How to build god-killing NPCs

[felinoel]

So my players are becoming gods eventually (through various means), because the main baddies are the Vashar, the humans that came before the human species when the gods messed up and accidentally made a human equivalent to the drow, except these drow kill gods out of spite.

Now the only stat difference between a Vashar and a human is the racial bonus feat has to be an evil one from the BoVD and I have never designed characters for the purpose of deity killing and my players are basically going to end up fighting an entire species. Of course only the best of that species will matter but a Vashar will throw its life away to try to kill a god even if the god is way too strong for them but I need a few who are GOOD at killing gods and am not sure what route to go about it with...

I do have some Vashar using the PrCs found in the Manual of the Planes, this way the species can planar travel easily but no NPCs capable of god killing yet...

[Balor01]

How do you even pull that off in 3.5? Mechanically, that is epic spellcasting ... And trying to get there without serious divine backing, I think PCs should just get stomped. Trying to become a god means moving in into a very elite neighborhood where residents really do not want new neighbors. And aspirants without proper backing just get killed.

[Lightlawbliss]

for starters, god-killers need to be deep in the epic lvls and likely T1. Saying a god has less then 40 HD and is not a caster is effectively non-existent.

[Envyus]

It never said they were good at killing gods or even that they have succeeded at killing one. It's just their main goal. Anyway the best way would be with a macguffin or them trying to unseal something like Pandorym. You could also feature Graz'zt as their patron as he is the one that got them started.

[atemu1234]

I personally like the Vashar. Not as a player race, but as DM they make a very useful answer for the question "Who in the nine hells would want all gods dead?" As would be implied by the attempted unleashing of Pandorym.

But to the point, the easiest way for PCs to be godkillers is to simply make them epic level. Or give them an artifact. But the problem remains that they aren't going to be ready for some good godslaying until high levels.

[Thealtruistorc]

Key to killing an god? A whole lotta debuffing power.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If I was going to build a 20th level party designed for this, I'd probably include the following:

The Denier
Use Athar from Dragon issue 287 p45, it's very similar to the Defiant in the Planar Handbook but it gives you 8/10 divine casting and slightly better class features. Divine spells and class features are granted by the great unknown instead of any deity or divine source.
Binder 8/ Ur-Priest 2/ Athar 10, with the feat Divine Defiance in FC2 so he can Counterspell as an immediate action, which includes using his Divine Cancellation and Divine Retribution class features. Give him Improved Counterspell and Divine Metamagic: Heighten Spell with Night Sticks and he can counter anything.

The Invulnerable
Persistent Power in the 3.0 Psionics Handbook is RAW still valid for use in 3.5, you can also find it in the d20 Modern SRD (http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/ArcanaOccupationsandFeats.rtf). With Overchannel he uses Metapower for Persistent Timeless Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timelessBody.htm) at 20th level, and is immune to everything that exists in the game except the Annulus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/psionicArtifacts.htm#annulus)'s psionic nullification power. Note this is an outright immunity to every game mechanic that exists, not even deities can overcome it.
He can also use the save game trick (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1187.0) (5th spoiler) so his party continuously retries at killing a god until they succeed. All of those tricks are worth looking at, actually.

The Terror
Go with an extreme fear build (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809.0) with Dread Witch from Heroes of Horror so even targets normally immune to fear will still be affected. Use Circle Magic (Red Wizard or Halruaan Elder) to boost his caster level to 40th for this to work against deities, as he won't overcome the fear immunity of opponents whose hit dice is four or more higher than his caster level.
Wizard 5/ Red Wizard 10/ Dread Witch 5, he creates nine Simulacrums of himself which are each Wizard 5/ Red Wizard 5. The simulacrums take turns doing circle magic with each of them as a circle leader, they each use all the contributed spell levels to Heighten a single spell to 20th level. When he does circle magic and leads the circle himself, they each contribute that 20th level spell, so he has 180 spell levels to work with. Bonus points if he gets Irresistible Spell from the Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide (an official 3.5 sourcebook (http://www.amazon.com/Players-Guide-Rulebook-Dungeons-Kingdoms/dp/1889182613/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396848064&sr=8-1&keywords=kingdoms+of+kalamar+player%27s+guide)), it's a +4 metamagic with Maximize Spell and Fortify Spell (CA) as prerequisites, and it removes the saving throws from a spell it modifies. As just one example, an Irresistible Phantasmal Killer takes an 8th level spell slot, and it will slay anything it targets without allowing a saving throw, as long as they're not immune to it and you can beat their SR. You can even use a Metamagic Rod of Chain Spell (CA) with that, to automatically kill forty-one targets.

[felinoel]

How do you even pull that off in 3.5? Mechanically, that is epic spellcasting ... And trying to get there without serious divine backing, I think PCs should just get stomped. Trying to become a god means moving in into a very elite neighborhood where residents really do not want new neighbors. And aspirants without proper backing just get killed.

Don't worry, the Vashar are one by one killing off all of the gods atm so that very elite neighborhood is becoming one that is pretty empty and welcoming strangers, as for how I am doing it...
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?339286-Deities-of-Insanity-or-just-deities-who-are-actually-insane

Various things, I have destiny intervening with their characters giving them abilities that their god-selves would have, have one character who is luck based, one who is insane, one who is wisdom based, etc etc etc


It never said they were good at killing gods or even that they have succeeded at killing one. It's just their main goal. Anyway the best way would be with a macguffin or them trying to unseal something like Pandorym. You could also feature Graz'zt as their patron as he is the one that got them started.IT never did, but I am saying that because it is making for quite the fun campaign according to my players.

THEY ARE SO STUMPED AS TO WHY THOSE UNUSUALLY PALE HUMANS ARE SO VICIOUS TOWARDS EACH OTHER... xD

A macguffin wouldn't go well for NPCs fighting player deities though... but I AM using a macguffin for them to be able to kill so many gods at once, they are merging the planes, the horrible merge will kill a lot and when it is fully merged all of the gods will be on one plane so no unnecessary planar tracking down


I personally like the Vashar. Not as a player race, but as DM they make a very useful answer for the question "Who in the nine hells would want all gods dead?" As would be implied by the attempted unleashing of Pandorym.

But to the point, the easiest way for PCs to be godkillers is to simply make them epic level. Or give them an artifact. But the problem remains that they aren't going to be ready for some good godslaying until high levels.These Vashar are NPCs, not PCs. I just need to build them with character levels so that they can go up against the players when they are gods.


Key to killing an god? A whole lotta debuffing power.Hmmm, I COULD build a debuffer Vashar...


If I was going to build a 20th level party designed for this, I'd probably include the following:

The Denier
Use Athar from Dragon issue 287 p45, it's very similar to the Defiant in the Planar Handbook but it gives you 8/10 divine casting and slightly better class features. Divine spells and class features are granted by the great unknown instead of any deity or divine source.
Binder 8/ Ur-Priest 2/ Athar 10, with the feat Divine Defiance in FC2 so he can Counterspell as an immediate action, which includes using his Divine Cancellation and Divine Retribution class features. Give him Improved Counterspell and Divine Metamagic: Heighten Spell with Night Sticks and he can counter anything.

