Killing a Deity (3.5)

[Lysander]

Has a character of yours ever done so? How? What build did they have?

[CTLC]

wizard, negative levels up the wazoo, forget the build but its 120 ish negative levels.

[Starscream]

Deities & Demigods says that whether or not gods can die at all is up to the campaign, so I think it depends less on how you do it and more on how the DM lets you do it (if at all).

But yeah, ages ago we reduced Lolth to a smear in a campaign. We were a standard epic level party, with a rogue (me), a wizard, a cleric, and some sort of meat shield that had like 6 different classes. Don't ask me what his build was, but it was pretty effective.

The way things worked in this campaign, simply killing the body of a god would not work, their essence would survive and regenerate as long as they had believers. So after killing her physical form, we had to chase Lolth's essence through the astral plane, and capture it. We imprisoned it on somewhere in the Far Realms, where her power could no longer reach her followers.

When her clerics stopped getting spells faith in her soon waned, and she was unable to return. And even then, her essence still existed and there were some cults who remained devoted to her. This was enough faith that she would eventually return, just not for a thousand years or so. By then enough time would have passed that she would basically have to start from scratch building up her followers and getting more faith so she could grow in power.

[Douglas]

A deity is not subject to energy drain, ability drain, or ability damage. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#energyDrainAbilityDrainAb ilityDamage)

If you killed a deity with negative levels, either your DM wasn't reading the rules right or you were playing with houseruled nerfs to deities.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Deities & Demigods says that whether or not gods can die at all is up to the campaign, so I think it depends less on how you do it and more on how the DM lets you do it (if at all).

But yeah, ages ago we reduced Lolth to a smear in a campaign. We were a standard epic level party, with a rogue (me), a wizard, a cleric, and some sort of meat shield that had like 6 different classes. Don't ask me what his build was, but it was pretty effective.

The way things worked in this campaign, simply killing the body of a god would not work, their essence would survive and regenerate as long as they had believers. So after killing her physical form, we had to chase Lolth's essence through the astral plane, and capture it. We imprisoned it on somewhere in the Far Realms, where her power could no longer reach her followers.

When her clerics stopped getting spells faith in her soon waned, and she was unable to return. And even then, her essence still existed and there were some cults who remained devoted to her. This was enough faith that she would eventually return, just not for a thousand years or so. By then enough time would have passed that she would basically have to start from scratch building up her followers and getting more faith so she could grow in power.See, my solution to this is simple. Kill all worshipers of Lolth. Make an epic spell so that all of them have a giant glowing spider symbol on their heads, then hunt them down and kill them. Not too difficult for epic characters in terms of anything but time.

[Kobold-Bard]

1. Almost killed Tiamat after she stomped all over a town. Plot battle did the rest (Sephiroth sliced her heads off), though my Cleric of Olidamarra Miracle'd up a load of ale for those who survived.

2. Killed an Avatar of Lolth. I Summoned some Celestial Monkeys and one of them Crit'd with it's Smite Evil. She stole it and mutated into into a giant gold Spider-Monkey (eyes were rolled).

3. Avatar of Hextor. I turned on the party, cast an Antimagic Field over him and me and we kicked the crap out of them (those fools with their magics, Gish ftw). They killed him eventually, I teleported away and became a Lich who was the BBEG in the DM's next game.

Never actually killed one I guess. :smallfrown:

[AtwasAwamps]

1. Almost killed Tiamat after she stomped all over a town. Plot battle did the rest (Sephiroth sliced her heads off), though my Cleric of Olidamarra Miracle'd up a load of ale for those who survived.

2. Killed an Avatar of Lolth. I Summoned some Celestial Monkeys and one of them Crit'd with it's Smite Evil. She stole it and mutated into into a giant gold Spider-Monkey (eyes were rolled).

3. Avatar of Hextor. I turned on the party, cast an Antimagic Field over him and me and we kicked the crap out of them (those fools with their magics, Gish ftw). They killed him eventually, I teleported away and became a Lich who was the BBEG in the DM's next game.

Never actually killed one I guess. :smallfrown:

Wait, wait, you eye-rolled the spider-monkey, but not SEPHIROTH?

You hurt my soul.

[Kobold-Bard]

Wait, wait, you eye-rolled the spider-monkey, but not SEPHIROTH?

You hurt my soul.

Different DM's. If you knew the first game's DM it'd make more sense (we had Shadow the Hedgehog on our team for the later portion of the game). Despite his crazy he was an awesome DM.

The other guy just took the opportunity to be cheesy (still kinda awesome though).

