What are Deities not Immune to?

[Calanon]

As anyone at my table could tell you, I have an obsession (Admitting it is the 1st step) with deities. Last month I asked how could you kill a god? well clearly making them NOT a god is unfortunately the easiest option >_>

For this I am wondering: What is a god vulnerable to?

The example is you are fighting Zeus from Deities and Demigods, You are an Epic Spellcaster, you can make a Spellcraft check of any amount (So go nuts)

So far the only thing I've come up with is... well nothing :smallannoyed: and this angers me... SO I've come whining to the Playground to whip my problems away :smallbiggrin:

tl;dr Make an Epic spell that is SUPER EFFECTIVE! against gods :smallwink:

[Mastikator]

The only thing gods are vulnerable to is other gods and godlike entities. Sometimes not even that. Gods are for all intent and purpose invulnerable.

[Calanon]

The only thing gods are vulnerable to is other gods and godlike entities. Sometimes not even that. Gods are for all intent and purpose invulnerable.

http://ellebambi.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/optimist-prime-negatron.jpg

:mad:

[Callos_DeTerran]

Craft an epic spell that summons and recombines Panodrym. Let the Elder Evil do the rest of it for you.


...Or did you mean in a way that leaves the multiverse intact?

[Calanon]

Craft an epic spell that summons and recombines Panodrym. Let the Elder Evil do the rest of it for you.


...Or did you mean in a way that leaves the multiverse intact?

Please keep the multiverse intact :smallconfused: Although I am impressed with the whole summoning something else to do it for you idea

[Eldan]

First of all, gain a higher amount of divine ranks. Use the same chain Pun-pun uses, maybe, with Ice Assassins and Proxification?

[RedWarrior0]

Force damage. Say you have Epic Magic Missile, which is like Magic Missile but does percentile dice per missile and five or six missiles per caster level, and, say, a +32 on checks to overcome spell resistance. Bam! no more deity.

[Yora]

The only thing gods are vulnerable to is other gods and godlike entities. Sometimes not even that. Gods are for all intent and purpose invulnerable.

Which makes Deities and Demigods even more redundant.

[The Glyphstone]

Well, let's look at what deities are immune to. Zeus is a Greater Deity, giving him the following traits:

-automatic 20's on all saving throws (so immune to Save-Or-X spells)
-Immunity to Polymorph and Petrification
-Immunity to Energy Drain, Ability Drain, and Ability Damage
-Immune to Acid, Cold, and Electricity
-Immune to disease, poison, stunning, sleep, paralysis, death effects, and disintegration
-Immune to effects that turn, rebuke, imprison, or banish them



So right off the bat, a crapton of fire or sonic damage is a good start. Force damage works too. It's not immunities you have to worry about, it's stuff like Wish at will via Alter Reality.

[JaronK]

Wouldn't Searing Spell just cut right through immunities anyway? So just make an appropriately high damage fire damage spell and cut loose.

JaronK

[The Glyphstone]

Fire's not on the immunity list. It does have Fire Resistance 25, but if you can do 1500+ damage in one shot, 25 extra is a piece of cake.

[Jeraa]

-automatic 20's on all saving throws (so immune to Save-Or-X spells)


That one isn't quite true. They still have to roll the die. Only if the die comes up a natural 20 will they automatically succeed. If it comes up any other number, you ignore it and just add 20 to the roll. They can still fail a save or check.

[Calanon]

Fire's not on the immunity list. It does have Fire Resistance 25, but if you can do 1500+ damage in one shot, 25 extra is a piece of cake.

I thought Gods were immune to Death by massive damage :smallconfused:

[Fax Celestis]

That one isn't quite true. They still have to roll the die. Only if the die comes up a natural 20 will they automatically succeed. If it comes up any other number, you ignore it and just add 20 to the roll. They can still fail a save or check.

That's...not what the ability says.


Always Maximize Roll

Greater deities (rank 16-20) automatically get the best result possible on any check, saving throw, attack roll, or damage roll. Calculate success, failure, or other effects accordingly. When a greater deity makes a check, attack, or save assume a 20 was rolled and calculate success or failure from there. A d20 should still be rolled and used to check for a threat of a critical hit. This quality means that greater deities never need the Maximize Spell feat, because their spells have maximum effect already.

[Diefje]

He's not immune to my dashing good looks.:smallbiggrin:

[Misery Esquire]

I thought Gods were immune to Death by massive damage :smallconfused:

That's not a Massive Damage roll. That's 1500+ HP damage. Not many things have that many hit points. (I haven't looked over the profiles of the gods in a while, though, maybe they do have 2000 health?)

[Jeraa]

That's...not what the ability says.

Read the rest of that paragraph.


Always Maximize Roll

Greater deities (rank 16-20) automatically get the best result possible on any check, saving throw, attack roll, or damage roll. Calculate success, failure, or other effects accordingly. When a greater deity makes a check, attack, or save assume a 20 was rolled and calculate success or failure from there. A d20 should still be rolled and used to check for a threat of a critical hit. This quality means that greater deities never need the Maximize Spell feat, because their spells have maximum effect already.

If they were treated as always succeeding on a save or attack, there would be no need to include failure in that paragraph. If they always received a natural 20, there would be no need to say to roll to check for a critical threat - greater deities would always get critical threats on all attacks. Since that line was included, you have to assume that deities do not always get natural 20s on checks, but do always add 20 to their modifiers reguardless of the actual number on the die.

OR, if you don't want to take my word for it, how about from the Deities and Demigods FAQ from WotC themselves:


Does the always maximize roll ability of greater deities mean that these beings always receive a natural 20 on every attack and saving throw roll? If so, doesn’t that mean that a greater deity will always hit on an attack, will always threaten a critical hit, and will always make its saving throw? If this is the case, why doesn’t Deities and Demigods specifically state under the entry for each individual greater deity that the deity always hits, always threatens a critical hit, and always makes its save, much as these entries say that the deity always deals a certain amount damage on a successful attack due to its maximize roll ability?
Deities and Demigods does not say greater deities always hit, always threaten a critical hit, and always make their saving throws because they don’t always hit, don’t always threaten a critical hit, and don’t always make their saving throws. The description of the always maximize roll ability on page 26 of Deities and Demigods tells you to roll a die when a deity attacks. The die roll must indicate a threat before the deity can deal a critical hit. (No matter what that die roll is, you still use a value of 20 for the value of the die roll when determining what Armor Class the attack hits.) Note that the deity also maximizes its confirmation roll when it achieves a threat, so it is virtually assured of confirming the critical hit. In the very rare case that a maximized attack roll would not be sufficient for a hit, the deity still hits if he or she rolls a natural 20 for his attack roll. As Deities and Demigods notes in the section on attacks on page 26, no deity automatically misses on a roll of a natural 1, so a greater deity does not automatically miss if he or she rolls a natural 1 on his or her attack roll.

Likewise, a greater deity does not get a natural 20 and an automatic success on any saving throw, but it is never at risk of automatically failing on a roll of a natural 1. As with attacks, if a die result of 20 is not sufficient for a successful saving throw, a greater deity still has a chance to roll a die and automatically succeed with a natural 20.


That's not a Massive Damage roll. That's 1500+ HP damage. Not many things have that many hit points. (I haven't looked over the profiles of the gods in a while, though, maybe they do have 2000 health?)

Moradin (The strongest of the core deities) has 1,461 hit points. Most of the rest have 1000 or less.

[Little Brother]

Just popped open Deities and Demigods, too a quick peek at Zeus. First thing I notice, horrible classing and HP, 1550, second is he's large, third is his AC of 86, and fourth is his pitiful damage output.

Now, this tells us he's gonna attack with magic(Even if it wasn't blindingly obvious), but he probably has enough magic to fry us in one turn.

Now, I double-checked, and he has no regeneration as far as I can tell. Throw a barbarian at it, at the level you'd be facing it, if you can't do over 1500 when optimized, you're doing something VERY, VERY wrong. Hell, if you're trying, you should be able to top that by level 11 or lower. Use a reach weapon or size increase or four, but it doesn't matter, he's doing 68 on an AoO. You should be able to eat a full attack, or should at least have Protection from Chunky Salsa up, so a single attack should mean nothing.

In other words, when in doubt, apply the Chunky Salsa rule. Very little is immune to enough damage.

[Hiro Protagonest]

If they were treated as always succeeding on a save or attack, there would be no need to include failure in that paragraph. If they always received a natural 20, there would be no need to say to roll to check for a critical threat - greater deities would always get critical threats on all attacks. Since that line was included, you have to assume that deities do not always get natural 20s on checks, but do always add 20 to their modifiers reguardless of the actual number on the die.
That "failure" part is for their for skill checks, which don't automatically succeed on a 20.

OR, if you don't want to take my word for it, how about from the Deities and Demigods FAQ from WotC themselves:

Heh, good one, Wizards FAQ.

...That was a joke, right?

Seriously, that answer is very poorly worded and I could swear it contradicts itself on the "auto-hit" part of the natural 20 on attack rolls. Seriously, it says right in the book that as a greater deity, he automatically beats AC and his attack bonus is only for confirming critical threats.

[Shyftir]

There is always custom artifact weapon, that is the prize of a near epic level quest. a.k.a the Mt. Doom option.

[Yora]

It was early 3.0. There weren't exactly many options for classes at that time and optimization was pretty much in its infancy. I think Oriental Adventures was the only book that had any new Base classes at that time.

[herrhauptmann]

It was early 3.0. There weren't exactly many options for classes at that time and optimization was pretty much in its infancy. I think Oriental Adventures was the only book that had any new Base classes at that time.

In other words: Power Creep.


Not only did the ubercharger not exist back then, neither did greater weapon focus or the rest of the Weapon Spec tree after weapon spec itself. (That's how limited melee was back then)
If you're going to grab a god and talk about how weak it is, you gotta grab your old 3.0 phb and MM and try to kill him. Makes it a bit harder if you're not a DMM cleric or Incantatrix/Iot7V wizard.
I believe demigods was written at about the same time as FRCS, and before Sword and Fist and any of the other splat books.

When deities and demigods was 'updated' they didn't really change the build of the gods, just rephrased some of their powers like DR so it no longer said DR X/+Y. And even if they had updated the build, what would they have used? The 3.5 DMG/PHB/MM?

[Calanon]

In other words: Power Creep.


Not only did the ubercharger not exist back then, neither did greater weapon focus or the rest of the Weapon Spec tree after weapon spec itself. (That's how limited melee was back then)
If you're going to grab a god and talk about how weak it is, you gotta grab your old 3.0 phb and MM and try to kill him. Makes it a bit harder if you're not a DMM cleric or Incantatrix/Iot7V wizard.
I believe demigods was written at about the same time as FRCS, and before Sword and Fist and any of the other splat books.

When deities and demigods was 'updated' they didn't really change the build of the gods, just rephrased some of their powers like DR so it no longer said DR X/+Y. And even if they had updated the build, what would they have used? The 3.5 DMG/PHB/MM?

This has given me an idea: First one to optimize Zeus, that Zeus is used as an example of the god you have to figure out how to kill :smallannoyed: STAY FOCUSED! What are the gods weak to? If its nothing than wtf? If its something than spit it out and share it :smallfurious:

[herrhauptmann]

This has given me an idea: First one to optimize Zeus, that Zeus is used as an example of the god you have to figure out how to kill :smallannoyed: STAY FOCUSED! What are the gods weak to? If its nothing than wtf? If its something than spit it out and share it :smallfurious:

You've got an idea there. I look forward to hearing how this turns out.

Personally, when it comes to deicide, I've always felt the best method was getting another deity to help you.
Say you're trying to kill a rank 10 lesser deity, and you've got a rank 6 minor deity on your side. Rather than swinging a weapon around, the rank 6 can exert his power against the 10, effectively lowering the 10 to a mere rank 4.

Much more doable for the party than trying to survive a fight between rank 6 and 10 gods (let alone contribute). And with that lower rank, comes fewer SLA's on the part of the god you need to kill.

[Calanon]

You've got an idea there. I look forward to hearing how this turns out.

Ah crap i just asked this in an Optimization board didn't I? :smallfrown:


Personally, when it comes to deicide, I've always felt the best method was getting another deity to help you.
Say you're trying to kill a rank 10 lesser deity, and you've got a rank 6 minor deity on your side. Rather than swinging a weapon around, the rank 6 can exert his power against the 10, effectively lowering the 10 to a mere rank 4.

Much more doable for the party than trying to survive a fight between rank 6 and 10 gods (let alone contribute). And with that lower rank, comes fewer SLA's on the part of the god you need to kill.

Your tactic is relevant to my interest... Getting a god to kill ANOTHER God seems like an interesting plan but meh takes to long :smalltongue: (However! it is the quickest plan that anyone else has posted so, your winning in my book)

[Snowbluff]

If i recall correctly, resistance to Energy Drain (you know the spell and su ability) does not mean resistance to negative levels. Enervation is based on AC then SR I think, and an epic spell seeded with it is a start. :smallamused:

EDIT: I think negative levels are 'death effects', though.

[Gavinfoxx]

What about this version of Zeus, then?

http://dicefreaks.superforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=96

[navar100]

Destroy people's faith in the god. Don't attack the god, attack his followers. Don't attack the followers to kill or enslave. Attack them by persuading them their god is false, dead, or abandoned them.

[Socratov]

the question is not wat are gods not immune to, but when were gods not immune to X. Each god has to deal with some form of ascension... Moradin is the all father of the dwarves, was legendary, and thus all the dwarves worshipped him into ascension and thus into godhood.

