Trying to build a Norse god campain

[amersin]

Hi to one and all I am in the process of building a campaign based off Norse Gods for a team of five players I have all ready done the break down of there chosen Gods but I am having an issue with the encounters in the later stage of the game as by level 10 they hit that annoying stage of being to powerful for some and to weak for others any suggestions would be helpful. Oh the campaign is based on a war of the Gods style thing where the old are going up the new hope that helps.

[Gwendol]

You will need to provide more information in order to get any meaningful feedback. Who are the five characters (class/race etc)? What encounters are proving difficult? What exactly are you looking for?

[Galvin]

If you didn't already know, Deities and Demigods has detailed stats for each and everyone of the main stream norse gods.

P.S. You spelled "campaign" wrong in the thread title. :smalltongue:

[ksbsnowowl]

Make them Gestalt (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm), which will allow them more options, and help keep the characters more on-par with each other (assuming they make intelligent use of the other side of their characters).

I've been running a gestalt Viking-themed game for a few years, and they are nearly 16th level. I can give you a plethora of home-made resources if you are interested.

If your PC's are supposed to be some of the Norse gods themselves, are they going to have divine ranks? Or will they not be deities yet?

Deities and Demigods will be a good resource, but view the class assignments of the different gods as suggestions, not absolutes. Loki may be better as a Beguiler than a Sorcerer, for example.

More info from you will allow us to give better advice.

[amersin]

very sorry about the spelling mistakes and the plan is for them to pick a god or goddess and then i am going to take there key attributes and find the relative ability or feat and create said god as a level progression and the campaign is set for a war against the invaders with there one true god i am planning for it to be quite open but with a linear quest line with room to wiggle and adapt depending on outcomes in villages and towns and some by major combats but the over all goal is to try and defeat the incoming god either by converting the enemy towns and villages or defeating them in combat. I am also thinking of adding in some side quests for them to gain there mythical weapons/artifacts.
I would add there gods but so far we have a UL god of the hunt and games and the others are still picking theirs :).
Thank you all for the help and any extra information is much appreciated.

[NichG]

Since you're starting at low levels (for a god campaign, thats anything pre-epic) you'll want to make as much use of the 'stuff that D&D characters do regularly is utterly superhuman if you think about it' trope. I played a Swordsage fluffed as a former deity, where the martial maneuvers were echoes of his divine power - Mountain Hammer: I can cut through steel with a mundane wooden staff! Things like that.

So exploit that for your Lv10 encounters, and couch everything in far more epic terms than D&D would normally have you do at that level. If there's an encounter which their Lv10 powers let them solve easily, make it an exercise in mythology and narration rather than mechanics.

I'd introduce a mechanic of belief, whereby they can earn belief for their faith and deplete the enemy faith by doing miraculous things in front of mortals, but in such a way that the miracle is 'suited' to the situation. That is to say, they don't earn belief for things mortals have already seen them do, so they're encouraged to both save powers for when they need it/when it will be most flashy, and they're encouraged to come up with creative ways to deal with situations to get as much belief as possible.

Have it so that they can trade in belief to get minor bits of dramatic editing - anything from 'I find a new weapon' to 'our climactic battle will be at the top of a huge waterfall' to 'I am not slain, but merely banished, to return in a year and a day' (or some appropriate timescale for your campaign). You can have it be an in-character thing rather than OOC - it represents their control over Fate, which is being fought over between them and the foreign god.

[karkus]

I wouldn't do Gestalt unless if you're sure you want to; it's like an entirely different campaign setting. :smallsigh:

Use Giants as main enemies, but you should probably have Trolls be hardworking blacksmiths, toiling away underground forging magical weapons (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0273.html) (that's what they were in Norse myths, anyway).

For example, let's say your characters have to defeat a branch of the cult Church of Surtur, God of Fire Giants (they'll have to be well over level 10 by this point, however, because the standard Fire Giant (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Fire_Giant) is CR 10). They will fight a dozen or so of these enemies, but will also be facing the leader of the group; a monster with class levels. :smalleek:

[amersin]

Thank you all these have helped an awful lot and with a few tweaks i think i should be able to get it up and running so yet again thank you and if you think it is a good idea i will post up the results and the characters so you can see what the builds look like and once i have got the belief system sorted i can post that too it may help others out i think :)

[ksbsnowowl]

Thank you all for the help and any extra information is much appreciated.

This might be of use:
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=215.0

Scroll down, and I've got some pre-made stat blocks of various things.

The Primordial Giant Half-Troll War Trolls make a good base for a smarter "kingdom under the mountain" type Norse troll (though I do realize Norse trolls didn't regenerate - I use both, Ogres, as well as D&D trolls). In truth, I would choose the Invisibility Purge SLA from Primordial Giant rather than Invisibility. By the time the PC's would be facing a CR 14 creature, an invisible foe isn't a big obstacle, but invisible PC's can be quite a problem for such monsters.

To make sense of the bullet points in the first post, I have Hags be a result of a troll breeding with a human. The hags are sterile, but are a "quick" way for a troll tribe to gain some magical ability among their numbers.

[Werephilosopher]

Do you have Tome of Battle? I believe it has stats for valkyries, which would work excellently as elite holy warrior allies/enemies.

[ksbsnowowl]

Do you have Tome of Battle? I believe it has stats for valkyries, which would work excellently as elite holy warrior allies/enemies.

Those are... interesting. Anything going for actual Norse-basis, probably shouldn't use those.

There are Valkyrie stats in Deities and Demigods that are "better." The 3.5 update basically gives them the Einherjar template (giving them quasideity traits).