The Invulnerable
Persistent Power in the 3.0 Psionics Handbook is RAW still valid for use in 3.5, you can also find it in the d20 Modern SRD (http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/ArcanaOccupationsandFeats.rtf). With Overchannel he uses Metapower for Persistent Timeless Body (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timelessBody.htm) at 20th level, and is immune to everything that exists in the game except the Annulus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/psionicArtifacts.htm#annulus)'s psionic nullification power. Note this is an outright immunity to every game mechanic that exists, not even deities can overcome it.
He can also use the save game trick (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1187.0) (5th spoiler) so his party continuously retries at killing a god until they succeed. All of those tricks are worth looking at, actually.

The Terror
Go with an extreme fear build (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809.0) with Dread Witch from Heroes of Horror so even targets normally immune to fear will still be affected. Use Circle Magic (Red Wizard or Halruaan Elder) to boost his caster level to 40th for this to work against deities, as he won't overcome the fear immunity of opponents whose hit dice is four or more higher than his caster level.
Wizard 5/ Red Wizard 10/ Dread Witch 5, he creates nine Simulacrums of himself which are each Wizard 5/ Red Wizard 5. The simulacrums take turns doing circle magic with each of them as a circle leader, they each use all the contributed spell levels to Heighten a single spell to 20th level. When he does circle magic and leads the circle himself, they each contribute that 20th level spell, so he has 180 spell levels to work with. Bonus points if he gets Irresistible Spell from the Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide (an official 3.5 sourcebook (http://www.amazon.com/Players-Guide-Rulebook-Dungeons-Kingdoms/dp/1889182613/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396848064&sr=8-1&keywords=kingdoms+of+kalamar+player%27s+guide)), it's a +4 metamagic with Maximize Spell and Fortify Spell (CA) as prerequisites, and it removes the saving throws from a spell it modifies. As just one example, an Irresistible Phantasmal Killer takes an 8th level spell slot, and it will slay anything it targets without allowing a saving throw, as long as they're not immune to it and you can beat their SR. You can even use a Metamagic Rod of Chain Spell (CA) with that, to automatically kill forty-one targets.lol divine spells from "great unknown" instead of a deity? I kinda like that but I wonder if Vashar would be ok with that...

Woah though, love these build designs, I might use the great unknown thing anyways lol

[cakellene]

Divine Rank equal or higher than target usually helps.

[felinoel]

Divine Rank equal or higher than target usually helps.

Wouldn't that make them a god and then go against the Vasharan beliefs?

[atemu1234]

That poses an interesting question. If a vashar hates gods, yet somehow becomes a god, what does he do then? I'm in favor of him trying to kill all the other gods, grow in strength, and destroy them all. But they're at heart an evil race, so I doubt they'd hold to a personal philosophy if it came to life or death. They'd rather stay in power.

[Hecuba]

Step 1: Make a ruling on portfolio sense as it relates to the welfare of the deities having that portfolio.

If an attack on the God of Clowns triggers the portfolio sense of Gods with clowns in their portfolio, then they get a lot more notice on how to clown you for the attempt.
This is particularly important if dealing with a Deity that has death in their portfolio.

If this does trigger, they probably need to find a way to either be immune to SDAs or a way to actively evade portfolio sense.

To the best of my knowledge, no such tool exists.
A custom epic magic spell is likely the best option for making one.

[Envyus]

The problem is Gods are really powerful and I don't see a way for these NPCs to beat them unless they are made very broken and near unbeatable as Gods have so much **** going for them that you need to make them super broken in order to stand a chance. (intermediate gods can take a 20 on any roll for example.) and if that was the case the PC's can't beat them.

I just don't think the guys should be able to stand against a god on their own unless they have some artifact or something that allows them to. Like something that saps away a gods strength making them easily killable. Because the gods should crush nearly anyone that challenges them.

Also for Divine Magic they could get it from Graz'zt as he is their main patron and is not a god.

[felinoel]

That poses an interesting question. If a vashar hates gods, yet somehow becomes a god, what does he do then? I'm in favor of him trying to kill all the other gods, grow in strength, and destroy them all. But they're at heart an evil race, so I doubt they'd hold to a personal philosophy if it came to life or death. They'd rather stay in power.From what I can imagine, if a Vashar becomes a god, his friends would kill him, or at least try.


Step 1: Make a ruling on portfolio sense as it relates to the welfare of the deities having that portfolio.

If an attack on the God of Clowns triggers the portfolio sense of Gods with clowns in their portfolio, then they get a lot more notice on how to clown you for the attempt.
This is particularly important if dealing with a Deity that has death in their portfolio.

If this does trigger, they probably need to find a way to either be immune to SDAs or a way to actively evade portfolio sense.

To the best of my knowledge, no such tool exists.
A custom epic magic spell is likely the best option for making one.I barely understood that... >.>;
Sorry don't deal with deities and fighting deities too much...


The problem is Gods are really powerful and I don't see a way for these NPCs to beat them unless they are made very broken and near unbeatable as Gods have so much **** going for them that you need to make them super broken in order to stand a chance. (intermediate gods can take a 20 on any roll for example.) and if that was the case the PC's can't beat them.

I just don't think the guys should be able to stand against a god on their own unless they have some artifact or something that allows them to. Like something that saps away a gods strength making them easily killable. Because the gods should crush nearly anyone that challenges them.

Also for Divine Magic they could get it from Graz'zt as he is their main patron and is not a god.Since these are NPCs I am fine with doing whatever it takes to make them strong enough.

I like this Graz'zt guy... could even use him...

[Phelix-Mu]

NPCs or PCs killing gods is possible if and only if the story demands it. This is because the gods are plot objects, not mechanical beings. While stats have been printed, they are largely moronic, and divine salient abilities themselves involve a large amount of DM adjudication (namely portfolio sense, but there are many others that are problematic).

Thus, since the OP is the DM, just have the Vashar be able to kill gods via "super-cool unique builds" or "plot-laced macguffin" or some such. Deep, complicated, mechanical justification may not be possible, and, in any case, is likely to make the gods seem less-cool (or make the Vashar seem too cool). So, I'd instead gauge the strength of the Vashar god-killers on what the PCs might barely be able to kill on a good day with lots of planning (and maybe a secret macguffin or two of their own).

Remember, gods are transcendent beings that have been worshiped since time immemorial, have created entire races, and who can accomplish feats that make the normal mechanics look profoundly stupid. Any attempt to stat them as befits their role in the game is likely going to unravel the OP's plot, so I'd avoid that and just have their deaths be plot events that happen slightly offstage. Plus, if the gods are on the stage, it's a fair bet the PCs will feel pretty impotent.

[Frozen_Feet]

In D&D 3.5, the answer to "how to kill a god" is "by GM fiat".

The Divinity rules, as presented in the SRD or Deities and Demigods, are downright unplayable both in intent and as written. You would be better off not using them, or using a rewrite like mine. (See my signature.)

The only things that in my recollection do anything to pre-empt gods by RAW are the Elder Evils. Ideally, your NPCs would have some of them released or partially released before the PCs become gods. That way, the PCs can't use divination abilities (like portofolio sense) to pre-empt them.

[cosmonuts]

I think it's still an interesting mechanical question, even though the most pragmatic way to accomplish this is "GM fiat", so I appreciate Biffoniacus_Furiou's writeup on it.

I'd imagine epic spellcasting means of defeating gods has to do with mitigating insanely high DCs of mythal, summon, transform, conjure, or fortify seeds. I can't even ballpark the DC though, probably something like 200? Maybe higher?