After ascension gods are invulnerable to practically anything, before they have actually ascended they are vulnerable to practicaly anything (legend usually tells you what). So the grand deicide move is obviously casting wish to wish the god ahd never ascended. Now 2 options remain: either they die retroactively because they can't live forever anymore because they never ascended to godhood, or, they were an outsider before they ascended at which point you can't really kill them, but you can banish them, kill them on their own plane, /other outsider tactics...

However, thsi does not adress the whole rocket tag play of who was first/who sees someone coming first... That is something to decide for you and your DM...

[Tvtyrant]

The Cindy/Mailman caster using a ton of metamagic shenanigans on an orb could probably do it if it hit the god before getting hit. It gets to play the same game as the ubercharger (I still think over-charger is a weird name, but whateves), but where the charger is likely not a primary caster the Mailman is and can play the celerity game.

[Titanium Fox]

You know, you could just hit it with a hammer. That's what my player did to get a kill on Hextor.

He also broke the heck out of it. 2400 damage per round.

[DoctorGlock]

They are not immune to being killed in the face via direct damage.

Fire, Sonic, Force and the rare untyped (sanctified one of kord) will blow right through the defenses.

You have an arbitrarily high spellcraft DC from gating solars or whatnot, perhaps you have a red wizard academy on your demiplane, the fact is you can pull anything.

You can launch infinite untyped damage across planar boundries and even through time with the right seed and unless the god sees it coming (which is why you are launching it across time, so that they do not) he will not have the perfect counter, and even the standard AMF does not auto stop epic spells.

Now, for the paranoid have a duplicate self launch the attack a round after you do (or a round before) so if the god is alive and sees it coming he will think it is the same attack, as in he will assume it was the original.

The precognition is the hardest thing to beat, but with proper planning you can get around it.

Also, considering that they god only sees it if it is related to their pantheon, you can subvert the god's portfolio by presumably going back in time and doing all the miracles instead/first and getting the worship diverted to you. Now you have the portfolio and it does not end with the god, so an argument can be made for them now seeing nothing coming.

Now you can get enough duplicates launching attacks from both the past and future simultaneously and the god's head might just explode before it gets hit with infinite untyped damage.

[Yorae]

Deities are not immune to diplomacy. It's not an opposed roll, so they don't get to make you auto-fail, and it's a flat DC based on current disposition.
Epic diplomacy optimization - talk Zeus into worshiping you.

If you really want him dead, maybe you could convince him to kill himself?

[DoctorGlock]

Deities are not immune to diplomacy. It's not an opposed roll, so they don't get to make you auto-fail, and it's a flat DC based on current disposition.
Epic diplomacy optimization - talk Zeus into worshiping you.


Convince him to make you a proxy, then alter reality some ice assassin copies of other gods, then... wait, this sounds familiar, i'll shut up now

[CTrees]

Two points from the other thread on deicide (interesting theme for the day!):
-You can't make Zeus your fanatic with the social skills (it's technically mind affecting, and he's immune)
-Uberchargers are going to have a very interesting time of it, because coming within 190ft of Zeus is instant death, no-save. Not a death-effect, which you can be immune to, and not a SLA/Su/Ex ability, so... that's A LOT of reach you need to find. Mailman is a better choice.

[Icestorm245]

Or you could just let the Snarl do it.

[DoctorGlock]

Two points from the other thread on deicide (interesting theme for the day!):
-You can't make Zeus your fanatic with the social skills (it's technically mind affecting, and he's immune)
-Uberchargers are going to have a very interesting time of it, because coming within 190ft of Zeus is instant death, no-save. Not a death-effect, which you can be immune to, and not a SLA/Su/Ex ability, so... that's A LOT of reach you need to find. Mailman is a better choice.

Is the instant death still line of effect, if so, IoSV can take a shot at it.

[Calanon]

Or you could just let the Snarl do it.

Its a shame cause I actually considered doing something like this before :smallconfused: but I REALLY have no idea how the Snarls stats would work out... Would it just be Pun-Pun on even *greater crack? (I'm making that an Epic Spell btw... Greater Crack... Your character is so broken that the DM throws the DMG at you along with every single other source book that you used to make your character, you take 1,000 damage x every second it took you to think up that monstrous build)

:smallbiggrin:

[navar100]

Change D&D editions. That tends to kill lots of gods.

I noticed Asmodeus always gets stronger.

Maybe Asmodeus is behind it.

D&D is the work of the devil after all!

:smallbiggrin:

[Yora]

Also, Mystra dies!

[Talyn]

She had it coming.

[herrhauptmann]

Also, Mystra dies!

again
123456

[Jothki]

Two points from the other thread on deicide (interesting theme for the day!):
-You can't make Zeus your fanatic with the social skills (it's technically mind affecting, and he's immune)
-Uberchargers are going to have a very interesting time of it, because coming within 190ft of Zeus is instant death, no-save. Not a death-effect, which you can be immune to, and not a SLA/Su/Ex ability, so... that's A LOT of reach you need to find. Mailman is a better choice.

Hmm, immunity to mind-affecting spells wasn't on Glyphstone's list, did he just miss it or is there some other source?

[Jeraa]

Hmm, immunity to mind-affecting spells wasn't on Glyphstone's list, did he just miss it or is there some other source?

He just missed it. Deities are immune to mind-affecting effects.

[Adrayll]

According, at least to that dicefreaks link, we're going to need two kills here: First kill is to get him out of the way for seventy years. This gives you the time you need to eliminate the worship of Zeus throughout the universe. That way, when he gets his respawn, he's hemorrhaged his divine ranks, allowing him to be killed permanently.

[Calanon]

According, at least to that dicefreaks link, we're going to need two kills here: First kill is to get him out of the way for seventy years. This gives you the time you need to eliminate the worship of Zeus throughout the universe. That way, when he gets his respawn, he's hemorrhaged his divine ranks, allowing him to be killed permanently.

How do you kill him the first time though? :smallannoyed:

[Adrayll]

How do you kill him the first time though? :smallannoyed:

Any of the various oh-my-god-how-are-you-doing-that-much-damage methods that have already been tossed around. Being able to make an NI Spellcraft check goes a long way towards making that happen.

The big thing, in my opinion, is making sure he doesn't get the jump on you while you get rid of his divine ranks.

[Calanon]

Any of the various oh-my-god-how-are-you-doing-that-much-damage methods that have already been tossed around. Being able to make an NI Spellcraft check goes a long way towards making that happen.

The big thing, in my opinion, is making sure he doesn't get the jump on you while you get rid of his divine ranks.

Cool so you do ass backwards damage to him via wtf'ever method you want than cast the most epic spell in creation to remove all of his worshipers from existence... Unfortunately this still counts as "Making him/her no longer a god" and doesn't actually answer "What deities are vulnerable to"

Hmm... Wonder how an epic spell that can smack every single one of a deities worshipers with enough damage to auto kill them in a single stroke would work be constructed...:smallamused:

[Adrayll]

Cool so you do ass backwards damage to him via wtf'ever method you want than cast the most epic spell in creation to remove all of his worshipers from existence... Unfortunately this still counts as "Making him/her no longer a god" and doesn't actually answer "What deities are vulnerable to"

Hmm... Wonder how an epic spell that can smack every single one of a deities worshipers with enough damage to auto kill them in a single stroke would work be constructed...:smallamused:

Oh bugger, just realized that there was still a question in play, not just god-killing thought experiments.
I guess my answer in that case is: Not immune to sudden loss of worship, and therefore divine ranks.

[Gotterdammerung]

The smoothest deity kill I have witnessed in play was as follows:


My party negotiated with another deity. Convinced the deity to provide us a small aid in the plan in exchange for a big reward from the ensuing power vacuum caused by a dead god.

The allied deity tricked the target deity into coming into his realm. Once in his realm the allied deity used his power to cancel out the other deities auto-roll 20's ability.

Our parties psion used a power to link himself with the target deity. Now any damage the psion took, the deity also took.

Our parties cleric put a delay death on the psion.

Everyone (including the psion) pummeled the psion with thousands of dmg that round.

The deity shared this damage and died.

[Calanon]

The smoothest deity kill I have witnessed in play was as follows:


My party negotiated with another deity. Convinced the deity to provide us a small aid in the plan in exchange for a big reward from the ensuing power vacuum caused by a dead god.

The allied deity tricked the target deity into coming into his realm. Once in his realm the allied deity used his power to cancel out the other deities auto-roll 20's ability.

Our parties psion used a power to link himself with the target deity. Now any damage the psion took, the deity also took.

Our parties cleric put a delay death on the psion.

Everyone (including the psion) pummeled the psion with thousands of dmg that round.

The deity shared this damage and died.

{Scrubbed}

Now that that is out of the way... That is actually quite a clever scheme and you should feel amazing just for coming up with that scheme :smalleek:

So far the only answer I've been getting is "Beat it to death with your biggest heaviest weapon" Meh... I guess this works...

Unless this is Forgotten Realms deities do NOT die when they lose there worshipers which is why I'm not taking that as an option for fighting them

[Gotterdammerung]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Now that that is out of the way... That is actually quite a clever scheme and you should feel amazing just for coming up with that scheme :smalleek:

So far the only answer I've been getting is "Beat it to death with your biggest heaviest weapon" Meh... I guess this works...

Unless this is Forgotten Realms deities do NOT die when they lose there worshipers which is why I'm not taking that as an option for fighting them

I don't get what you mean about the trolling bit.

[Calanon]

I don't get what you mean about the trolling bit.

Its a long story that involves a (I'm not even kidding) Vampire Half Dragon Half Dire Jack-rabbit with a Divine rank of 0 but that is a tale for another day...

[Gotterdammerung]

Its a long story that involves a (I'm not even kidding) Vampire Half Dragon Half Dire Jack-rabbit with a Divine rank of 0 but that is a tale for another day...

Hmmm, but that seems unrelated to anything I said.

(P.S. dragons will @#$% anything won't they! I've fought a half dragon- bulette, cow, gnome, were-elephant, and an assortment of other creatures that make you go @.,@!)

[Lord Bingo]

As was said above, almost every current Deity have had to deal with the whole ascension business before being elevated to godhood. While I do not think Wish or an equivalent spell is powerful enough to kill at Deity by wishing that he or she never ascended it might be possible to wish oneself back in time -or find some other means of time travel- before the ascension and kill the would-be Deity of right then and there.

Then you would of course run into a heap of trouble with the space-time continuum as your actions would retroactively affect everything that happened from after you killed the potential Deity, so it might not be worth it.

The best alternative I can think of, then, has already been suggested: manipulation -get another (greater) Deity to do your dirty work. I doubt this can be achieved with dice rolling, so it is going to take some mighty fine roleplaying.

Well, get to it!

:smallwink:

[DeAnno]

One thing you really need to pay attention to is engagement distance, surprise, and senses. IIRC, Zeus has Sight range of 19 miles, a spot check of +50, and can't be surprised due to his Battlesense SDA.

Luckily, he does not have Supreme Initiative (and his modifier is only +14), so the idea would be to teleport in directly or sneak up on him with some combination of HIPS and a high stealth check, or some combination of both. After this you only have to beat his initiative and deal him 1600 damage or so from far away, not a hard task for a DD Sorc or many similar builds.

If Zeus was even slightly optimized and had Supreme Initiative however, you would have to weather the storm of his first round, and this would become much more complicated.

[Silus]

I am convinced that the only way to kill a God (ANY God, even the Not-Goddess that is the Lady of Pain) is to use the legendary, the mythic "Enuff Dakka".

Other than that, fire. Lots and lots of fire.

[Yora]

Nuff dakka is light faster than light speed. When can imagine the concept, but it seems physically impossible.

[GreenSerpent]

Unleash the Hecantoncheres (or however it's spelt) from the plane where they're imprisoned. Those beasts can kill even a god.

I mean, 100 +73 greatsword attacks against Zeus each round, Multiweapon Rend, Perfect Multiweapon Fighting... Fly and Greater Magic Weapon at will, SR of 70, DR 40/+4 and Fast Healing 50...

[DoctorGlock]

Unleash the Hecantoncheres (or however it's spelt) from the plane where they're imprisoned. Those beasts can kill even a god.

I mean, 100 +73 greatsword attacks against Zeus each round, Multiweapon Rend, Perfect Multiweapon Fighting... Fly and Greater Magic Weapon at will, SR of 70, DR 40/+4 and Fast Healing 50...

Funny story that. It's mortal and dies to big Z's aura. Likewise it cannot crack Z's DR. Nor can it port everywhere. Stats do not match its concept in this case.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Take the destroy seed, make it a ranged touch spell, pump up the die type to d20, and the die number to about 100. So ranged touch, 300ft, 100d20 damage and no save. Then get about twenty or casters to take part in the ritual and pile on the militgating factors.

[Rejakor]

Go check out some of the builds for the Iron Seige.

