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View Full Version : How To Quit Your Job (when your boss is a god)



The Oni
2014-02-01, 02:10 PM
I'm in a Pathfinder campaign where we're doing a quest for a god, in exchange for being allowed to live after we were killed by that god for the express purposes of doing the quest. My character doesn't jive with gods on the best of days (it's explicitly part of his backstory) and he's especially pissed now, so I've decided to Rage Against The Heavens. This may entail teaming up with the Big Bad, I'm not sure.

Now, are there any abilities in 3.5/Pathfinder that would make it theoretically possible to evade a god's notice? The god is a micromanaging bitch, although the DM has been comparatively cool with our characters' "improvisation," so he might let this slide if it's well-planned enough.

Axiomatic
2014-02-01, 02:15 PM
Find a god who really hates your boss's face. Make a deal.

Slipperychicken
2014-02-01, 02:16 PM
You could find the god's enemies and ask them for help? Granted, it'll most likely just dig a deeper hole for yourself, but it might work out.

EDIT: Dang ninjas

Qwertystop
2014-02-02, 08:21 PM
AFAIK, the rules on gods say they percieve anything related to their portfolio or within a certain distance. Is this god in charge of something avoidable?

Lord Raziere
2014-02-02, 08:27 PM
I'm in a Pathfinder campaign where we're doing a quest for a god, in exchange for being allowed to live after we were killed by that god for the express purposes of doing the quest. My character doesn't jive with gods on the best of days (it's explicitly part of his backstory) and he's especially pissed now, so I've decided to Rage Against The Heavens. This may entail teaming up with the Big Bad, I'm not sure.

Now, are there any abilities in 3.5/Pathfinder that would make it theoretically possible to evade a god's notice? The god is a micromanaging bitch, although the DM has been comparatively cool with our characters' "improvisation," so he might let this slide if it's well-planned enough.

this depends highly upon the god in question. gods are more exceptions to rules than they are indicative of them. so which god are we talking about?

D_Lord
2014-02-02, 08:47 PM
Because it's 3.5 you could pledge your self to an Elder Evil, then they can't find you. Then again, that is very evil, and a lot of them want to change the world in big way, that has many people dead.

Tiki Snakes
2014-02-02, 09:20 PM
You could try straight-up calling his bluff? It might involve your character being smote from on-high, but it would be a pretty memorable and epic way to go.

veti
2014-02-02, 09:46 PM
Find a god who really hates your boss's face. Make a deal.

This is the obvious solution. The only thing that can definitively stop a god is another god.


You could try straight-up calling his bluff? It might involve your character being smote from on-high, but it would be a pretty memorable and epic way to go.

This is also worth considering. If you can engineer some situation in which "smiting you" would parlay into bad PR for your god, and that they can't easily smite you without it being generally obvious who did it, then you might be able to stick it to them. Depends on how they feel about the bad PR. Obviously this is a horrendously dangerous tactic, but depends how strongly you feel...

mucat
2014-02-02, 11:06 PM
Find a god who really hates your boss's face. Make a deal.
"Meet the new Boss/The same as the old Boss"

Sounds like the character has little patience for any god, so becoming indebted to a different god wouldn't help things.

Smeagle, can you tell us more about the situation? Rather than trying to put yourself beyond the god's reach -- which may never be possible, depending on the setting -- does this god's personality/philosophy leave any room for you to walk away without the god actively trying to kill you? And what lines is the character not willing to cross, even if it means smitey doom?

Amidus Drexel
2014-02-02, 11:06 PM
From a strictly mechanical standpoint, there's the Vecna-Blooded template from 3.5e. Immunity to divination, fullstop. Granted, your god might take issue with this, and there are more conventional ways of finding you, but it's a start.

Coidzor
2014-02-02, 11:48 PM
Considering the gods are generally the DM wearing different masks and switching around different props ala the Discworld, you're probably just going to have to figure out what makes your DM tick.


This is the obvious solution. The only thing that can definitively stop a god is another god.

Problem there is they might be going from the frying pan and into the fire. Or stuck in the same situation with a different face for the one that's got them by the short hairs.

RochtheCrusher
2014-02-03, 12:51 AM
I'm in a Pathfinder campaign where we're doing a quest for a god, in exchange for being allowed to live after we were killed by that god for the express purposes of doing the quest.

So wait. A god hunted you down, killed you, and then threatened to do it again if you didn't fetch his laundry?

You have to quit, then. Obviously, this deity has no issues with abusing his power (by picking on mortals simply because they have skills he needs), so you are in an eternal slavery-via-blackmail situation... maybe even an eternal swirly. He's never going to let you go provided he needs you for anything, ever.

This is a good thing to bring up when you simply refuse; "Well, seeing as you'll have this leverage over me for the rest of time, doing your bidding actually wins me... nothing but more time to serve you, and more skills to serve you with, neither of which I value. So yeah, I'm gonna grab a beer and wait for the smiting."

souridealist
2014-02-03, 01:08 AM
Which god is it?