Well, Dweomerkeeper and Uncanny Forethought. Take off -220 DC for casting time (a year or so?) and reserve an epic spell slot. Then take off another -200 DC for XP. Make a spell of DC 0 so you can create it immediately on the spot (spontaneously, in fact). Then use Uncanny Forethought to cast the spell as a full-round action, and Supernatural Spell to cast without XP components.

So I can mitigate to -420 DC, that means I can build a spell that's 420 DC with 0 time and 0 cost and cast it immediately.

I don't know how to further screw it. Other than solar loops, but I want to avoid loops, since solar loops solve everything trivially already with infinite wishes.

[Hecuba]

I barely understood that... >.>;
Sorry don't deal with deities and fighting deities too much...
Deities have portfolios (sections of creation which they have some degree of purview over).

For example, Zeus's portfolio would include Lightning.

Deities of a certain Divine Rank also have the ability to sense events related to their portfolios before they happen. Weeks before.

This means, for example, that if you attempt to do something that is (cosmically speaking) important and related to Lightning, Zeus will know about it a month before it happens.

This begs the question: is making a (serious) attempt to kill the deity of Lightning sufficiently related to Lightning to qualify?

If so, Zeus knows you're going to try to kill him.
This is a bad thing, as Deities of a certain Divine rank also have Salient Divine Abilities (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm) (SDAs).

SDAs are more narrowly defined than epic spell-casting, but they are VERY VERY powerful.
A deity with Life and Death, for example, can cause any mortal they can unambiguously identify to die: no save, no remains, cannot be resurrected except by a deity of higher rank.

Additionally, while the published deities do not generally have epic spell-casting, many of them do qualify for it.
If the characters can bring epic casting to bear to combat SDAs, it is quite possible that that path is also available to the deity.

[Phelix-Mu]

Most gods also only truly exist in their own realm on their home plane; all instances elsewhere are just avatars or aspects. The problem with fighting a deity on its home turf is that pretty much all of those planes are divinely morphic, which means that the very landscape and planar features of the realm respond to the god's every whim. Like turning off magic. Or gravity. Or dropping a mountain out of the sky. That is a fairly decisive advantage, even if you can somehow avoid getting curbstomped by the relevant SDAs.

[cosmonuts]

Can I create an ice assassin of a deity? That seems to solve a lot of problems. Not all, but a lot of them.

[Phelix-Mu]

Can I create an ice assassin of a deity? That seems to solve a lot of problems. Not all, but a lot of them.

You may be able to make an IA of an avatar of a deity, but I'd dispute whether an actual god's body parts are in the spell component pouch. Not to mention any DM that actually lets you IA a deity should probably just hand your character the trophy for winning D&D, as that much DM complicity is pretty much the ultimate Easy Button for the game.

IA of a god is cute in TO (and disturbingly valid), but there is little application for this on a PO level (barring the DM ruling by strict RAW, in defiance of good sense).

[Dromuthra]

You may be able to make an IA of an avatar of a deity, but I'd dispute whether an actual god's body parts are in the spell component pouch. Not to mention any DM that actually lets you IA a deity should probably just hand your character the trophy for winning D&D, as that much DM complicity is pretty much the ultimate Easy Button for the game.

IA of a god is cute in TO (and disturbingly valid), but there is little application for this on a PO level (barring the DM ruling by strict RAW, in defiance of good sense).

So my 17th level Wizard with Eschew Materials can kill every god ever with themselves? Neat.

Yeah, this is disturbingly TO. Another build that would work would be the Word. (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Wish_and_the_Word_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Bu ild)) It's even more horribly optimised, but I like the concept of killing gods by uttering blasphemies.

[Hecuba]

Yeah, this is disturbingly TO. Another build that would work would be the Word. (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Wish_and_the_Word_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Bu ild)) It's even more horribly optimised, but I like the concept of killing gods by uttering blasphemies.

While the Wish and the Word are always impressive, they still fall short of most deities. The key is to look at the description of what comes with divine rank and largely ignore the stat blocks (as they miss the point).

For example, if the deity has Instant Counterspell and at levels in a divine spellcasting class, they can counterspell any spell they can grant (that is, at minimum, the cleric list + their domains) as a free action. So as long as they can grant Blasphemy and/or Holy word, they can counterspell it without giving up any action.

It would be a poor build (even more so that the published deities), but a custom built deity could also trivially pump SR high enough to ignore the Word's words.



Also, you still but up against the 1 week per divine rank advance notice of your actions. Go-Go portfolio sense.

[RedMage125]

The Vashar could be equivalent-level NPCs (maybe a level or 2 higher), and they could have some sort of artifact or Epic Spell that suppresses the PCs' Divine Rank down to a Rank 0 when facing them in combat (the elite Vashar guys anyway). Kind of drawing inspiration from the adventure Dawn of a New Age, which is the culmination of the Age of Worms adventure path.When the players face Kyuss, he has been evoking fear in the nearby populace, which substitutes for worship while he manifests. His stats are presented as a Rank 1 Demigod, but the players can do things (such as shutting down a negative energy generator and fighting despair in the city) that reduce Kyuss to a Rank 0 deity for the fight. Still a pretty bad*** fight, even as a rank 0 deity.

For class levels, I think a bunch of them should be Ur-Priests, at least flavor-wise. I dont know what level your player deities are, but a warlock 20/Ur-priest 10 who has taken Practiced Spellcaster twice has a CL of 24 for his warlock powers, and CL 26 for his Ur-Priest ones. The same can be done substituting Sorcerer, Wizard, or whatever for warlock levels.

Even better could be a Warlock3/Fighter(or anything with a +2 Fort, such as a Bararian Variant)1/Ur-Priest2/Eldritch Disciple10, and then add Warlock levels as appropriate. Taking Practiced Spellcaster for Warlock levels gives you +4 CL, which affects invocation CL as well as Eldritch Blast, in addition to giving you +2 to your Ur-priest caster level (because Ur-Priest CL is calculated by adding 1/2 your CL in non-cleric classes with Ur-Priest level and any PrCs that impove Ur-Priest levels), which can be combined with a second taking of Practiced Spellcaster, just towards Ur-Priest levels. You'll also have Rebuking abilities, which can be used for Divine feats.

The reason I mention Warlock, by the way, is for flavor over optimization to a point. Warlocks are Tier 4, but Ur-Priest and Eldritch Disciple both improve tier standing for an individual character. Warlocks fit for evil characters who want power but take shortcuts to achieve it. And of course Ur-Priests hate gods and steal power from them.

Of course, there are benefits to the first suggestion, that involves Ur-Priest all the way to 10. Ur-Priests get SR against all divine spells, and spell-like abilities of outsiders (and all dieties are outsiders), they can steal spell-like abilities from an enemy outsider, thus using the enemy's abilities against them.