However, with 20 levels (or 21), i'd build either a Farcane Archer (Far Shot Arcane Archer - can you spell cross-universal laser missile launcher?) or a 10 lvl Void Disciple (You live inside a WHAT?!) focused on various defences.\\

Basic tactics would be some epic dispel seed arrows fired from your Red Wizard ICBM Silo combined with Dead Magic Zone causing arrows with Invoke Magic'd epic DD arrowz. Use Brilliant Energy, Cover-Ignoring, [i]Gates[i], and Infinite Range Touchsight to hunt down and instantly (arrows fired in a timestop still fly) kill all his clones/defenses. Remember to do all of this in a single round, and use modify memory to remove any threat to him from you in this current timeline, and leave yourself only with the goal of going back into the past to a certain place and time where you've left a box containing your goal on paper/the memories (before or when you modify memory yourself) at which point you immediately go back in time (the current-time Zeus is in no danger from you at that point.. you're after future zeus, and various anti-divination effects you should have up might protect you even from his portfoliosense). So you should get in the first shot from your timegates. That said, destabilizing reality and naming your price from the other gods to stop as Zeus' head is still a pretty good idea.


The voidsphere is the other idea. Infinitely layered orbs of destruction + Iot7V immunities + other immunities should keep you safe. You then proceed to nuke the **** out of Zeus in various ways while keeping your distance through your web of astral clones and Cabinet Trickster/Master Spy proxies.



Or just Lucid Dream the bastard.


Turning yourself into an object (psion sandwich trick) and ubercharging with an Ex telekinesis effect would probably work too.

[Little Brother]

Mindrape+Love's Pain=Dead Zeus

If you want, you could get your intelligence modifier to it, if you want.

Next question?

[Hiro Protagonest]

Unleash the Hecantoncheres (or however it's spelt) from the plane where they're imprisoned. Those beasts can kill even a god.

I mean, 100 +73 greatsword attacks against Zeus each round, Multiweapon Rend, Perfect Multiweapon Fighting... Fly and Greater Magic Weapon at will, SR of 70, DR 40/+4 and Fast Healing 50...

...You're trying to get a hundred-handed one to kill Zeus. :smallconfused:

[Lord Vukodlak]

Mindrape+Love's Pain=Dead Zeus

If you want, you could get your intelligence modifier to it, if you want.

Next question?
He rolls a one on his saving throw and still succedes the save DC. Because gods cando that.

[senrath]

He rolls a one on his saving throw and still succedes the save DC. Because gods cando that.

That would indeed be the case, if Love's Pain actually allowed a saving throw.

[Calanon]

Mindrape+Love's Pain=Dead Zeus

If you want, you could get your intelligence modifier to it, if you want.

Next question?

Zeus is immune to Mindrape, which is Mind Effecting as is Love's Pain :smalltongue: If it were that easy than everyone would be slaying gods left and right

[RedWarrior0]

The other problem of Zeus would mean that you would need to go underground before you began your war. Quite literally, as he perceives anything that happens under the open sky nineteen weeks before it happens.

[Emperor Tippy]

Zeus is immune to Mindrape, which is Mind Effecting as is Love's Pain :smalltongue: If it were that easy than everyone would be slaying gods left and right
Neither of which matter.

You grab a couple dozen or so level 1 commoners, Mind Rape them each to love Zeus, hit them with a quickened, maximized, chained Love's Pain followed up by a maximized, chained Love's Pain and Zeus takes 60 damage per commoner.

Zeus has no standing defense against Love's Pain.

Although that still doesn't get around his precognition. Which will let him hang out in an AMF when you go to whack him.

[Gotterdammerung]

The other problem of Zeus would mean that you would need to go underground before you began your war. Quite literally, as he perceives anything that happens under the open sky nineteen weeks before it happens.

Technically, underground IS underneath the open sky.

But yeh, I get what it is supposed to mean.

Yeh there are a lot of extra divine being bonuses that get overlooked when fighting Gods. It is easy to just use the stat block write up and not read the whole book or do research into the extra powers they get.

If you play the god with just skeletal character sheet numbers, then you are soft playing them.

A lot of the gods have 20th lvl casting in one or 2 different casting classes. So buffs are also often overlooked.

And if you think there feats are outdated it is within the power of most deities to shuffle them around. There are many ways for them to change up there "builds".

[RedWarrior0]

Yeah, the fact that he'll probably be under open sky most of the time means that 19 weeks before you do it, he'll sense that he will take damage from Love's Pain. 18 weeks, 6 days, 23 hours, and 59 minutes later, he'll pop a contingency or something so he can't be killed after taking the first round of damage.

With the 19 weeks thing, he's more or less impossible to beat except by brute force if he acts with any modicum of sense.

[Emperor Tippy]

Just as a note, any deity with Alter Reality should have every beneficial spell in the entire game up permanently.

And any one with epic casting can do things that are even more broken as they can effectively strip off the x5 multiplier from permanent effects.

[Calanon]

Neither of which matter.

You grab a couple dozen or so level 1 commoners, Mind Rape them each to love Zeus, hit them with a quickened, maximized, chained Love's Pain followed up by a maximized, chained Love's Pain and Zeus takes 60 damage per commoner.

Zeus has no standing defense against Love's Pain.

Neat, so Zeus takes the damage than teleports to where you are and kills all the commoners automatically (and you) for being close to him... But impressive trick to actually hurt him without actually damaging him, this with this plan
The smoothest deity kill I have witnessed in play was as follows:


My party negotiated with another deity. Convinced the deity to provide us a small aid in the plan in exchange for a big reward from the ensuing power vacuum caused by a dead god.

The allied deity tricked the target deity into coming into his realm. Once in his realm the allied deity used his power to cancel out the other deities auto-roll 20's ability.

Our parties psion used a power to link himself with the target deity. Now any damage the psion took, the deity also took.

Our parties cleric put a delay death on the psion.

Everyone (including the psion) pummeled the psion with thousands of dmg that round.

The deity shared this damage and died.


Would seriously **** up any god no matter the rank >_>

[Eldariel]

Neat, so Zeus takes the damage than teleports to where you are and kills all the commoners automatically (and you) for being close to him... But impressive trick to actually hurt him without actually damaging him, this with this plan

Would seriously **** up any god no matter the rank >_>

Eh. That involves picking up another deity to kill one. Doing it that way is fairly easy; Ice Assassin can already do it from Frostburn. Just send N copies of target deity at him; he'll die eventually. However, you need serious shenanigans (talking private demiplanes with banned schools, or time travel) to get around their precognition. If you can't you'll lose anyways.

Also remember they have the same means to act first as any caster does so I'm doubtful of your ability to actually get to act against one in any case. Though it's beyond trivial to deal sufficient damage in one action to kill a deity if you do get an action edgewise; but penetrating every single magical defense in the game is less so. Trying to kill one is much like trying to kill a Wizard 20; it's not the killing-part that's the problem, it's actually getting to affect it.

[Gotterdammerung]

Eh. That involves picking up another deity to kill one. Doing it that way is fairly easy; Ice Assassin can already do it from Frostburn. Just send N copies of target deity at him; he'll die eventually. However, you need serious shenanigans (talking private demiplanes with banned schools, or time travel) to get around their precognition. If you can't you'll lose anyways.

Also remember they have the same means to act first as any caster does so I'm doubtful of your ability to actually get to act against one in any case. Though it's beyond trivial to deal sufficient damage in one action to kill a deity if you do get an action edgewise; but penetrating every single magical defense in the game is less so. Trying to kill one is much like trying to kill a Wizard 20; it's not the killing-part that's the problem, it's actually getting to affect it.

It's not even possible without another deities help.

If you think it is then you are severely underestimating divine salient abilities.

Maybe just maybe a high epic truenamer could challenge a deity. DC154 truename check just to affect Zeus. But truename checks sky rocket in epic. So eventually you would get high enough to tap the check and ignore SR.

[Prophet_of_Io]

EPIC Improved Familiar: Elder Evil Pandorym.

Let's commit some Deicide!

[Calanon]

EPIC Improved Familiar: Elder Evil Pandorym.

Let's commit some Deicide!

I am not "familiar" with that Epic feat... :smalltongue:

[Prophet_of_Io]

I am not "familiar" with that Epic feat... :smalltongue:

It's all part of a giant conspiracy created by the gods to stop the people from uprising against the oppressive Deities who seem to constantly smite innocent PC's who simply want to go off the beaten path. Wake up sheeple! don't let the "Man" (in the sky) keep you down. Just because you haven't heard of a feat, doesn't mean you can't find it!


That being said: Pun's are the lowest form of humor... Unless you thought of them yourself. Well Done.:smallbiggrin:

[Calanon]

It's all part of a giant conspiracy created by the gods to stop the people from uprising against the oppressive Deities who seem to constantly smite innocent PC's who simply want to go off the beaten path. Wake up sheeple! don't let the "Man" (in the sky) keep you down. Just because you haven't heard of a feat, doesn't mean you can't find it!


That being said: Pun's are the lowest form of humor... Unless you thought of them yourself. Well Done.:smallbiggrin:

Watch yourself Prophet, you starting to sound like an Ur-priest :smallamused:

and yes, that was a self-made pun :smallbiggrin:

[Little Brother]

Although that still doesn't get around his precognition. Which will let him hang out in an AMF when you go to whack him.Uh, make a demiplane with no sky? Simple. Grab a clump of dirt, PoA it to a human twice, mindrape, repeat. No need to leave your demiplane.

Neat, so Zeus takes the damage than teleports to where you are and kills all the commoners automatically (and you) for being close to him... But impressive trick to actually hurt him without actually damaging him, this with this plan Wyrdstone. Be an STP Erudite with SU transformation and don't pay costs, wish for a wyrdstone. Or greater anticipate, or whatever it's called. You only need to get off the Metamagicked Love's Pain 3 times, that buys you the rounds you need. Then you might as well jump around and Mindrape all of Zeus's followers to worship someone else, preferably you. Zeus goes nighty-night if he gets back up.

Also, contingent disjunction mail bombs get rid of buffs nicely.

[Eldariel]

It's not even possible without another deities help.

If you think it is then you are severely underestimating divine salient abilities.

Maybe just maybe a high epic truenamer could challenge a deity. DC154 truename check just to affect Zeus. But truename checks sky rocket in epic. So eventually you would get high enough to tap the check and ignore SR.

How is any of that relevant? Why would a truenamer perform better than a real caster? Surely we aren't imagining things like spell resistance matter, right? The problem is far more deep rooted than that though some amount of time travel and planes with divination banned goes a long way (though portfolio sense is still a PiTA).

[Hawkings]

Neat, so Zeus takes the damage than teleports to where you are and kills all the commoners automatically (and you) for being close to him... But impressive trick to actually hurt him without actually damaging him, this with this plan

Would seriously **** up any god no matter the rank >_>

The more entertaining counter would be if Zeus teleports to where you were, mindraped all of the commoners to love you instead, then watched the fool trying to usurp a greater deity blow his own brains out...with love!

[Gotterdammerung]

How is any of that relevant? Why would a truenamer perform better than a real caster? Surely we aren't imagining things like spell resistance matter, right? The problem is far more deep rooted than that though some amount of time travel and planes with divination banned goes a long way (though portfolio sense is still a PiTA).

Because a real caster has to many weaknesses that a god can exploit.

zeus for instance, has the power to be immune to all energy types. The power to overlay a perfect protection of immunities through buffs to cover the holes in his already existing immunities, and the insight to further cover the remaining holes with a perfectly places greater spell immunity.

The thing about magic is it is very well documented. It has tons of sources. And for every offensive spell, there is about the same amount of material for spells that counter it. I have built abjurers so strong in their defense against magic, that they could hold out versus an onslaught of 5 other competent casters and not even once be even close to being at risk. And we are talking about a deity who not only can duplicate any 9th lvl or lower spell, but can also make that spell permanent. What caster has any chance in hell of even coming close to threatening him?

The same can not be said about truenaming. Its major weakness, a lack of content, now becomes it's greatest strength. As I said, it would require the truenamer be epic. Epic lvl is where true namers really start to shine. They finally can dip into classes like marshal and exemplar and other skill bonus classes without messing with their truenaming progression. They gain access to epic skill focus and epic skill magic items.

confounding resistance plus a quickened ward of peace is a very nice start to a defensive first round. The deity can not directly attack the truenamer. He must use AoE's. And the truenamer has mettle and evasion. So every AoE that come's to mind, pretty much needs the truenamer to fail his save before it is a threat.

Offensively he can automatically slow the deity.

Ban the deity from approaching him.

Restrict the deity from using magic to travel.

deal 10d6 damage for a few rounds (18d6 if he quickens a second Damage spell) [20d6 if u believe adding 2 to the DC makes it a completely different utterance and thus allowing 2 of the same utterances to be up at the same time] { more if you use spell like ability enhancing feats to up the damage dice}

apply a 1d6 con penalty to the deity. (possible 6-9 with feat help)



A truenamer is instantly better off than a wizard when facing a deity simply because these options, while not very impressive, will ACTUALLY succeed, regardless of the defenses available to the deity.

And because of this, a party designed around keeping the truenamer alive, or a party of truenamers all compounding these types of attacks, actually has a shot at winning in a fight versus a deity. Whereas, every other character, especially casters, have a snowballs chance in hell of even scratching a deity.

[Rimeheart]

Destroy people's faith in the god. Don't attack the god, attack his followers. Don't attack the followers to kill or enslave. Attack them by persuading them their god is false, dead, or abandoned them.
This, wreck their power input.

[Gotterdammerung]

This, wreck their power input.

This only works in Faerun and other worlds like it where the God gets power from worship.

There are still systems where the God just IS powerful.

And even in worlds where the God is reliant upon worshipers, High divine rank deities have amazing amounts of worshipers.

It is entirely possible that the God could sit back and not even get involved. And just from the natural course of retaliation, his worshipers would be able to organize and thwart you before you managed to kill them all.