:smallbiggrin:

[Raging_Pacifist]

I suppose this counts; I was playing in an god-level campaign, where the characters were deities. Well turns out the people of the world all despise gods, were warring with us constantly. Eventually I decided to turn on my comrades and managed to imprison one for I think is all eternity. His character eventually took his own life from the boredom.

[Longcat]

Has a character of yours ever done so?


Yes



How?


By exploiting an infinite loop to gain divine ranks.



What build did they have?

Kobold Wizard

[Starscream]

See, my solution to this is simple. Kill all worshipers of Lolth. Make an epic spell so that all of them have a giant glowing spider symbol on their heads, then hunt them down and kill them. Not too difficult for epic characters in terms of anything but time.

Truth be told, she was pretty much screwed. See, she'd killed most of her worshipers herself.

The scheme was that she had been nurturing the Drow race for millenia, growing strong on their faith, and encouraging competition and survival of the fittest among them as part of a plan.

Once she (and her race of followers) were strong enough, she basically sacrificed all of them, using their life force to forge a new race. I think these were homebrewed, but they were basically similar to Driders, but super-sized and tough enough to challenge an epic party.

They were also powered directly by her divine will, so they self destructed when she died. The entire Drow race (save the minority who worshiped other deities) was wiped out, and the few who remained certainly weren't going to be stupid enough to start following her again.

Basically she bet her whole pot and lost everything. Worshiping the queen of spiders is going to go down in history as a "Bad Idea" even among the most evil races, and even if she returns she will never be even close to the level of power she once had.

Also, Olidammara had pretty much seen this coming and had been manipulating the outcome the whole time, Jack Sparrow style. He even bet that we would win. If Lolth ever does return, she owes him 1GP.:smallbiggrin:

[Stycotl]

in 2nd ed i killed two of them (that i remember). fun times. don't have a clue what builds we were, but it was 2nd ed, so it doesn't really matter much anymore.

[Dragero]

Well in the game i'm running, I have this headband that We Ja (the god, think that's his/her name) is imprisoned in. It's attached to the head of this stupid gnome that folows the party.

One day, the party sorcerer decided he wanted to burn down the inn they where sleeping in. The gnome was caught in the fire and almost killed. His head was on fire, so the headband was ALMOST destroyed (he was on fire for about 20-45 seconds). The headband was reduced to a small scrap, but they where able to mend it, durring that time We Ja was very near death. That kind of counts as near God killing.....(his soul was bound to the headband, if it was destroyed he died)

The Sorcerer was a:

5th level Human Sorcerer (Total Pyromaniac)

[Seffbasilisk]

A DM once let my wizard research a fifth level spell that 'ate' half of the target's soul.

Flash forward to when we have weapons and material components that let us actually hurt a diety, and I ended up eating 7/8ths of Wee Jas's 'essence' before the party killed her.

'Course the first thing I did upon achieving godhood was to use the material components and a super boosted insta-death spell to try to kill one of the over-dieties to take his place as well so he erased me from existance and time...

Minor details.

[Volkov]

Tore out a Demi-god's arm out of his socket and beat him to death with it. Apparently five divine ranks doesn't help much when you're a level 129 barbarian fighting a level 172 Half-Dragon Black Scale Lizardfolk fighter.

[Kobold-Bard]

Tore out a Demi-god's arm out of his socket and beat him to death with it. Apparently five divine ranks doesn't help much when you're a level 129 barbarian fighting a level 172 Half-Dragon Black Scale Lizardfolk fighter.

You got to Level ~150 without a Mage erasing reality?

[Volkov]

You got to Level ~150 without a Mage erasing reality?
Yes, past level 21, all arcane spell-casters became self absorbed sons of bitches. Including the party black ethergaunt wizard. Who pissed off the party Ultralithid Psion off so much once that he blew up his head and had the Lich Cleric use a true resurrection on his just to blow his head up again before letting him get resurrected again.

[Kobold-Bard]

Yes, past level 21, all arcane spell-casters became self absorbed sons of bitches. Including the party black ethergaunt wizard. Who pissed off the party Ultralithid Psion off so much once that he blew up his head and had the Lich Cleric use a true resurrection on his just to blow his head up again before letting him get resurrected again.

Please tell me this was done partially freeform. The idea of such character sheets make me fear for your sanity.

[Volkov]

Please tell me this was done partially freeform. The idea of such character sheets make me fear for your sanity.
What is this Sanity you speak of? I did all the skill point allocation and feat choices by hand. And we destroyed the entire human race, all forms of elves, killed every halfling, destroyed the gnomes, obliterated the True Giants, annhilated the goblinoids, smashed the ogres into oblivion, crushed the trolls into non-existence and wiped the gnome's souls from existence. Essentially, it was a crusade against the Human and overly human-like races.

