Would statting the deities be "a major offense" in Pathfinder?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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PossibleCabbage wrote:
If we want the Gods to both be 'fully stated entities' and 'also faithful to the fiction' then you're going to need to add a lot of additional systems and subsystems, so you can have things like "Rovagug is an existential threat to reality". You could do stuff like "Rovagug destroys 1d3 planes of reality per minute" but I don't think that would be very satisfying. So I think it would be a lot of additional rules to make the gods feel godlike, and in terms of column inches in print that's probably not as actually useful to people's games as any number of other things they could print.

This makes a lot of sense to me -- thanks.


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Yeah, based on the lore, the actual gods should be on the same combat footing as Dragon Ball Z characters, and Pathfinder can't really handle that. (Rovagug is a destroyer of worlds, Sarenrae destroyed an entire city with a single swipe of her blade, the death of Ihys allegedly destroyed an entire solar system, the gods tore Golarion asunder and sewed it back together to imprison Rovagug, etc.)

It probably doesn't help that Pathfinder sets the baseline numbers for demigod-class threats at only a little above elder dragons. A CR 30 is only about 50% stronger than a CR 25, and they rarely exhibit any abilities that seem beyond a 9th level spell. (And hell, a millenium-old demigod who rules a region larger than the Earth might have less treasure and equipment than a 20th level PC.)

In short, Paizo went very conservative when statting out the entities at the top end of the scale, rather than going gonzo. (Which is compounded by the actual mythic mortal rules being gonzo. I think the most powerful thing Paizo's officially statted out is Baba Yaga, who's a mythic mortal+, rather than the various actual demigods they've produced.)

Of course, WotC went the route of the Epic Level Handbook (i.e., everyone just slowing progressing upwards forever), which in turn was built upon by Deities and Demigod (which had a section of Salient Divine Powers that gods gained as they ranked up, made godhood itself a template, and then statted gods by giving 20 outsider hit dice and 20-60 or so class levels. I remember a lot of gods having ACs of over 90).

I guess that filled a niche (My group bought it, and even had a campaign where we became demigods around 10th or 13th level), but it was telling that it was one of the 3.0 books that, like the Epic Level Handbook, only got a web supplement instead a 3.5 reprint.

A Deific Adventures book could be really neat, but I don't think Paizo as any actual incentive to write such a thing. Fighting/playing gods rules are even more of a niche than high level play/mythic rules.


Zhangar wrote:
A CR 30 is only about 50% stronger than a CR 25,

By definition, a CR 30 is something like six times more powerful than a CR 25. CR is a LOG SCALE, not a linear one.


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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
cannen144 wrote:
Personally, I like to use this...thing as a good baseline for what gods should start to look like with stats. but then again, I'm more of the "as strong as the plot requires" persuasion.

It's from the Immortals Handbook: Epic Bestiary Vol. 1, and given that it's a for-sale product you shouldn't be reposting any of its contents here unless you have permission from the book's author.

As a note, the book's author later stated that he placed the CR as being too high, and that it should be dialed massively back in order to better reflect the creature's abilities.


Zhangar wrote:
but it was telling that it was one of the 3.0 books that, like the Epic Level Handbook, only got a web supplement instead a 3.5 reprint.

This is sort of true - in that it's entirely true, but at least somewhat misleading; the rules actually were revisited in the Faiths and Pantheons book, which, while still 3rd, was a second product directly addressing the rules.

Zhangar wrote:
Of course, WotC went the route of the Epic Level Handbook (i.e., everyone just slowing progressing upwards forever), which in turn was built upon by Deities and Demigods

... but not very well.

One of the major problems with the Deities & Demigods, in my opinion, was that it wasn't built with their epic level rules in mind. It just kind of left things as non-epic and presupposed that was "close enough" to matter. To some extent, certainly it was! Few parties will ever really care. But the reason it's weak is that they didn't quite hit up that internal consistency.

But!

The concept is really awesome, and I use it to inspire and build off of even to this day. It's been a phenomenal purchase for me, and something I've been glad to have. It gives me a useful measuring stick, and it works for world-building, too.

Similarly the ELH.

Paizo Employee Sales Associate

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Removed a couple of posts with admittedly good discussion but were both marred by unnecessary personal attacks at other posters. Please try to keep the vitriol out of your posts.

I've also removed an IP violation. Please do not do this.


I'm of the "avatars are nifty, actual god stats aren't". Maybe something like the Ancestor summoner's "impressions of such a soul left behind on the Ethereal Plane or the Akashic Record" instead of just being an ability deities have.


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See I support the idea of Avatars. Expectations aren't so high, and when you see how powerful or cool they are, you can just imagine that they're the "intern" to a much more powerful being. It's like how Cthulhu is a High Priest.

Liberty's Edge

I feel that Heralds are Paizo's answer for the Deities' statted Avatars niche

Liberty's Edge

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The Raven Black wrote:
I feel that Heralds are Paizo's answer for the Deities' statted Avatars niche

Mostly.

Serpent's Skull Spoilers SERIOUSLY MAJOR SPOILERS:
Ydersius manifests an avatar in the early stages of he regeneration. He also has a herald.

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Zhangar wrote:

Yeah, based on the lore, the actual gods should be on the same combat footing as Dragon Ball Z characters, and Pathfinder can't really handle that. (Rovagug is a destroyer of worlds, Sarenrae destroyed an entire city with a single swipe of her blade, the death of Ihys allegedly destroyed an entire solar system, the gods tore Golarion asunder and sewed it back together to imprison Rovagug, etc.)