But if the deity does get involved, now your facing a substantial population plus a deity.

This approach has almost no chance of success.

You truly need a deity to beat a deity.

[Lord Vukodlak]

This, wreck their power input.

If your talking about Zeus or any of the Olympian gods then worship is irrelevant to there personal power.

[Hawkings]

If you consider a Deity probably has worshipers on other planes of existence than just yours it becomes infinitely more difficult to steal their worship, in addition to the above posts which have excellent points.

Aside from that I think Asmodeus had the best plan as outlined in Fiendish codex II Tyrants of the nine Hells wherein he separates himself from the dependency of the gods by stealing energy from the souls of mortals. Moreover depending on the details in the pact primeval it’s possible that a deity that breaks the laws and becomes a transgressor is technically in Asmodeus’s jurisdiction and thus he can steal their power becoming a god himself.
Looking Asmodeus up on Wikipedia shows he becomes a god by “consuming the divine essence of Azuth” though I have no idea who this deity is or how it happened exactly.

So to defeat a god your plan will be this: Trick the gods at their own game and through legal arm wrestling wherein they have to give the souls they don’t take over to you, use this to separate yourself from their divine dependency by consuming the souls of mortals for energy, wait uncounted millennia for a god to mess up so you can legally steal their power, repeat until you’ve eaten enough gods to forcibly beat the rest and consume them.

At some point you’ll need to figure out a way to beat AO.

So yeah I guess become a devil, they’re cooler than the gods who’re jerks anyways and besides they’re basically doing exactly what you want to in one of the only ways known to work.

See you in Baator. :3

[Eldariel]

A truenamer is instantly better off than a wizard when facing a deity simply because these options, while not very impressive, will ACTUALLY succeed, regardless of the defenses available to the deity.

And because of this, a party designed around keeping the truenamer alive, or a party of truenamers all compounding these types of attacks, actually has a shot at winning in a fight versus a deity. Whereas, every other character, especially casters, have a snowballs chance in hell of even scratching a deity.

...but the deity acts first, has access to Disjunction-level FUs and has the standard magical defenses. Would be a folly to fight without the same array yourself. God forbid we're talking epic Wizards; if anything is going to give you a chance here, it's Epic Spellcasting that can trivially do practically anything.

No, this situation is no different from anything else. Truenamer lacks the breadth of defense and offense to be a relevant threat here. They can't even cast Teleport Through Time or Genesis! How the hell do you intend to defeat a deity without a mean to design an attack that he doesn't immediately sense and pre-empt or prepare for?

[olentu]

...but the deity acts first, has access to Disjunction-level FUs and has the standard magical defenses. Would be a folly to fight without the same array yourself. God forbid we're talking epic Wizards; if anything is going to give you a chance here, it's Epic Spellcasting that can trivially do practically anything.

No, this situation is no different from anything else. Truenamer lacks the breadth of defense and offense to be a relevant threat here. They can't even cast Teleport Through Time or Genesis! How the hell do you intend to defeat a deity without a mean to design an attack that he doesn't immediately sense and pre-empt or prepare for?

Presumably his idea is that truenaming is so obscure in universe that no one, even greater deities, could find out what it is and what it can do.

This seems unlikely.

[Emperor Tippy]

Uh, make a demiplane with no sky? Simple. Grab a clump of dirt, PoA it to a human twice, mindrape, repeat. No need to leave your demiplane.
Nope. A deities health and existence effect their own portfolios, a deity will always know when it is going to be attacked. There is no real way around it absent becoming immune to the deity something like 20 weeks before you decide to kill him.

[DoctorGlock]

So, considering that there are far better optimizers than I, how would you make an epic spell to kill a god? Detailed rundown if possible.

We need to hit a minimum of 4k damage, just in case, which is the trivial part

We need to fire from at least 20 weeks in the past so that the attack does not exist until it is too late, ideally we can do this from a point before the god exists. After all, it's the attack that alters the portfolio, not the plan.

We need to cross planar boundaries

We need to ignore all the defenses this guy might have

Who can build this. We have an arbitrary DC to work with but I'd like to see some actual specifics.

[Emperor Tippy]

To kill a deity only using the published stat blocks? Or to kill a deity who actually uses all their potential abilities?

The first is relatively simply, the second is nigh on impossible.

[DoctorGlock]

Both.

The first we can assume less buffs. He still has alter reality and precognition but less buff time since he doesn't fly around in a glowing buff superfortress.

The second one involves countering permanent epic spells protections and every printed spell ever, so we just assume all numbers are X. It's still doable because we have DCs of X. But since most DMs will not want to skim every book for staking buffs we will go with the first for now.

We just need to get around the foresight. How de we design our temporal cannon?

[Little Brother]

Nope. A deities health and existence effect their own portfolios, a deity will always know when it is going to be attacked. There is no real way around it absent becoming immune to the deity something like 20 weeks before you decide to kill him.That's a big stretch, even by my standards. How does losing a sky god affect the sky? It doesn't. It has nothing to do with that, so unless you're claiming having nothing to do with means relating to, I don't see it.

Second option: Time effects. Genesis lets you control the time, make a 6 seconds=20 weeks. You start before-hand, and the anticipate teleport buys you the time you need. Yes, you'll be gone for almost a year(40 weeks, 2 Love's Pain a round with Metamagic Reducers), but you'll be okay.


We just need to get around the foresight. How de we design our temporal cannon?As above. Remember, arcane Genesis lets you laugh at this idea of "time."

There are VERY few problems a creative use of Genesis can't solve.

[Socratov]

So, what if the gods are not statted out, but are all powerful, perfetly immortal and unhittable?

there will always be: The wish and The Word! (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Wish_and_the_Word_%283.5e_Optimized_Character_ Build%29)

it is said there is nothing they can't do... Yes, even that...

[DoctorGlock]

That's a big stretch, even by my standards. How does losing a sky god affect the sky? It doesn't. It has nothing to do with that, so unless you're claiming having nothing to do with means relating to, I don't see it.

Second option: Time effects. Genesis lets you control the time, make a 6 seconds=20 weeks. You start before-hand, and the anticipate teleport buys you the time you need. Yes, you'll be gone for almost a year(40 weeks, 2 Love's Pain a round with Metamagic Reducers), but you'll be okay.

As above. Remember, arcane Genesis lets you laugh at this idea of "time."

There are VERY few problems a creative use of Genesis can't solve.

The issue is that the god knows in absolute time, which is why we plan our attack far in past. Teleport through Time solves almost as many problems as genesis. What I want is a way to link the epic spell with the time port (Ad Hoc DC of whatever a level 9 spell is and reverse engineer the XP cost in, get something like +40 AD hoc DC to hit anything in the past or whatever the farthest in the future you have ever been is.

[Xtomjames]

Killing a god is actually quite easy in D&D. While they do have extraordinarily high SR and immunities and resistances, none of the gods are immune to force damage and acid damage. They might be immune to death from massive damage, but if you drop their HP to below zero in one hit (which you can) that doesn't matter. In fact killing a god is one of the expressed ways in the book Deities and Demigods for a mortal to gain divine rank.

One of the easiest ways to kill a god is to prepare a spell using the following metamagic feats and spells: Spell Fusion, Twin Spell, Dual Spell, Braid Spell, Repeat Spell, Echo Spell, Exaggerate Spell, Heighten Spell, Quicken Spell, Maximize Spell Energy Substitution (force), Elemental Lattice, and apply that all to Acid Orb (which ignores SR).

Spell Fusion allows you to use a higher level spell slot to cast two lower level spells at the same time, Acid Orb or Lesser Acid Orb are level 3 and 1 respectively. Since you're applying the other metamagic feats to Spell Fusion you're doubling an already doubled spell, then doubling it again, recasting it, and gaining a quickened heightened version of it as an echo spell which you can cast as a free action. Not only this but each time it repeats you gain two more echoes to recast as a free action.

If you're using the MP system instead of the spell slot system, then the total cost to do this is cheap (36 in total) one MP per spell slot that would have been used by stacking the metamagic feats. And how do I get all of these metamagic feats, well there is no rule saying how many you're limited to in stacking when using the MP system, and while I usually do it by getting a Divine Rank 1 and taking the Salient Divine Ability Alter Reality, there are a few other means of getting that many metamagic feats. For example playing an Artificer Wizard for example will get you quite a few bonus feats to take metamagic, and using a few flaws will get you what you need.

Finally damage: let us presume for just a moment that you're doing this at a high level, which means you have access to many other spells that do greater damage and can still bypass SR. applying the above method will also work for these. However as described above this is how much damage you'll do.

Lesser Acid Orb does 1d6 base; heighten increases that to 9d6*2(Spell fusion)*2(twin spell)*2(dual spell)*2(BraidSpell)=72*6+72*Elemental Lattice per casting (72*8) Energy Substitution (force) (still ignores SR) Exaggerate Spell (increase damage by 1.5, increase number of possible targets by 3, gain +3 damage per die granting a +432 damage) Echo Spell+Repeat spell grants an echo of the total spell to recast including repeat, repeat recasts the entire spell again and grants you two more echoes.

Total damage: Initial 1440, repeat +1440=2880 damage in the first usage, free action to cause that much damage again multiple times over.

Tactics: Cast this first before getting the attention of the god you wish to kill. (None of the gods that exist in the game have HP above 1300.) In doing this you have the echoes available to you immediately. You'll spend around 40-45 MP out of your total 200 or so at level 20. Get the attention of the god by murdering a whole bunch of people that follow him/her/it. Use a surprise action for when the god shows up (if they show up) to cast dimension anchor (which, unlike Anti-magic field and dispel magic which the gods are immune to, they can't circumvent) you prevent them from plane shifting, teleporting, or removing you or themselves form the battle (or from summoning other creatures to aid them etc). As a free action use one of the echoes from the spell and hit them with a 2880 points of force damage utterly obliterating them.

Tadah you've killed a god and gained their Divine Ranks. (Gaining Divine Ranks also applies to a god's avatar which also holds Divine Rank.)

[Emperor Tippy]

Except any god with even a modicum of sense will fill up all their missing immunities with Alter Reality, or items if they lack it.

A well built god really can't be killed, because anything anyone else in the game can do, the deity can do better, faster, and cheaper.

If you just use their published stat blocks, well a fair number of them can be killed by a dude with a sword.

[Little Brother]

The issue is that the god knows in absolute time, which is why we plan our attack far in past. Teleport through Time solves almost as many problems as genesis. What I want is a way to link the epic spell with the time port (Ad Hoc DC of whatever a level 9 spell is and reverse engineer the XP cost in, get something like +40 AD hoc DC to hit anything in the past or whatever the farthest in the future you have ever been is.That's not the point. The point is you start before he can know, AND can kill him before he can do anything. Teleport through Time has a few problems, including killing yourself and runs into butterfly effect/causality issues. Also, no need to bother with epic magic. I can get this combo off by level 11, you get your epic magic at level 21. 10 levels were stuff can be blown up in your face.

[Emperor Tippy]

No, a deity knows several weeks in advance of any attack made on them, their followers, that involves any of their domains/portfolio in any way. Oh yes, even mentioning attacking a greater deity is enough to trigger portfolio sense. Merely thinking about it brings the matter to DM adjudication.

If you can get around portfolio sense in some way then you can kill a deity. Without being able to do that though, you will fail.

[DoctorGlock]

No, a deity knows several weeks in advance of any attack made on them, their followers, that involves any of their domains/portfolio in any way. Oh yes, even mentioning attacking a greater deity is enough to trigger portfolio sense. Merely thinking about it brings the matter to DM adjudication.

If you can get around portfolio sense in some way then you can kill a deity. Without being able to do that though, you will fail.

Could any of the following help?
Vecna Blooded
Anethematic Secrecy (Elder Evil)
Impervious to the Divine (Elder Evils)


That's not the point. The point is you start before he can know, AND can kill him before he can do anything. Teleport through Time has a few problems, including killing yourself and runs into butterfly effect/causality issues. Also, no need to bother with epic magic. I can get this combo off by level 11, you get your epic magic at level 21. 10 levels were stuff can be blown up in your face.

I think timeport only causes problems if you encounter yourself. Start planning well before you exist. Better if it's like FR and you can travel back enough to predate the gods. Then from the god's perspective neither of you exist to get a lock on.

It all comes down to how absolute the DM interprets portfolio sense.

[Little Brother]

Could any of the following help?
Vecna Blooded
Anethematic Secrecy (Elder Evil)
Impervious to the Divine (Elder Evils)What is this Vecna-Blooded?

I think timeport only causes problems if you encounter yourself. Start planning well before you exist. Better if it's like FR and you can travel back enough to predate the gods. Then from the god's perspective neither of you exist to get a lock on.

It all comes down to how absolute the DM interprets portfolio sense.Safer form of time travel: Genesis a plane that goes backwards in time. Same benefit, admittedly slower, but no risk of killing yourself.

There is still the butterfly effect, which is why I'm worried, unless you create the spell Protection from Paradox, in which case that could still blow up in your face, as time could change without you. The genesis is just a safer option, honestly, and gives you a place to retreat if everything goes south.

[DoctorGlock]

What is this Vecna-Blooded?
Safer form of time travel: Genesis a plane that goes backwards in time. Same benefit, admittedly slower, but no risk of killing yourself.

There is still the butterfly effect, which is why I'm worried, unless you create the spell Protection from Paradox, in which case that could still blow up in your face, as time could change without you. The genesis is just a safer option, honestly, and gives you a place to retreat if everything goes south.

