How to figure a CR for Greek Gods?

[Bad Hair Day]

Hi,

So I am trying to plan a very long term campaign. The PC's will (eventually) get to level 20 and then get some epic levels. I figure they will get to about level 27 to 29, and then they will start getting divine levels.

According to the 3.5 Divine Rules, I expect them to get to at least divine level 10 before the end of the campaign, perhaps as high as level 15.

I am also expecting them to have 14 encounters for each level. I am also expecting to have about 4 encounters at each "point" as the story unfolds.

I am trying to figure out about how many story "points" as all of this unfolds. I want to make sure the pacing of the story unfolds at about the right pace.

A few questions:

1. Why is it that most of the Gods in Deities and Demigods have at least 20 character levels, and most of them have 40 to 60. For instance, in the Greek pantheon Demeter has a divine level of 10, with 40 PC levels. How do I figure out what kind of CR challenge she would present to an average party of 4 PC's?

2. I would like to plan several, maybe a couple dozen confrontations with various Greek deities. Is there some rule of thumb I can use to figure out a DC of any given God?

3. Once a God gets divine levels, how does he advance in character levels? ALso, how does he get XP that counts towards divine levels? That didn't seem clear from what I read so far...

Thanks for any and all advice.

BHD

[Feralventas]

There are stats for several deities of the Greek pantheon in the book Deities and Demigods, but unless you want your players to be able to stomp all over them I'd advise that you stat them out yourself; they are woefully under powered as far as comparison to PC's half their level go.

Divine Rank isn't a level advancement, but rather something to the effect of a stacking template that was never meant for application to player characters. They can be used as such but the effective Challenge Rating per divine rank is windily variable by what divine powers are granted/selected.

Most of the deities have 20 levels in Cleric to represent one manifestation of their divine power, then 20 levels in a class that works thematically (Sorcerer for We Jas for example) with their concept, then 20 Racial Hit Dice as Outsiders so as to represent their otherworldly existence. Then there's the Divine Rank's value like SR, bonuses to saves, special abilities, divine abilities, and so on.

So, going by raw Levels, you're looking at CR60 before divine rank is even taken into consideration. However, the CR system by raw levels isn't really an accurate depiction, as the actual challenge a character or creature presents can also change depending on their class levels.

The DC's for What Ability of the deities? Common DC setup is 10+1/2 hit dice+one related ability score, but it seems like you should really do some more in-depth reading into the subject rather than relying on the responses here alone.

XP gains operate similarly but are scaled differently in the levels past 20, regardless of templates being applied to the character in consideration; You'll need to also look up and read the details in the Epic Level handbook.

You have a lot of reading to do before I'd consider you ready for this. Maybe you'd be better served by doing this with a lower-level campaign and then using higher level characters to represent the pantheon instead of trying to start the game well beyond the usual system's core features.

[Tovec]

I don't think you necessarily know what you are biting off here. You seem to have read or at least looked at deities and demigods, which is both good and bad when doing this.

As for your questions:
1. Why do they have so many levels? No idea. How do you figure out the CR? You likely don't. You aren't meant to.

2. The DC of what for a god? Spell DCs are usually listed. There is a formula for figuring such things out but remember that divine RANK applies to basically everything.

3. Divine Ranks =/= character levels. So I would assume he continues to advance in character level as he always does. Divine rank is unrelated in MANY ways.


Now, my own suggestions. Don't use deities and demigods. From experience I can tell you they aren't well made and at one time will both be trounced by and overpowered compared to a group of reasonably well equipped and made characters. Since the divine rank adds onto everything it means that they have ACs too high for conventional fighting, everything is like this. And yet spellwise and buildwise they relatively suck. They are meant to be challenges only for other gods of similar divine rank.

No, if you are trying to make your PCs into gods and have them fight any group of deities (and kill them, instead of getting smacked around like I usually would) then I would say drop divine ranks entirely. Build the deities in question yourself. With that said, many of the feats and a fair number of the salient abilities are decent for the gods. But I personally hate the "miles equal to rank" business they get for things like senses, so pick and choose what you like.

[Bad Hair Day]

In #2 I meant CR not DC.

I didn't know there was an epic book. I will get it.

Thanks!

[Hurnn]

I like the part where 75% of the gods can't cast spells they can grant.....

Personally "I" would give all gods of divine rank of at least 6 innate casting of clerical spells as a lvl 20 cleric, and then any spells they get from cleric levels would add on top of that.

Beyond that most of them are built terribly. Zeus has Barbarian levels?? is a lvl 10 cleric? Ares is a level 20 cleric? if nothing else shouldn't that be swapped?

Hecate can cast 17th lvl spells as a 20th lvl wizard.... she doesn't even have epic casting, yet is the goddess of magic.

Some of these guys would get smoked by their own minions.

On another note I think that most of the arch devils and demon lords deserve at least a divine rank of 1-5 seeing as they can grant spells.

[weckar]

This got me thinking. In practical terms, what defines a 'god' in D&D?

[Alent]

This got me thinking. In practical terms, what defines a 'god' in D&D?

Possessing enough worshipers to grant 9th level cleric spells is what I've been lead to believe, through various forum posts about things like converting the tarrasque into a god and so on.

I think this is accomplished through the divine rank system, but the one time my group dabbled in this, the DM was homebrewing because the divine rank system is fairly broken.

[Alleran]

This got me thinking. In practical terms, what defines a 'god' in D&D?
Anything with DvR 0 or higher.

[QuackParker]

I would suggest a couple things.

1. I think the Pathfinder / D&D core settings seem to have a very different Pantheon in mind than the that of Greek myth.
2. Clerics can call upon spells only a being of remarkably high level could hope to grant them.
3. Both 1 & 2 should be irrelevant to your campaign needs.

Its all about crafting your setting. If you wanted Pan or Hermes to be CR 16 enemies your players could fight, no problem. Merely scale down the world to fit that reality. If the gods are lower level, then don't populate your world with CR 20 rogues, wizards, and monsters. Essentially, just be craftier when establishing the parameters within your setting. If Zeus is CR 18, maybe consider not filling the world with dragons of equal power. Why can CR 18 Zeus grant his worshipers spells he doesn't have equipped? Because he's divine and whatnot. Why overthink it? As long as you're strategic about your world-building and place some smart limitations, your setting should work fine. No need to equate the Greek gods to Pathfinder or D&D's deities of infinite power.

[Urpriest]

In D&D, gods don't have CRs. Instead, because they have a lot of immunities and instant-kill abilities, and thus combat with them is more of a puzzle, the XP you get from fighting a god just scales with player character level. The rules for this are on page 53 of Deities and Demigods. There is also advice for having PCs who are gods on page 223. In general, it's advisable to be flexible and not base awards of Divine Rank or XP on any sort of formal CR calculation, but rather on the pacing you want the game to have.