It probably doesn't help that Pathfinder sets the baseline numbers for demigod-class threats at only a little above elder dragons. A CR 30 is only about 50% stronger than a CR 25, and they rarely exhibit any abilities that seem beyond a 9th level spell. (And hell, a millenium-old demigod who rules a region larger than the Earth might have less treasure and equipment than a 20th level PC.)

In short, Paizo went very conservative when statting out the entities at the top end of the scale, rather than going gonzo. (Which is compounded by the actual mythic mortal rules being gonzo. I think the most powerful thing Paizo's officially statted out is Baba Yaga, who's a mythic mortal+, rather than the various actual demigods they've produced.)

Of course, WotC went the route of the Epic Level Handbook (i.e., everyone just slowing progressing upwards forever), which in turn was built upon by Deities and Demigod (which had a section of Salient Divine Powers that gods gained as they ranked up, made godhood itself a template, and then statted gods by giving 20 outsider hit dice and 20-60 or so class levels. I remember a lot of gods having ACs of over 90).

I guess that filled a niche (My group bought it, and even had a campaign where we became demigods around 10th or 13th level), but it was telling that it was one of the 3.0 books that, like the Epic Level Handbook, only got a web supplement instead a 3.5 reprint.

A Deific Adventures book could be really neat, but I don't think Paizo as any actual incentive to write such a thing. Fighting/playing gods rules are even more of a niche than high level...

It's not only Deities that have backgrounds of them displaying their power through destruction on a massive scale. Monsters do, too.

Behemoths (B3) are massive immortal monsters created and used often by vengeful deities to ravage kingdoms and to destroy entire worlds. They are sent in very few numbers, and almost never warrant under any circumstances the use of more than one Tempest Behemoth. They range from CR 18-22

Hekatonkheires (B3) are Titans that were created, warred against, and banished by the Gods to roam the multiverse. Stripped of their memories, they search through planes confused, searching for answers while destroying entire worlds in the process. In combat, they can throw numerous gigantic boulders that appears as if an entire mountain is falling. This is a CR 24 creature.

Danava Titans (B5) are essentially foundations of entire universes, and destroying one is a step to the destruction of all of reality. The Danava went to war with their weaker brethren, only for the gods to intervene before all of creation was torn apart. CR 24.

Ribbon Dragons, from Starfinder, is a space dragon that uses its powers and physical abilities to devastate entire fleets of starships. It was also said that a ribbon dragon hatched from its egg and afterwards proceeded to lay waste to an entire solar system, though this is considered to be a highly debated topic in the creature's lore. The Dragon's CR 25.

So yeah, these are pretty impressive backgrounds for these monsters, and their intended power level is very high, especially considering none of these monsters break past CR 25. I would imagine you wouldn't see these types of backgrounds on more powerful beings, such as demonlords, because they don't have to destroy entire worlds or planes since their current job is probably much more important than just simple destruction.


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MageHunter wrote:
See I support the idea of Avatars. Expectations aren't so high, and when you see how powerful or cool they are, you can just imagine that they're the "intern" to a much more powerful being. It's like how Cthulhu is a High Priest.

Yeah. Which is why it's baffling he doesn't have divine spells.

Also, he's way too over-inflated in his CR. EDIT: What I mean by that is that he's far too powerful to be anything like any of the stuff ever printed in any of the books. It's strange. But if you want a really great Cthulu, take the Zygomind, give it hypothetical mobility and a regeneration of some sort (and, if you're into Derleth, possibly a water subtype, or something), and enjoy!

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Cthulhu's CR comes from Internet Memes and fandom popularity power boosts :p


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
If we want the Gods to both be 'fully stated entities' and 'also faithful to the fiction' then you're going to need to add a lot of additional systems and subsystems, so you can have things like "Rovagug is an existential threat to reality". You could do stuff like "Rovagug destroys 1d3 planes of reality per minute" but I don't think that would be very satisfying. So I think it would be a lot of additional rules to make the gods feel godlike, and in terms of column inches in print that's probably not as actually useful to people's games as any number of other things they could print.
Kirth Gersen wrote:
This makes a lot of sense to me -- thanks.

This is a really insightful point, but I don't think it quite holds up.

To me, it really doesn't have to go so far to actually pose an existential crisis to all of reality.

As a glib example, look at James Jacobs' responses to my "which would win?" question:

- Mhar v. Rovagug: Rovagug wins

- Azathoth v. Rovagug: Azathoth wins

Let's sit back and contemplate that for a minute. What, exactly, is the thing with Rovagug, then? Is he not the baddest cat around?

Again, though glib, the actual and legitimate answer appears to be: "no" - he's not. To that end, he doesn't need the ability to shatter 1d3 planes per round. He doesn't even need the ability to shatter 1d3 planets per round.

Allow me to establish a similar existential crisis in four easy parts:
- part one
- part two
- part three
- plus various rules for immortality, and blend liberally.

Now, I'll admit, I could probably do better.

Adding in something like the havero or providing a truly unbeatable regeneration or something like continuous crushing despair plus blink plus greater invisibility plus displacement plus mind blank plus rest eternal and a ghost-touch natural weaponry to put things to work. Or maybe a dozen spheres of annihilation usable per round (these are a part of him, not actually separate spheres).