Huh, I forgot you could change time flow with genesis rather than just flow speed. That would work for the travel the issue being you still exist in the time stream. If you exist in stream then portfolio sense will absolutely get you. With port you only re enter the time stream at the moment that you strike with your god killer. Thus for all intents and purposes you do not exist to be portfolio sensed. This is of course open to interpretation by the DM. The real screwyness occurs if you strike from the future, because then your attack absolutely does not exist to be portfolio sensed before the fact. But once again that is arguable and depends on how deterministic your universe is. Which protfolio sense seems to imply that it is very deterministic in which case you cannot kill gods because there is no free will.

Vecna blooded is a fun little option from the god-blooded template which can be aquired from ancestry or ingesting actual divine blood. The vecna option makes you immune to any and all forms of divination, the question being whether portfolio sense falls under that.

[Chess435]

Doesn't porfolio sense work from the future as well for greater deities?

[Dulenheim]

I'm gonna sound like the biggest noob in the playground, but as someone who is also in LOOOOOOOVE with gods (and making new gods for that matter), i could have a few recommendations, but some of them require homebrewing some things.

One of the first things i could recommend, from DM to DM, is to make a part of the gods available to the players, and this said "piece" of the god can be used against him, be it as a weapon or an item.

This I have done in my game. Basically, if one of my players manages to find a "piece of a god" they could use it to create a god slaying weapon. (This would still need to find said god though).

Does that sound like a good idea to anyone? :smalltongue:

[Emperor Tippy]

Doesn't porfolio sense work from the future as well for greater deities?

Yes, yes it does.

[Karoht]

A high enough Diplomacy/Bluff can accomplish much, even as just distractions go.

In regards to Zeus, just tell him that [insert famous hero] was doing [insert naughtiness] to his wife. Or that his wife is cheating on him in general. That is sometimes his DON'T button depending on what myth you're reading. He's done some pretty aweful things once that button has been pushed.
Why kill him in a straight up fight? Distract, get other gods to fight him for you first and wear him out a bit, then kill him with your "Kill this God" plan.

Mind you as Emperor Tippy pointed out, there is still the portfolio sense to deal with, and you have to find out about the don't button somehow. Good luck to both.

[DoctorGlock]

A high enough Diplomacy/Bluff can accomplish much, even as just distractions go.

In regards to Zeus, just tell him that [insert famous hero] was doing [insert naughtiness] to his wife. Or that his wife is cheating on him in general. That is sometimes his DON'T button depending on what myth you're reading. He's done some pretty aweful things once that button has been pushed.
Why kill him in a straight up fight? Distract, get other gods to fight him for you first and wear him out a bit, then kill him with your "Kill this God" plan.

Mind you as Emperor Tippy pointed out, there is still the portfolio sense to deal with, and you have to find out about the don't button somehow. Good luck to both.

Well, not many of the gods have intelligence scores above 70, it would be possible to overwhelm a god with multiple data streams activating portfolio senses. Have thousands of temporal duplicates launch attacks from various points in time, have many of them in identical circumstances, when the god gets the data (if he gets the data due to the question of whether you exist or not) he does not know which is still the threat or if he is seeing the same event. You might be able to catch him off guard because he is certain he already dealt with you.

[Hawkings]

If portfolio sense allows the deity to see everything weeks in advance than he doesn’t have to see you preparing or casting the spell, he’ll simply see himself being smacked by a massive spell of whatever form, then he’ll have all that time to put his defenses up before that moment to counter it; or find some way to avoid the attack in general.

Vecna blood sounds like an interesting approach except finding divine blood to drink in the first place will be quite a task.

Perhaps the bar has been raised too high for your typical caster, maybe targeting demi gods who don’t have omni-senses and superfortress defenses will help to up your divine rank a bit so you can kill zeus as a demi god or lesser deity, this would at least put you into the same general cheating ballpark as other gods.

Also a deity can block another deity’s portfolio sense for a limited time though this doesn’t seem to be easy so making a deal with Zeus’s rival gods might give you your needed camouflage but at the cost of another god potentially mucking it up with their own ambitions.

[Eldariel]

Doesn't porfolio sense work from the future as well for greater deities?

It is, however, limited by time. You need but return in time to a sufficient number of years before that god's existence and you're free to do what you will. Though he will still detect his impending demise if any so if you do lay out a plan with the chance to succeed he'll be prepared (but who's prepared better is another question entirely).

Vecna-Blooded, plane with restricted school of Divination and such interact weirdly with Portfolio Sense. Which is what I've been saying all along, really. Much depends on if you can defeat Portfolio Sense and what works isn't explicit anywhere.


If portfolio sense allows the deity to see everything weeks in advance than he doesn’t have to see you preparing or casting the spell, he’ll simply see himself being smacked by a massive spell of whatever form, then he’ll have all that time to put his defenses up before that moment to counter it; or find some way to avoid the attack in general.

Vecna blood sounds like an interesting approach except finding divine blood to drink in the first place will be quite a task.

Perhaps the bar has been raised too high for your typical caster, maybe targeting demi gods who don’t have omni-senses and superfortress defenses will help to up your divine rank a bit so you can kill zeus as a demi god or lesser deity, this would at least put you into the same general cheating ballpark as other gods.

Also a deity can block another deity’s portfolio sense for a limited time though this doesn’t seem to be easy so making a deal with Zeus’s rival gods might give you your needed camouflage but at the cost of another god potentially mucking it up with their own ambitions.

The issue isn't power. A level 21 Wizard wields the same power as most deities (though few Salient Divine Abilities are pretty ridiculous; don't mess with Death deities, for instance). The issue is that we're talking about attacking a perfectly prepared defender. If the defender was a level 21 Wizard using his powers to their fullest, it would be just as difficult.

The issue is that the attacker needs an information advantage over the defender to successfully execute a plot in a case of equal power, and gaining that advantage over anyone with massively powerful clairvoyant senses (Wizards with Divination can see a ****ton too, though not nearly as encompassing as Portfolio Sense of course) just is pretty damn difficult.

[lorddrake]

Well... What about Iron Heart Surge the ability of the god to predict you and your attack?:smallamused:

[DoctorGlock]

Well... What about Iron Heart Surge the ability of the god to predict you and your attack?:smallamused:

You may have just won this thread.

[lorddrake]

You may have just won this thread.

It sure is the first step to world/plane conquest!

[Chess435]

You may have just won this thread.

I think he just did. :smallconfused::smallbiggrin::smallcool:

[OracleofWuffing]

The problem is, BY CROM will only get rid of just one effect or condition, so while you've got his portfolio sense down, the deity still has everything else. Unless you kill the deity in the same turn, you've just effectively informed the deity that someone's out to kill him. I mean, how many gods are going to go, "Oh hey, my portfolio sense is down. I guess that must mean nobody's going to kill me in the next five minutes, everything's peachy keen?"

I guess you could just BY CROM the deity's actual existence, but if you get to that point, theoretical optimization isn't fun anymore. :smallfrown:

In the meanwhile, what are the odds of using Genesis to create a demiplane where portfolio sense has no effect? Or is Alter Reality capable of just changing that property of the demiplane?

[DoctorGlock]

The problem is, BY CROM will only get rid of just one effect or condition, so while you've got his portfolio sense down, the deity still has everything else. Unless you kill the deity in the same turn, you've just effectively informed the deity that someone's out to kill him. I mean, how many gods are going to go, "Oh hey, my portfolio sense is down. I guess that must mean nobody's going to kill me in the next five minutes, everything's peachy keen?"

I guess you could just BY CROM the deity's actual existence, but if you get to that point, theoretical optimization isn't fun anymore. :smallfrown:

In the meanwhile, what are the odds of using Genesis to create a demiplane where portfolio sense has no effect? Or is Alter Reality capable of just changing that property of the demiplane?

Well, Iron Heart Surge the fact that an angry Zeus exists. You can Iron Heart anything by RAW

[marcielle]

Hey, I just thought of something. The book of Elder Evils is full of things that want to detroy the gods and everything within their domain. Now, those guys are some of the few things even gods would want to get of their butts to stop. But the gods don't. The Elder Evils generally need to be summoned/awakened. And when they are, gods will start dropping like flies. BUT, and it's a big but, they generally have to be summoned by mortals. Now, why don't the gods just step down or send someone to put a stop to the biggest threat to their very existance? Maybe they can't. This could imply that their undetectability extends not just to themselves but also to any directly working for them/ towards their freedom. As such, dedication to an Elder Evil might completely remove you from a gods detection(sort of like reverse portfolio sense). So, once you have dedicated yourself to an Elder Evil, you have as much time as you need to prepare and the gods cannot find you(or at least cannot interfere effectively). Side effects might include fate worse than Damnation but you are killing gods here. Probably won't be many heavens left anyway after you are done.

P.S. Since gods don't immediately kill anyone even thinking of devoting themselves to an Elder Evil, the protection is probably retroactive too.

[lorddrake]

The problem is, BY CROM will only get rid of just one effect or condition, so while you've got his portfolio sense down, the deity still has everything else. Unless you kill the deity in the same turn, you've just effectively informed the deity that someone's out to kill him. I mean, how many gods are going to go, "Oh hey, my portfolio sense is down. I guess that must mean nobody's going to kill me in the next five minutes, everything's peachy keen?"

I guess you could just BY CROM the deity's actual existence, but if you get to that point, theoretical optimization isn't fun anymore. :smallfrown:

In the meanwhile, what are the odds of using Genesis to create a demiplane where portfolio sense has no effect? Or is Alter Reality capable of just changing that property of the demiplane?

Okay... But will angry Zeus know who did it? I mean, it is not like we just poped up a flare and put some air show with smoke-letter saying "Hey, Zeus, it was this little puny creature called pun-pun who just screwed with your super-sense... Haha!"

Any kind of scrying would have to be "normal"... Can we deal with "normal"?

[marcielle]

Well, I don't think a gods supersenses actually extend beyond the material plane and their 'heaven'. Otherwise the devils and demons, of which only Asmodeus has a divine rank, would have a much harder time. Like I don't think a god of fire and gorge and that sort of thing would have that much pull in the elemental plane of fire. Just postulating though, but IIRC some of the denizens of other planes have their own gods and stuff. You shouldn't even need to exclude portfolios from your demiplane. If this is the case, god killing actually becomes a lot easier, since wizards go plane hopping frequently and they probably wouldn't notice if 1 didn't come back.

Also backing this up is how Vecna managed to plot against the Lady of Pain pre-divinity.

Speaking of which, no god may enter Sigil without the Lady's express permission. That's something to work with.

[OracleofWuffing]

Okay... But will angry Zeus know who did it? I mean, it is not like we just poped up a flare and put some air show with smoke-letter saying "Hey, Zeus, it was this little puny creature called pun-pun who just screwed with your super-sense... Haha!"

Any kind of scrying would have to be "normal"... Can we deal with "normal"?
Alter Reality duplicates any 9th level spell or lower as a standard action with no XP or material component, so... "I Wish that I knew the name, location, and intention of the being that just removed my Portfolio Sense." Yes, outside of the regular bounds of Wish, but seeing as how he's being played by the guy running the game, Monkey Paw does not apply. "I Wish I had my Portfolio Sense restored to me" would also work on the same lines.

That is, of course, assuming that Zeus decides to sit around doing research and not try to, say, teleport to a safety plane and then gather information about all this. And this is also assuming that "plotting to remove a deity's portfolio's sense" doesn't register on the deity's portfolio sense. *goes cross-eyed*


Well, I don't think a gods supersenses actually extend beyond the material plane and their 'heaven'.
By RAW, the sense applies to anyplace within 1 mile of a worshipper of said god, any time within 1 hour of speaking the god's name, and/or any location where an event related to the portfolio occurs. Also, higher deities know about any event involving 1,000 or more people, or one week past/future related to an event in their portfolio, heaven or not.

[Calanon]

I'm gonna sound like the biggest noob in the playground, but as someone who is also in LOOOOOOOVE with gods (and making new gods for that matter), i could have a few recommendations, but some of them require homebrewing some things.

One of the first things i could recommend, from DM to DM, is to make a part of the gods available to the players, and this said "piece" of the god can be used against him, be it as a weapon or an item.

This I have done in my game. Basically, if one of my players manages to find a "piece of a god" they could use it to create a god slaying weapon. (This would still need to find said god though).

Does that sound like a good idea to anyone? :smalltongue:

This is hilarious because my first epic game was a divine campaign where we were Lesser Deities asked to challenge Intermediate and up Deities

It ended when we saw a player steal Thor's Hammer and beat him to death with it... Best game ever (And ever since I've always wanted to have a character achieve godhood through means of combat :smallredface:)



I think timeport only causes problems if you encounter yourself. Start planning well before you exist. Better if it's like FR and you can travel back enough to predate the gods. Then from the god's perspective neither of you exist to get a lock on.

If I remember correctly the materials for Teleport through time are the most ridiculously hard to get items in the game, including


a pinch of dead skin, a drop of oil of timelessness, and a flower grown in soil untouched by any intelligent creature since the desired destination time.

So your first step is to find some soil that no creature has ever stepped on ever in the history of forever so you can travel back in time and begin your plan...

[Hawkings]

Also backing this up is how Vecna managed to plot against the Lady of Pain pre-divinity.

Speaking of which, no god may enter Sigil without the Lady's express permission. That's something to work with.

That's a good point, if we use what worked in other known examples of god slaying from the lore and it's to be taken seriously, than it'd be a good basis for whether or not these plans would work.

