Reascending to Godhood: Could this idea work for a campaign?

[Dr.Epic]

Basically I had an idea for a campaign where it starts off with the characters all naked on a beach (nothing else comes to mind), them all with amnesia, no gear, and no memory of anything. Yeah they're fallen gods if the title was clear but they don't know that (I won't even tell the PCs playing them that; it'll be a surprise).

Yeah, I know idea has had to been done before. So it's not original, that means it won't be good. Also, I have some twists that might make the game more fun: each player starts off the game with one stat at 30-40. The game would start at level one (I like starting games at low level), and they'd only have one ridiculously high stat. This stats represents their domain(s). I'm just wondering if that's took high. Yeah, I know they could obliterate everything at level one, but whenever I DM I get worried my PCs will die so I give them high stats. Besides, it is kind of more fun (at least in my opinion) when you have high stats. Also, it'd be fun seeing the PCs discover theses powers. I won't tell the fighter he has a 40 str (the PC will know, but not the character) so they have to roleplay the surprise of seeing them obliterate a foe after dealing well over 20 damage.

Also, since they are fallen gods, they can each cast one spell any number of times. I choose the spell and it would reflect the high stat they have.

One thing I'm also thinking about is when they wake up they all might only have one item (this might be just for the wizard so they can have their spell book). Said item is a magical artifact that only works for them (kind of like Marvel's Thor and Mjolnir). The artifacts only work for them, and the artifacts also level up. The characters have the options of putting xp into the character or the item (I kind of got this idea from the video game God of War). So you'd have the option of leveling up your character or turning that +1 weapon into a +2 weapon (spellbooks work in that leveling them up means more spells). Does this sound like it could be fun and if not please list ways it could be improved (I kind of like this idea but if everyone thinks it stinks I'll abandon it).

The characters might also have some sort of scar showing the killing blow they received when they fell. They'll also have reactions from certain PCs (mostly clerics) hinting at their divinity. And the gods that defeated them would constantly be sending outsiders to go and kill them. Any alignment could really work for this campaign: they could be good gods who were overtaken by evil forces, or evil ones who were trying to plan a revolt.

How they ascend to godhood is pretty basic: they just have to kill a certain amount of foes. That's it. They reach a number and boom! they're gods again. They can be low level but once they hit this quota they are gods. CRs won't matter Firstly, the creatures they kill have to be intelligent. They can't just kill weak animals and any animal has the same value: a CR 15 kill would mean the same as a 1/2 CR kill. A big flaw in this is that they could be prone to just kill weak commoners at higher levels so I probably won't be telling them this (not right away, they'd have to figure it out one their own). As for how many creatures they have to kill, I like 1,000 as it is sort of a symbolic number but I think they might reach it too soon, then I thought 1,000,000 because it's 1,000 1,000's, but I think that might take too long. What's a good in between number?

Finally, one thing I should address because I fear people will comment about it, yeah, I know this is going to make the PC broken. But again, as I said before, I don't like seeing PCs die and I often let the PCs be high powered. So far there haven't been any negative effects.

So, thoughts?

[NichG]

The kill count thing is a little strange unless there's some in-setting reason why killing a large number of sentient beings = godhood (not to mentionm does it just work for them?). It also lacks a little tension as a plot element - its kind of always there, they can just go and do it whenever they find out about it, etc. It'll also bias things towards an evil campaign of course, so just be aware (its a lot easier to kill a million mixed sentients than to find a million sentients whose death is a good act).

I'd instead make it something subtler. For instance: they're all changed in appearance fairly significantly. To regain godhood, they have to find their old following and convince the majority of their worshippers to recognize their new forms as gods. Another for instance: their divinities have all been scattered throughout the world to random beings. To regain their godhood, they must hunt down each shred of their divinity and wrest it from whomever currently has it. Figure out their original divine rank and divide it up into a couple 1s and maybe a few bigger chunks - when they're reclaiming it, the thing they face has that much divine rank. Random weird gimmick: once they have even one shred, they can re-deify, but doing so dissociates the remaining shreds from themselves, so they might want to hold off and try to get more before they do it.