But these are just spit-balling ideas based on the first terrifying high-level monster I could nab. If Rovagug can't be stopped, and he can destroy most anything at will, he represents an exestential threat. His attacks overcome all DR (just like smite!) and regeneration. Instant threat. He can't be perma-killed or really even stopped (and maybe even gets better really quickly). Instant threat. Everything he destroys becomes another part of his destructive power. Instant threat.

So let's try creating an "existential threat" (like Rovagug) of our own. We'll call it "Encroaching Darkness."

"Encroaching Darkness" honestly needs to be little more than a normal shadow with a typical golem's immunities, the ability to heal from all sorts of damage (either by regeneration or by absorbing both positive/negative as healing, or by absorbing fire <or whatever> damage as healing, or all of that), and the eternal creature template and maybe the ability to deal physical damage, too (also spawns itself) - that is the kind of threat that's really hard to deal with, because you can't eliminate it and it keeps getting stronger (because it keeps making more).

The question is, though, "Is it terrifying?"

... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-meh. And also, yes.

On some level, not so much, because it's not threatening to the PCs, directly.

But on another, it's deeply terrifying, because it can't be stopped, and continually grows in strength and numbers.

So let's kick it up a notch!

Do the same thing, but make it come back every round, and, in addition, allow it to come back anywhere it's been. Now it's really rough. Why? Because killing it does nothing, in particular. And it can destroy all sorts of stuff, and people, really easily.

Now, it might take a while, but here's the thing - it's eternal. It will succeed, and, frankly, there's nothing you can do about it. To make matters much (infinitely) worse, everything it destroys makes more doom that isn't able to be destroyed and keeps coming back. Instantly.

The thing is, this kind of thing often doesn't make a good opponent for the PCs, because direct fights are kind of boring.

*stab; destroyed*
*gets better*
*stab; destroyed*
*gets better*
*stab; destroyed*

... and so on.

But where the fear it creates isn't because of the direct threat of one of them. It's because if the PCs ever stop it from being insta-destroyed (or someone else "rescues" it or whatever), it represents the ability to destroy everything and do so quickly by multiplying and threatening everything else.

"Egads, man! Don't blow up the world! That's where I keep all my stuff!"

This leads to trying to find alternate solutions.

... solutions, like, say, dumping it into an inescapable prison plane.

And thus we are informed of very, very much.

Why would the gods not eliminate Rovagug? Because he keeps coming back. Why could they not destroy it? Maybe there's a very specific end-condition that they, for some reason, can't fulfill.

A Rovagug who is similar to "Encroaching Darkness" is terrifying, not because of its direct threat, but because of its indirect threat to everything.

Obviously, that's just one method of handling it, and obviously Rovagug is much more personally powerful than "Encroaching Darkness" - as one example, there's only one of them, and he's pretty big. But my point wasn't to show how to make Rovagug, only how to make one possible "existential threat" and why it doesn't take that much.

Gods can (and probably should) be incredibly powerful. But it doesn't take that much to still be gods. And you can do this by having clear rules that function well in-canon.


Oh. Also, there's the thing where much of what is called "canon" lore is clearly false, exaggerated, or so distorted as to effectively be false.

"From a certain point of view." and all that.


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Tacticslion, you are the wind beneath my wings.

Shadow Lodge

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Tacticslion wrote:
(and maybe even gets better really quickly)

:D

Content NSFW.


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@ Tacticslion - I'm not quite sure how a gray goo scenario critter translates into "we could totally stat out the gods without it being either horribly underwhelming or widely unusable."

I figure scale and power is what differentiates the gods from the lesser beings - a god might do in a single action what would represent hundreds of years of work by powerful mortals.

Honestly, what I'd much rather have is a better write-up on how the heck divine realms work - especially those controlled by demigods, who have intrinsic limits in what they can actually do. It doesn't feel like we have much to work from.


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Since the spot obvious roll hasn't been tossed out lately.....

We all expect different things out of the game, we get no universal answers. Kirth expects ALL gods to fit into 1 to 20 character progression. Endgame for him will be his characters rivaling and defeating the gods. Zhangar sees the gods as so far beyond the mere mortals that they can do centuries worth of mortal effort with a wave of their hand. The characters in his game will not be the new gods as a rule. Demigods, yes, with classic and mythic levels.

My take, once you stat the Gods, you get the wargame tunnelvision effect. If it isn't on the stat block, it doesn't exist. You limit, to a ridiculous degree, what a god can do. Since PCs very quickly get too complex for simple stat blocks, they have a native advantage over those that are limited and edited by stat blocks. Further, a GM will be called out as cheating if the statted creature does not adhere to all those limitations. "How could the God of Fire do that, it isn't on his stat block? You are a bad GM, I'm reporting you to the Forum Zealots!"

At my table, admittedly not so wargame focused, and certainly flouting the PC uber alles conventions, statting the gods would be irrelevant. Trying to force me to accept those limitations would be the only major offense.


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Zhangar wrote:

@ Tacticslion - I'm not quite sure how a gray goo scenario critter translates into "we could totally stat out the gods without it being either horribly underwhelming or widely unusable."

I figure scale and power is what differentiates the gods from the lesser beings - a god might do in a single action what would represent hundreds of years of work by powerful mortals.

Honestly, what I'd much rather have is a better write-up on how the heck divine realms work - especially those controlled by demigods, who have intrinsic limits in what they can actually do. It doesn't feel like we have much to work from.

