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Hashmir
2009-11-16, 09:44 PM
I've been working on the long-term plot arc for a game I'm DMing for my girlfriend, and I concluded that it will eventually focus on undead dragons (a la FR's Cult of the Dragon). So, this naturally brought both Tiamat and Vecna to mind, and gave me a fleeting thought: What would a party need in order to fight two gods at once?

With the recent release of the Draconomicon 2, Bahamut is now available to join the fight. Of course, monsters are not designed to fight monsters; they are designed to fight players. Still, would a level 30 party with an allied god be able to take on two enemy gods? Would it depend on the gods involved? What would allow a party to fight two gods at once?

*I am of course not planning to have my party fight two gods at once at level 30 -- if I were to set up this encounter, I'd probably just have Bahamut tackle one and leave the party to face the other.

Aron Times
2009-11-16, 09:50 PM
True deities, unlike demigods, are extremely difficult to kill. If you bloody them without the necessary McGuffin, they discorporate and retreat and there's nothing you can do about it. The right McGuffin disables Divine Discorporation and allows a party of epic characters to kill a deity.

Note that non-epic characters automatically lose against true deities, no rolls required. It says so in the rules for true deities. This means that you unfortunately cannot sacrifice minions to force them to waste their encounter and daily powers beforehand. :smallbiggrin:

Basically, work the acquisition of the McGuffin into the characters' Destiny Quest and you're good to go.

Rasman
2009-11-16, 09:53 PM
I've been working on the long-term plot arc for a game I'm DMing for my girlfriend, and I concluded that it will eventually focus on undead dragons (a la FR's Cult of the Dragon). So, this naturally brought both Tiamat and Vecna to mind, and gave me a fleeting thought: What would a party need in order to fight two gods at once?

With the recent release of the Draconomicon 2, Bahamut is now available to join the fight. Of course, monsters are not designed to fight monsters; they are designed to fight players. Still, would a level 30 party with an allied god be able to take on two enemy gods? Would it depend on the gods involved? What would allow a party to fight two gods at once?

*I am of course not planning to have my party fight two gods at once at level 30 -- if I were to set up this encounter, I'd probably just have Bahamut tackle one and leave the party to face the other.

the way I'd do it, I'd have Bahamut "tank" both while the party took cheap shots at them consdering these are GODS and thus should be fought by another god, you can't exactly expect mortals to kill a god just because they want/need to

bringing someone besides Behamut into the fray might not be a bad idea either, that way they have to choose which side to help, thus lending a hand to the side struggling the most

Hashmir
2009-11-16, 09:59 PM
True deities, unlike demigods, are extremely difficult to kill. If you bloody them without the necessary McGuffin, they discorporate and retreat and there's nothing you can do about it. The right McGuffin disables Divine Discorporation and allows a party of epic characters to kill a deity.

Note that non-epic characters automatically lose against true deities, no rolls required. It says so in the rules for true deities. This means that you unfortunately cannot sacrifice minions to force them to waste their encounter and daily powers beforehand. :smallbiggrin:

Basically, work the acquisition of the McGuffin into the characters' Destiny Quest and you're good to go.

Well, I know the mechanics for fighting gods. I guess what I'm asking is whether adding one god to each side is still a balanced fight, or if it just gets stupidly broken due to gods being designed for true solo encounters.

Holocron Coder
2009-11-16, 10:13 PM
If you get a chance and the opportunity, you can take a look at the last of the Wizard-released adventures. It involves fighting Orcus (then Empowered Orcus) with the Raven Queen on your side.

It's not your 2v1 setup, but it still involves a deity on the side of the players.

Asbestos
2009-11-16, 10:23 PM
Why are the gods directly fighting each other? Don't they have tons of mooks (e.g. Angels) to do this sort of thing for them?

Hashmir
2009-11-16, 10:32 PM
If you get a chance and the opportunity, you can take a look at the last of the Wizard-released adventures. It involves fighting Orcus (then Empowered Orcus) with the Raven Queen on your side.

It's not your 2v1 setup, but it still involves a deity on the side of the players.

Does it? Hm. Perhaps it's not so far-fetched after all.