I know that Kelemvor defeated Cyric but that was due to him going insane, losing his followers, and other deities messing with him.

Anyone know of a relevant example of deicide?

[OracleofWuffing]

If I remember correctly the materials for Teleport through time are the most ridiculously hard to get items in the game, including
"a pinch of dead skin, a drop of oil of timelessness, and a flower grown in soil untouched by any intelligent creature since the desired destination time."
No specific gp cost on that means that they're all in the Spell Component Pouch.

[Calanon]

No specific gp cost on that means that they're all in the Spell Component Pouch.


The material components of this spell are a pinch of dead skin, a drop of oil of timelessness, and a flower grown in soil untouched by any intelligent creature since the desired destination time. The flower must be picked during the casting of the spell. Untouched soil is defined as soil that no creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher has walked on, touched, or disturbed in any way, and it is usually found in remote locations (putting soil in a portable container disturbs it). The caster does not know whether the soil has been disturbed too recently for the time travel attempt, and many wizards simply use trial and error to find suitable locations. In short, you must find a pristine area to cast this spell, then you travel back in time to the exact same location at which you cast the spell. Because important events in a character's life are highly unlikely to take place in pristine locales, it's unlikely you'll have the ability to use this spell to make two of yourself to appear in the same place at the same time. Once you cast the spell in a particular location, it is no longer pristine, making it even more difficult to arrange for three or more of your future selves to assemble together.

XP Cost: 1,000 XP.

I'd seriously like to see someone pull all of this out of a spell component pouch that in and of itself will make the Character a God and thus automatically fail the challenge :smalltongue:

[lorddrake]

No specific gp cost on that means that they're all in the Spell Component Pouch.

Dude! There is some weird stuff on that little pouch!

[Little Brother]

Or you can just use Eschew Materials. You're a Sorcerer or Wizard, you have feats to blow, or can, at the very least, make some feats for yourself. You should have access to at least one shuffle.

[Chess435]

Or you can just use Eschew Materials. You're a Sorcerer or Wizard, you have feats to blow, or can, at the very least, make some feats for yourself. You should have access to at least one shuffle.

Or if you're epic, Ignore Material Components for even less cheese.

[Jeraa]

Dude! There is some weird stuff on that little pouch!

And some nasty stuff as well - like the severed hands of good aligned humanoid clerics (for crushing Fist of Spite), the hearts of dwarven children (Abyssal Might), artifacts (usually a good one corrupted to evil, for Apocolypse from the Sky), the bones of still-living children (Boneblast), a portion of the target creatures body (Imprison Soul), urine-oaked holy symbols (Nethertrail), and humanoid brain tissue (psychic poison).

All have no listed cost, and so appear in every spell component pouch. (All spells from the BoVD if you couldn't guess.) I dropped all non-costly material components from all spells because of such stupidness.

[lorddrake]

And some nasty stuff as well - like the severed hands of good aligned humanoid clerics (for crushing Fist of Spite), the hearts of dwarven children (Abyssal Might), artifacts (usually a good one corrupted to evil, for Apocolypse from the Sky), the bones of still-living children (Boneblast), a portion of the target creatures body (Imprison Soul), urine-oaked holy symbols (Nethertrail), and humanoid brain tissue (psychic poison).

All have no listed cost, and so appear in every spell component pouch. (All spells from the BoVD if you couldn't guess.) I dropped all non-costly material components from all spells because of such stupidness.

I'm quitting magic school right now...

[OracleofWuffing]

I'd seriously like to see someone pull all of this out of a spell component pouch that in and of itself will make the Character a God and thus automatically fail the challenge :smalltongue:
It is, of course, widely known that I am a god of frogs, however, it does not take much divinity to do that.


Spell Component Pouch
A spellcaster with a spell component pouch is assumed to have all the material components and focuses needed for spellcasting, except for those components that have a specific cost, divine focuses, and focuses that wouldn’t fit in a pouch.

It's like how in another edition, Mordenkainen wrote about how awful potions taste, but, right there, in a cantrip, is something that changes the flavor of stuff.

[Calanon]

It is, of course, widely known that I am a god of frogs, however, it does not take much divinity to do that.


This is making me want to make a god of frogs :smalleek:


It's like how in another edition, Mordenkainen wrote about how awful potions taste, but, right there, in a cantrip, is something that changes the flavor of stuff.

Mordekainen doesn't know what he's talking about... Potions taste delicious! *reads potion of Inflict Moderate wounds* *It was written with Explosive rounds* FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU

[herrhauptmann]

That's a good point, if we use what worked in other known examples of god slaying from the lore and it's to be taken seriously, than it'd be a good basis for whether or not these plans would work.

I know that Kelemvor defeated Cyric but that was due to him going insane, losing his followers, and other deities messing with him.

Anyone know of a relevant example of deicide?

Twilight War Trilogy by Paul S Kemp.
The two Chosen of Mask Erevis Cale and Drasek Riven, Shar's most powerful mortal servant Prince Rivalen Tanthul fought against the original Chosen of Mask: Kesson Rel. Kesson Rel who went mad, killed his world, converted to Shar, and was imprisoned on the plane of shadow. Where he ruled from the Adumbral Calyx (sp?) as Volumvax, Shar's Shadow.

It took the 3 of them, a half-fiend psion son of Mephistopheles controlling an intelligent artifact (the mythal that powered the floating city of shade), and a miracle wrought by a few dozen servants of Lathander. All that to kill one deity with divine rank 0. (I don't think he had any salient abilities)

Beyond that? I can't think of any that were mortals killing a god. A few of mortals killing another very powerful mortal, and a number of gods killing gods.

[Jothki]

Wouldn't it be easier to fire from the present into 20 weeks in the future?

[lorddrake]

Wouldn't it be easier to fire from the present into 20 weeks in the future?

Then he'll predict being hit and protect himself against the attack...

[Wings of Peace]

A better system would be to choose a particular deity to target, evaluate his available spells, Salient Abilities, Metamagics etc, and then formulate a strategy from there. Not entirely impossible for a character either, given that a high level caster has access to time-travel and elemental weirds.

[marcielle]

Another thing. Their intentional standard action remote sensing stipulates that they 'can cross planes and penetrate any barrier' but their portfolio sense specifically lacks this clause. This makes sense since a god of fire would be constantly geting a whole reality's worth of pings from the elemental plane of fire. Zeus would NEVER stop hearing about every lightning bolt and hurricane in the plane of air. All that sort of thing.
Also, where does it say that a gods portfolio sense includes himself(it probably is there, I just want to know the source so I can scan for loopholes)?
So as far as I understand, the current plan would be go to Sigil, open a gate and echoblast the god with a saveless, SR:NO spell?
And don't worry about the Lady, at least not more than anyone else living in Sigil. IIRC, plotting the downfall of gods is one of the few things not actually on her list of peeves.

[Emperor Tippy]

Which is irrelevant.


Demigods have a limited ability to sense events involving their portfolios. They automatically sense any event that involves one thousand or more people. The ability is limited to the present. Lesser deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios and affects five hundred or more people. Intermediate deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios, regardless of the number of people involved. In addition, their senses extend one week into the past for every divine rank they have. Greater deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios, regardless of the number of people involved. In addition, their senses extend one week into the past and one week into the future for every divine rank they have. When a deity senses an event, it merely knows that the event is occurring and where it is. The deity receives no sensory information about the event. Once a deity notices an event, it can use its remote sensing power to perceive the event.

Different planes, anti-divination defenses, etc. are all worthless. If something falls under a deities portfolio, they simply know about the event. And arguing that an attack on a deity isn't relevant to the portfolios that that deity works for is incredibly disingenuous.

Getting another deity to block portfolio sense and/or planning and acting outside the time limits is the only real way around it.

Epic spells can probably do it, but that involves ad hoc DC modifiers. Artifacts might exist that can block a deity's portfolio senses. IIRC at least one epic prc that was posted on the WotC sight had a capstone that rendered them immune to PS as well.

[marcielle]

I'm NOT arguing that it isn't within portfolio sense. I just asked WHERE it is stated so I may commence the search for loopholes. And like I said, that quote lacks the crosses all boundaries clause explicitly put into their intentional remote sensing. If they DID in fact had that much sensing power they would be EASIER to sneak up on. An average human with 10 Int has to block out 70% of the stimulus received from our tiny bodies. Even with 1000 times as much brain power, gods that sensed all things across planar boundaries, would be so bombarded that they'd easily let slip a mortal or 2(especially gods with things like 'storms' who would be sensing half of the elemental plane of air ALL THE TIME). Also, don't forget serving an Elder Evil. There was one that only hated gods, some sorta snake thing. One might argue that a god shouldn't have limits, but thats what ability scores show. Limits. If it has a score, there are things it can't do due to having too low a score. The lady of pain is unbeatable ONLY because she doesn't have scores. Her other powers could probably be beaten by optimizers given reign of cheese.

[Gotterdammerung]

Deities and Demigods

Pg 19 sidebar "Why God's Rarely Die."

Pg 52-53 Rollplaying a God: Meeting a God.


I think it is funny that someone proposed the wish and the word.

Since wish is immune to word. And wish is basically character whose entire strength comes from abusing infinite wishes.

And... God's have infinite wishes without any tricks. And their wish is stronger than mortal wish.



Also, I think all this talk of time hopping is silly.

No matter what point in time you decide to attack Zeus, when you finally show up to attack him, he will be under the open sky.

And he will see this attack 19 weeks ahead of you.
This actually means that he knows exactly what you are going to do in the fight as well.
He knows exactly which holes to fill in his immunities.

He can even take time to build an elaborate deistic trap right in the square you will stand in.

Or just decide to not be there.

OR he might decide to kill you 19 weeks ago and catch you unprepared.

When you scream to the GM "WHy the #%5 did Zeus just show up to my secret lair and KILL me?"

The GM can say "Well in the future you go back in time to try to sidestep his portfolio sense. A future version of yourself would have actually arrived in this timeline a week from now. And 19 weeks from now you try to kill Zeus. So he figured he would be pre-emptive and kill you now while you are lvl 5."

(sidenote- funny way to get rid of a character you are having problems with early in a campaign.)


You aren't going to kill a 19 divine rank god with just a loophole. You need divine help (including becoming a 19 rank God yourself first as a possibility.)

[OracleofWuffing]

And like I said, that quote lacks the crosses all boundaries clause explicitly put into their intentional remote sensing.
"Any event that involves their portfolios" is quite absolute, and it should be noted that the clause you're speaking of qualifies the ability to be blocked by a Divine Shield. Portfolio Sense lacking that clause means Divine Shield has no affect on it, not that it is limited to a plane that is not mentioned.


An average human with 10 Int has to block out 70% of the stimulus received from our tiny bodies. Even with 1000 times as much brain power, gods that sensed all things across planar boundaries, would be so bombarded that they'd easily let slip a mortal or 2(especially gods with things like 'storms' who would be sensing half of the elemental plane of air ALL THE TIME).
And now, it would be your turn to show us where the rules indicate that a deity can be overwhelmed by stimuli.

In which case, the solution to killing a god is to cast Magic Mouth until Zeus' head explodes.

[marcielle]

Thanks Got. Now let's see if I can find anything.


In which case, the solution to killing a god is to cast Magic Mouth until Zeus' head explodes.

Lol. And no, I have no RAW. Just mathematical postulation. Like saying antidiv doesn't work on Portfolio sense cos it doesn't work on his remote sense.

[RedWarrior0]

Okay, I've figured it out. One of the earlier DMGs had a "The DM is always right" clause, with no restrictions. So, you run a game in that edition, then say that you killed Zeus in this universe.

[Amiel]

Neither of which matter.

You grab a couple dozen or so level 1 commoners, Mind Rape them each to love Zeus, hit them with a quickened, maximized, chained Love's Pain followed up by a maximized, chained Love's Pain and Zeus takes 60 damage per commoner.

Zeus has no standing defense against Love's Pain.

Although that still doesn't get around his precognition. Which will let him hang out in an AMF when you go to whack him.

I imagine this would be difficult, give the nature of the Divine Splendor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#divineSplendor) SDA which Zeus has.

[Emperor Tippy]

I imagine this would be difficult, give the nature of the Divine Splendor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#divineSplendor) SDA which Zeus has.
Does nothing to block Love's Pain.

[Dalek-K]

Read the first page and now I need to leave but before I do I figured I would input something that happened in my game...

Commoner Railgun (or whatever it is called..)

My players wanted to kill a deity so they convinced tons of worshipers that giving the deity a item would be the best way to show their love.

But who to give it to the deity? After getting the deity down there, the followers would fight against each other on who got to touch the item that was offered to the god as an offering.

So they set up EVERY follower of the deity they could (didn't take to long due to a diplomancer + teleporting mage) and made it where they would all stand in a line that ended with one of the players at the very end to "hand" the item to the deity.

miles upon miles of commoners passing along a golden image of the god... Then the last one lets it fly at the deity.

I forget all the enhancements they put on it but the deity died, and all the followers killed themselves due to helping killing their deity... So when he re-spawned he had no followers ^ ^

I'm sure there was holes in their plans somewhere but the fact they used the deities followers to help kill the deity... I gave them bonus points. :)

[marcielle]

Sir, that was beautiful. Diety sense would have pinged any attack but is useless against the ole Trojan Horse lol. Or in this case, Trojan Railgun.

