just straight up use epic rules from 3.0, which shouldn't be THAT hard to update or use.
Really good point!
Most of the group I play with end up around level 12 max, by that point the GM has too much of a hard time keeping with high level encounter or overall adventure design.