The gray-goo scenario is only one example of making an existential threat. It's a response to this:

PossibleCabbage wrote:
If we want the Gods to both be 'fully stated entities' and 'also faithful to the fiction' then you're going to need to add a lot of additional systems and subsystems, so you can have things like "Rovagug is an existential threat to reality". You could do stuff like "Rovagug destroys 1d3 planes of reality per minute" but I don't think that would be very satisfying.

See, you don't need to make something powerful to make it an existential threat. To that end, you actually don't need impossibly high CR to make godly powers.

Let's look at the sun.

According to lore, Sarenrae built it. And she wasn't a god yet.

"But that's too big! What-the-whaaaaaaaaaaaa-?!"

But let's start small.

Sure, she may have been an empyreal lord (it's unclear), but let's look at what a solar can do.

20th level cleric casting; wish SLA 1/day.

Welp, our solution came up fast~! :D

"But you can't just make the sun!"

Yes, true. But what you can do is wish and miracle as all heck.

Via Gamemastery Guide's recommendations for handling the wish SLA 1) it needs no material components, 2) it can make stuff.

A 25k-gold-value diamond is needed for miracle to "exceed standard limits."

Permanency costs money, too, but nothing in particular exceeds 25k-gold value, even for 9th level spell effects.

Wish costs 25k, so saying it could make 25k seems about right. But let's say that it's only 5k value, 'cause 1/5 value or somesuch. So, five "days" (24 hour cycles) later, Sarenrae has five sets of 5k diamonds. On day six, with a wish, she's got one 25k diamond.
(Alt. possibility: go mining on the elemental earth.)

Do that again - so 12 sets of 24 hours will allow for two 25k diamonds.

So. What can you do with this?

Well, not much, as a standard method, buuuu~uuuut...

This gives us some ideas. Create demiplane is an 8th level spell. Instead of making a whole new plane, let's make a 9th level spell that temporarily invokes other planar traits in the material. This isn't unprecedented, by-the-by - it's got solid precedent (two spell levels lower), albeit not on the material.

So, a ninth level spell that allows us to apply other planes' traits to the local environment. Based on precedent, it lasts for a day per level, but even bopping that down three "tiers" of duration (from 1 day/level to 2 hours/level to 1 hour/level to 10 minutes/level) is plenty of time. Because then we use permanency, or rather, we use an effect similar to it, by way of miracle.

So... what? No we've got a relatively small area - maybe 50 ft. or maybe a bunch of cubes - that has the fire-dominant trait. But what does that do for us? Not much, but it's a seed. Then we do the exact same thing, only this time with a positive-dominant trait. You're immortal, though, and fortunately, have lots and lots of time. So, then you do a lot more similar stuff. And "soon enough," you've got a massive area with that space. While you're busy doing that, what do others have going on?

20th level spells save the day, once again!

A gate to move massive pieces from the elemental plane of earth, some from the elemental plane of water, and some from air, and then - bam - you've got yourself a planet.

Notice what I'm not doing, here? I'm not really going into "exceptionalism" and subsystems. The one thing that I did outside of the rules was make that one spell and allow miracle to make it permanent - two things that have precedent within the rules.

And yet, you've got "godly" events and "divine" action.

One of the interesting things, though, is the fact that this might seem slow, but... why? There is literally nothing around that cares about time. You're immortal. So is everyone you know. And nothing else exists that bothers. So how much "time" does this actually take? I suppose you can count how many actions you can take in between each use of certain abilities, but... who really cares? There's no time to bother with.

But maybe it does matter, to you. Let's go with create demiplane, greater, and a greater rod of maximize spell.

Step 1) create your demiplane
Step 2) make it with erratic time, but maximize it via the rod
Step 3) enjoy getting 1 day of time for each round of your existence (due to the interaction between maximize and erratic time)
Step last) whenever you leave your plane dispel it

So now it takes slightly more than a minute to get your diamonds (again, presupposing non-exceptional uses of your innate powers) and only a little bit longer to initiate the first seed of the sun. A number of arbitrary minutes later and you've got a full and active "sun-space" that you've now created. Sprinkle in a few exotic gasses, maybe make it a heavy gravity thing so the stuff all stays together or something.

Voila - now you've created the first ever star.

Others may then take that basic pattern (or something similar) and replicate it to create more.

And, look, I'm neither the first one to come up with this idea, nor the owner of it.

Zhangar wrote:
I figure scale and power is what differentiates the gods from the lesser beings - a god might do in a single action what would represent hundreds of years of work by powerful mortals.

See, this is at the heart of it.

What is a god?

Well, we actually know. They have "projected" CRs, they have stories about what they can accomplish, and they have limits.

Previously, I've pointed out how a CR 36-ish foe can be taken down by a horde of demon lords via the mass combat rules.

I've shown how to make a threat so frustrating that the only possible escape - even for gods - is to seal it in an inescapable pit.

I just pointed out how it's possible to make a star in a relatively "short" time-frame (which is even shorter when nothing in particular exists to mark the passage of time).

And I've done this within the rules that currently exist for our game.

With typical spellcasting, you've got the basics of what many consider gods without bothering with any obscure or difficult-to-find rules elements, more or less matching up with everything found in lore and in developer comments.

How to make gods incredibly powerful while still having a Rovagug?

