I assume the Game Master's Guide is going to have the guidelines for this, but does anyone know what the guidelines are for writing up new gods for use by clerics and champions?
Its clear that they have a favored weapon they're associated with, a harm or heal, some bonus spells, and a list of domains. My big question is about the bonus spells, and the list of domains- at first I assumed the spells came from their domains, but this doesn't appear to be the case.
I'm also curious to know whether all the presented gods having four domains is essential for balance reasons, I'm converting my setting which has countless (minor) gods in a shinto type way- and I'm wondering if each of the local deities needs to have all four, or if I could use their number of domains as a ranking system.
In reality, I'm going a step further, and am considering creating a template that makes regular creatures gods- it gives them some minimum amount of innate casting in one of the traditions, gives them some other setting necessary elements, applies the elite stat adjustments, empowers them to ordain clerics and anoint champions, and bless items with runes. I was considering the possibility of having multiple tiers to reflect rankings between the gods, with each tier (up to the four of the Golarion Gods) awarding a new divine domain. The goal is to be able to create very present, very immediate gods, who might watch over villages, forests, rivers, etc.
The spells are to expand the flavor and are unconnected to domains (or rather both domains and bonus spells are connected to the flavor of the deity) the main thing is that the bonus spells are ones not found on the Divine list. So a cleric has access to the entire Divine list plus theese three other spells that aren't on that list.
The only balancing thing about number of domains I can think of is that a single cleric can access multiple domains from their deity if they want. In vanilla they would be limited to four domains total since their deity will only have four domians to choose from.
I doubt it's even necessary but you could throw in a limit of four domains per cleric (eg Domain Initiatiate feat can be taken a total of four times) then let the deities have as many as you want.
I think deities all having 4 domains is more for consistency than balance. If you want to have a hierarchy displayed by number of domains in your own system, I'd say to just go for it. I know PF1 did similar with all of the demigods having less domains than full deities, but I don't think we've seen any demigods in PF2 yet.
For spells, I would note that all deities in the CRB give exactly 3 spells with the first spell being at 1st level (Except for Nethys - who gives a spell of each level up to 9th as a god of magic). This might be more important to try to keep consistent, since they automatically add more options to a cleric's spell list unlike domains (which require feat access to get more). So outside of deliberate outliers (Nethys), it may be a good idea to keep the total spells per deity at three just to try to avoid accidentally making one "better" when it wasn't intentional to do so.
[And as a side note, that sounds like a fun setting. Good luck with converting it!]
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I think deities all having 4 domains is more for consistency than balance.it's both.
If you want to have a hierarchy displayed by number of domains in your own system, I'd say to just go for it. I know PF1 did similar with all of the demigods having less domains than full deities, but I don't think we've seen any demigods in PF2 yet.
Treerazer (Nascent Demon Lord) and Gogunta (Demon Lord) are both in the Bestiary and both grant 4 Domains.
There's not much rules needed as you pointed out. By which I mean, rules would not help much, but we can look at what we have for guidelines.
As is, a Deity is defined by
- All the things that are setting building more than mechanics : Portfolio, edicts, anathema, etc
- What comes from that, in broad strokes : Follower's alignment, the font (most have to choose one, a few allow both, if it's pertinent)
- The specific details : the skill, a favored weapon and 4 suitable domains
- 3 granted spells, usually low to mid level (pretty much always a lv1, at least one other before lv5, and one more, possibly also before or at 5, on rare occasions up to 7, I think). Nethys has a lot more, but he's the God of Magic itself (and TN to boot) so he's the exception. Said spells don't have to come from the divine list, if others make more sense but I feel like most still do (?).
So if you want to homebrew gods, start with a concept and go down the list. There isn't much more to it.
The distinction between lesser deities and major gods seems to be a thing of the past, as far as those rules go.
If a nascent demon lord and Pharasma follow the same guidelines it's safe to assume everyone does.
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....the design team adjusted how domains work, and they decided that all divinites (be they deity, demigod, or quasi-deity) should grant an equal number of domains so that there's not a perception that a cleric of, say, Lamashtu is "better" than a cleric of Pazuzu. A cleric of ANY god can potentially be just as powerful as any other, whether their god is Pharasma or a quasi-deity.
And that said, if you're wishing that there were more domains to choose from for clerics, then just hang on. World Guide 3: Gods and Magic, will have rules to pick up alternate domains for deities, including many brand new domains to round things out for more obscure deities. You can't do Yog-Sothoth without a Void domain, for example.
Thank you all for your help, you've given me a lot to think about.
It does seem like both flavor and balance, in the sense that having different numbers of domains would create a perceived difference in power, even between clerics- which may weirdly be something I may be intentionally interested in playing with, despite the designers reluctance.
I could imagine a setting in which clerics actually may want to seek out a more powerful god (or elevate their own god in power) when they transition to higher tiers of play, especially if becoming a proper cleric of more powerful gods was restricted for low level characters (they only accept more accomplished and powerful people to serve them in a magic granting fashion)
This could be accompanied with a sort of hierarchy of gods- some gods answer to more powerful gods, so being a servant of God A, could lead into service with their boss, so to speak- you're still a member of the same household, so you haven't abandoned your original minor deity.
I'd definitely think hard before doing that though, because it has huge ramifications for cleric players. Failing that I may just give all gods four domains as expected because as has been pointed out, even quasi deities in the base game seem to have four.
The idea of limiting clerics themselves to four, is interesting as well.