Now as far as how to run it: The high stat thing shouldn't be a problem if you balance for it. You'll get one guy who probably isn't going to be threatened by hitpoint damage (Con), someone with amazing AC and saves (Cha, assuming they take advantage of it), etc, so you'll need to make sure the enemies have variety. You might have to make sure all the enemies intended to be a real challenge have very high saves, since a super-stat can create unsaveable DCs in early game, especially against by-the-book monsters (a re-selection of feats and the right set of class levels can often completely repair this).

Honestly, for a high power game like this, I'd personally just not bother with by the book stats for anything intended to be real challenges. I have a few house rules I use for high party variation, high power games. Basically the trick is to multiply enemy hitpoints by 10, and split any sort of d20 vs number checks into a lesser and greater staged effect:

- A power will provoke a staged Will save DC 60/30. If you hit 60, you're unaffected; if you hit 30, you get a lesser effect; if you miss 30, you get a big awful effect

- The enemy has AC 60/30. If you hit a 60, you ignore its (substantial) DR, or its no longer immune to crits and sneak attack, or you also deal a point of ability damage or ...

Edit: For leveling the artifacts, make the powers you get non-traditional stuff, or the players may rightly determine that there are better ways of getting highly enchanted items or new spells. XP costs are pretty extreme in exchange for merely for obtaining 2 new spells, or a +1 to a weapon, or whatever. I'd instead suggest to make leveling the artifact equivalent cost to leveling a character, but make the rewards for this very good - perhaps the artifact can take certain beneficial actions on its round, or perhaps it gains some mechanically weird thing the PC couldn't get anywhere else. There's an item like this in a campaign I'm in, its a whip made from the whisker of a whale, imbued with the power of elemental water. If I recall, it got the following abilities:

- At 1000xp: Impossible to disarm or sunder - simply turns into water and flows back into the wielder's hand.
- At 3000xp: Can make Trip attempts on AoOs
- At 6000xp: The whip has reach equal to half of the wielder's base move
- At 10000xp: The whip deals pure 'water elemental' damage.

[zenon]

I once tried playing a game like that, where we had to discover why people were trying to kill us. We then discovered that we were gods in some game, where we were put in mortal bodies, after that discovery we just tried satying alive while searching for our power (I found mine in my mirror image (I was a bit selfobsessed)).

The plot was that the overgod had died or something and to find a new one the gods decided on a tournament where only one of them would survive.

[Galileo]

Here's another couple of ideas for why they're no longer dieties. May not fit with your ideas for the campaign, but I'll throw them out there anyway.
They're comparatively minor dieties, and they stuffed up somehow. They were then sent to the Material Plane as punishment.
Or, something (could be the PCs themselves) created an imbalance between whatever cosmic forces you like, and the PCs either volunteered or were volunteered to become mortals and right the imbalance, because of some ancient pact preventing direct divine/diabolic intervention in the fates of man.

Either way, perhaps the signature item they bear stores their divine essence, and when the time is right, they may open it and reclaim their powers (In this case, one item should probably be a fob watch).

If you stick with the unique weapon idea, I'd suggest using the Weapon of Legacy rules minus the penalties and costs, if you have access to them. The weapon growing with you makes more sense than the weapon growing at your expense. Maybe the Lesser/Greater Legacies are granted for reclaiming part of their divine essence as NichG siggested.

[Axinian]

The plot was that the overgod had died or something and to find a new one the gods decided on a tournament where only one of them would survive.
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!!

OP: The kill count thing can be made to make sense, but it sounds like a rather boring way to do it to be honest. Maybe make it a more specific kind of creature, one they might have to do actual work to find? Like these creatures have some sort of resource within them that they can use to achieve divinity?

Whether you do the kill count thing or not, they should have alternative ways to become gods again. Killing massive amounts of intelligent creatures simply doesn't fit well with every god's portfolio.

[TurtleKing]

Deities and Demigods could help out with building what they were before to determine how they are now. To clarify the "spells" or divine abilities is based off of what they had. Might want to make this scale with them since this could make certain things trivial. For instance if one of them has Gift of Life he has the deity version of True Resurrection that makes death trivial. The artifact could be tied to their divine ability so as to make them want to invest in the artifact. Could even be used as a phylactery of a sorts for their divinty before they absorb it. The artifact and divine ability can also be used as their ID especially if it was well known among their followers. One example would be if Boccob fell and he had his Rod of Reversal with him that would indicate to his followers that he is at least a powerful caster/ worshiper of Boccob. If he fires off his Divine Blast then his followers will recognize him then.