- Step 1) have true gods be generally unable to be killed without extremely rare and specific events

- Step 2) have a really powerful (CR 36-ish) "eternal" template (or equivalent) qlippoth who always automatically meets those conditions with itself (and deals a looooooooooot of damage) - it's own end condition(s) is not possible for gods to meet, directly or quickly

- Step 3) before they get wiped out, drop it into a forever-pit

Done.

Again, not a lot needs to happen. No complex subsystems that don't already exist.

If you want a subsystem, you've got mythic already, and tie that into creating epic spells from the old ELH (though, don't use the ones pre-printed, use the generic rules). Or just use spells. Or just mythic. Or whatever, really. There are a ton of ways of doing this, and possible benefits to it.

Paizo doesn't want to, and that's fine. Sucks for me, but that's how things go, sometimes.

And though this...

PossibleCabbage wrote:
So I think it would be a lot of additional rules to make the gods feel godlike, and in terms of column inches in print that's probably not as actually useful to people's games as any number of other things they could print.

I disagree with for other reasons, I recognize that not everyone wants this sort of thing. So at least for them it's good to not have them.

EDIT: to rearrange one part of my post to hopefully make my points more clear and the whole thing flow better.


Daw wrote:

Since the spot obvious roll hasn't been tossed out lately.....

We all expect different things out of the game, we get no universal answers. Kirth expects ALL gods to fit into 1 to 20 character progression. Endgame for him will be his characters rivaling and defeating the gods. Zhangar sees the gods as so far beyond the mere mortals that they can do centuries worth of mortal effort with a wave of their hand. The characters in his game will not be the new gods as a rule. Demigods, yes, with classic and mythic levels.

My take, once you stat the Gods, you get the wargame tunnelvision effect. If it isn't on the stat block, it doesn't exist. You limit, to a ridiculous degree, what a god can do. Since PCs very quickly get too complex for simple stat blocks, they have a native advantage over those that are limited and edited by stat blocks. Further, a GM will be called out as cheating if the statted creature does not adhere to all those limitations. "How could the God of Fire do that, it isn't on his stat block? You are a bad GM, I'm reporting you to the Forum Zealots!"

At my table, admittedly not so wargame focused, and certainly flouting the PC uber alles conventions, statting the gods would be irrelevant. Trying to force me to accept those limitations would be the only major offense.

I think this is a valid problem, and one that various systems suffer from, but I don't think it is an inherent problem. It depends entirely on how the system is used.

For example, the system can be used, as-printed (as I pointed out just below you) to imitate divine genesis accounts. This fits Kirth's view just fine.

I noted that by linking mythic to ELH or Deities and Demigods' salient powers system, you can get super-powers beyond reason that allow you to do very specific and advanced things beyond the 20 typical levels of ability. This allows for Zhanger's view.

And as for the wargame effect, have things defined in usable terms, but have them defined in such a way as to be useful in a variety of circumstances, or reflect changing ones - a concept I alluded to in my post above, with "What, exactly, is keeping track of time?"

Another way of looking at divinity, is handling it akin to the YouTube or Fame effect. Earlier on in a platform's life, becoming internet famous is actually more possible than later, because you're literally pioneering the thing. You set the conventions by what you can do and how you succeed. As culture (or, in this case, reality, progresses) so, to, do you and how you can and do handle things.

- Early YouTubers: rough comedy sketches, silly troll links, and animal videos

- Second Wave YouTubers: silly troll links, animal videos, kid videos, music, and gamers

- Third Wave YouTubers: animal and/or kid videos, music, science and learning, and vine followers (also comedy sketches, silly troll links, and gamers)

The different "waves" represent the different ways of acquiring fame (or, in this case, divinity) over time, based on how reality works in relation to all the things that have come before shaping it. So, in the same way, you could have divinity follow the same pattern:

- Early Divinity: rough creation, rampaging glory, animistic gods

- Second Wave Divinity: rampaging glory, animistic gods, nature gods, refined deities, and prankster spirits

- Third Wave Divinity: animistic and/or nature gods, young gods, refined deities, advanced gods, ascended gods (also creation, rampaging glory, and prankster spirits)

Or not. I dunno. The thing is, there are plenty of ways to make the game system work, and to allow this whole system to function. You can even accommodate various playstyles - even seemingly opposing ones, if you establish the rules to allow for exactly that sort of thing.

It would be a similar debate, I'd say, as to whether or not monsters can have items they're not explicitly statted with. And I think whether or not they are depends entirely on the group that runs them. The system could handle it, if arranged to do so.


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TL,

I like your Wave Theory of Deification as regards to Complexity and Proficiency.
It is a bit too linear for my tastes though.

I remember unintentionally hijacking a designers panel with a disease vector model for deific expansion and contraction. Reality develops resistance to specific deific interference, so you end up with cycles of influence. I admit that this would not fit a rigid wargame rules structure.


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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

As a tangential point, I once heard someone posit that the reason that deities in a lot of narratives played a major role in shaping the universe/world/other aspects of creation at the beginning of time (or somewhere thereabouts) but never seemed to do anything anywhere near that impressive again was less to do with divine abilities and more to do with the fact that "the beginning of time" was an instance of reality being much more malleable than it is now.

So in other words, if the stats don't match at least some of the lore, then that could be explained by the idea that there were circumstances in play then that aren't now.

Just food for thought.


The "Wave Theory" and disease vectors, and decreasingly malleable reality are all different possible ways of saying more or less the same thing: that it used to be easier (in some regards) to ascend to true divinity, than it is now. And there are a ton of possible reasons for that.


Tacticslion wrote:
The "Wave Theory" and disease vectors, and decreasingly malleable reality are all different possible ways of saying more or less the same thing: that it used to be easier (in some regards) to ascend to true divinity, than it is now. And there are a ton of possible reasons for that.

To be clear, we actually have a limited precedent for this kind of thing, too! See: mythic challenges.

Way back when, divine challenges used to be, "well, can you make a sun?"

Now it's all, "The sun is old hat - the universe is lousy with 'em. But can you take the test of a Starstone?"

Same deal, different scale.


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I'll make a few points (they are not criticisms)(edit - as an act of art/writing, acceptable means believable, so really I'm talking about the believeability of the work.);

The PF(aka current d20) system is not an approximation of physics, it's a model of common experience and having the PF rules do a mostly sensible and acceptable thing within the game context.
Newtonian physics has a much tighter accuracy and precision than d20 or PF, need I mention falling damage and the scaling of damage dice with caster level asking what's the kinetic energy created per caster level??? ... 'nuff said.

Ability scores back in the D&D days stared with a rough idea of a bell curve distribution and to that to 3d6. Things have changed, now they are just numbers with a rough scaling in some basic feats of strength. The lift ratings and size to weight numbers do not match known newtonian physics. So again, just some acceptable numbers.

Assuming that deity ability scores would be very high on the current system used, the scores would push the acceptable number scheme into disbelief. You are taking something that looks good for 3-18, okay to 22, and then somewhat questionable and stretching it to 50 to 100... the problems of the d20 model will be glaring.

The game has Mythic Levels, why not just use that to model 'heroes'. Clearly Deities are way above that...


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Daw wrote:
Kirth expects ALL gods to fit into 1 to 20 character progression. Endgame for him will be his characters rivaling and defeating the gods.

No, Kirth expects CR to perform as advertised. A party of CR 20 PCs has a 50/50 chance against a CR 24 menace, and essentially no chance at all against CR 28. You don't even need CR 40, because power of that scale is totally undefined in the current rules. If you want it, as TL points out, you're going to need totally new abilities to go with it.

To put it more simply, Kirth would like 4 20th level PCs to be able to foil a demigod. Which means demigods are CR 24, not 30. Kirth wants a 8 lesser gods, working in tandem, to be able to foil one major god. That means, almost by definition, a CR gap of no more than 6.


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Well, currently a group of 20th level PCs could probably kill a CR 30 if they planned well and were optimized.

Though that relates more to the whole "CR 26+ creatures are grossly underpowered for what they're supposed to represent" thing. Hell, arguably most CR 21+ creatures are grossly underpowered for what they represent.

So I guess what you're really asking for is for CR 21+ creatures to be more powerful as a whole, so that the scale can be compressed down?

(Obviously, in Pathfinder that ship has long sailed with the advent of mythic rules and CR 26 to 30 critters).

So using Hell as an example, you'd prefer if Infernal Dukes & Malebranches occupied the CR 21-22 range, Archdukes occupied the 23-25 range, and Asmodeus clocked in a CR 26? Again, with the actual threats posed by those CRs significantly elevated over what they currently are?*

Am I getting that right?

* If Asmodeus was a CR 26 under the current metrics, he'd just be a bad joke.


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Zhangar wrote:
So I guess what you're really asking for is for CR 21+ creatures to be more powerful as a whole, so that the scale can be compressed down?

Yes. I made up rules for creating monsters from scratch -- rules more or less comparable to the ones the PCs follow. When I use them, I end up with a balor that eats the one in the core rules for lunch -- at CR 18. And in game play, he's a speed bump for an 18th level party, and a mortal threat for a well-prepared 14th level party, just like it should be.

20th level full casters can make their own planes, stop time, command angels to do their bidding. They are actual, functional demigods, even without using mythic rules or whatever. I'd like to see the martials and monsters follow a similar power curve, so that we're all playing the same game. If we did that, statting gods would be a useful exercise that would help cement higher-CR goalposts and make the whole system more robust. But if that doesn't happen, statting gods is something of a waste of time, to my mind.

I like to start with what casters can do in Pathfinder:

Spoiler:
In order to make some sense of the powerful abilities that high-level characters possess, some conceptual framework is helpful. General level equivalents are summarized below, based on the challenge rating of the character.

Character CR Level Title
1st – 5th Journeyman
6th – 10th Hero
11th – 15th Champion
16th – 20th Demigod

A journeyman character is a competent adventurer of no great worldwide fame, except in low-power settings. At this tier of play, the player characters can likely:
 Defeat a local den of humanoids, crime ring, enemy army unit, etc.;
 Earn the respect and admiration of a city or town;
 Amass enough wealth to retire in comfort as an innkeeper, etc.

A hero has established a great reputation for mighty deeds, and is likely to be known in songs and legends. Pseudo-historical figures such as Charlemagne’s paladins, Robin Hood at the peak of his career, and so on, are presented in legend as hero-level characters. Robert E. Howard’s Conan, at the pinnacle of his adventures (Hour of the Dragon) is at this tier. This is the maximum level range for any “realistic” framework, and is often considered the “sweet spot” at which game play is most entertaining. At this tier, the player characters will eventually be able to:
 Traverse vast distances quickly, ignoring terrain;
 Defeat entire enemy armies;
 Defeat extraplanar beings such as demons and devils;
 Solve age-old mysteries impenetrable to the greatest sages;
 Rule baronies or entire kingdoms;
 Raise the dead.