[The Glyphstone]

I remember a battle thread once that featured a giant penguin overdeity who was retroactively immune to all attacks for all eternity in both temporal directions or something similarly crazy, so it sounds par for the course. Volkov's games put AGG32's stories to shame, really.:smallwink:

[Volkov]

I remember a battle thread once that featured a giant penguin overdeity who was retroactively immune to all attacks for all eternity in both temporal directions or something similarly crazy, so it sounds par for the course. Volkov's games put AGG32's stories to shame, really.:smallwink:

It wasn't a god, according my old DM's Killer Creature Pseudo-template, no killer creature known has ever been a god, but they are all far realm entities.

[Drakevarg]

What is this Sanity you speak of? I did all the skill point allocation and feat choices by hand. And we destroyed the entire human race, all forms of elves, killed every halfling, destroyed the gnomes, obliterated the True Giants, annhilated the goblinoids, smashed the ogres into oblivion, crushed the trolls into non-existence and wiped the gnomes from existence. Essentially, it was a crusade against the Human and overly human-like races.

You mentioned gnomes twice. Is this one of those "Judge, Executioner, Jury, Executioner, Jailor, and if nessicary, Executioner" things?

[Volkov]

You mentioned gnomes twice. Is this one of those "Judge, Executioner, Jury, Executioner, Jailor, and if nessicary, Executioner" things?

Maybe.....We killed the Gnome's souls after killing all the gnomes, mainly because gnomes made the Ethergaunt mad. The Ethergaunt's hatred of Gnomes was something even the party kobold rogue thought was a bit extreme.

[Kobold-Bard]

You mentioned gnomes twice. Is this one of those "Judge, Executioner, Jury, Executioner, Jailor, and if nessicary, Executioner" things?

I noticed that. Maybe they brought the Gnomes back to kill them again like they did with the party Psion.

Gnomes are worth it :smalltongue:

DAMNED OBSCENELY HIGH LEVEL NINJAS!!!

[Giegue]

I have never done it, but I have DMed it many many many times. Usually, you will know you've reached the climax of a epic campaign with me when the BBEG achieves godhood. And while I have never killed a deity NORMALLY in a game, I technically killed all the other gods plot wise. My evil sorcerer after completing a 2 person campaign with a rogue counterpart became a god and destroyed all the other gods, transforming the entire multiverse into his twisted, hellish kingdom.

The multiverse after his takeover was our first campaign location for a more then 2 PC game.

[frogspawner]

Deities & Demigods says that whether or not gods can die at all is up to the campaign, so I think it depends less on how you do it and more on how the DM lets you do it (if at all).
Very true. And they shouldn't allow it, imho. God-killing is daft, and just a symptom of a broken game-system.

Me, I'd say even killing-off all the worshippers would actually make a god stronger: It's the souls they have 'banked' on their home outer plane that gives them their power, you see... :smallwink:

I think there is a whole book devoted to the subject of gods 'dying', but I can't remember it's name offhand. But it basically says it should be as a GM-planned major campaign event, not as just another monster being killed by jumped-up adventurers.

[Frosty]

I remember a battle thread once that featured a giant penguin overdeity who was retroactively immune to all attacks for all eternity in both temporal directions or something similarly crazy, so it sounds par for the course. Volkov's games put AGG32's stories to shame, really.:smallwink:

Was the deity also named the Prinny King?

[dragonfan6490]

I personally have never killed a deity, but the first time I DM'd, when I was I think 14, maybe 15, the BBEG was a Dragon God that put Io to shame. I was very inexperienced and my party beat it. Notably the Psion, who was using 3.0 Psionics handbook. I forgot a few key things about little Jormy, but it ended out being a half way decent campaign.

[Orran]

Also, Olidammara had pretty much seen this coming and had been manipulating the outcome the whole time, Jack Sparrow style. He even bet that we would win. If Lolth ever does return, she owes him 1GP.:smallbiggrin:

Her first mistake was betting against the trickster god, on herself. She should have bet him 1GP that she would lose.

[frogspawner]

I think there is a whole book devoted to the subject of gods 'dying', but I can't remember it's name offhand. But it basically says it should be as a GM-planned major campaign event, not as just another monster being killed by jumped-up adventurers.
Got it:

Requiem for a God by Monte Cook, Malhavoc Press (for d20 System).