This is actually reminiscent of something I've done in a game. Spoiler blocked for space and tangential relevance:Back before 4e came out, my roommate decided to run a game (3.5e of course). Since Epic Play rules were not something that most of us actually got a chance to actually USE, but rather just read about, he decided to start each player at level 30 (character creation takes FOREVER). The gist of the opener was that of a massive threat to all of creation, and the most powerful heroes (and even some anti-heroes) of the land were gathering to unite and defeat it. I was part of a group of Evil characters in the fairly large party. All of the evil characters were human, and all had 10 levels of Ur-Priest (Some had backgrounds as Warlocks, others Sorcerers, and I think one was even an Assassin), and part of an organization called De Bruderschaft der Mensch (German for "The Brotherhood of Man"), and while they were Evil, their goal was humanistic in nature...sort of. They believed that the gods were liars and that all human suffering, death, disease, etc. was because the "gods" were just very powerful mortals who had amassed enough power to become godlike in status and the act of that elevation to godhood had cause ripples through reality that caused the mortal races to suffer things like aging, disease and eventual death (believing that in our pure, original states, the mortal races were otherwise ageless, perfect beings). So they were all about empowerment of mortals and sought the destruction of the "gods". They even refered to any other divine characters in the party (like the cleric of Pelor) as "godslave".

[Kennisiou]

The best advice for this is to take all published rules for divinity, throw them out, and tell your players that it works however you say it does.

For real. Published rules for divinity make it very hard for not-gods to become gods and even harder for gods to be killed. A god can basically kill anyone with a lower divine rank than them merely with a thought, with an effect that specifically allows no saves and gets through things that otherwise are supposed to prevent death (like death ward). You want an NPC that can kill a god/has killed a god you're going to need to DM fiat somewhere anyway to make it so that, somehow, they got around that BS.

[felinoel]

I AM using a macguffin for them to be able to kill so many gods at once, they are merging the planes, the horrible merge will kill a lot and when it is fully merged all of the gods will be on one plane so no unnecessary planar tracking downJust a notice, by the time the players can do anything most-to-all life EVERYWHERE will be horribly murdered, including a lot of deities, by the planes merging.

So with the death of so many followers I imagine a TON of deities will lose a TON of power.


NPCs or PCs killing gods is possible if and only if the story demands it. This is because the gods are plot objects, not mechanical beings. While stats have been printed, they are largely moronic, and divine salient abilities themselves involve a large amount of DM adjudication (namely portfolio sense, but there are many others that are problematic).Are there any deities that have a portfolio sense that can help them when planes are getting merged inside of them exploding them from the inside out?
Because if there is some planes-based deity please let me know, that sounds kinda awesome and will be a major change in the story of my game.


Thus, since the OP is the DM, just have the Vashar be able to kill gods via "super-cool unique builds" or "plot-laced macguffin" or some such. Deep, complicated, mechanical justification may not be possible, and, in any case, is likely to make the gods seem less-cool (or make the Vashar seem too cool). So, I'd instead gauge the strength of the Vashar god-killers on what the PCs might barely be able to kill on a good day with lots of planning (and maybe a secret macguffin or two of their own).I assumed it would be because there would be SO MANY Vashar attacking at once (the entire species) they could overpower a deity with both high mechanical classes and sheer numbers?


Remember, gods are transcendent beings that have been worshiped since time immemorial, have created entire races, and who can accomplish feats that make the normal mechanics look profoundly stupid. Any attempt to stat them as befits their role in the game is likely going to unravel the OP's plot, so I'd avoid that and just have their deaths be plot events that happen slightly offstage. Plus, if the gods are on the stage, it's a fair bet the PCs will feel pretty impotent.Ehh, they will be weakened by losing followers?
Also the PCs are becoming gods themselves, I just made one of them (who is a Scarred Lands build) the new herald of Madriel because she lost a ton of her followers and can't find where they are, including The Healer.


In D&D 3.5, the answer to "how to kill a god" is "by GM fiat".

The Divinity rules, as presented in the SRD or Deities and Demigods, are downright unplayable both in intent and as written. You would be better off not using them, or using a rewrite like mine. (See my signature.)

The only things that in my recollection do anything to pre-empt gods by RAW are the Elder Evils. Ideally, your NPCs would have some of them released or partially released before the PCs become gods. That way, the PCs can't use divination abilities (like portofolio sense) to pre-empt them.I will look into that rewrite.


I think it's still an interesting mechanical question, even though the most pragmatic way to accomplish this is "GM fiat", so I appreciate Biffoniacus_Furiou's writeup on it.

I'd imagine epic spellcasting means of defeating gods has to do with mitigating insanely high DCs of mythal, summon, transform, conjure, or fortify seeds. I can't even ballpark the DC though, probably something like 200? Maybe higher?

Well, Dweomerkeeper and Uncanny Forethought. Take off -220 DC for casting time (a year or so?) and reserve an epic spell slot. Then take off another -200 DC for XP. Make a spell of DC 0 so you can create it immediately on the spot (spontaneously, in fact). Then use Uncanny Forethought to cast the spell as a full-round action, and Supernatural Spell to cast without XP components.

So I can mitigate to -420 DC, that means I can build a spell that's 420 DC with 0 time and 0 cost and cast it immediately.

I don't know how to further screw it. Other than solar loops, but I want to avoid loops, since solar loops solve everything trivially already with infinite wishes.Except losing TONS of followers would weaken them, right?


Deities have portfolios (sections of creation which they have some degree of purview over).

For example, Zeus's portfolio would include Lightning.

Deities of a certain Divine Rank also have the ability to sense events related to their portfolios before they happen. Weeks before.

This means, for example, that if you attempt to do something that is (cosmically speaking) important and related to Lightning, Zeus will know about it a month before it happens.

This begs the question: is making a (serious) attempt to kill the deity of Lightning sufficiently related to Lightning to qualify?

If so, Zeus knows you're going to try to kill him.
This is a bad thing, as Deities of a certain Divine rank also have Salient Divine Abilities (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm) (SDAs).

SDAs are more narrowly defined than epic spell-casting, but they are VERY VERY powerful.
A deity with Life and Death, for example, can cause any mortal they can unambiguously identify to die: no save, no remains, cannot be resurrected except by a deity of higher rank.

Additionally, while the published deities do not generally have epic spell-casting, many of them do qualify for it.
If the characters can bring epic casting to bear to combat SDAs, it is quite possible that that path is also available to the deity.Hilarious.

Are there any deities that have a portfolio sense that can help them when planes are getting merged inside of them exploding them from the inside out?
Because if there is some planes-based deity please let me know, that sounds kinda awesome and will be a major change in the story of my game.


Most gods also only truly exist in their own realm on their home plane; all instances elsewhere are just avatars or aspects. The problem with fighting a deity on its home turf is that pretty much all of those planes are divinely morphic, which means that the very landscape and planar features of the realm respond to the god's every whim. Like turning off magic. Or gravity. Or dropping a mountain out of the sky. That is a fairly decisive advantage, even if you can somehow avoid getting curbstomped by the relevant SDAs.All planes are getting merged to murder most in the transition and to make it easier to track afterwards.

Also I gave several Vashar PrCs from the Manual of the Planes so they can jump from plane to plane with ease.


Can I create an ice assassin of a deity? That seems to solve a lot of problems. Not all, but a lot of them.lol I would consider its use if you did.


The Vashar could be equivalent-level NPCs (maybe a level or 2 higher), and they could have some sort of artifact or Epic Spell that suppresses the PCs' Divine Rank down to a Rank 0 when facing them in combat (the elite Vashar guys anyway). Kind of drawing inspiration from the adventure Dawn of a New Age, which is the culmination of the Age of Worms adventure path.When the players face Kyuss, he has been evoking fear in the nearby populace, which substitutes for worship while he manifests. His stats are presented as a Rank 1 Demigod, but the players can do things (such as shutting down a negative energy generator and fighting despair in the city) that reduce Kyuss to a Rank 0 deity for the fight. Still a pretty bad*** fight, even as a rank 0 deity.Sweet, that is exactly what they are currently doing, by merging all of the planes into one tons and tons and tons of followers are all dying horrible, brutal deaths.


For class levels, I think a bunch of them should be Ur-Priests, at least flavor-wise. I dont know what level your player deities are, but a warlock 20/Ur-priest 10 who has taken Practiced Spellcaster twice has a CL of 24 for his warlock powers, and CL 26 for his Ur-Priest ones. The same can be done substituting Sorcerer, Wizard, or whatever for warlock levels.My players aren't deities yet, love those stats though, thanks!


Even better could be a Warlock3/Fighter(or anything with a +2 Fort, such as a Bararian Variant)1/Ur-Priest2/Eldritch Disciple10, and then add Warlock levels as appropriate. Taking Practiced Spellcaster for Warlock levels gives you +4 CL, which affects invocation CL as well as Eldritch Blast, in addition to giving you +2 to your Ur-priest caster level (because Ur-Priest CL is calculated by adding 1/2 your CL in non-cleric classes with Ur-Priest level and any PrCs that impove Ur-Priest levels), which can be combined with a second taking of Practiced Spellcaster, just towards Ur-Priest levels. You'll also have Rebuking abilities, which can be used for Divine feats.Even more stats awesome!


The reason I mention Warlock, by the way, is for flavor over optimization to a point. Warlocks are Tier 4, but Ur-Priest and Eldritch Disciple both improve tier standing for an individual character. Warlocks fit for evil characters who want power but take shortcuts to achieve it. And of course Ur-Priests hate gods and steal power from them.lol a lot of people have been saying to make the Vashar Ur-Priests xD


Of course, there are benefits to the first suggestion, that involves Ur-Priest all the way to 10. Ur-Priests get SR against all divine spells, and spell-like abilities of outsiders (and all dieties are outsiders), they can steal spell-like abilities from an enemy outsider, thus using the enemy's abilities against them.

This is actually reminiscent of something I've done in a game. Spoiler blocked for space and tangential relevance:Back before 4e came out, my roommate decided to run a game (3.5e of course). Since Epic Play rules were not something that most of us actually got a chance to actually USE, but rather just read about, he decided to start each player at level 30 (character creation takes FOREVER). The gist of the opener was that of a massive threat to all of creation, and the most powerful heroes (and even some anti-heroes) of the land were gathering to unite and defeat it. I was part of a group of Evil characters in the fairly large party. All of the evil characters were human, and all had 10 levels of Ur-Priest (Some had backgrounds as Warlocks, others Sorcerers, and I think one was even an Assassin), and part of an organization called De Bruderschaft der Mensch (German for "The Brotherhood of Man"), and while they were Evil, their goal was humanistic in nature...sort of. They believed that the gods were liars and that all human suffering, death, disease, etc. was because the "gods" were just very powerful mortals who had amassed enough power to become godlike in status and the act of that elevation to godhood had cause ripples through reality that caused the mortal races to suffer things like aging, disease and eventual death (believing that in our pure, original states, the mortal races were otherwise ageless, perfect beings). So they were all about empowerment of mortals and sought the destruction of the "gods". They even refered to any other divine characters in the party (like the cleric of Pelor) as "godslave".Awesome, awesome. lol thanks!

Also... did you get that campaign idea from the Gospel of Judas? o.O


The best advice for this is to take all published rules for divinity, throw them out, and tell your players that it works however you say it does.

For real. Published rules for divinity make it very hard for not-gods to become gods and even harder for gods to be killed. A god can basically kill anyone with a lower divine rank than them merely with a thought, with an effect that specifically allows no saves and gets through things that otherwise are supposed to prevent death (like death ward). You want an NPC that can kill a god/has killed a god you're going to need to DM fiat somewhere anyway to make it so that, somehow, they got around that BS.Seems legit.
But in the end when the gods actually get involved, they will pretty much all be Divine Ranks 1 or 0, MAYBE a 2, MAYBE...

[tyckspoon]

Are there any deities that have a portfolio sense that can help them when planes are getting merged inside of them exploding them from the inside out?
Because if there is some planes-based deity please let me know, that sounds kinda awesome and will be a major change in the story of my game.

But in the end when the gods actually get involved, they will pretty much all be Divine Ranks 1 or 0, MAYBE a 2, MAYBE...

Generally people hold that the cataclysmic end of existence rates pretty highly in every deity's portfolio. :smallbiggrin:

If you do intend to use the Deities & Demigods rules, being reduced to low Divine Ranks makes gods a ton easier to fight - as long as you remove the most troublesome Salient Divine Abilities from them when they get depowered (or make your PCs strong enough divinities to resist them) you can pretty much have a straight throwdown with a Demigod or Lesser Deity. They're not even all that impressive. Being a god of that level mostly equips you with a bunch of defensive abilities that aren't terribly better than what you can get with effective use of high-level spells and wealth.

[Envyus]

Quite a few gods have portfolio's that will let them see this coming, here one of the more interesting ones. Vecna the lich is the god of secrets and plots and native of the material plane. He will know of the plan to merge the planes the second it was made. His portfolio allows him to learn of any secret, plot or conspiracy if it will effect at least 100 people. Vecna however is one of the best BBEG's in d&d he hates the other gods and most of his major plans are aimed to destroy all of the other gods and to make himself powerful enough to rule over all of creation. Vecna is also very very very good at this. Notably as a demigod he once tried to hijack Sigil and beat the Lady of Pain. Unlike every other being that tried it Vecna came close to succeeding, survived and ended off better then he used to be even if he did not win in the end. At the start he was trapped in a demiplane, but through planning and powerful magic he freed himself, gained the power of a greater god, managed to make himself immune to the Lady's power by taping into an entity just as powerful as her. (She could make him feel pain but was incapable of banishing him from Sigil or killing him.) In the end his avatar that was destroyed before the final steps of his plan to rewrite reality was complete (However he did manage to change enough of reality to change 2nd edition into 3rd edition.) and he was banished from Sigil back to his own plane. However he kept the power of a lesser god and was free from his prison.

I can see this becoming a plot of his. Here is a scenario I thought up. He discovers the Vashar's plan and decides to hijack it to make himself an all powerful over deity. First he uses his portfolio over secrets to make sure the gods can't find out about the vashar's plan preventing the gods from stopping them before they get anywhere. Following this he aids the vashar with out them finding out so they can make the planes merge. When this happens and tons of gods die he is there with some powerful epic magic to adsorb up all of the fallen gods divine power and portfolios making him into an all powerful being. He can then discard his Vashar pawns (An overdeity would have no problems turning the entire race to dust with a thought.) and start ruling the now merged planes as it's sole god.

Also Vecna looks pretty cool

http://www.sj63.com/sj63_uploadfile/201107/20110705022037719.jpg

[Theprettiestorc]

Key to killing an god? A whole lotta debuffing power.

I'm only here to comment that it's on, brother. XD

[Hecuba]

Are there any deities that have a portfolio sense that can help them when planes are getting merged inside of them exploding them from the inside out?
Because if there is some planes-based deity please let me know, that sounds kinda awesome and will be a major change in the story of my game.