Champion-level characters operate on a scale that cannot be modeled in real-world terms, and leave any reasonable expectations largely behind. For this reason, many groups will prefer to stop play sometime at or before reaching this level. A champion-level character is a super-hero, more like Iron Man or the Hulk than like Aragorn. Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné, throughout most of his later adventures, operates at this tier. Champion-level characters can:
 Instantaneously extricate the entire party from nearly any situation, and do so on a consistent basis;
 Dictate when and where encounters will take place, and on what terms;
 Defeat very powerful adversaries capable of laying waste entire nations;
 Resurrect long-dead heroes of whom nothing more is left than a pinch of ashes.

A demigod-level character’s power eclipses any reasonable analog. Characters at this level can be expected, as a matter of course, to do things like:
 Save or conquer entire worlds, or even create their own;
 Contest on even footing with demon lords;
 Foil the machinations of gods.

In general, it is assumed that only a modest number of adventurers survives and progresses through each tier. Adventuring is a dangerous profession, and the mortality rate for journeymen adventurers and heroes is very high. Those who are not killed will generally settle down, establish strongholds, and retire before reaching Champion level. Almost no champions are able to find enough challenges suitable to allow them to acquire demigod-like power.


Again, that's all based on what full casters can actually already currently do. Extrapolate that upwards, and CR 21-25 are lesser gods, 26-30 are greater gods, and CR 31+ is undefined.

Liberty's Edge

I feel that we are focussing much on the "Why not stat the gods ?" question

So I am wondering "Why stat the gods ?"

And the answer is pretty clear to me : So that PCs may defeat a god without it being 100% GM-fiat


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Tacticslion wrote:
Creating Worlds with Tacticslion

Interesting stuff, though I would also be interested to read Paizos method of a non deity creating a sun. Pretty sure all of us would.

Anyway, creating worlds using your methods is probably something that should have been a part of the Elohim's abilities, thus would better justify its world creating abilities. Maybe give it at-will Greater Create Demiplane and an ability to reduce the 4-hour casting time down to 1 standard action with being able to manipulate the time flow (choosing 1 round = 1 day) Each casting is equivalent to 20 10ft squares (100 square feet each, or 2,000 all together) and have it cast it each round for that day (14,400 rounds in a day) for a total of 28,800,000 square feet or 5,454 square miles.

Not bad, considering all this is done with in a single round of normal time. Now if you multiply it by the rounds for that day of normal time (14,400), now you have 78,545,454 square miles, less than half of Earth. Oh wait, Elohim has dual initiative, so double that, approaching the size of Earth, done in 1 days worth of regular time.

That's probably the way I may have handled it. I'm sure a lot of people would think it's too powerful to have, but is it really? It's a monster first of all, a GM controlled entity, so I think that alone should be enough justification. Also that would provide no combat advantages for it, and something of that scale is totally in line with what some other creatures are known for doing in their description, some noted in my last post.

Now if a player can get an at-will greater create Demiplane and reduce it's casting time to 1 standard action, they can do it, too.


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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
The Raven Black wrote:

I feel that we are focussing much on the "Why not stat the gods ?" question

So I am wondering "Why stat the gods ?"

And the answer is pretty clear to me : So that PCs may defeat a god without it being 100% GM-fiat

There's also the fact that such a thing is useful for world-building from a top-down perspective - which is an entirely legitimate way of doing things - since clearly delineating what the power-players of the game world can and cannot do helps to define why things are the way they are in a manner that abets internal logic and consistency, leading to greater verisimilitude in the campaign and make it easier for players to invest in it, increasing their enjoyment.

Grand Lodge

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As the mantra has often been repeated, "If you stat it, they will kill it" or try to anyway. It's one of the reasons why the Lady of Pain was so unique for the Planescape setting, and that she was never stated or given any hard mechanics.

Instead the general idea is that you don't f$&% with the Lady of Pain, and it could even be said that she was there just in case anyone decided they wanted to try to become a little too big for their britches one Sigil or cause too much of a ruckus in the city.

That there was generally two results if you encountered her, in that they were either flayed alive or sent to an extra-dimensional maze without excape. All in all, an NPC like her worked very well in the setting and her presence in Sigil made a lot of sense to keep the city neutral ground from any direct meddling of a divine power apart from sending outsiders or followers.

I mean it's notable that she has the power to prevent any god or goddess from stepping foot in Sigil, that no deity had the to power to counter her control over the City of Doors. Hence, again, why you don't f+~# with the Lady of Pain. Chuckles


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Sauce987654321 wrote:
It's a monster first of all, a GM controlled entity, so I think that alone should be enough justification.

That logic should be good, except that by the rules, effective CL 22 and a gate spell makes it a player-controlled entity: "In the case of a single creature, you can control it if its HD does (sic) not exceed your caster level."

I personally don't like the idea of a 22nd (or lower) level character being able to control CR 23 minions, and my house rules for summoning are geared to prevent that, but in Pathfinder it's totally legit.


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Kirth Gersen wrote:
Sauce987654321 wrote:
It's a monster first of all, a GM controlled entity, so I think that alone should be enough justification.

That logic should be good, except that by the rules, effective CL 22 and a gate spell makes it a player-controlled entity: "In the case of a single creature, you can control it if its HD does (sic) not exceed your caster level."

I personally don't like the idea of a 22nd (or lower) level character being able to control CR 23 minions, and my house rules for summoning are geared to prevent that, but in Pathfinder it's totally legit.