[Calanon]

Read the first page and now I need to leave but before I do I figured I would input something that happened in my game...

Commoner Railgun (or whatever it is called..)

My players wanted to kill a deity so they convinced tons of worshipers that giving the deity a item would be the best way to show their love.

But who to give it to the deity? After getting the deity down there, the followers would fight against each other on who got to touch the item that was offered to the god as an offering.

So they set up EVERY follower of the deity they could (didn't take to long due to a diplomancer + teleporting mage) and made it where they would all stand in a line that ended with one of the players at the very end to "hand" the item to the deity.

miles upon miles of commoners passing along a golden image of the god... Then the last one lets it fly at the deity.

I forget all the enhancements they put on it but the deity died, and all the followers killed themselves due to helping killing their deity... So when he re-spawned he had no followers ^ ^

I'm sure there was holes in their plans somewhere but the fact they used the deities followers to help kill the deity... I gave them bonus points. :)

WOW that is an attack that doesn't even count as an attack... You sir have just cheated but DAMN was that an amazing scheme. You sir have given me an ingenious idea :smallamused:

[Emperor Tippy]

Except, you know, it doesn't work. Even in real world physics.

It's frame dragging, not acceleration. The staff never exceeds a velocity of around 5/second.

[Little Brother]

Except, you know, it doesn't work. Even in real world physics.

It's frame dragging, not acceleration. The staff never exceeds a velocity of around 5/second.I am going to just say the distance was six miles, for convenience.

So, 1 mile/second=5 feet/second? Interesting math you got there. So does 1+1=10560?

[Emperor Tippy]

I am going to just say the distance was six miles, for convenience.

So, 1 mile/second=5 feet/second? Interesting math you got there. So does 1+1=10560?
It's frame dragging. While, objectively, the staff travels six miles in 6 seconds the staff it's self never exceeds the speed at which each commoner is handing it off (say 5 feet/second).

From the staffs frame of reference (what you use to calculate kinetic energy and the like), it never exceeds 5/second.

[Little Brother]

It's frame dragging. While, objectively, the staff travels six miles in 6 seconds the staff it's self never exceeds the speed at which each commoner is handing it off (say 5 feet/second).

From the staffs frame of reference (what you use to calculate kinetic energy and the like), it never exceeds 5/second.No. The speed is absolute. It goes a mile a second. Period.

[marcielle]

You basically broke the laws of physics by going faster than you were actually going?

OK. It is NOT 5/sec because the commoners AREN'T handing it off at 5 a sec. They are handing it off at a speed that would allow the object to reach the end of the line within the confines of the action's time. In effect, the commoner railgun does not directly accelerate the object, but rather, each commoner added to the railgun actually decreases the time taken for 1 commoner to pass it 5 feet. The only commoner that really matters is the last one, who, in order to pass the object to the god within the timeframe alloted for the passing, passed it at FUNKTACULOUS speed.

Basically, the more people in a passing line, the faster each person passes it.

[Fax Celestis]

No. The speed is absolute. It goes a mile a second. Period.

Please indicate to me where there are rules that cover transfer of kinetic energy through quick-moving objects.

[marcielle]

Here it is. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool)

Also, if a quick moving object does not transfer it's kinetic energy within the confines of DnD logic, arrows do no damage. Bullrushes become all sorts of messed up. Force magic would probably have no effect, as since it seems to deal with the transfer of kinetic energy. Falling would do no damage. 'Rocks fall' wouldn't work.

There is no RAW saying it would happen if that's what you mean, but also none saying it wouldn't. However, many of the game's mechanics depend on objects transfering kinetic energy and assume that they do.

[Rejakor]

>because commoner railgun, for which there are no rules doesn't work, archery and force spells don't work, even though they have rules that say they do
>saying the rules don't matter because ???
>physics > rules
>catgirs

[Little Brother]

If rules say nothing on the subject, go with physics.

And if you have 6 miles of commoners(easy to do with leadership) shennanigans , you have a log going mach 4.5~.

[Fax Celestis]

Here it is. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool)

Also, if a quick moving object does not transfer it's kinetic energy within the confines of DnD logic, arrows do no damage. Bullrushes become all sorts of messed up. Force magic would probably have no effect, as since it seems to deal with the transfer of kinetic energy. Falling would do no damage. 'Rocks fall' wouldn't work.

There is no RAW saying it would happen if that's what you mean, but also none saying it wouldn't. However, many of the game's mechanics depend on objects transfering kinetic energy and assume that they do.

An arrow does damage because that's what it says happens if you beat armor class with an attack roll while using a bow and arrow. Same for falling, etc.

[Siosilvar]

If rules say nothing on the subject, go with physics.

And if you have 6 miles of commoners(easy to do with leadership) shennanigans , you have a log going mach 4.5~.

The rules say that you can move the log 6 miles in 6 seconds by passing it by hand, but it would do no more damage at the end than if it had been thrown by the first commoner.

Physics says you can't pass it that was by hand, but if you could, it would have a lot of energy built up and do a lot of damage.

Which interpretation would you like? You can't have it both ways, because that does weird things to the world.

[marcielle]

Note that, althought it says that a character takes damage when he falls, nowhere in the SRD does it say a character actually falls if he happens to be in midair without any means of support.

[Fax Celestis]

Note that, althought it says that a character takes damage when he falls, nowhere in the SRD does it say a character actually falls if he happens to be in midair without any means of support.


The rules say that you can move the log 6 miles in 6 seconds by passing it by hand, but it would do no more damage at the end than if it had been thrown by the first commoner.

Physics says you can't pass it that was by hand, but if you could, it would have a lot of energy built up and do a lot of damage.

Which interpretation would you like? You can't have it both ways, because that does weird things to the world.

This is basically what I was trying to say.

[tyckspoon]

There is no RAW saying it would happen if that's what you mean, but also none saying it wouldn't. However, many of the game's mechanics depend on objects transfering kinetic energy and assume that they do.

The biggest problem I have with trying to actually commoner-railgun something is this attempt to *only* apply physics at the very end. You don't get to have it both ways, because there are in fact rules for what happens when you try to launch an object at somebody with intent to hit and damage; you use the rules for throwing an improvised weapon. You'll do d3 to d6 damage depending on exactly what you throw and you can accurately aim it within 10 feet. Woo.

Or you can declare physics are in operation the entire way down the chain, which means all you have to do is get it to a certain speed and pointed toward the thing you want to blow up. It *also* means at some point in the chain of commoners the object will be moving too fast to be held, and will simply rip its way through the rest of the 'railgun', getting tumbled off-target as it burns energy bursting through their meat and bones, and coming to rest relatively harmlessly in some randomized location.

What you don't get to claim is that you can accelerate it safely along all those commoners, because that's what the rules say about handing off objects, and then arbitrarily choose to ignore the rules and go with physics instead when you want to deliver it to a target.

[marcielle]

Lol, you gotta love RAW. Wonder if anyone ever found these holes before? Don't forget, if you apply physics all the way down, the object will never reach that velocity because the commoners muscles are incapable of accelerating the object further beyond a certain point and the rules break. Also, the God simply ceases to exist in the first place. And magic. And the whole DnD world probably tears itself apart at some point.

[Little Brother]

The rules say that you can move the log 6 miles in 6 seconds by passing it by hand, but it would do no more damage at the end than if it had been thrown by the first commoner.

Physics says you can't pass it that was by hand, but if you could, it would have a lot of energy built up and do a lot of damage.

Which interpretation would you like? You can't have it both ways, because that does weird things to the world.As I've said, if RAW says something, that is gospel. If it doesn't, you apply physics as is. RAW says you can pass objects. Therefore you can pass the log 6 miles before it does anything. Can't vouch for the passer's safety, but whatever, they're commoners, who cares?

And I wan't even talking about it going, I got dragged into it. I only popped in to correct Tippy in that 1 mile/second does in fact equal 1 mile/second.

The biggest problem I have with trying to actually commoner-railgun something is this attempt to *only* apply physics at the very end. You don't get to have it both ways, because there are in fact rules for what happens when you try to launch an object at somebody with intent to hit and damage; you use the rules for throwing an improvised weapon. You'll do d3 to d6 damage depending on exactly what you throw and you can accurately aim it within 10 feet. Woo.Again, RAW trumps physics. And do you think you'd be able accurately throw it at all?

Or you can declare physics are in operation the entire way down the chain, which means all you have to do is get it to a certain speed and pointed toward the thing you want to blow up. It *also* means at some point in the chain of commoners the object will be moving too fast to be held, and will simply rip its way through the rest of the 'railgun', getting tumbled off-target as it burns energy bursting through their meat and bones, and coming to rest relatively harmlessly in some randomized location.Nope, RAW, then physics, then implied stuffs. The log passes during the commoner's turn, then it can combust. No Guarantee about the commoner's safety, but they get their readied actions first.

What you don't get to claim is that you can accelerate it safely along all those commoners, because that's what the rules say about handing off objects, and then arbitrarily choose to ignore the rules and go with physics instead when you want to deliver it to a target.Nope. The last person tries to throw it at something far away. Somewhere along here, RAW stops, so physics takes over. Then you have a log going somewhere at mach 4+

[0nimaru]

There are rules covering most everything. The log can be looked at most any way you want and it is still covered by some sort of rule.

1) An object leaves the commoner's hand intending to hit a target. This is an improvised ranged attack.

2) The last commoner uses a free action to drop the log. An unattended object is falling sideways through the air. Objects don't fall sideways on the prime, but at worst the target gets a Reflex to avoid a falling object (heroes of battle, I believe).

3) DM adjudicates that the line of peasants is not accurately described by the default initiative system and either declares them a version of a mob or digs through the rules on mass combat. These still end up requiring a ranged attack roll.


#2 Is obviously what you're going for with the rail-gun, but it creates a lot of issues that get ignored or forgotten. If you apply physics everywhere the rules don't say not to, you end up with plenty of bizarre situations. Do fireballs leech heat from the surrounding area or decrease oxygen? We have rules for the frost patches created or the thin oxygen zones! Does the rapidly expanding mass of an unshrinked item cause it to lose force when it impacts due to the unchanged acceleration? Better break out the modulating acceleration chapter from Phys 102!

It's commonly understood that you can't arbitrarily add physics where rules leave a tiny gap or the madness escalates wildly.

[Calanon]

This is not a thread to debate rules of RAW or RAI or whatever. This is a thread to discuss deicide and possible ways of achieving it within the rules of 3.5

If you come up with a plan that pretty much rips the entire multiverse asunder and replaces you as the new one and only divine creature in all of creation than so be it. Explain to us how you do such a thing. As previously stated you can perform one Epic Spell with a Spellcraft DC of infinity for all I care and any source dating back from basic to 3.5 (excluding Dragon magazine)

If the railgun trick is a powerful way to slaughter a deity than proceed...

[tyckspoon]

Nope. The last person tries to throw it at something far away. Somewhere along here, RAW stops, so physics takes over. Then you have a log going somewhere at mach 4+

Gaaaaaah. THE RAW NEVER STOPS. It's an improvised thrown weapon. There are rules for that. It will never do what proponents of this tactic claim.

[Little Brother]

Gaaaaaah. THE RAW NEVER STOPS. It's an improvised thrown weapon. There are rules for that. It will never do what proponents of this tactic claim.Eh, drop it. That's what I was thinking. Drop, not attack. It drops, there is no description, so it leaves your hands and continues traveling at mach 4.6.

That better?

[Emperor Tippy]

If the railgun trick is a powerful way to slaughter a deity than proceed...
Except for the slight fact that it's not, you know, actually RAW possible or inline with real life physics.


Eh, drop it. That's what I was thinking. Drop, not attack. It drops, there is no description, so it leaves your hands and continues traveling at mach 4.6.

That better?

No, by both RAW and real life physics it falls straight down. By RAW, unless an object is thrown or an exception is noted then dropping it will cause it to fall straight down and land in the square it's currently in/over.

By real life physics, we are talking about multiple frames of reference. The only frame of reference that matters when talking kinetic energy is the personal reference frame (this would be that of the Staff). From the outside observer reference frame the staff has moved an arbitrary distance in 6 seconds; such a person attempting to calculate it's velocity and thus kinetic energy would get a suitably impressive number. However, from the frame of reference of any given commoner in the chain the staff moves 30 feet in 6 seconds or 5 feet per second and his calculation of it's kinetic energy would be significantly at variance with the outsider observer's calculation.

And then comes the only reference frame that matters for the actual kinetic energy contained in the staff; it's own frame of reference. Kinetic energy is a function of how much energy was imparted to the object, and by the staffs reference frame it has had a constant velocity of 5 feet per second the entire time.

If you want to actually bring physics into D&D then that's fine, but make sure you are correct when you do so. Amateur high school physics are not what you use to describe warps in space time or paradoxes.

[PirateMonk]

By real life physics, we are talking about multiple frames of reference. The only frame of reference that matters when talking kinetic energy is the personal reference frame (this would be that of the Staff). From the outside observer reference frame the staff has moved an arbitrary distance in 6 seconds; such a person attempting to calculate it's velocity and thus kinetic energy would get a suitably impressive number. However, from the frame of reference of any given commoner in the chain the staff moves 30 feet in 6 seconds or 5 feet per second and his calculation of it's kinetic energy would be significantly at variance with the outsider observer's calculation.

And then comes the only reference frame that matters for the actual kinetic energy contained in the staff; it's own frame of reference. Kinetic energy is a function of how much energy was imparted to the object, and by the staffs reference frame it has had a constant velocity of 5 feet per second the entire time.