As for the stats you could just have them do up a character sheet first with their stats and subtract the divine rank from them to determine the new stats.

Might want to base each of the character's reascension methods in line with their portfolios. Killing a lot of sentient creatures may fit a death or destruction deity but not a healing one. Basically they have to pull off what their portfolios were so has to qualify to regain their divinty. One example is if the portfolio consisted of fire and destruction then they have to destroy a lot with fire before even qualifying to reascend.

[Avaris]

I love the idea, but not particularly the implementation. Firstly, assigning an uber-stat to each character wrecks a huge amount of the game balance; sure they'll roleplay their surprise, but once the characters realise their power they'll likly abuse it.

Far better would be to award them with minor powers, similar to the idea you had for spells that can be cast unlimited number of times. My perfect example of how to do this is inevitably the Baldu's Gate series; over the course of the game the player character gains special abilities; cure light wounds, Holy Might etc to represent their nearing divinity. Limited use per day abilities would I think be far more interesting; you have power, but it is limited, so a goal can be to increase it.

An equally important part of this campaign would be the possibility of failure; starting with a high stat would prevent this IMO.

I aso wonder if this campaign would benefit from encouraging players to decide on a few core values their characters would hold at the start of play; these would essentially indicate their domains when they were gods, and help you to design the abilities they gain. Also, how would a paladin/cleric etc work? You'll need a clear reason as to why they never feel the need to worship a god.

[Typewriter]

Something I did once, thought maybe some of it might be interesting to you:

I once ran a campaign that began with each character building a level 30 deity, and running an arena. Every 50 years the gods would lose their divine powers and any mortals who made the pilgrimage to the holy land (the top of a specific mountain) would do battle with each other, and eventually the god of their choice. The winners were the new gods, and the losers moved on to a special afterlife for all the gods who had come before. Normally not a lot changed as these most powerful mortals were still no match for level 30 characters, but this one time every single god lost his fight, except for Death, who had been around longer than any other goddess. As the (now old) gods were gathered together, one of them realized that this was a set up of some kind, and the old god of luck said, "Wait, I have an idea".

The souls of the gods traveled to the bodies of their fallen champions, and for the PCs that meant ressurecting inside a musty tomb that had long since fallen down a mountain into an undead forest. They played as the champions ressurected with a stat array of 30, 26, 24, 22, 20, 18 and they had some memories of what had happened to the gods.

They found the land in turmoils as kingdoms that had once derived powers from the gods were being marched upon by kingdoms whose old kings had ascended and stuff like that. Basically, with the entire pantheon switching all at once the world was in a state of chaos. As they journeyed and tried to right wrongs and find ways to kill the god-usurpers they restored faith and power to the people, and the people were able to find inner strength from their new heroes, returning divine magic to those who had faith in the player characters on account of the player characters having the gods energy.

Eventually the players were able to regain their powers by destroying some of the new gods, and allying with others, and they found the mastermind who had orchestrated the complete fall of the gods and banished her(Deaths baby, whom they had protected at some points in the campaign had the unholy scion template applied to it) to another plane. The world had a new pantheon, and they put an end to the arena for godhood thing. This campaign world became the campaign world all my campaigns since have taken place in, giving the players familiar deities, and familiar legends.

[navar100]

Some ideas:

Instead of free spells per level, everyone gestalts with a Magic of Incarnum class. Incarnum is the lingering magic of their godhood, and the Essentia is their divinity they're slowly getting back.

Instead of starting with one high ability score the level increases are better, such as +1 to a score every even level or +2 every four levels or +1 or +2 to two scores.

There are no clerics of them. Instead, there is somewhere in the world one Favored Soul for each PC, someone whose faith was strong enough to retain that last bit of mortal connection to their divinity. The Favored Soul is somehow their key to regain godhood.

Divine classes are ok, but the characters don't worship a higher power. They are the higher power. As far they are concerned, their faith in their philosophy is what empowers then.