I often forget that casters can do stuff like that, but I almost feel like its mythic ranks would add to it's HD, but it doesn't. Similar to how that would work against a Formorian Titan, with its 18 HD, making that even easier.

Sovereign Court

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Actually they kind of included those mechanics in the game, virtually in every entry of most demigods (Demonlords, Archdevil etc...) they do say near the beginning that players can go on quest to give all kind of negative levels and penalties to all these CR 25-30 beings.

So Kith can indeed fight CR 25-30 with his level 20 party...if he goes on an epic quest for each of them.

This approach somewhat reminds me of Savage Tides and fighting Demogorgon at the end, who would be significantly weakened depending on what quests you managed to do. Vaguely recall, you could even end up fighting demogorgon with less than half of his HP and all kinds of penalties.


I'm against the gods having hard numbers, but I'm not terribly convinced by the "If they have stats, players will insist on trying to kill it" argument in of itself, mostly because it ignores the heart of the matter.

The heart of the matter is less lethality and more "If they have stats, players will insist on rules-lawyering/mathing/theorycrafting at them as a show of dominance just like they could any other NPC."

Slightly (but only slightly) hyperbolic example:

GM: "Pharasma is showing you this hallucination as a dire warning about the River of Souls' impending disruption."
Player: "My character doesn't have much respect for Pharasma. I want a Will save to resist the hallucination just to spite her. What's the DC?"
GM: "It's like 90, you're not going to make it."
Player: "It's a save, I've got a 1 in 20 chance of making it."
GM: "Look, she's a deity. A nat 20 with your... what is that, a +7 modifier? Isn't going to be enough."
Player: "Does the stat block explicitly say that natural 20's don't save against her?"
GM: "Sigh."

I think that's what was meant upthread about stat blocks making the gods 'petty.' Not in demeanor, but in worth as encounters. A player character's encounter with a god shouldn't feel like just a scaled-up version of a level 5 player character getting into it with a level 12 non-player character. I'm personally not seeing what the game gains when Nethys is just Razmir with better numbers.

There's also the fact that hard mechanics for any character, regardless of power level, is as much defining what they can't do as it is about what they can do. Part of what defines a fighter is that they can't cast spells. Part of what defines a wizard is that once they're out of spells for the day, they're vulnerable. Would it improve the game to have an official stat block declaring that Desna gets fewer attacks per round than Gorum? Or that Urgathoa can 'only' create 800 HD worth of zombies?

I mean, if people want gods' stats in their home games, great. To each their own, and it means a 3rd party developer might make a few bucks providing guidelines for such a thing. (I wouldn't buy it myself, but I'm all for 3rd party developers finding their markets.) But in the end, I can't speak for anyone else, but the last thing my gaming groups need is to have Paizo's official backing (even via 'optional' rules) to spend free moments number-crunching a series of 'Batman contigencies' for every deity their characters' could conceivably upset. And they can only do that with benchmarks on what they'd need to do so.


MythicFox wrote:

Slightly (but only slightly) hyperbolic example:

GM: "Pharasma is showing you this hallucination as a dire warning about the River of Souls' impending disruption."
Player: "My character doesn't have much respect for Pharasma. I want a Will save to resist the hallucination just to spite her. What's the DC?"
GM: "It's like 90, you're not going to make it."
Player: "It's a save, I've got a 1 in 20 chance of making it."
GM: "Look, she's a deity. A nat 20 with your... what is that, a +7 modifier? Isn't going to be enough."
Player: "Does the stat block explicitly say that natural 20's don't save against her?"
GM: "Sigh."

Don't forget the alternative version of that.

GM: "Sarenrae gives you visions in your sleep over your recent misdeed of murdering that hobo"
PC: *Cracking open book* "Ackshually Sarenrae doesn't have Nightmare as a SLA! How did she do that Mr GM?"
GM: *incoherent groaning sounds*


This has been a problem for a long time in D&D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9vECzikqpY


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Tarik Blackhands wrote:
MythicFox wrote:

Slightly (but only slightly) hyperbolic example:

GM: "Pharasma is showing you this hallucination as a dire warning about the River of Souls' impending disruption."
Player: "My character doesn't have much respect for Pharasma. I want a Will save to resist the hallucination just to spite her. What's the DC?"
GM: "It's like 90, you're not going to make it."
Player: "It's a save, I've got a 1 in 20 chance of making it."
GM: "Look, she's a deity. A nat 20 with your... what is that, a +7 modifier? Isn't going to be enough."
Player: "Does the stat block explicitly say that natural 20's don't save against her?"
GM: "Sigh."

Don't forget the alternative version of that.

GM: "Sarenrae gives you visions in your sleep over your recent misdeed of murdering that hobo"
PC: *Cracking open book* "Ackshually Sarenrae doesn't have Nightmare as a SLA! How did she do that Mr GM?"
GM: *incoherent groaning sounds*

Not for nothing, but not everything necessarily needs to translate as a combat related mechanic. Unless they had the exact same effect as the 5th level spell Nightmare, where they take damage, become fatigued, and can't prepare spells, you don't need a SLA to say someone had a nightmare that essentially has no effect. A creature's description should be enough to say in what way it interacts with the world and its creatures.

That's like if a GM has NPCs running scared from a player's giant dinosaur companion, and another player cracks open the book with "well I don't see Frightful Presence on here." It's like, really, does it need it?

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