I'll set aside for the moment the scope of deaths and destruction you mention, which would likely trigger every portfolio.
If the planar merging you are discussing could be done with no destruction & death, it would still trigger some portfolios.

There is a list of portfolios on pages 30 and 31 of Deities and Demigods.
Of those, the folowing portfolios from Deities & Demigods would seem to qualify because of the relevant planes (elemental planes, mostly) that are within scope.
Fire Underworld Water Stone Sea Air Cold Earth

Additionally, presuming that this is planned and secret, the following portfolios would also seem to qualify:
Planning Secrets


Seems legit.
But in the end when the gods actually get involved, they will pretty much all be Divine Ranks 1 or 0, MAYBE a 2, MAYBE...
Those ranks are workable: demigods and lesser deities will only have portfolio sense trigger for the present, and only with a threshold number of people involved.
SDAs are still problematic, as are Automatic Actions for the non DR 0 deities (effectively, 2 actions related to their portfolios per round as free actions).

[unseenmage]

I just want to point out that the kryptonite to most every deity is a more powerful deity.
Seriously though, over and over and over again you'll see the words, '...except by a deity of a higher divine rank...', or their equivalent.

Just have one of the oldest deities, one of the ones who don't even get stats they're so old and huge and integral to reality, be the entity pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Portfolio Sense triggered and the bad guy dies and cannot be resurrected except by a stronger deity? Suddenly they're resurrected!
Set some arbitrarily huge DC Know Religion check to recognize what happened and move on.

On that note, the Deities and Demigods book does mention that there are Overdeities who do not even have stat blocks. By purest RAW this says to me that there are unkilable deities, unkillable because they're not even alive. Their existence is beyond life or death within the parameters of the gameworld. So all the statted deities can be killed and there they'll be. Just existing and existing some more.

Now with all the other deities dead there's nothing stopping the deity-slayers from collecting all those divine sparks or shards or whatever they're called and ascending to Overdeity-hood themselves though. Then it would be a metaphysical battle of wits between the now Overgod deity killer(s) and the Overdeities where the winner gets to make the loser not exist anymore.

I suggest resolving that dispute via the traditional method for deciding things without statblocks; Paper-Rock-Scissors to best out of three.

Edit: One more thing, having an Overdeity be responsible for the deaths of every other deity and eventually of themselves and their fellow Overdeities has the added bonus of being a legit end of the world scenario.
Basically the Overdeity decided that the end of all things was here and begins assisting the deitykillers in their mission.
Then at the last moment the PCs and the NPCs get to race about and collect as many divine ranks as possible in order to ascend to Overdeity-hood. (even better if the number of ranks doesn't matter and it's some other confluence of events or thing that does the trick). Then the winner(s) get to deicide the other Overdeities or not. Reality continuing to exist depends on weather the deitykillers make it to Overdeity-hood or the PCs do.

Just a thought.

[Envyus]

I just want to point out that the kryptonite to most every deity is a more powerful deity.
Seriously though, over and over and over again you'll see the words, '...except by a deity of a higher divine rank...', or their equivalent.

Just have one of the oldest deities, one of the ones who don't even get stats they're so old and huge and integral to reality, be the entity pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Portfolio Sense triggered and the bad guy dies and cannot be resurrected except by a stronger deity? Suddenly they're resurrected!
Set some arbitrarily huge DC Know Religion check to recognize what happened and move on.

On that note, the Deities and Demigods book does mention that there are Overdeities who do not even have stat blocks. By purest RAW this says to me that there are unkilable deities, unkillable because they're not even alive. Their existence is beyond life or death within the parameters of the gameworld. So all the statted deities can be killed and there they'll be. Just existing and existing some more.

Now with all the other deities dead there's nothing stopping the deity-slayers from collecting all those divine sparks or shards or whatever they're called and ascending to Overdeity-hood themselves though. Then it would be a metaphysical battle of wits between the now Overgod deity killer(s) and the Overdeities where the winner gets to make the loser not exist anymore.

I suggest resolving that dispute via the traditional method for deciding things without statblocks; Paper-Rock-Scissors to best out of three.

Edit: One more thing, having an Overdeity be responsible for the deaths of every other deity and eventually of themselves and their fellow Overdeities has the added bonus of being a legit end of the world scenario.
Basically the Overdeity decided that the end of all things was here and begins assisting the deitykillers in their mission.
Then at the last moment the PCs and the NPCs get to race about and collect as many divine ranks as possible in order to ascend to Overdeity-hood. (even better if the number of ranks doesn't matter and it's some other confluence of events or thing that does the trick). Then the winner(s) get to deicide the other Overdeities or not. Reality continuing to exist depends on weather the deitykillers make it to Overdeity-hood or the PCs do.

Just a thought.

I brought up the scenario of it being a plot by Vecna again to become a Overdeity.

[Phelix-Mu]

@unseenmage: Reminds me of the epic campaign where our characters worked for Ao...until Tharizdun showed up and decapitated him. Good thing Ao was such a jerk, otherwise we might have had to feel bad about that. Of course, the death of Ao led to the annihilation of all beings in the D&D multiverse, which was kind of depressing.

[felinoel]

Generally people hold that the cataclysmic end of existence rates pretty highly in every deity's portfolio. :smallbiggrin:

If you do intend to use the Deities & Demigods rules, being reduced to low Divine Ranks makes gods a ton easier to fight - as long as you remove the most troublesome Salient Divine Abilities from them when they get depowered (or make your PCs strong enough divinities to resist them) you can pretty much have a straight throwdown with a Demigod or Lesser Deity. They're not even all that impressive. Being a god of that level mostly equips you with a bunch of defensive abilities that aren't terribly better than what you can get with effective use of high-level spells and wealth.That is fine and all but the players aren't fighting the gods, they are becoming gods and I need Vashar builds that are powerful enough to be a challenge to them...


Quite a few gods have portfolio's that will let them see this coming, here one of the more interesting ones. Vecna the lich is the god of secrets and plots and native of the material plane. He will know of the plan to merge the planes the second it was made. His portfolio allows him to learn of any secret, plot or conspiracy if it will effect at least 100 people. Vecna however is one of the best BBEG's in d&d he hates the other gods and most of his major plans are aimed to destroy all of the other gods and to make himself powerful enough to rule over all of creation. Vecna is also very very very good at this. Notably as a demigod he once tried to hijack Sigil and beat the Lady of Pain. Unlike every other being that tried it Vecna came close to succeeding, survived and ended off better then he used to be even if he did not win in the end. At the start he was trapped in a demiplane, but through planning and powerful magic he freed himself, gained the power of a greater god, managed to make himself immune to the Lady's power by taping into an entity just as powerful as her. (She could make him feel pain but was incapable of banishing him from Sigil or killing him.) In the end his avatar that was destroyed before the final steps of his plan to rewrite reality was complete (However he did manage to change enough of reality to change 2nd edition into 3rd edition.) and he was banished from Sigil back to his own plane. However he kept the power of a lesser god and was free from his prison.

I can see this becoming a plot of his. Here is a scenario I thought up. He discovers the Vashar's plan and decides to hijack it to make himself an all powerful over deity. First he uses his portfolio over secrets to make sure the gods can't find out about the vashar's plan preventing the gods from stopping them before they get anywhere. Following this he aids the vashar with out them finding out so they can make the planes merge. When this happens and tons of gods die he is there with some powerful epic magic to adsorb up all of the fallen gods divine power and portfolios making him into an all powerful being. He can then discard his Vashar pawns (An overdeity would have no problems turning the entire race to dust with a thought.) and start ruling the now merged planes as it's sole god.

Also Vecna looks pretty cool

http://www.sj63.com/sj63_uploadfile/201107/20110705022037719.jpglol if you want a good story look into the Head of Vecna campaign, anyways I can definitely agree with Vecna being aware of it happening but I figure Vecna would be smart enough not to try to join up with a species that hates all gods and just let the Vashar kill for him, leaving him the more powerful being.


I'll set aside for the moment the scope of deaths and destruction you mention, which would likely trigger every portfolio.That is too OP and as the DM (as others have recommended) I won't run the game like that.


If the planar merging you are discussing could be done with no destruction & death, it would still trigger some portfolios.

There is a list of portfolios on pages 30 and 31 of Deities and Demigods.
Of those, the folowing portfolios from Deities & Demigods would seem to qualify because of the relevant planes (elemental planes, mostly) that are within scope.
Fire Underworld Water Stone Sea Air Cold EarthEhhh... idk, so then I guess you are also telling me that if someone sneezes in the elemental plane of fire ALL deities with the Fire portfolio knows about it?


Additionally, presuming that this is planned and secret, the following portfolios would also seem to qualify:
Planning SecretsI am fine with these knowing, is there a list of deities with these portfolios somewhere?
/me runs off to google


Those ranks are workable: demigods and lesser deities will only have portfolio sense trigger for the present, and only with a threshold number of people involved.
SDAs are still problematic, as are Automatic Actions for the non DR 0 deities (effectively, 2 actions related to their portfolios per round as free actions).The NPCs are the god-killers, the players are the god-becomers.


I just want to point out that the kryptonite to most every deity is a more powerful deity.
Seriously though, over and over and over again you'll see the words, '...except by a deity of a higher divine rank...', or their equivalent.

Just have one of the oldest deities, one of the ones who don't even get stats they're so old and huge and integral to reality, be the entity pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Portfolio Sense triggered and the bad guy dies and cannot be resurrected except by a stronger deity? Suddenly they're resurrected!
Set some arbitrarily huge DC Know Religion check to recognize what happened and move on.

On that note, the Deities and Demigods book does mention that there are Overdeities who do not even have stat blocks. By purest RAW this says to me that there are unkilable deities, unkillable because they're not even alive. Their existence is beyond life or death within the parameters of the gameworld. So all the statted deities can be killed and there they'll be. Just existing and existing some more.

Now with all the other deities dead there's nothing stopping the deity-slayers from collecting all those divine sparks or shards or whatever they're called and ascending to Overdeity-hood themselves though. Then it would be a metaphysical battle of wits between the now Overgod deity killer(s) and the Overdeities where the winner gets to make the loser not exist anymore.

I suggest resolving that dispute via the traditional method for deciding things without statblocks; Paper-Rock-Scissors to best out of three.

Edit: One more thing, having an Overdeity be responsible for the deaths of every other deity and eventually of themselves and their fellow Overdeities has the added bonus of being a legit end of the world scenario.
Basically the Overdeity decided that the end of all things was here and begins assisting the deitykillers in their mission.
Then at the last moment the PCs and the NPCs get to race about and collect as many divine ranks as possible in order to ascend to Overdeity-hood. (even better if the number of ranks doesn't matter and it's some other confluence of events or thing that does the trick). Then the winner(s) get to deicide the other Overdeities or not. Reality continuing to exist depends on weather the deitykillers make it to Overdeity-hood or the PCs do.

Just a thought.The thing stopping them from collecting all of those divine spark/shards and ascending to Overdeity-hood is their hatred for all deities.

The Vashar are responsible for the deaths.

[tyckspoon]

Ehhh... idk, so then I guess you are also telling me that if someone sneezes in the elemental plane of fire ALL deities with the Fire portfolio knows about it?


Nah, just the Intermediate and Greater ones. Demigods and Lesser deities require the event to affect a certain magnitude of people. But yeah, Intermediate and Greater deities are potentially aware of basically everything that relates to their portfolios. Note that this means that they are receiving millions and millions of notifications about events every second (infinite planes and all), and not even Greater deities have the time or the attention to examine all of those. Most things just get washed out in the noise unexamined unless something happens to draw the deity's attention to it (like, say, somebody asks it a question about the event using a Commune or Contact Other Plane kind of spell.)

[felinoel]

Nah, just the Intermediate and Greater ones. Demigods and Lesser deities require the event to affect a certain magnitude of people. But yeah, Intermediate and Greater deities are potentially aware of basically everything that relates to their portfolios. Note that this means that they are receiving millions and millions of notifications about events every second (infinite planes and all), and not even Greater deities have the time or the attention to examine all of those. Most things just get washed out in the noise unexamined unless something happens to draw the deity's attention to it (like, say, somebody asks it a question about the event using a Commune or Contact Other Plane kind of spell.)kay then... >.>

[Envyus]

lol if you want a good story look into the Head of Vecna campaign, anyways I can definitely agree with Vecna being aware of it happening but I figure Vecna would be smart enough not to try to join up with a species that hates all gods and just let the Vashar kill for him, leaving him the more powerful being.
Oh I know he would never out right join up with them. Just that he would pull some strings so that their plans would not get nipped in the bud and he can take advantage of them.


The thing stopping them from collecting all of those divine spark/shards and ascending to Overdeity-hood is their hatred for all deities.
Then once their plan come to bear he can be the one to collect the divine power and ascend to Overdeity-hood as he has no such issues. Him as an overdeity could serve as good final boss do the power of his portfolio and being a very powerful magic user. (His portfolio makes it near impossible to try and go on the offensive against him as he knows when ever someone comes up with a plan to beat him and this allows him to crush these upstarts before they get anywhere. His godly magic powers allow him to cast any Arcane or Divine spell spontaneously like a sorcerer.)


Ehhh... idk, so then I guess you are also telling me that if someone sneezes in the elemental plane of fire ALL deities with the Fire portfolio knows about it?

Not quite but the merging of the elemental plane of fire with another plane will for sure alert deities with the fire portfolio.
I am fine with these knowing, is there a list of deities with these portfolios somewhere?
/me runs off to google
Vecna has those ones

[Aharon]

The Terror
Go with an extreme fear build (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809.0) with Dread Witch from Heroes of Horror so even targets normally immune to fear will still be affected. Use Circle Magic (Red Wizard or Halruaan Elder) to boost his caster level to 40th for this to work against deities, as he won't overcome the fear immunity of opponents whose hit dice is four or more higher than his caster level.
Wizard 5/ Red Wizard 10/ Dread Witch 5, he creates nine Simulacrums of himself which are each Wizard 5/ Red Wizard 5. The simulacrums take turns doing circle magic with each of them as a circle leader, they each use all the contributed spell levels to Heighten a single spell to 20th level. When he does circle magic and leads the circle himself, they each contribute that 20th level spell, so he has 180 spell levels to work with. Bonus points if he gets Irresistible Spell from the Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide (an official 3.5 sourcebook (http://www.amazon.com/Players-Guide-Rulebook-Dungeons-Kingdoms/dp/1889182613/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396848064&sr=8-1&keywords=kingdoms+of+kalamar+player%27s+guide)), it's a +4 metamagic with Maximize Spell and Fortify Spell (CA) as prerequisites, and it removes the saving throws from a spell it modifies. As just one example, an Irresistible Phantasmal Killer takes an 8th level spell slot, and it will slay anything it targets without allowing a saving throw, as long as they're not immune to it and you can beat their SR. You can even use a Metamagic Rod of Chain Spell (CA) with that, to automatically kill forty-one targets.

Hey Biffoniacus,

thanks for that build. I knew about the Dread Witch concept and liked it, but there was never any opportunity to dial it up to 11. Intimidating Gods into submission? That's golden :smallbiggrin:

[felinoel]

Oh I know he would never out right join up with them. Just that he would pull some strings so that their plans would not get nipped in the bud and he can take advantage of them.
Then once their plan come to bear he can be the one to collect the divine power and ascend to Overdeity-hood as he has no such issues. Him as an overdeity could serve as good final boss do the power of his portfolio and being a very powerful magic user. (His portfolio makes it near impossible to try and go on the offensive against him as he knows when ever someone comes up with a plan to beat him and this allows him to crush these upstarts before they get anywhere. His godly magic powers allow him to cast any Arcane or Divine spell spontaneously like a sorcerer.)I don't think I will involve overdeities, I may just have them try to destroy the sparks/shards since those sparks/shards are divine.


Vecna has those onesMy googlefu only found Vecna and maybe the Traveler from Eberron, so no worries from the gods who would know about it since Vecna would take advantage of the situation and the Traveler doesn't exist in this universe.


Hey Biffoniacus,

thanks for that build. I knew about the Dread Witch concept and liked it, but there was never any opportunity to dial it up to 11. Intimidating Gods into submission? That's golden :smallbiggrin:Quite golden indeed.

[Hecuba]

Ehhh... idk, so then I guess you are also telling me that if someone sneezes in the elemental plane of fire ALL deities with the Fire portfolio knows about it?
That depends: one of your biggest to-dos as DM for a campaign dealing with Deities is to determine how you want to run Portfolio Sense. The ability is broad enough and broken enough that you'll have to decide how you want it to work.

The RAW on the subject is fairly open-ended: there are no examples given, and it' simply events within their portfolio (though there are requirements regarding the number of people involved when dealing with lesser deities and demigods).


The NPCs are the god-killers, the players are the god-becomers.
Yep, I got that. Your stated range of Divine Ranks still makes this much easier: your players only have portfolio sense triggered by events with large numbers of people, and only for events in the present time.
They don't qualify for the most of the broken SDAs (which tend to require Divine Rank 6).
Their Automatic Actions are limited to 1 or 2 a round.

If the players domains and SDAs are combat relevant, they still have an advantage in the action economy and some at will powers (each a bit nicer than a 9th level spell, but not inordinately different for the purposes of balance).

These are advantages that you can overcome with a sufficient number of God-killing NPCs in the level 17-20 ECL range (casting presumed).
I would eyeball it as needing 1.5x or 2x as many such NPCs as you would send to deal with the equivalent characters without their Divine Goodies, but this could vary significantly.

When you hit Divine Rank 6, you start getting options that are more problematic, but still something you could throw an small army of high level characters at to kill.

I would advise not trying to directly involve anything of DR 11 or higher directly in combats (on your players side or otherwise).

[RedMage125]

Sweet, that is exactly what they are currently doing, by merging all of the planes into one tons and tons and tons of followers are all dying horrible, brutal deaths.
Nice. That's the way to do it, go through their worshipers like Kleenex.


My players aren't deities yet, love those stats though, thanks!

Even more stats awesome!

lol a lot of people have been saying to make the Vashar Ur-Priests xD

Awesome, awesome. lol thanks!

Also... did you get that campaign idea from the Gospel of Judas? o.O
No problem.

And no, I was more inspired by the Blood of Vol religion in Eberron, taken to a further extreme.

Important to note that although the Bruderschaft Der Mensch professes a humanistic goal, they are evil. The leaders of the organization (the characters I made for that game) are tyrants. They rule with an iron fist, and desire power for themselves. When their armies take a city, thy tear down the temples and execute all the priests. Then the citizens are rounded up, and those that do not disavow the gods are also put to death. They have an epic spell prepared that's kind of like a "Mass Atonement", but it severs a person's connection to a deity (so they would need an atonement spell to be considered a worshiper of a deity again). They believe that their goal of wiping out the gods is so important, that any mortal lives lost defending the status quo is a worthwhile loss. They estimate that they'll have to kill close to half the mortal population. Their empire is built on fear.

[felinoel]

That depends: one of your biggest to-dos as DM for a campaign dealing with Deities is to determine how you want to run Portfolio Sense. The ability is broad enough and broken enough that you'll have to decide how you want it to work.

The RAW on the subject is fairly open-ended: there are no examples given, and it' simply events within their portfolio (though there are requirements regarding the number of people involved when dealing with lesser deities and demigods).
I am fine with having the two deities above who have planning and secrecy for portfolios know about it but the others just seems unlikely...


Yep, I got that. Your stated range of Divine Ranks still makes this much easier: your players only have portfolio sense triggered by events with large numbers of people, and only for events in the present time.
They don't qualify for the most of the broken SDAs (which tend to require Divine Rank 6).
Their Automatic Actions are limited to 1 or 2 a round.The Vashar are the ones who would trigger this portfolio sense, they are the ones killing the gods by merging the planes, the players were on a search and rescue quest that went quite south like seven sessions ago and now they are wandering around trying to figure out how to get back to the Material Plane while unusual things happen as they notice the planes merging.,,


If the players domains and SDAs are combat relevant, they still have an advantage in the action economy and some at will powers (each a bit nicer than a 9th level spell, but not inordinately different for the purposes of balance).

These are advantages that you can overcome with a sufficient number of God-killing NPCs in the level 17-20 ECL range (casting presumed).
I would eyeball it as needing 1.5x or 2x as many such NPCs as you would send to deal with the equivalent characters without their Divine Goodies, but this could vary significantly.

When you hit Divine Rank 6, you start getting options that are more problematic, but still something you could throw an small army of high level characters at to kill.

I would advise not trying to directly involve anything of DR 11 or higher directly in combats (on your players side or otherwise).I don't think they will be going too far past DR 1 or 2, I would run out of story and bad guys for then.


Nice. That's the way to do it, go through their worshipers like Kleenex.

No problem.

And no, I was more inspired by the Blood of Vol religion in Eberron, taken to a further extreme.

Important to note that although the Bruderschaft Der Mensch professes a humanistic goal, they are evil. The leaders of the organization (the characters I made for that game) are tyrants. They rule with an iron fist, and desire power for themselves. When their armies take a city, thy tear down the temples and execute all the priests. Then the citizens are rounded up, and those that do not disavow the gods are also put to death. They have an epic spell prepared that's kind of like a "Mass Atonement", but it severs a person's connection to a deity (so they would need an atonement spell to be considered a worshiper of a deity again). They believe that their goal of wiping out the gods is so important, that any mortal lives lost defending the status quo is a worthwhile loss. They estimate that they'll have to kill close to half the mortal population. Their empire is built on fear.lol it sounds like the Gospel of Judas, maybe whoever wrote this Blood of Vol thing based it off of that.