Also, I could be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that in Pathfinder the gods generally consider that Not On. You could possibly sell your current boss out to another god without putting yourself in permanent service of that god. Pick somebody extraordinarily lawful who will disapprove of breaking codes about direct interference (which I'm pretty sure exist) and recommend a spanking. It might just work.

It might also get you smote for impertinence, or you may indeed end up bound to someone else, but at least you tried.

I don't think you're going to find too many abilities, though. That's wildly, obscenely powerful. I played a 3.5 game with rings that made you immune to the direct divine influence, Rings of the Godless or something, but I have a strong suspicion the DM of the time made them up.

Spore
2014-02-03, 07:49 AM
How are you ending up on HIS plane after dying anyway? I thought you end up on your alignment plane/your patron deity ones except explicitly stated otherwise in your world.

Agree, be revived, work against your "master" and if you get killed simply go to your god's portfolio and strike a deal with him. You may not like gods but they're real in your world. I am a player who does not like religion in particular but I can accept that divine magic is common and as a commoner in a fantasy setting, being healed of a lethal disease by a benevolent priest would drastically change my view.

The Oni
2014-02-03, 04:22 PM
It's Pharasma, and everyone ends up on her plane first because she's the Death Goddess. She processes everyone to the proper afterlife, but part of our "reward" is we get to choose ours when we're done working for her (so it's a Get Out of Hell Free card) - but the contract is like a thousand years. The only gods that have significant beef with her are Urgathoa (super evil) and Iomedae (not angry or evil enough to fight her) and maybe Aroden, but he's dead.

As far as striking deals with other gods, yeah, he'd be opposed to that but he doesn't have a lot of options - and he's nothing if not pragmatic.

My current pet theory is...undead are anathema to Pharasma. If I become an intelligent undead, I fall under Urgathoa's domain, not Pharasma's, so the latter can't touch me. (She can and almost certainly will send my friends after me, and I relish the tragic and dramatic confrontation.)

The former will be pleased enough that someone ****ed up Pharasma's plan that she'll probably just let me do what I want (not like there's any shortage of intelligent undead to play with) - I'll have my (un)life and free will back which is all I wanted in the first place.

Thoughts on how this could (or even should) go horribly wrong?

@ Sporegg: I've got no beef with religion IRL, but it's an RP-focused campaign and this guy is a traumatized, cynical, authority-hating Nay Theist Barbarian who got conscripted into a god's Counter-Necroism Strike Force against his will - and he's also permanently missing his sword arm as a direct result of organized religion.

A large part of the chafing also comes in because Pharasma is unhappy with the lacklustre results she's gotten from the party - and naturally, I'm like, "Well, what did you expect from a handful of random Joes that you killed and brought here to hunt necromancers? Don't you train the people in your church for this ****?" (Prophecy is involved, but that's small comfort to the PCs).

I made the character before I realized what the campaign was about, mind you - but if he didn't fight as hard as he conceivably could against this, I'd be severely breaking character.

Also it's not as simple as getting him killed off and making a new guy, because, again, Pharasma would just bring him back (that's kind of her thing). To make a new character who's on board with the mission, he's got to be dealt with more permanently and hopefully more climactically in roleplay terms. I'm not trying to derail the campaign, just play it out to its logical conclusion - it's the Heavens I'm raging against, not the GM.

Tiki Snakes
2014-02-03, 04:43 PM
Also it's not as simple as getting him killed off and making a new guy, because, again, Pharasma would just bring him back (that's kind of her thing). To make a new character who's on board with the mission, he's got to be dealt with more permanently and hopefully more climactically in roleplay terms. I'm not trying to derail the campaign, just play it out to its logical conclusion - it's the Heavens I'm raging against, not the GM.

Yeah, I reckon direct defiance and rejection of her is the way to go here. Make it public, make it big, roleplay it to the hilt and make it perfectly clear that threatening you with death or oblivion simply isn't going to cut it.

Force her to leave you dead or make amends. This way, you should either end up with a big scene and justification to grab a new character better suited to the campaign or you get to make the Death-Godess apologise for being a jerk and continue with the same character but on a more mutually respectful basis.

That's the theory anyway.

Coidzor
2014-02-03, 05:00 PM
It's Pharasma, and everyone ends up on her plane first because she's the Death Goddess. She processes everyone to the proper afterlife, but part of our "reward" is we get to choose ours when we're done working for her (so it's a Get Out of Hell Free card) - but the contract is like a thousand years. The only gods that have significant beef with her are Urgathoa (super evil) and Iomedae (not angry or evil enough to fight her) and maybe Aroden, but he's dead.

As far as striking deals with other gods, yeah, he'd be opposed to that but he doesn't have a lot of options - and he's nothing if not pragmatic.

My current pet theory is...undead are anathema to Pharasma. If I become an intelligent undead, I fall under Urgathoa's domain, not Pharasma's, so the latter can't touch me. (She can and almost certainly will send my friends after me, and I relish the tragic and dramatic confrontation.)

The former will be pleased enough that someone ****ed up Pharasma's plan that she'll probably just let me do what I want (not like there's any shortage of intelligent undead to play with) - I'll have my (un)life and free will back which is all I wanted in the first place.

Thoughts on how this could (or even should) go horribly wrong?

Other than the DM deciding to Kobayashi Maru you so you have to Kobayashi Maru right back?

I suppose there's the part where you're setting yourself up for an intra-party showdown as the climax of the campaign, but if the group's cool with that, then whatevskies.


@ Sporegg: I've got no beef with religion IRL, but it's an RP-focused campaign and this guy is a traumatized, cynical, authority-hating Nay Theist Barbarian who got conscripted into a god's Counter-Necroism Strike Force against his will - and he's also permanently missing his sword arm as a direct result of organized religion.

Wait, how on earth is that even possible? :smallconfused: What in blazes can make you lose an arm and then continue to lose it even when not in that body? :smalleek:


A large part of the chafing also comes in because Pharasma is unhappy with the lacklustre results she's gotten from the party - and naturally, I'm like, "Well, what did you expect from a handful of random Joes that you killed and brought here to hunt necromancers? Don't you train the people in your church for this ****?" (Prophecy is involved, but that's small comfort to the PCs).

Some prophecy, where it involves her going out and killing people like a ***** instead of giving any kind of reasonable offer or just taking the adventurers as they naturally die in the course of their high-risk, high-reward lifestyle. Did the DM come up with this or is he running someone else's story? :smallyuk:


I made the character before I realized what the campaign was about, mind you - but if he didn't fight as hard as he conceivably could against this, I'd be severely breaking character.

I'd have a talk with the DM about communicating theming prior to char gen then.


Also it's not as simple as getting him killed off and making a new guy, because, again, Pharasma would just bring him back (that's kind of her thing).

Well, there's ways to permanently destroy a soul and the DM's got the prophecy malarkey to play around with, so you really should be able to play ball with him on this front.


To make a new character who's on board with the mission, he's got to be dealt with more permanently and hopefully more climactically in roleplay terms. I'm not trying to derail the campaign, just play it out to its logical conclusion - it's the Heavens I'm raging against, not the GM.

Sounds like both, really. :/ If not your GM personally, then his stuck in the box thinking, if I'm reading you rightly. Hopefully I'm not.

The Oni
2014-02-03, 05:39 PM
I suppose there's the part where you're setting yourself up for an intra-party showdown as the climax of the campaign, but if the group's cool with that, then whatevskies.


Entirely cool with that. We're all friends and seasoned RPers and we never bring IRL drama into the game, so as long as the story's good I think we'll be OK.



Wait, how on earth is that even possible? :smallconfused: What in blazes can make you lose an arm and then continue to lose it even when not in that body? :smalleek:


The way we fluffed it (to prevent him from regenerating it, because it's a deliberate character flaw I designed) is that he's a Tiefling, and the arm was basically immolated with a homebrew flavor of holy fire. Since he's a (native) outsider, we decided that the fire didn't just destroy his arm but his *conception* of the arm (since outsiders' souls and bodies are sort of the same thing). It ends up a bit like Balefire from the Wheel of Time books - it's as if he'd been born without it, as far as the universe is concerned, although he remembers it.



Some prophecy, where it involves her going out and killing people like a ***** instead of giving any kind of reasonable offer or just taking the adventurers as they naturally die in the course of their high-risk, high-reward lifestyle. Did the DM come up with this or is he running someone else's story? :smallyuk:


Yeah, it's an original campaign. In settings like PF, prophecies do have power, so I've got no qualms about that personally. But in setting, yes, she is coming off like a spectacular bitch and my character concept demands that I Screw Destiny or die spectacularly trying.


I'd have a talk with the DM about communicating theming prior to char gen then.


I did, but everyone (including the DM) loved the character concept, so I didn't want to change it until I'd played it a bit!



Well, there's ways to permanently destroy a soul and the DM's got the prophecy malarkey to play around with, so you really should be able to play ball with him on this front.


Yes, but that would be anticlimactic.



Sounds like both, really. :/ If not your GM personally, then his stuck in the box thinking, if I'm reading you rightly. Hopefully I'm not.

Well, it may be that you're reading "Pharasma" as "the GM." The GM isn't being a micromanaging cosmic bureaucrat, he's just playing one in-game - and other than railroading us into the mission itself, it's been fairly open-world as long as we stay on location.

Dorian Gray
2014-02-03, 10:31 PM
Barbarian, huh? Well, in that case AftS to get rid of any temples/domain related areas within a couple hundred miles is out, as are most personal spells. Depending on how evil you are, you could try to get rid of her worshippers (Someone has probably done the math on smashing the moon into the earth by method of magic, and as a high level character you could probably escape to Arborea or wherever), but as a death goddess...
Alternatively, you could try and seek out the power of the gods to make everyone immortal (http://hpmor.com/chapter/39), which would certainly take the wind out of a death goddesses wings, but that would probably be even more difficult than killing a large portion of the human population.
I'll see if I can come up with some more ideas later. Remember, when fighting gods, the bigger the better!
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