Why are the gods directly fighting each other? Don't they have tons of mooks (e.g. Angels) to do this sort of thing for them?

Meta answer? Because fighting against the combined might of Tiamat and Vecna with the first of all the metallic dragons at your side is feakin' awesome.

In-character answer? I dunno. Let's say that Tiamat has gone mad, and (now under Vecna's influence) has decided that the world needs to be purged of all life but the dragons -- and that even they should become undead or be purged with the rest.

For the purposes of my campaign, it's helpful to know that my girlfriend knows nothing about the setting or the gods, so I get to make up whatever I like. Although it does raise an interesting question:

Assuming the gods exist as written, what events could culminate in a party + god vs. 2 gods battle?

Holocron Coder
2009-11-16, 10:37 PM
Why are the gods directly fighting each other? Don't they have tons of mooks (e.g. Angels) to do this sort of thing for them?

In the adventure module, it's along the lines of the Raven Queen being taken captive by Orcus in a bid to usurp her power. You free her, then kick his ass :smallbiggrin:

Mando Knight
2009-11-16, 10:38 PM
With Bahamut on your side, you might be able to survive. He can probably solo either Vecna or Tiamat for you, while providing healing for the party. Noting that Vecna's the ultimate passive party pooper for anyone without the undead keyword or necrotic immunity, and that Tiamat has ridiculous area powers, they probably won't be sticking next to each other...

The deities are probably going to be the last ones standing unless you've got a Revenant or something on your side to solo Vecna...

Hashmir
2009-11-16, 10:59 PM
With Bahamut on your side, you might be able to survive. He can probably solo either Vecna or Tiamat for you, while providing healing for the party. Noting that Vecna's the ultimate passive party pooper for anyone without the undead keyword or necrotic immunity, and that Tiamat has ridiculous area powers, they probably won't be sticking next to each other...

The deities are probably going to be the last ones standing unless you've got a Revenant or something on your side to solo Vecna...

Well, if we assume the campaign is fairly focused on undead and dragons from paragon on (and I'm thinking it will be), it's not inconceivable that the party members would have picked up necrotic immunity -- probably intentionally, in anticipation of fighting Vecna.

Also, it might make role-playing sense to keep Tiamat and Vecna closer than they should be. After all, they're both terrible at working with people, and at least one of them is probably mad. Having their auras stepping on each other's toes would be a great way to represent that.

JiveTurkey
2009-11-19, 05:31 AM
Have each player play two characters. It will slow things down, but if you have ten characters they should be able to have a decent chance. Maybe have two of them be Legendary Generals and entirely focused on keeping each other healed while everyone else goes to town with as much damage focus as you can get.

Mando Knight
2009-11-19, 12:00 PM
Note that with the nerf to Orb of Ultimate Imposition, it takes far more effort to Perma-Sleep Tiamat, so that cheese is almost entirely gone...

Hashmir
2009-11-19, 01:36 PM
Actually, this kind of raises another question I had. Bahamut's "man with canaries" form says that a party with his help can generally win an encounter up to 10 levels higher than their own. How well does this scale, and is there a sweet spot? Would it be at all helpful in this scenario, and does it wok pretty much the same at level 1?

Yakk
2009-11-19, 01:52 PM
A problem with having a solo on your side, and 2 solos on the other side, is DM dicebation. You'll be spending a lot of the time rolling off against yourself, and not engaged with the players.

And in fact, the players will be the junior partners (even if they are level 30) in the battle, less important than all 3 of the DM's characters to the result of the conflict...

A way to get around this would be to have the Bahamut/*** fight happen in the background, as the players face down god #1.

Bahamut fails (heck, maybe Bahamut is killed!), and in retreat refreshes the players (refreshes half of their max healing surges, lets them spend 1 healing surge, all encounter powers, and each daily has a 50% chance of being refreshed), and the players now get to face down God #2.

This places the players front-and-centre twice over. It also makes an awesome climax (PCs kill 2 gods, an ally god sacrifices themselves to both save the PCs and defeat the gods). . .

Oh, and don't forget the falling action, where the PCs kill the now-undead Bahamut... ;-)