In the staff's frame of reference, wouldn't it be at rest? Or does that mean something else? In any case, wouldn't you care about its kinetic energy in the target's frame?

[Little Brother]

No, by both RAW and real life physics it falls straight down. By RAW, unless an object is thrown or an exception is noted then dropping it will cause it to fall straight down and land in the square it's currently in/over.

By real life physics, we are talking about multiple frames of reference. The only frame of reference that matters when talking kinetic energy is the personal reference frame (this would be that of the Staff). From the outside observer reference frame the staff has moved an arbitrary distance in 6 seconds; such a person attempting to calculate it's velocity and thus kinetic energy would get a suitably impressive number. However, from the frame of reference of any given commoner in the chain the staff moves 30 feet in 6 seconds or 5 feet per second and his calculation of it's kinetic energy would be significantly at variance with the outsider observer's calculation.

And then comes the only reference frame that matters for the actual kinetic energy contained in the staff; it's own frame of reference. Kinetic energy is a function of how much energy was imparted to the object, and by the staffs reference frame it has had a constant velocity of 5 feet per second the entire time.

If you want to actually bring physics into D&D then that's fine, but make sure you are correct when you do so. Amateur high school physics are not what you use to describe warps in space time or paradoxes.No. If you stop exerting any force and cease contact with an object, it will continue in the way it was going. You let go, but it's still going mach 4.6 when you let go, so it continues at mach 4.6 until it slows down or runs into something.This is nothing like a warp in space or time or anything like that. This is simple. It is, it went 6 miles in 6 seconds. What you're trying to say is 31680/6=30/6 It is absurd. It cannot have an average speed of 5 feet/second for 6 seconds and still go 31680 feet in 6 seconds. It does. Not. Work.

So, yeah, try again.

[PirateMonk]

This is nothing like a warp in space or time or anything like that. This is simple.

All actions in a round happen in the same six seconds, and yet they are carried out sequentially. That's pretty clearly a time warp. I don't think relativity is really equipped to handle it, however.

[herrhauptmann]

No. If you stop exerting any force and cease contact with an object, it will continue in the way it was going. You let go, but it's still going mach 4.6 when you let go, so it continues at mach 4.6 until it slows down or runs into something.This is nothing like a warp in space or time or anything like that. This is simple. It is, it went 6 miles in 6 seconds. What you're trying to say is 31680/6=30/6 It is absurd. It cannot have an average speed of 5 feet/second for 6 seconds and still go 31680 feet in 6 seconds. It does. Not. Work.

So, yeah, try again.
Little brother:
You've never covered the physics of motion at relativistic speeds, have you? Now, I hate the stuff, but here's some physics for you.

One of the fun aspects of time dilation, it can also be used for shortening the perceived distance traveled.
Look at the Muon. Average lifetime of 2.2 u-seconds. They are created in the upper atmosphere, and by newtonian physics, should only travel a few hundred meters before decaying. But since they hit relativistic speeds, they experience time dilation OR length shortening, depending on frame of reference:
Muon frame of reference, it is motionless and the universe rushes past at high speeds. The distance of 4 kilometers or so is shortened for the muon, to about 200m, much shorter than the distance covered by the average muon before decay.

If you ask nicely, I'll come back with the proper equations instead of just saying it.

So commoner railgun. Assuming that 'handing an item to someone' counts as an action that can deal damage...
What's to prevent a deity from realizing what's happening (through one of their many abilities), and just ready an action of his own? A readied action to take a 5ft step away when someone tries to hand something to him?
Even if handing the item takes 6 seconds for a few miles, it still takes some time to get everyone in position. By that time, the deity should be able to realize someone is trying to kill him, and how. And if the diplomancer that started this is able to block himself from that level of prescience, why bother with commoners in the first place?

[OracleofWuffing]

What's to prevent a deity from realizing what's happening (through one of their many abilities), and just ready an action of his own? A readied action to take a 5ft step away when someone tries to hand something to him?
Wouldn't an object traveling that fast create a sonic boom that would damage the surrounding area? The deity should try to move farther than 5 feet, just in case.

OW OW OW okay I'm joking. Put down the tomatoes. I know nothing about sonic booms and how wide of an area they affect or how damaging they are, heck, for all I know, they probably would do like 1 damage if that 'cause I see planes come in all the time and they're supposed to create sonic booms or something but I never see anything get hurt by them.

EDIT:

Don't you have to kill a deity in their own plane in order to actually finish them off? so how do you get 6 miles worth of commoners there?
Simple, bring two commoners- one boy and one girl- and, well, let nature happen. :smalltongue:

[motionmatrix]

Don't you have to kill a deity in their own plane in order to actually finish them off? so how do you get 6 miles worth of commoners there?

I may be completely wrong, so if flame me if I deserve it =)

[Calanon]

Simple, bring two commoners- one boy and one girl- and, well, let nature happen. :smalltongue:

I like you the most now :smallsmile:

Keep this reasonable people, lets not merge physics and Magic which tell those very laws to get back in the celestial kitchen and make it a damn sandwich

[Little Brother]

Simple, bring two commoners- one boy and one girl- and, well, let nature happen. :smalltongue:Or optimize leadership?

[Rejakor]

If rules say nothing on the subject, go with physics.

Physics says that passing something from hand to hand in that manner would never generate that kind of speed. Thus, the only logical scientific explanation is Tippy's/something else plausible, like magical time distortion or the power of montage.

The thing about using RAW, is that it actually has to be RAW. This is 'a loophole in RAW' + 'my view of what it should mean if physics was real in DnD'. The first part? Fair enough. Not actually useful for this discussion in any way (you're essentially saying 'use pun pun!' but dumber, as the god STILL knows that the attack is coming 18 weeks before it comes (he is under the sky, he is therefore part of his portfolio, his portfoliosense reaches 18 weeks into the future, ergo), he has persistent contingent twinned repeated double tenacious Delay Death so is immune to death by damage, and it still relies on the damned thing hitting him, which due to several 'no, no, you don't have LoE' spells, and immediate action teleportation, is extremely uncertain) due to the fact that the OP asked for reasonable methods of killing a god, not Sarrukh-level stupidity, but hey. The second part? Less fair, less enough. You're asking for a houserule to make your trick work. Can't do that if you're relying on RAW not RAI. No mixing houserules + literal interpretations of RAW, as any decent or even impartial GM will shoot you down completely and utterly. The RAW is pretty clear. A bunch of commoners passing things to each other doesn't make the item shoot off into the distance for hundreds of thousands of D6 of damage. The last commoner in the line is left holding the item in his hands. That is what RAW says. Anything else is asking for a houserule. If you want to homebrew up an item that oneshots gods, no questions asked, that's great, but that's not the point of the discussion, and it's not particularly insightful or clever.

Also, Tippy's point of view is that DnD physics explicitly happen sequentially. That is, what an outside (out of turn) observer observes is not actually what happens from the PoV of the in-turn observers. I.e. The amount of time it takes for a DnD 'turn' is 6 seconds x the number of people taking turns. Under that system, if physics was actually relevant to the thread or the game, which it isn't, the staff's speed would not be the distance travelled / six seconds. It would be the distance travelled / a variable amount of time, that could be hours. As a note, quant. level physics already does things like this. We just generally don't notice as we move real slow. Also we edit it out of consciousness/timestream in order to make the world make more sense to us.

EDIT:

Another explanation that could work is that relativistic time dilation works as wackily as magic does in DnD-land. But I really don't want to think about that as it hurts my brain.

I'll just stick to 'if you're adding houserules into the mix, just make one that you can kill gods by flipping them the bird, inb4 'reasonable houserules' trollololololololololololol'

EDIT EDIT:

To put this even further into perspective, under real life physics, after, oh, the 30th? commoner, the commoners wouldn't be able to hold the object/pass it along quick enough. Their literal muscles can't move that fast. Not to mention that the friction of it's passage would burn off their skin.

[marcielle]

Frames still cause the same effectbecause the commoners ARE NOT passing the log at 5/sec, but rather at distance/time per second. This means the last frame is passing it at 1mile/sec and dropping it instead of passing invokes physics because there is no RAW covering sideways momentum of a dropped object. This only works if you use Physics when RAW doesn't cover something. AND YOU HAVE TO. RAW, nothing says you actually fall down when you are in midair with no support, unless you specifically jump/fly. Tower you are on falls down? Nothing says you fall with it.

[Eldan]

Actually, looking at it by real life physics, the staff stops for a moment every time it is handed on to the next commoner.

Hand something to someone next to you. It doesn't move constantly, you both stop for a very short moment. The movement is also not in an exactly straight line.

[marcielle]

Indeed, but the handing is NOT meant to accelerate it directly, Rather, each person in the handing line makes everyone else hand it faster, including, and this IS the point, the last person, who drops it while passing it at 1 mile/sec. Ain't that screwy?*carrot*

[TroubleBrewing]

Eh, drop it. That's what I was thinking. Drop, not attack. It drops, there is no description, so it leaves your hands and continues traveling at mach 4.6.

That better?

The SRD disagrees.


Drop an Item
Dropping an item in your space or into an adjacent square is a free action.

[marcielle]

So it travels at mach 4 for about 5 feet and suddenlly stops?:smalleek:
And I thought not falling was wierd.

[Little Brother]

Actually, looking at it by real life physics, the staff stops for a moment every time it is handed on to the next commoner.

Hand something to someone next to you. It doesn't move constantly, you both stop for a very short moment. The movement is also not in an exactly straight line.RAW trumps that. It happens immediately.

[OracleofWuffing]

So it travels at mach 4 for about 5 feet and suddenlly stops?:smalleek:
And I thought not falling was wierd.
Well, some folks can break the speed of light in a vacuum (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19861942/Chuck_E._Cheese) and still manage to stop on a dime, so really, an object traveling significantly slower than that can probably stop even faster. :smallwink:

[Little Brother]

The SRD disagrees.Dropping an item in your square is a free action. You kinda have to drop in in your square, 'cuz that's where you are. You drop it in your square, it continues. Inertia is funny like that.

[Mikeavelli]

Tippy was right back at the beginning of this discussion, not because of physics though, but because of RAW.

Even though you've got a thousand+ commoners passing along a staff with an average velocity well past the speed of sound, it's travelling in discrete 5' steps with starting and stopping as part of the action. The staff comes to a rest before the end of the free action!

So while each individual commoner is passing the staff at a ridiculous speed, it's also coming to a halt before the end of the action, no acceleration occurs, no velocity is built up. When the commoner at the end drops it, it just drops to the ground.

[Rejakor]

At this point, Little Brother is trolling.

If despite the absolute train wreck of 'you are wrong' evidence she still thinks her approach of 'take some bits of RAW, ignoring the rest, and some bits of physics, ignoring the rest, claim this means you're right' is actually valid, then there's nothing that's going to convince her, so I move that this discussion be turned back on-topic, to what could actually be used to kill a god.

Idea; Would tricking a god into venturing onto a extremely slow-timeflow demiplane (1,000,000,000,000etc : 1) count as killing it? Would that at least let you go and murder all his/her/it's followers and thus destroy it while it spent a round casting planeshift in that slo-mo? I suppose immediate actions stop this.

[marcielle]

Lil bros reasoning might not work out but the trick itself still works by this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool)

[Rejakor]

That depends on what you consider cool.

Personally, I stopped thinking the 'lol, that's funny, sure you can oneshot Odin without putting any thought into it at all' school of GMing was amazing in my very first roleplaying game ever at the tender age of what, 13? When the GM had his Level 20 in every class DMPC running around with the party, and when we killed an aboleth in cutscene mode apparently eating various parts of it's body gave stacking +4 bonuses to attributes, and we had hundreds and hundreds of pieces. And then there was a giant elves vs drow battle where our fighting meant nothing because a dragon the size of the moon shot fire at the side that was railroaded to win.

The Commoner Railgun is kind of a funny concept, sure, when you first find out about it. If it actually got used in any game, though, it would be as a joke, not as an actual in-game event. DnD 3.5 is, like most roleplaying game with multiple interacting abilities, as hard to break as wet tissue paper. Thin wet tissue paper. And this is RAI, not 'bits of RAW while ignoring RAW and assuming houserules based on faulty physics'. It's just really not that impressive, especially when you've seen people exposed to it for the first time get really excited about it, oh, 10-100 times?

The Rule of Cool is a real thing, and as a GM you should really keep it in mind for things like allowing people to do things the game rules don't really let them, or to give people bonuses for particularly audacious or unexpected actions. Or thematic (like a swashbuckler swinging on a chandelier). Taking the Commoner Railgun seriously, though, falls from 'Cool' into the realm of 'breaks suspension of disbelief'... and is just kind of dumb. Without versimilitude, games crash, burn, and die, or turn into puerile repetitions of the same boring, boring jokes over and over again. Getting rid of it doesn't seem like a good idea.

[marcielle]

Not the railgun, the using his own worshippers. That was GENIUS. Railgun is just cheese, and flimsy cheese at that. But killing a god with his own fanatics? THAT, my friend, would make Belkar proud.:belkar:

[Calanon]

Not the railgun, the using his own worshippers. That was GENIUS. Railgun is just cheese, and flimsy cheese at that. But killing a god with his own fanatics? THAT, my friend, would make Belkar proud.

That would AND SHOULD make any player proud and happy, If your NOT Proud that someone accomplished this in game than you are clearly a Cleric of that god :smallconfused: