How do you actually kill a god?

[atemu1234]

I know everyone says "If you can stat it, you can kill it", but really, what methods are there, to kill a mid-to-high level god? They can teleport, they sense you coming miles off, so how do you actually get into combat with one, once you become a threat to them?

[OldTrees1]

Teleport requires an action. There is no reason for a Theoretical Optimization build to allow their target to get an action.

[Judge_Worm]

Teleport requires an action. There is no reason for a Theoretical Optimization build to allow their target to get an action.

In addition, why should a TO build be seen coming? Shouldn't they have complete coverage from any scrying like effects?

[ZamielVanWeber]

Assuming no TO, first off did your DM rework the gods to be more appropriate or leave them as Class20/Class20?
If A be prepared for a HECK of a tough fight. You need to plan ahead, cover your bases, and assume that everything you do the god will already have pallned for and be ready for and you need to be ready for that.

If B they are actually pretty inefficient. They have poor skill/feat/SDA synergy and no way of abusing action economy short of summoning swarms of dudes ahead of time, and many of them cannot even do that.

[Honest Tiefling]

So what's the diplomacy DC to convince a god to go beat up another god on your behalf?

[atemu1234]

So what's the diplomacy DC to convince a god to go beat up another god on your behalf?

Probably fanatic.

But I don't think even a god could theoretically defeat a god.

[AlanBruce]

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.


Albert Camus

And so would a god look upon any PC or party that would even contemplate the sliver of an idea regarding a deity's demise- a futile and hopeless labor.

I am certain many will disagree, but I must place the blame on WoTC- statting gods is a terrible idea. They are, for many races, the single reason why such civilizations exist.

The origin of magic, the invention of Inventive Thought and Free Will… a cruel cosmic joke, to grant eager mortals the sliver of hope to dethrone a power that has prceded them for eons.

A deity must always remain inscrutable and distant, at least mechanically- if any stats are to be appointed.

The moment you give numbers to a being of such unfathomable power and bring in mechanical terms- you already killed it before a battle officialy began.

[atemu1234]

Albert Camus

And so would a god look upon any PC or party that would even contemplate the sliver of an idea regarding a deity's demise- a futile and hopeless labor.

I am certain many will disagree, but I must place the blame on WoTC- statting gods is a terrible idea. They are, for many races, the single reason why such civilizations exist.

The origin of magic, the invention of Inventive Thought and Free Will… a cruel cosmic joke, to grant eager mortals the sliver of hope to dethrone a power that has prceded them for eons.

A deity must always remain inscrutable and distant, at least mechanically- if any stats are to be appointed.

The moment you give numbers to a being of such unfathomable power and bring in mechanical terms- you already killed it before a battle officialy began.

And that seems to be avoiding the question :smallconfused:.

A deity shouldn't be inscrutable - they aren't omnipotent or completely omniscient; they are beings that live, and beings that can ultimately die.

But that is the question, how to kill one. It's the subject of so many plots, and there seems to be no way mechanically to reasonably be able to kill one.

[Red Fel]

Short version? I've said it before, I'll say it again: If your DM wants you to be able to kill a god, you can kill a god. If he doesn't, it's impossible. While this is true for most things (that is, if the DM wants something to be impossible, it is), it's especially true when the target has within his dominion control over an aspect of reality.

If the DM plays gods like any other monster, they can be killed the same way you can kill any other monster. You track them down, engage them, something something Wizard, something something Gate, something something epic spellcasting, dead god. Just like dead Dragon, dead Abomination, dead pretty much anything.

If the DM plays gods as gods, however, it becomes virtually impossible. Gods become aware of matters directly pertaining to their portfolio - a plan to kill the owner of the portfolio certainly pertains to that. They also become aware when they are named, and if you plan to kill one, you might drop its name once or twice. They'll know what you're planning well before you execute it. And Salient Divine Abilities are a thing, particularly those that involve snuffing out life without a save. They exist.

And you're not just fighting one god, ever. You're fighting every god that has an interest in that god's existence. That includes: Allied gods. Gods that owe them a favor. "Only I may defeat you" rival gods. Gods with an interest in preserving the status quo of the cosmos. Gods with an interest in preserving a feud between your target and another god. Gods who are generally mischievous jerks.And even if, theoretically, your target can't stop you, there's a good chance that several gods, acting in concert will be able to.

So, short version? You kill a god exactly like you kill any other creature, assuming you're able to at all.

[JackRackham]

Yeah, I think a lot of those God-killing plans neglect to acknowledge the fact that for your character to be prepared to fight a God, he has to be planning to fight a God - who will totally know what he's doing and be able to teleport straight to his scheming ass before he buys his first potion. Among other issues, of course.

[Dayaz]

You could always try making then have less than 300 worshipers, making them loose their divinity. Then they're just a mortal

[atemu1234]

You could always try making then have less than 300 worshipers, making them loose their divinity. Then they're just a mortal

Those are described as guidelines for power, not the source of their power.

[JackRackham]

You could always try making then have less than 300 worshipers, making them loose their divinity. Then they're just a mortal

And they could find out what you're up to and murder you from afar before you ever really start.

[Bad Wolf]

Epic Spellcasting. I'm pretty sure some guy killed the goddess of magic through that. 12th level spell?

[Endarire]

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=12959325&postcount=115). Tippy saves the day again!

[Phelix-Mu]

Epic Spellcasting. I'm pretty sure some guy killed the goddess of magic through that. 12th level spell?

I believe it was more along the lines of he got close, then she turned off all magic everywhere to stop him. It may have dealt her a setback, but Mystra seems to go through incarnations every so often, so I'm not clear if she's "dead" in the way we normally mean it (that whole Mystra/Mystryl/Midnight thing always confused the heck out of me).

[Jowgen]

As has been said, the main condition is that your DM actually allows Deities to be vulnerable/killable.

Assuming this condition has been met, the most imporant thing is picking your battle. You need to be able to locate the deity, avoid its various deitic senses, get into combat range of it, and lastly deal enough damage to it before it kills you.

If I ever were to try and take on any given deity, I'd probably pick Tiamat. Plane Shift to Avernus, free-fall straight down into her open-roof palace, surprise round or at least win initiative, and then deal an un-godly ammount of Force Damage in that single round I have before dying.

[JackRackham]

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=12959325&postcount=115). Tippy saves the day again!

Okay. But why, in-character, are you doing those things, if not as preliminary steps in your plan to kill a deity? And if you're doing it as part of your plan to kill a deity, wouldn't it know when you've hatched the plan? Or even before then, wouldn't they know that your character is brooding, trying to think of any bizarre thing he can to kill a deity?

[Belial_the_Leveler]

@Endarine:
Brief response to Tippy's plan: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Full responce to Tippy's plan:
1) Ice assassin can only make copies of specific, existing, living creatures. To make an ice assassin of a 20th level mind-flayer psion with ability scores in the 70s you must a) know that such a creature exists, b) must know and specify such individual, c) must survive having encountered such an individual with both of you still alive in order to know them, d) must spend 8 hours casting that spell, e) must survive said individual being able to find you, know you're creating something that will attempt to kill them and them attacking you to prevent it, f) do all of the above against an individual that doesn't need this first step to eat brains and get more abilities than you have, will want to eat your brain and if you kill them, you will no longer be able to cast the spell. Good Luck.
2) Step 5 means you're already an ECL 50 character. Congratulations. You can now kill gods after having more effective levels than they do.
3) Aleax are constructs. They don't count as living creatures. Also, they only exist in the brief time between being created to kill their originals and either succeeding in that or being destroyed i.e. for the duration of a single fight. So not only you can't cast Ice Assassins of them but even if you did they'd no longer exist by the time you finished the 8 hour casting time and the spell would fail.




Do the TO guys actually check their TO plans?

[Brookshw]

And that seems to be avoiding the question :smallconfused:.

A deity shouldn't be inscrutable - they aren't omnipotent or completely omniscient; they are beings that live, and beings that can ultimately die.

But that is the question, how to kill one. It's the subject of so many plots, and there seems to be no way mechanically to reasonably be able to kill one.

More that it puts the question in perspective, I rather agree with AlanBruce.

On the other hand, Camus also wrote that Sisyphus must be very happy indeed. :smallwink:

[atemu1234]

More that it puts the question in perspective, I rather agree with AlanBruce.

On the other hand, Camus also wrote that Sisyphus must be very happy indeed. :smallwink:

I asked how to kill a god, it provides little perspective. They aren't dead, yet.

[atemu1234]

Epic Spellcasting. I'm pretty sure some guy killed the goddess of magic through that. 12th level spell?

Wouldn't a god know the moment you started trying to make the spell?

[Eno Remnant]

Everyone seems to be overcomplicating the matter. Here's how I would go about killing a deity, based on deity stats I am familiar with:

1) Get protection from divinations. Heck, this should be step zero. It's probably the most obvious step of them all. Not that hard, there are spells and magic items that'll do the trick which aren't too expensive.

2) Catch them off guard. You're going to need a battery of stealth spells or really good Hide/Move Silently to sneak up on a god. Alternatively, there are the more esoteric measures I prefer: a) insanely high move speed so you can charge from outside of their Listen/Spot range, and b) get in real close as a 10th level Iaijutsu Master - if you can get into melee range before combat begins, you automatically get a surprise round.

3) Act before they do. If you've got a surprise round, perfect. If not, you wanna hope your initiative is high. Like munchkin high. Again, my advice (and the only way to kill a god that I've ever bothered investing in) is to go Iaijutsu Master for two levels and add your Charisma to your initiative check (and when read strictly as RAW, you can add your Charisma modifier to your Dexterity modifier. Wouldn't try swinging this one past your DM, though).

4) Strike hard and strike true. You want highly accurate attacks with insane damage to wipe out a god. There are dozens of ways to do this, as all D&D players know. My own way--again relying on the Iaijutsu Master--is to abuse items that add/replace your attack/damage with Charisma (Snowflake Wardance, Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows and Slippers of Battledancing all highly useful in this respect) and then pull an insanely big Iaijutsu Focus check to max it out. A 5th level Iaijutsu Master optimised correctly adds 9d6 dice to their damage if they roll a 50 on the check; but that's not the fun part. The reason you're a 5th level Iaijutsu Master is because you can add your Charisma mod to each extra die of damage! For example, if you had a modifier of +20, you'd be adding an extra 9d6+180 damage to your attack. Add a Valorous weapon, and you're doing double damage if you charge. Sneak Attack, Power Attack (with Shock Trooper; we want to keep that attack up) and similar will also be a big help.

That's how I would do it. Insane ability damage or something else might do the trick too.

EDIT: I have built a number of Iaijutsu Masters that can easily deal 500 damage with more than +50 attack, and an initiative check in the 30s. They're level 20 theorycraft builds, so I don't think they'll be too helpful, but it just illustrates my point.

EDIT 2: Additionally, if you get into epic levels, you can take a feat called Improved Iaijutsu Focus that takes the cap away from an Iaijutsu Focus check. Which means you're doing xd6+x*Charisma mod extra damage :smallbiggrin:

[Arcanist]

I remember when I used to ask this question every week. It's good to see that some questions never stop getting asked :smallamused:


@Endarine:
Brief response to Tippy's plan: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Full responce to Tippy's plan:
1) Ice assassin can only make copies of specific, existing, living creatures. To make an ice assassin of a 20th level mind-flayer psion with ability scores in the 70s you must a) know that such a creature exists, b) must know and specify such individual, c) must survive having encountered such an individual with both of you still alive in order to know them, d) must spend 8 hours casting that spell, e) must survive said individual being able to find you, know you're creating something that will attempt to kill them and them attacking you to prevent it, f) do all of the above against an individual that doesn't need this first step to eat brains and get more abilities than you have, will want to eat your brain and if you kill them, you will no longer be able to cast the spell. Good Luck.
2) Step 5 means you're already an ECL 50 character. Congratulations. You can now kill gods after having more effective levels than they do.
3) Aleax are constructs. They don't count as living creatures. Also, they only exist in the brief time between being created to kill their originals and either succeeding in that or being destroyed i.e. for the duration of a single fight. So not only you can't cast Ice Assassins of them but even if you did they'd no longer exist by the time you finished the 8 hour casting time and the spell would fail.

Well that is certainly one way to do it. I believe the lowest level possible to kill a God is 17 I believe? It's just so bloodied contrived and splatbook dependent that in most campaigns you'll never actually be able to do it. I believe to just do it you need Player's Handbook 2, Planar Handbook, Manual of Planes and Complete Mage just to pull it off.


Be a Spellcaster of at least 17th level for prepared OR 18 for spontaneous.
Prepare or somehow get Plane Shift.
Get your hands on a Vest of Steadfast Spellcasting [Planar Handbook].
This allows you to cast spells in areas of impede magic.
Teleport to 10 miles out of the center of the Outlands [Manual of the Planes].
Everything in that area is gone [No Divine, No Su, No magic, Nothing].
EXCEPT! Because of the Vest, you can still cast spells.
Figure out how to call the Diety [Wish will call them].
Use whatever infinite damage combo you want to kill the God.
Throw confetti, you've just killed a God.


It's debatable if this tactic actually works, but I've never seen anyone spot an objection. Celerity allows you to bypass any initiative count therefore Denying them a turn all together, the means escape me, but I'm sure there is some flavor of the week uber high damage spell combo floating around on these boards.

If someone sees a flaw in it, please fix it up. I always found this tactic hilarious.



Do the TO guys actually check their TO plans?

Well I know that I don't. I just wing it these days.

[torrasque666]

-GAUNTLET HAS BEEN THROWN-

We now need to summon Tippy. Does this count as something pertaining to his portfolio?

[Belial_the_Leveler]

1) Deities can't be called or summoned unless they wish to be. They have control of astral links to their domains so anything short of miracle or wish or epic spellcasting fails automatically. And miracle/wish allows a saving throw and spell resistance - deities tend to have saving throws in the 50+ region and never fail on a natural one so they won't be failing their save against people not at their level.

2) All deities can make magic items and have existed for eons and have access to countless souls. Assume they're already wearing said vest. Anyone tries to annoy them from the Outlands, they immediately Gate him to their presence and blast them to bits. If the annoyance is dimensionally anchored to prevent thus, they open a Gate near it and attack through the Gate while they stand in the seat of their powers. Or they Wish them to their presence instead.

3) Greater Deities specifically can manipulate the Time trait in their domains. Annoy them and between one of your rounds and the next they've spent a few years retraining their 40+ levels to something useful, Chaos-shuffling their feats and developing and casting the Epic Spell "Rocks Fall, you Die". They have also done so months before your deicide would be attempted.

[daremetoidareyo]

I asked how to kill a god, it provides little perspective. They aren't dead, yet.

But that's an issue. Right here, on earth, when you look into the night sky while standing on a spinning ball of cooling rock into empty space that is full of light, no matter what size, be it and 18 foot tall monstrosity, or the most studious human mind ever invented, you would have to kill the thing that made all of that. You have to kill a thing that can easily zip line across time in macro and micro scales, a thing that can reach from a multiverse away, yesterday, to provide a miracle you just prayed for tomorrow. You aren't talking about killing superman, you are talking about the thing capable of conceiving of how to create the events that can make a superman, down to the atom. Are you seriously going to stat that?

If you must know, the gods ain't characters, they are anthropological concepts of the purpose of existing. You want to kill a god; kill everything that has sentience. Easy peasy. Without seekers, the concept of a god has no fertile ground to seed itself.

[Divide by Zero]

But that's an issue. Right here, on earth, when you look into the night sky while standing on a spinning ball of cooling rock into empty space that is full of light, no matter what size, be it and 18 foot tall monstrosity, or the most studious human mind ever invented, you would have to kill the thing that made all of that. You have to kill a thing that can easily zip line across time in macro and micro scales, a thing that can reach from a multiverse away, yesterday, to provide a miracle you just prayed for tomorrow. You aren't talking about killing superman, you are talking about the thing capable of conceiving of how to create the events that can make a superman, down to the atom. Are you seriously going to stat that?

If you must know, the gods ain't characters, they are anthropological concepts of the purpose of existing. You want to kill a god; kill everything that has sentience. Easy peasy. Without seekers, the concept of a god has no fertile ground to seed itself.

That really depends on the sort of god you're talking about. Not all gods are omnipotent, particularly in polytheistic systems, and many real-life pantheons have had instances of gods being killed, though usually it's by other gods or god-aided mortals.

[ThisIsZen]

But that's an issue. Right here, on earth, when you look into the night sky while standing on a spinning ball of cooling rock into empty space that is full of light, no matter what size, be it and 18 foot tall monstrosity, or the most studious human mind ever invented, you would have to kill the thing that made all of that. You have to kill a thing that can easily zip line across time in macro and micro scales, a thing that can reach from a multiverse away, yesterday, to provide a miracle you just prayed for tomorrow. You aren't talking about killing superman, you are talking about the thing capable of conceiving of how to create the events that can make a superman, down to the atom. Are you seriously going to stat that?

If you must know, the gods ain't characters, they are anthropological concepts of the purpose of existing. You want to kill a god; kill everything that has sentience. Easy peasy. Without seekers, the concept of a god has no fertile ground to seed itself.

This is still all well and good, but this thread is about killing the already-statted gods in Dieties and Demigods. Talking about all the reasons that a god shouldn't be statted, or about the reasons one couldn't kill a truly omnipotent and omniscient God, aren't actually really valid here because we already have the stats, printed in a book. The thread is about how you kill those big piles of numbers.

That being said, I'm firmly in the same camp as the others who have said that you aren't going to do it as a standard PC at any level. Alter Reality and the other SD abilities are I Win cards. Portfolio-sense is scrying that can't be blocked, and any attempt to create an effect that COULD block it will take time, and attempting to create a spell that blocks portfolio sense is sure as hell going to trigger portfolio sense. So you're going to be blasted into ash either way.

I think the only really believable way to kill a god is to become a god with a higher divine rank. But I dunno that you'd even remember your goal by the time you've accomplished that, having become one of the cornerstones of reality and an ascended concept and all that.

Edit: There IS one method I think, but it's still in 'Ask your DM' territory and won't let you fight any big fish. I'd argue that the Vecna-blooded template should block even the portfolio sense of a deity of lesser or equal DR to Vecna, since the God-blooded templates literally derive their powers from the material bodies of the gods. But that may not be interpreted the same way by other DMs and would only let you get around the portfolio sense of very weak gods, generally speaking, and I'd imagine most any deity who isn't Vecna will have friends of SOME sort higher up the food chain.

And I doubt Vecna would really support the plan himself, considering if a Vecna-blooded hitman starts offing minor gods, Vecna is the one who's gonna catch heat for it, and he's already in a fairly precarious position in divine politics anyway to my knowledge.

[TypoNinja]

But that's an issue. Right here, on earth, when you look into the night sky while standing on a spinning ball of cooling rock into empty space that is full of light, no matter what size, be it and 18 foot tall monstrosity, or the most studious human mind ever invented, you would have to kill the thing that made all of that. You have to kill a thing that can easily zip line across time in macro and micro scales, a thing that can reach from a multiverse away, yesterday, to provide a miracle you just prayed for tomorrow. You aren't talking about killing superman, you are talking about the thing capable of conceiving of how to create the events that can make a superman, down to the atom. Are you seriously going to stat that?

If you must know, the gods ain't characters, they are anthropological concepts of the purpose of existing. You want to kill a god; kill everything that has sentience. Easy peasy. Without seekers, the concept of a god has no fertile ground to seed itself.

What the hell are you babbling about? I get the feeling you aren't reading the same thread as the rest of us.

D&D Deities are not all powerful, in fact most of them don't even bother to try pretending they are. They did not create the cosmos, hell they can't even claim their own planet. Some of them are downright fragile. Mystra despite being a god of magic actually has no access to epic spells, and has managed to get herself killed something like four or five times. No caster with half her levels would be caught dead, being dead, but she still manages to croak pretty regularly.

They have impressive stats because staring up at a level 40-60 character from the low vantage points of level 10 is intimidating as hell, but the fact is they squander their levels. For starters they all have 20 outsider HD, outsider HD aren't terrible (decent HD, lots of skill points, good BAB, all good saves) but they sure as hell aren't class levels. Second they tend to single class. Its always fighter 20 on the warrior gods. Who spent all their feats on weapon focus and weapon spec. No PrC's, no planning, poor synergies. Even the caster gods are terrible, salvaged only by the fact that with that many levels behind them they have all the meta magic feats ever. But not a single one of them ever takes the epic progressions, so no maximized twinned empowered Energy drains coming your way.

The weakest god, Imhotep, has only 20 expert levels, and a slew of SLA's. But he blew all his feats on TWF with his quarter staff. That's the kind of OP Deities come with.

Gods are scary because they have like three times more levels than anything else ever hopes to have (and a legion of special immunities thank to DR), but a simple shocktrooper build of comparable level could embarrass most printed Deities. WotC just isn't very good at optimization. Sheer numbers make up for their shortcomings. Even the threat of allied gods coming after you or helping isn't really a threat. D&D combat is already rocket tag at higher levels, adding in 30 more levels just makes it even more rocket tag. The fight will be long over by the time any Deific allies can show up.

Killing Deities is not the problem. Keeping them down is. Some of them just don't stay dead, and unlike a lich has no way to stop it from coming back, but that's not the real issue.

The real trick is that you might piss off whatever set up the pantheon you've decided to mess with, The deities in your PHB (or setting book) are not the creators, they are not what breathed life into the cosmos. Something else put that Pantheon in place, and that something probably had a reason why. That something is probably going to come looking when that Pantheon stops functioning. Be scared of that.

[ThisIsZen]

I honestly think looking at the things gods get that the players also have access to is the wrong way to go about things, because WotC is really bad at optimizing things but really good at creating OP content. Which is to say: Sure, the stats of the deities, divorced from the benefits of being deities are pretty bad. But then you throw on salient divine abilities and it's basically gg for mortals. Mystra died because ::plot::, nothing more or less.

Unless you can think up some way to overcome both portfolio sense and alter reality, you aren't killing any gods.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

1) You use circle magic, boosting items and the like to cast a CL 50 Gate spell that opens in the presence of a world-destroying abomination of 100 HD and greater power status. Sure, you can't force them to come through but they want to.

2) The abomination kills the gods, destroys the world and reduces all creatures upon it unto dust. This includes the god you wanted killed. The rest (yourself included) is a bad case of collateral damage.



The above has been canon-attempted in Forgotten Realms. After picking a fight with the entire Mulhorandi pantheon the idiotic Imaskari artificer-lords summoned Pandorym. The pantheon got wind of it, broke into their casting chamber and prevented them from releasing Pandorym and destroying Abeir-Toril. Then they leveled every single Imaskari stronghold in the whole stupid empire except for the few cities who used Epic Magic to bury themselves under Abeir-Toril's crust and seal the entrance behind them.

Morale of the story:
1) Don't challenge an entire patheon with your actions. It's stupid.
2) Don't open the way for greater abominations to enter your world. It's stupid.
3) However many hentai you've seen, calling a tentacled entity whose touch functions like a greater sphere of annihilation and whose mere errant thoughts can manifest into horrors that dominate entire populations is monumentally stupid.
4) The punishment for such monumental stupidity is execution and/or eternal imprisonment of you and your entire gene pool. Nobody wants that kind of stupid from spreading in any other populations.

[Arcanist]

1) Deities can't be called or summoned unless they wish to be. They have control of astral links to their domains so anything short of miracle or wish or epic spellcasting fails automatically. And miracle/wish allows a saving throw and spell resistance - deities tend to have saving throws in the 50+ region and never fail on a natural one so they won't be failing their save against people not at their level.

That makes things MUCH more complicated then. The problem then becomes overcoming the Saving Throw and Spell Resistance. After that, everything else is more or less fly.


2) All deities can make magic items and have existed for eons and have access to countless souls. Assume they're already wearing said vest. Anyone tries to annoy them from the Outlands, they immediately Gate him to their presence and blast them to bits. If the annoyance is dimensionally anchored to prevent thus, they open a Gate near it and attack through the Gate while they stand in the seat of their powers. Or they Wish them to their presence instead.

Find me a listed Deity that has the Vest and that assumption is a perfectly valid one, otherwise it serves no purpose for this exercise; You cannot go about a TO exercise and apply variables willy nilly otherwise in Wizard Vs Fighter discussions, the Fighters party would jump in as would the Wizards and the entire exercise serves no purpose. That said, I am not exactly sure how casting INTO an Limited Magic zone works. I know that in a Dead Magic zone you can teleport in, but cannot teleport out so I see no reason to believe that it does not work the same in an Limited Magic zone (where you fail the check to cast).

If we make assumptions about the statistics of listed deities this exercise would be like asking "At what level can a Wizard TKO the Lady of Pain/Ao/The DM". It's pointless to ask because the challenger can just shift the goal post and rightfully so because there is no static stat block to reference. That is why TO only works on paper, people!


3) Greater Deities specifically can manipulate the Time trait in their domains. Annoy them and between one of your rounds and the next they've spent a few years retraining their 40+ levels to something useful, Chaos-shuffling their feats and developing and casting the Epic Spell "Rocks Fall, you Die". They have also done so months before your deicide would be attempted.

I cannot stress this enough: This tactic is not possible on deities of Greater and up. Simply because at that level of DvR, the God is already at Wizard-In-The-Sky level paranoia. For the sake of this exercise, why not Hercules or some other Demigod?

[ThisIsZen]

Aren't demigods DR 0? That's sort of like God-in-title-but-not-in-power so is there much difference between killing a DR 0 demigod and a character that happens to have said demigod's stat array but not the divine rank?

[TypoNinja]

3) Greater Deities specifically can manipulate the Time trait in their domains. Annoy them and between one of your rounds and the next they've spent a few years retraining their 40+ levels to something useful, Chaos-shuffling their feats and developing and casting the Epic Spell "Rocks Fall, you Die". They have also done so months before your deicide would be attempted.

Yea, no. That's not how that power works.


A greater deity (rank 16 or higher) also can perform any one of the following acts:

Change or apply a gravity trait within the realm.
Change or apply an elemental or energy trait within the realm.
Change or apply a time trait within the realm.
Apply the limited magic trait to a particular school, domain, or spell descriptor within the area, preventing such spells and spell-like abilities from functioning. The greater deity’s own spells and spell-like abilities are not limited by these restrictions.

Once a deity sets the conditions in its realm, they are permanent, though the deity can change them. As a standard action, the deity can specify a new environmental condition. The change gradually takes effect over the next 10 minutes. Changing astral links, planar traits, or terrain requires more effort, and the deity must labor for a year and a day to change them. During this time, the deity must spend 8 hours a day on the project. During the remaining 16 hours of each day, the deity can perform any action it desires, so long as it remains within the realm. The astral links, planar traits, and terrain remain unchanged until the labor is complete.

First off, changing the time trait does so to the entire plane, not the 5 foot square you are in so no, he can't just freeze time you. Secondly even if he could, it takes ten minutes to apply. If you can't finish off a god in 60 rounds you weren't gonna do it at all.


Aren't demigods DR 0? That's sort of like God-in-title-but-not-in-power so is there much difference between killing a DR 0 demigod and a character that happens to have said demigod's stat array but not the divine rank?

Most of the divine rank dependent powers don't kick in, but you still get a pretty impressive set of resistances/immunities just for being a God at all. A big enough list I'm not gonna paste it. SRD has it.

[Vox Nihili]

1) Deities can't be called or summoned unless they wish to be. They have control of astral links to their domains so anything short of miracle or wish or epic spellcasting fails automatically. And miracle/wish allows a saving throw and spell resistance - deities tend to have saving throws in the 50+ region and never fail on a natural one so they won't be failing their save against people not at their level.


This, at least, is a non-issue. DCs on spells can be made arbitrarily high, either with Cancer Mage abuse or Tainted Spellcasting abuse.

[BrokenChord]

But that's an issue. Right here, on earth, when you look into the night sky while standing on a spinning ball of cooling rock into empty space that is full of light, no matter what size, be it and 18 foot tall monstrosity, or the most studious human mind ever invented, you would have to kill the thing that made all of that. You have to kill a thing that can easily zip line across time in macro and micro scales, a thing that can reach from a multiverse away, yesterday, to provide a miracle you just prayed for tomorrow. You aren't talking about killing superman, you are talking about the thing capable of conceiving of how to create the events that can make a superman, down to the atom. Are you seriously going to stat that?

If you must know, the gods ain't characters, they are anthropological concepts of the purpose of existing. You want to kill a god; kill everything that has sentience. Easy peasy. Without seekers, the concept of a god has no fertile ground to seed itself.

I think you're entirely misunderstanding what High Epic levels are. Now, I personally would totally stat deities, though the crap attempt at stats WotC threw at them isn't doing them any favors at all so I'd re-stat them all over the freaking place, including, in fact, buffing the SDAs a bit or at least giving the crappier gods a few more of them. But that doesn't mean I don't want them at all able to be killed. Because, really, High Epic isn't about whether or not you can do something. It's whether or not you can act responsibly despite your ability to do almost anything, and many stories will revolve around you having to deal with the consequences for not being responsible enough with your power. Gods are actually thematically appropriate opponents in High Epic, though again, their current stats make killing them at level 20 possible enough and even easy for the right optimizers.

But they aren't just beings ruling over the cosmos. They're a lot more than that. Depending on how truly godly you want them to be, they can irrevocably empower concepts. If Mystra dies, magic itself starts dying. Which is actually not as awful, life goes on, but what if you kill Nerull, and the power vacuum causes a god war, and at the end of it all of the gods of Death are dead? What if there can't be death any more? What if everybody who would die is just trapped in an eternity of the condition that kills them? I mean, some deaths seem peaceful because they're quick or you die before they get to "painful," but imagine waking up when you were supposed to die of a heart attack in your sleep and just having an eternal heart attack? Or having a tumor grow so large it starts crushing everything in your body and forcing its way out, but of course you can't kill it because literally nothing can die any more? The entire world and likely all the planes quickly overpopulate, and not just with humans or even just sentient beings, but just everything that can't die any more.

Think of all those un-widowed black widows! All the mantises that don't have anything to pray about any more!

Even if the concept lives on despite the gods not having any successor to embody it any more, i.e. the stuff all exists independently of the gods ruling over the stuff, there are still huge repercussions for killing deities. Look at all those Clerics that don't get spells any more! "Hey, guys, check it out, I killed Tiamat! ... What do you mean, there aren't any chromatic dragons any more? Unholy crap, they were all slaughtered? Every last one?" "Sorry guys, Pelor tried to kill me for, like, disrupting the divine balance or something, so I snuffed him. Wait, what do you mean all the useless Clerics on the material plane can't feed anyone any more?"

Plus, remember that godly power vacuum? That'll almost certainly start a war among the gods, as some try to force themselves into the now-vacant power position, others try to forcefully maintain order, and others use the brewing chaos to stir up even more trouble. Guess who gets pulled into such a war? Outsiders, of course, supporting the side that best serves their interests and ideals. Divine casters. Probably most full casters in general, because that war is stretching across many planes and what do you mean I have to deal with this war crap when I go to find diamonds on the Plane of Earth? Hell, depending on what exactly is at stake and the big guys' strategies, the Prime Material Plane might be the best place for the non-Goods to pursue interests during the war for numerous reasons, and then suddenly even people who don't care are getting dragged into the god war full-force too. I wonder what the death toll will be? I wonder if all those who die will actually go to their right place, especially if the god(s) killed were the one(s) in charge of that?

It's not that you can't kill a god, though it should certainly be harder than it currently is. It's that you really, really, really don't want to. Even if you're Evil and could probably keep the rest of the pantheon in check with your own power, the consequences are still things you want to avoid if you're actually Epic level. Because, I mean, Epic level characters can't even function on the same types of goals and feelings lower-level characters do. It just doesn't work at all at that level. You've got cosmic balances, and the fate of concepts, emotions, and conditions themselves, and the warping of reality in ways that would make an optimized 20th-level wizard scratch their head or cry depending on personality, and the existence of fundamental things that you literally base your understanding of the universe... All on your mind. You don't want to make your family proud, or prevent the uprising of an evil tyranny, or probably even save the Prime Materia from anything that won't immediately destroy it. You're too busy with things like Ragnorra warping all creation to fit her own ideal of perfection, which includes stuff most people can understand like changing all creatures into Abberations or whatever, but also other stuff that one can think about but not truly comprehend, like just deciding that you don't like the concept of energy, and being able to think of alternate cosmic functionalities that don't predicate themselves on energy existing at all.

The very concept of what makes the universe as you understand it is play-do in their hands, but it's not just play-do, it's cosmic play-do that you can turn into a bigger version of the room it's in while staying within the room, is made of something that doesn't exist despite existing right there, literally doesn't have a temperature (it doesn't feel warm, or cold, or in between, it literally doesn't have this thing we know of as "temperature") and that the play-do wielder has to give you an entirely new sense to perceive. And to understand why that last part is so incredibly trippy, go ahead and imagine yourself as an unfeeling and unseeing cactus having sight explained to you. In sign language.

That's High Epic. You are expected to understand concepts like making everything. In fact, there's a 9th-level spell that serves as a nice introduction to the inevitably far more complex process of creating everything. I think it's called Genesis. Granted, again, it's an introduction, only for doing really basic stuff, but hey, every master mathematician had to start with arithmetic.

At that point, it's not about slaying gods. It's about what happens to the rest of the multiverse when you do that god-slaying without being careful enough. The gods are, for their worth in a fight against you, xp packets, but you can't really think about them that way when you yourself are level 60 and could probably make leaps and strides towards the creation of your own universe, and you understand the things that are at stake in this one.

That's why you can kill a god, but it's also why you don't.

[Melcar]

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=12959325&postcount=115). Tippy saves the day again!

Mind if I sig that?

[SiuiS]

In addition, why should a TO build be seen coming? Shouldn't they have complete coverage from any scrying like effects?

No. Portfolio sense is not a divination in any sense of the term. At the very best, if you managed to hide yourself from portfolio sense, the deity would have knowledge of when/what/where/why and see a you-shaped hole they couldn't pierce without cross referencing all the details around you.

This is why Bane still exists. Bane cannot be killed by most people because their desire to kill him falls in his portfolio. Only the Buddha, who would not think of killing at all, and would do the deed out of love, could kill Bane.


Albert Camus

And so would a god look upon any PC or party that would even contemplate the sliver of an idea regarding a deity's demise- a futile and hopeless labor.

I am certain many will disagree, but I must place the blame on WoTC- statting gods is a terrible idea. They are, for many races, the single reason why such civilizations exist.

The origin of magic, the invention of Inventive Thought and Free Will… a cruel cosmic joke, to grant eager mortals the sliver of hope to dethrone a power that has prceded them for eons.

A deity must always remain inscrutable and distant, at least mechanically- if any stats are to be appointed.

The moment you give numbers to a being of such unfathomable power and bring in mechanical terms- you already killed it before a battle officialy began.

I agree conceptually. D&D is generic though, and needs to model such myths as the Asa who can be wrestled effectively (albeit with difficulty) by mortals. The gods in D&D also aren't gods. They are high power outsiders. Even with all their SDAs, there's no way the D&D gods created the multiverse.


Yeah, I think a lot of those God-killing plans neglect to acknowledge the fact that for your character to be prepared to fight a God, he has to be planning to fight a God - who will totally know what he's doing and be able to teleport straight to his scheming ass before he buys his first potion. Among other issues, of course.

Nah. Gods aren't going to teleport around out of paranoia. Gods are going to languish by their starry pools combing their hair and listening for those who praise their name in vanity; they will be crunching the bones of innocents with a flail and listening for all dark whispers of vengeance and blood. They will be on the hunt, sinking arrow and fang into prey and watching over all hunters as they do. They will be feasting and brawling and carousing with Valkyries and making wagers, listening drunkenly for any brash oath to fulfill for fun.

The will not have background brain subroutines continually runnig optimized RAW logical application techniques to remain in power.


You could always try making then have less than 300 worshipers, making them loose their divinity. Then they're just a mortal

Divinity does not work like that.


Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=12959325&postcount=115). Tippy saves the day again!

Heh. That's actually very similar to how I plan to beat Vecna! Although there are some glaring holes there and it requires RAW interpretation that consists of irrational straight logic.


Okay. But why, in-character, are you doing those things, if not as preliminary steps in your plan to kill a deity? And if you're doing it as part of your plan to kill a deity, wouldn't it know when you've hatched the plan? Or even before then, wouldn't they know that your character is brooding, trying to think of any bizarre thing he can to kill a deity?

No. It's not that specific unless you utter their name.

I am planning on killing Vecna. My career has been founded on secrets and I've aborted three past timelines after self-incarnation so that there never was a point where I wasn't my current awesome self. Vecna knows all this though, and Vecna can exploit it. And the thought of the daft skeleton laughing and chuckling as he goes through the dark crevices of my past infuriates me.

So I am going to kill the god of secrecy. And I'm pretty open about. I mean, it's no secret, so he wouldn't know! The hard part is maintaining enough social leverage to prevent the info from trickling back to him; as soon as my counterintelligence efforts breach the undefined and undefinable quality of 'trying to keep a secret' I'm screwed.



On the other hand, Camus also wrote that Sisyphus must be very happy indeed. :smallwink:

He would be. Similar work, rebar? Hoisting twenty or thirty foot rods and schlepping them? It was grueling. Brutal. It destroyed me. And it was one of the singular most fulfilling experiences of my life.



1) Get protection from divinations. Heck, this should be step zero. It's probably the most obvious step of them all. Not that hard, there are spells and magic items that'll do the trick which aren't too expensive.

You really think any non-epic protection is going to matter? Not only is there a spell to breach mind blank, and not only can a clever scryer get around this by coming at details sideways and inferring, but epic Spellcasting explicitly doesn't care about your protections, and any deity of magic has the divine Spellcasting SDA, which says, among other things, "create any spell you want for free instantly via wizard research". Any deity which has this sad and does not have "divination that ignores protection from divinations" and "divination that infallibly targets [eg. Jim Rowlings] despite all protections" is being played like an idiot and not to RAW, let alone RAI.


2) Catch them off guard. You're going to need a battery of stealth spells or really good Hide/Move Silently to sneak up on a god. Alternatively, there are the more esoteric measures I prefer: a) insanely high move speed so you can charge from outside of their Listen/Spot range, and b) get in real close as a 10th level Iaijutsu Master - if you can get into melee range before combat begins, you automatically get a surprise round.

Short of time stop, how? You've got to get through their domain and run across miles of their sanctum and then stand next to them for this to work. This is not a white room exercise; this is not "you and deity stand next to each other, what's your build".



[LIST=1]
Be a Spellcaster of at least 17th level for prepared OR 18 for spontaneous.
Prepare or somehow get Plane Shift.
Get your hands on a Vest of Steadfast Spellcasting [Planar Handbook].
This allows you to cast spells in areas of impede magic.
Teleport to 10 miles out of the center of the Outlands [Manual of the Planes].
Everything in that area is gone [No Divine, No Su, No magic, Nothing].
EXCEPT! Because of the Vest, you can still cast spells.

This fails. Upon entering the Outlands the vest no longer allows you to cast in impeded magic; the vest is now a cloth drapery.

You are now a high-HP commoner in fancy clothes alone in a world wandered by giant bears and worse, and you must trek hundreds if not thousands of miles to get far enough to return home. Have fun!

There is a way for the idea to work but not at that level. You need the Artifact Master epic destiny, which specifically and mundanely allows magic items to work even wen it's literally impossible for them to do so. But that requires level... 30? The epic destiny and Incarnum are the only spell magicky effects that work that far into the outlands. Maybe psionics.


Oooh.


If you must know, the gods ain't characters, they are anthropological concepts of the purpose of existing. You want to kill a god; kill everything that has sentience. Easy peasy. Without seekers, the concept of a god has no fertile ground to seed itself.

Wrong. That is a better description of a deity's portfolio than of a deity. Without Pelor, Sun and Light and Healing still exist, they are just not channeled into the world. You are talking about killing a deity's portfolio, which is a different matter entirely.

Basically, that's just not D&D by any stretch. Ever. We've had Immortals rules since the days of basic. Appeals to modern contrivances of theology will fall on deaf ears. They are interesting ideas, but not relevant to the discussion.

[JackRackham]

Okay, but without using metagame knowledge, how does your character know to do that? How does he know *exactly* which things he can do without tripping the deity's awareness? Can he even find out how the deity's powers function and how to get around these powers without uttering the deity's name or straight metagaming? This is why I argue that it's just not doable without DM complicity.

[Seto]

BrokenChord --> Oooh, nice post. And... :elan: Can I sig that ?


Think of all those un-widowed black widows! All the mantises that don't have anything to pray about any more!

[Blackhawk748]

Okay, but without using metagame knowledge, how does your character know to do that? How does he know *exactly* which things he can do without tripping the deity's awareness? Can he even find out how the deity's powers function and how to get around these powers without uttering the deity's name or straight metagaming? This is why I argue that it's just not doable without DM complicity.

You make a Knowledge check? Seriously i wouldnt try taking on a god until at least level 25. By which point my Knowledge the planes is through the roof and ive got a few pretty sweet Epic level spells, and no, none made to particularly screw up a god, but ive been nuking Demons in the Abyss for the past 10 levels and i may have gotten into a magic duel with Orcus for the lulz.

Now i go to kill Nerull. Firstly, yes he has SLAs, yes they are Scary. But i have an Epic Version of Spell Shield that blocks all spells and SLAs that arent cast by me. So thats not a problem. Now i simply apply my favorite SR:No spell to his face........several googol times. (btw hes not getting a turn here, thank you Celerity) The primary issue is that the gods (as stated) do NOT have Epic Spellcasting and they are supposed to be challenges for epic parties. The problem here is is that most epic level spellcasters will have fairly awesome general use epic level spells.

Heres an example: a player of mine had a lvl 40 cleric lich. He had several epic level spells, one made a permanent illusion which all of his ingame effects originated from, one made him permanently invisible (true sight explicitly didnt work) and one bounced back all single target effects to the attacker. Now right there, most as stated gods are going to have a serious problem killing him. Why? When they Alter Reality to delete him, they delete themselves.

Oh and he totally wanted to steal Pelors job, and honestly in a straight up fight he would win.

[SiuiS]

Okay, but without using metagame knowledge, how does your character know to do that? How does he know *exactly* which things he can do without tripping the deity's awareness? Can he even find out how the deity's powers function and how to get around these powers without uttering the deity's name or straight metagaming? This is why I argue that it's just not doable without DM complicity.

It's common knowledge, actually. The gods know about their own stuff. It's the basic background radiation that makes people give a fig about gods at all; in a world where outsider 20 class levels 50 is a relatively common thing in the infinite expanses, "I can hear you speak my name and see all injustices" or whatever is why Tyr is the god he is.

It's also possible to find out. You can learn an incredible amount of information in D&D, it's just resource-intensive. Get the deity's true name and use that as a focus for study. Or better, get an ablative minion to do those things and learn that information. Not for you, just as legitimate scholarship. Just happen to be part of the city council that has the academy that has the philosopher's circle that gives grants for independent research that find the minion who gets the info. And just enjoy the book being out there, even if it's dismissed as heresy and apocrypha.

I'm also a big believer in decipher script. The church of heir onerous doesn't keep it's forbidden secret lore in their ubervault. They hide it in the outdated cookbooks in the bakery across the road.



Now i go to kill Nerull. Firstly, yes he has SLAs, yes they are Scary. But i have an Epic Version of Spell Shield that blocks all spells and SLAs that arent cast by me.

I love those. You know that D&D works basically like magic the gathering right? Stack and specificity. If I hit you with a spell that says "pierces defenses that defend against all spells", it'll hit you?

Epic is rocket tag with metagame focus. You don't worry about which cards you put in your deck; there are only four decks that are tourney capable anyway. You worry about which decks are at your tourney in what ratios.

[Blackhawk748]

I love those. You know that D&D works basically like magic the gathering right? Stack and specificity. If I hit you with a spell that says "pierces defenses that defend against all spells", it'll hit you?

Epic is rocket tag with metagame focus. You don't worry about which cards you put in your deck; there are only four decks that are tourney capable anyway. You worry about which decks are at your tourney in what ratios.

Ya pretty much, this i the main reason i dont play in epic.

[SiuiS]

That's the problem with epic. It's personal.

There is no possible balanced way to discuss epic online, across groups, across tables, across people. Epic can work for a group but it won't work the same way for a different group. Epic is built on the foundation stones of of the campaign which came before. And since there is no default campaign at the table, we can't really have a meaningful discourse. Every discussion of epic must provide context because context is not universal. There is no RAW for epic. It's even more of a joke there than it is in normal games.

[Arcanist]

This is why Bane still exists. Bane cannot be killed by most people because their desire to kill him falls in his portfolio. Only the Buddha, who would not think of killing at all, and would do the deed out of love, could kill Bane.

I contest this. I think Cyric would take Bane and bypass his portfolio sense... Chaotic Evil is crazy like that. :smallamused:


Now i go to kill Nerull. Firstly, yes he has SLAs, yes they are Scary. But i have an Epic Version of Spell Shield that blocks all spells and SLAs that arent cast by me.

Life and Death: Nerull thinks of you and you automatically die. No saving throw. On that note, I'd like to see this Epic Spell. It sounds rather hilarious.

EDIT:

That's the problem with epic. It's personal.
It eventually devolves into freeform RP. You only have numbers attached to the sheets to decided what is possible for your character to do and when you are helpless against another persons actions.

[SiuiS]

It eventually devolves into freeform RP. You only have numbers attached to the sheets to decided what is possible for your character to do and when you are helpless against another persons actions.

You say 'devolve', but really freeform is the entire point of the rules. The rules arbitrate. An ideal game has everyone acting in accordance with the game at the table. You still randomize damage and such, but dice rolling isn't rules.

I think if you have a game organically extend that far you would be surprised at how much numbers matter. The key is to quash high end optimization. D&D was never meant to run RAW, after all. There's even a nod in the rules about that, though that plays into RAW and subverts it's own purpose.

[Hecuba]

On the issue of portfolio sense: it's worth mentioning that it's much more manageable at lower divine ranks. Demigods only get it triggered if there are 1000 or more people involved. Lesser Deities still need 500. Only greater deities get advanced notice of future events.
Thus, with planning, it is an surmountable obstacle for most gods (unless their bigger brother takes a hand).

[ZamielVanWeber]

Thus, with planning, it is an surmountable obstacle for most gods (unless their bigger brother takes a hand).

That is the problem. Gods tend not to like deicide (just look at Pandorym and Tharizdun being sealed the moment that deicide was on the table). Killing one can easily involve pissing off any of his allies, and their allies, and just random gods that don't like the concept of them being killed.

[Necroticplague]

Life and Death: Nerull thinks of you and you automatically die. No saving throw. On that note, I'd like to see this Epic Spell. It sounds rather hilarious.

No saving throw, but its based off Destruction, which is a [death] effect, meaning that there are several things that can stop it. Even if the "bypass barriers" gets around Death Ward, the simple Pawn of the Great Game+Strongheart Vest combo lets you survive it without trouble. Then, a layer of Troll-blooded, Gheden, and ring of universal energy immunity (or just one of acid and one of fire) prevent them from taking advantage of your low HP.

[Arcanist]

You say 'devolve', but really freeform is the entire point of the rules. The rules arbitrate. An ideal game has everyone acting in accordance with the game at the table. You still randomize damage and such, but dice rolling isn't rules.

I think if you have a game organically extend that far you would be surprised at how much numbers matter. The key is to quash high end optimization. D&D was never meant to run RAW, after all. There's even a nod in the rules about that, though that plays into RAW and subverts it's own purpose.

I only used the word 'devolve' to denote that the game takes a step down from the more common practice of these boards, which is the practice of RAW is the law. Use whatever term or word you prefer, but it is ultimately a step down from the RAW mentality. Instead it becomes RACC (Rules as Case-by-Case). Neither of these are inherently bad on that note.


That is the problem. Gods tend not to like deicide (just look at Pandorym and Tharizdun being sealed the moment that deicide was on the table). Killing one can easily involve pissing off any of his allies, and their allies, and just random gods that don't like the concept of them being killed.

Tharizdun is sealed away because he wants to kill ALL the Gods indiscriminately. If he only wanted to kill the Good Gods, the Evil Gods would rally behind him. If he wanted to kill the Chaotic Gods, the Lawful would rally behind him. The same applies Pandorym. The Gods are very self-interested individuals in that the only thing that forces them to get out of their eternal mexican standoff is the guy participating with a RPG.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

You're going to mess with the Lord of Death? Really?



Nerull uses Alter Reality. You, your allies, your gear, their gear are all transported into the nearest sphere of annihilation, across planar boundaries with no chance of error.

Nerull uses Alter Reality. You are turned into a carrion crawler as per the transfiguration use of Wish in savage species. From then on, you mindlessly chew on decaying corpses in the nearest graveyard.

[Theomniadept]

I have three words for you: Old Man Henderson.

And another three words spoken in a drunken scottish accent: Point Blank Annihilation.

[BrokenChord]

BrokenChord --> Oooh, nice post. And... :elan: Can I sig that ?

Feel free to do so.

[TypoNinja]

You're going to mess with the Lord of Death? Really?



Nerull uses Alter Reality. You, your allies, your gear, their gear are all transported into the nearest sphere of annihilation, across planar boundaries with no chance of error.

Nerull uses Alter Reality. You are turned into a carrion crawler as per the transfiguration use of Wish in savage species. From then on, you mindlessly chew on decaying corpses in the nearest graveyard.

Alter reality is just a Wish SLA, so no, its not that easy, first off Save and SR apply. Secondly we have an entire thread devoted to the grey area that is wish porting vs protections against.

Finally, Epic Magic makes points one and two irrelevant. Epic Magic is that good. Its better than what the Gods get. I can make an Epic Spell that says "I am immune to divine Salient Abilities". I can make an Epic Anti-scrying Spell that makes me immune to Portfolio Sense, I can make an Epic Spell that is "Kill Target Deity, don't bother getting up off your couch when you cast it". Gods are just not that scary if you are even in shouting distance of their level.

And I can even get another Gods help if I really want. People keep saying killing a God will piss off its allies, well that works both ways. You really think I can't find a couple of dieities who also hate the God I plan to kill who will cover for me? Hell, there's a God of Murder, I don't even need a motive to get his help! Killing things is what hes about.

[Psyren]

I know everyone says "If you can stat it, you can kill it", but really, what methods are there, to kill a mid-to-high level god? They can teleport, they sense you coming miles off, so how do you actually get into combat with one, once you become a threat to them?

Gods of equal or higher rank can block divine senses, so if you collude with one (or ascend yourself) then it is indeed possible to not be seen coming. This is how Cyric and Shar were able to gank Mystra and Azuth.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

First of all, Alter Reality isn't Wish. It's any nonepic spell, inlcuding Miracle and its greater uses.
Secondly, it's not a spell or even magic - it's an SDA so no SR or defenses against spells.
Third, saves apply only if the base effect allowed one. Greater uses of miracle don't. Neither does the transfiguration option of Wish in savage species.
Fourth, it allows any and all such effects to be made permanent upon the deity. You know all those shenanigans a high-level wizard, CoDzilla and Archivist can get to? The deity has all of them at once, undispellable and forever.



Epic Magic.
1) There's no epic spell seed that provides protection from SDAs.
2) There's no epic spell seed that provides cover from portofolio sense.
3) Deities can add magic traits to their domains, preventing/subverting even epic spells.
4) Epic Spells need time to be researched and cast and are easily interrupted.
5) A deity with Alter Reality can chaos-shuffle and get Epic Spellcasting in all of 12 seconds.
6) Deities have higher skill bonuses and caster levels than mortals. Some can invent spells without researching them. Guess who is actually better at epic magic?

[Arcanist]

First of all, Alter Reality isn't Wish. It's any nonepic spell, inlcuding Miracle and its greater uses.

I believe he was referring to this line of text


The deity can duplicate any spell of 9th level or lower as a standard action. The duplicated spell has no material or XP component, and the DC of its saving throw (if one is allowed) is 20 + the deity’s rank + the deity’s Charisma modifier.


Third, saves apply only if the base effect allowed one. Greater uses of miracle don't. Neither does the transfiguration option of Wish in savage species.

This is only half true. As those are all under the listing of "Ritual" in Savage Species and all of those rituals require emphasis mine:


A ritual is a method of permanently transforming a willing character into a monster of a certain kind. There are both minor and major rituals. Where minor rituals change some aspect of a character, major rituals change the character into an entirely different creature.

As you are most likely not willing to being turned into X, the effect would fail.


Fourth, it allows any and all such effects to be made permanent upon the deity. You know all those shenanigans a high-level wizard, CoDzilla and Archivist can get to? The deity has all of them at once, undispellable and forever.


Find me a listed deity that has this in their stat block.


The deity can render a magical or supernatural effect permanent. The rest requirement varies with the effect: 10 minutes per level of the effect times the number of subjects affected, 10 minutes per total Hit Dice of creatures affected, or 10 minutes per 10-foot cube affected. Use the highest applicable value.

Sure, the deity in question can get, say for example, Favor of the Maryr on them permanently, but then they must rest before using Alter Reality again for 10 minutes per their HD before using it again.


6) Deities have higher skill bonuses and caster levels than mortals. Some can invent spells without researching them. Guess who is actually better at epic magic?

Minor nitpick, but caster level has nothing to do with Epic Magic save for I believe Superb Dispelling. Also, you need Epic Spellcasting before you can begin work on an Epic Spell, which means that is 12 seconds burned to first gain it. That said, please reference a listed Deity that can invent spells without researching them. I just checked Mystra and she can't do it (which I find weird).

[TypoNinja]

First of all, Alter Reality isn't Wish. It's any nonepic spell, inlcuding Miracle and its greater uses.
Secondly, it's not a spell or even magic - it's an SDA so no SR or defenses against spells.
Third, saves apply only if the base effect allowed one. Greater uses of miracle don't. Neither does the transfiguration option of Wish in savage species.
Fourth, it allows any and all such effects to be made permanent upon the deity. You know all those shenanigans a high-level wizard, CoDzilla and Archivist can get to? The deity has all of them at once, undispellable and forever.


You are right, strictly speaking its worse, but the line I was thinking of is


Benefit

This ability is similar to the wish spell. The deity merely thinks of something and then makes it so. Doing this requires at least a standard action.


This basically makes it Wish at will in any combat encounter.

Though like I said its worse, it loses some powers the Wish spell has, and worse its always at least a standard action, where by an Epic Wizard could Quicken Twin you in the face with 4 wishes in one round, poor alter reality is still limited to once a turn.



1) There's no epic spell seed that provides protection from SDAs.
2) There's no epic spell seed that provides cover from portofolio sense.
3) Deities can add magic traits to their domains, preventing/subverting even epic spells.
4) Epic Spells need time to be researched and cast and are easily interrupted.
5) A deity with Alter Reality can chaos-shuffle and get Epic Spellcasting in all of 12 seconds.
6) Deities have higher skill bonuses and caster levels than mortals. Some can invent spells without researching them. Guess who is actually better at epic magic?

1. Ward. Dispel. Reflect.
2. Conceal. Ward
3. Magic Traits?
4. Time to research yes, time to cast no, easily interrupted, no more so than normal magic.
5. And a wizard can do it faster, also if you want to give two rounds to the Wizard uninterrupted its your funeral. Oh yea, the Epic Magic feat doesn't help if the God hasn't researched any spells. And some Gods can't do it. Somehow I don't see any Lawful or Good Deity Embracing the Dark Chaos and taking the essence of the Abyss willingly.
6. Deities have higher skill levels and caster levels than most mortals. A 60th level god and a 60th level Wizard actually leaves the God behind on caster levels thanks to those outsider hitdice. Gods are scary because most of them start at level 40. Compared to level 10 level 40 anything is scary. At level Gods stop being that intimidating. Salient abilities are the only thing that separates them from ultra high level casters, and most of those abilities can be duplicated.

Finally, strictly speaking a Deity cannot use the greater uses of Miracle. Since he has no higher power to request the intercession from. As I've noted before in another thread, a deity casting his own Miracle sets up all kinds of questions with no good answers. Like Action Economy problems. If a Deity casts Miracle on his turn, what action is he using to 'grant' his own request? At best that makes Miracle a 2 round spell when a God casts it.

[ThisIsZen]

Deities can have avatars, and some have a lot of them (due to halving DR and such). So in theory, even if the deity can't invoke their own miracles (which is I think maybe technically RAW but the sort of RAW that is thick as a post), the deity CAN grant miracles to its own avatars. So if you're fighting a DR 18 god, they could be attended by DR 9, DR 5 (or 4) and DR 2 Avatars, possessing a diminishing scale of SDAs and etc. obvs. But that means that, since three clerics of the same god can request and receive miracles in the same round by RAW, you're facing down three Greater Miracles.

And since the upper bound of what a Miracle can do is not defined, and the god has no reason to twist Miracles it's granting to itself...

Good luck, is all I'm saying.

[Yael]

Monk 20.

This post blue means sarcasm.

[BrokenChord]

Monk 20.

This post blue means sarcasm.

Works easiest with Vow of Poverty.

[TypoNinja]

Deities can have avatars, and some have a lot of them (due to halving DR and such). So in theory, even if the deity can't invoke their own miracles (which is I think maybe technically RAW but the sort of RAW that is thick as a post), the deity CAN grant miracles to its own avatars. So if you're fighting a DR 18 god, they could be attended by DR 9, DR 5 (or 4) and DR 2 Avatars, possessing a diminishing scale of SDAs and etc. obvs. But that means that, since three clerics of the same god can request and receive miracles in the same round by RAW, you're facing down three Greater Miracles.

And since the upper bound of what a Miracle can do is not defined, and the god has no reason to twist Miracles it's granting to itself...



Avatars can't make more Avatars, and the DR 6 requirement means eventually a Deity can't afford to manifest new ones, but yes he could have backup if he had prep time.

Miracles, contrary to popular opinion do have upper bounds, one implied by rules text.


Alternatively, a cleric can make a very powerful request. Casting such a miracle costs the cleric 5,000 XP because of the powerful divine energies involved. Examples of especially powerful miracles of this sort could include the following.

Swinging the tide of a battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting.
Moving you and your allies, with all your and their gear, from one plane to another through planar barriers to a specific locale with no chance of error.
Protecting a city from an earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood, or other major natural disaster.

Examples give us a range in power of what can be asked for. You can't cast Miracle and ask for a war to end in your favor for example, since the closest equivalent is a mass resurrection to help win that one fight (Which you still may even lose if you were outclassed that badly.)

So you can't use Miracle to be a "kill that thing for me" spell, because any PC of enough power to challenge the God is going to be a major entity, capable of single handedly winning wars, which Miracle can't do, so Miracle can't kill that character since allowing it to kill something that would win the war would be outside its normal power level. Now these are still adjudications in "Ask your DM" territory, so can't really go very far in a RAW debate, but serve nicely to illustrate my point that Miracle is not an "I win" button in all cases. It does have limits.

The other limit is slightly more interesting. If casting Miracle is calling up your God and asking for a favor, that favor has to be within his power to grant. Therefor a god can't grant himself a Miracle he can't preform. Which handily makes Miracle a useless spell for a deity, why cast it when he could just DO instead?


Good luck, is all I'm saying.

Nobody said it'd be easy, Deities are some of the strongest things around (There are a couple of critters in the Epic Level Handbook called out as being known for killing whole pantheons) but they are by no means unkillable. Its a challenge yes, but entirely possible.

[torrasque666]

1. Ward. Dispel. Reflect.


Ward: Protects from damage/spells of a certain level. If protecting form magic, there's this little gem "The area or effect of any such spells does not include the area of the ward, and such spells fail to affect any target within the ward. This includes spell-like abilities (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#spellLikeAbilities) and spells or spell-like (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#spellLikeAbilities) effects from magic items." SDAs are not SLAs. In fact, they're never even subject to SR.(as noted at the top of the page on Divine Abilities)
Dispel: "The dispel seed can dispel (but not counter) the ongoing effects of supernatural abilities (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#supernaturalAbilities) as well as spells, and it affects spell-like (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#spellLikeAbilities) effects just as it affects spells." Again, SDAs are not Su or SLAs and thus, not effected.
Reflect: Again, only effective against spells. SDAs such as Alter Reality are similar to a spell, but not as a spell.





2. Conceal. Ward

Conceal: Portfolio Sense is not a divination effect, Remote Sensing explicitly states that only one effect can block it(Divine Shield, another SDA)
Ward: See above



3. Magic Traits?
Those things like for the Plane of Shadow saying all [shadow] spells get a free Maximize.

[TypoNinja]

Ward: Protects from damage/spells of a certain level. If protecting form magic, there's this little gem "The area or effect of any such spells does not include the area of the ward, and such spells fail to affect any target within the ward. This includes spell-like abilities (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#spellLikeAbilities) and spells or spell-like (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#spellLikeAbilities) effects from magic items." SDAs are not SLAs. In fact, they're never even subject to SR.(as noted at the top of the page on Divine Abilities)
Dispel: "The dispel seed can dispel (but not counter) the ongoing effects of supernatural abilities (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#supernaturalAbilities) as well as spells, and it affects spell-like (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#spellLikeAbilities) effects just as it affects spells." Again, SDAs are not Su or SLAs and thus, not effected.
Reflect: Again, only effective against spells. SDAs such as Alter Reality are similar to a spell, but not as a spell.






Conceal: Portfolio Sense is not a divination effect, Remote Sensing explicitly states that only one effect can block it(Divine Shield, another SDA)
Ward: See above



I see you've managed to skip over my favorite part of the Epic Seed text. Here let me share.


Development Is an Art: Be creative when combining seeds and factors. Many times developing a completely new epic spell requires some guesswork and rule stretching. As with making and pricing magic items, a sort of balancing act is required. Often, you will need to stretch the description of a seed to meet your needs. Developing obscure, unusual epic spells is possible, even if you aren’t sure how to put together the seeds and factors.

This is also incidentally why this board doesn't see much Epic discussion. Half the rules veer straight for Ask Your DM territory. The answer to "can I design an Epic Spell to do X, even if no seed fits?" is "Yes, make some **** up, grab whats close enough and run with it."

So yea, If I want a "Hide from God" Epic Spell I grab whatever is close enough, ad hoc on some extra DC because I've dialed it up to 11 for Anti-God duty and were good!

Epic Magic is that good. I keep saying it, but it really is that powerful. Its better than anything the Gods get. Epic Magic lets you do literally anything you care to design a spell for. Several People have their favourite Epic Spell for illustrating why Epic Magic is completely broken, mine is Summon McGuffin.



Those things like for the Plane of Shadow saying all [shadow] spells get a free Maximize.

Cool power. I didn't spot that in Divine Salient Abilities, its useful certainly, but not game changing.

[SiuiS]

Oh, a note. We're sort of glancing past the fact that you need theoretical OP to hit the DCs necessary to do anything useful in a useful timeframe.


Alter reality is just a Wish SLA.

No it's not.



1) There's no epic spell seed that provides protection from SDAs.
2) There's no epic spell seed that provides cover from portofolio sense.
3) Deities can add magic traits to their domains, preventing/subverting even epic spells.
4) Epic Spells need time to be researched and cast and are easily interrupted.
5) A deity with Alter Reality can chaos-shuffle and get Epic Spellcasting in all of 12 seconds.
6) Deities have higher skill bonuses and caster levels than mortals. Some can invent spells without researching them. Guess who is actually better at epic magic?

Not true. The seeds as written are not prescriptive but descriptive. Provided you can make the ad-hoc number given, epic magic can do literally anything. Not safely or without decades of prep and research, but there is no real limit. You can't say that conceal doesn't work against X because the entire point of seeds is that if they thematically fit what you want, use that seed; start from the effect and work backwards. If the effect is block a deity's knowledge, then you can make a spell to do that.

3 confuses me. What?

4 is off; what I call impulses (DC 0 epic spells) require no time to create or research. No materials either.

For the rest, "I can just change my stat block" is kinda moving goalposts. You may as well debate punpun fighting punpun. Or the good old kurtulmak versus Asmodeus debacle.



Find me a listed deity that has this in their stat block.


Boccob, pg 61
Corellon Larethian, pg 63
Garl Glittergold, pg 70
Lloth, pg 82
Nerull, pg 86
Vecna, pg 95
Wee Jas, pg 96

You're looking for "Arcane Mastery".



Sure, the deity in question can get, say for example, Favor of the Maryr on them permanently, but then they must rest before using Alter Reality again for 10 minutes per their HD before using it again.

Any deity doing TO shenanigans without using a multiple nested time stop deserves what they get. :smalltongue:


Works easiest with Vow of Poverty.

You're joking, but seriously; Buddha is the antiBane.

[Phelix-Mu]

I think that if we are giving potential god-slayers access to non-published epic spells for the purposes of TO, then I think we afford deities with spellcasting access to normal spell research, a similarly vaguely open-ended process that is inherently tied to DM approval (which is why inventing your own epic spell is NOT usually TO appropriate). "Development is an Art" section repeatedly notes that DM approval is necessary for new epic spells, for even accurately calculating DCs.

Given the limits set by spells like gate, shapechange, ice assassin, and the like, a god could easily put together a few 9th or lower spells that would patch up their weaknesses, since every god has had extremely large amounts of time and resource to do so, not to mention motivation (whacko Prime wizards coming to axe-murder them).

Again, if the kids get to play with DM-required stuff, then so do the adults.

Published epic spells are another thing entirely, but are almost universally trash compared to what the system normally makes possible with DM adjudication.

So, again:

If (1) we are holding deities to statblocks because TO, then (2) there is no DM to tinker with stuff on behalf of the player, and so custom epic spells are right out.

If we set a standard, let's stick to it.

[Arcanist]

Boccob, pg 61
Corellon Larethian, pg 63
Garl Glittergold, pg 70
Lloth, pg 82
Nerull, pg 86
Vecna, pg 95
Wee Jas, pg 96

You're looking for "Arcane Mastery".

This challenge is more or less over. Since with that ability, Alter Reality is more or less worthless in comparison. Hell, Divine Rank 1, with that ability is complete and utter overkill against everything since you can just make Divine Splender: The Spell at 1st level just for ****s and giggles.

Everyone can go home now :smalltongue:

[TypoNinja]

(whacko Prime wizards coming to axe-murder them).


Well, we've been discussing if its possible, so far but at this point I have to say, I don't think mega-leveled high level casters would bother unless a Deity had personally slighted them.

Lets examine;

While its possible that a well prepared high level caster who's sunk lots of resources into the specific task of killing a God could do it, its not a sure thing. Combat with a Deity is probably one of the few things other than combat with another mega-leveled spell caster that is an actual risk to his life. And you don't stand to gain much from victory. You might win, You might not. And there is no direct benefits to winning.

Meanwhile you are a big enough force in the cosmos that Deities will treat with you practically as an equal, they want favors from you, you can do things for them, help them advance their cause, or be the biggest obstacle to their plans short of another Deity siding agaisnt them. You now rank high enough to be a force in Divine Politics rather than simply manipulated by it like lesser mortals.

If you want something from a Pantheon you can probably cut a deal for it, and that Pantheon will largely leave you alone for fear of your possible retaliatory actions. Killing off somebody's high priest to express your displeasure at Deific meddling is the work of moments for you, and destroying the soul of next priest in order to deny the Deity their services in the after life is always an option if they don't take the hint the first time.

God are narrow, they have portfolios, and in some pantheons are forbidden from acting outside them and/or forced to adhere to them. A 60th level PC caster has almost no limits, you don't play in the same sandbox. Deities don't have much you want, and in a twisted version of M.A.D neither one of you stands to gain much by picking a fight, and you both stand to lose a lot from it.

[Xelbiuj]

Re: How do you actually kill a god?

Your DM plays them like a moron and lets you cheese the heck out of it with a character specifically created to do so, at a level that couldn't possibly be justified through any sort of roll play continuity, however, I say, skip all that and just masturbate and get some sleep. Better waste of time.


Anyways, doesn't Boccob get "can create any magic item" with no cost limit? If you want to be pedantic about epic spells . . .

[TypoNinja]

Re: How do you actually kill a god?

Your DM plays them like a moron and lets you cheese the heck out of it with a character specifically created to do so, at a level that couldn't possibly be justified through any sort of roll play continuity, however, I say, skip all that and just masturbate and get some sleep. Better waste of time.


Anyways, doesn't Boccob get "can create any magic item" with no cost limit? If you want to be pedantic about epic spells . . .

Any Magic Item is not the same as Any Epic Magic item.

[Phelix-Mu]

People seem to have repeatedly been referencing how deities don't explicitly get epic stuff, but I'm fairly certain Deities and Demigods predates the epic stuff (indeed, it appears to have been released several months earlier).

Now, there were updates to both books in 3.5, but these were pretty terrible updates, dealing only with the bare minimum of stuff that was changed (generally DR, some pricing and changes to monster types). So WotC could have made allowances, but we can't really expect them to do much just because it makes sense.

So, basically I'm saying that Deities and Demigods couldn't have Epic Spellcasting in it, or make note of epic item creation, because those didn't exist at that point in the game.

Of course, by RAW they still don't have Epic Spellcasting, but there is a fair bet that some gods could create epic magic items, since some artifact-grade stuff can qualify for epic stuff anyway, like the Sword of Kas. Ignoring the fact that it's an artifact, it's also an epic item. Anyone that could make an artifact that strong is already making an epic item (it's a +6 weapon, explicitly epic).

[SiuiS]

This challenge is more or less over. Since with that ability, Alter Reality is more or less worthless in comparison. Hell, Divine Rank 1, with that ability is complete and utter overkill against everything since you can just make Divine Splender: The Spell at 1st level just for ****s and giggles.

Everyone can go home now :smalltongue:

Eh... We are assuming a fair DM, are we not? Even the gods' spells must be balanced. That's why I kept saying divine Spellcasting instead of arcane mastery; without divine Spellcasting you don't get the bang you want for your buck.

Boccob? Boccob is creating custom instantaneous level 15 spells to do his dirty work. That's as good or in some cases better than an epic spell; most epic spells to do this sort of thing require too much infrastructure to do, from hordes of spell casting minions, special regents, weeks of prep, all of which add more switches to the "am I detected beforehand" board and can be interrupted or even sabotaged. But "Boccob's Greater Latry Must Die, End Of Story" gets the job done and "Boccob's Transposition To A World Of Eternal Torment Where I will clone you And Murder You To Fuel The Skeleton War" is how high level deities pass the time.


Re: How do you actually kill a god?

Your DM plays them like a moron and lets you cheese the heck out of it with a character specifically created to do so, at a level that couldn't possibly be justified through any sort of roll play continuity

Because in the fifty years or so D&D has been around, no game could possibly have lasted long enough or progressed far enough for deicide to be an organic consequence of things. And definitely not like the forgotten realms and Greyhawk haven't done it.


People seem to have repeatedly been referencing how deities don't explicitly get epic stuff, but I'm fairly certain Deities and Demigods predates the epic stuff (indeed, it appears to have been released several months earlier).

Now, there were updates to both books in 3.5, but these were pretty terrible updates, dealing only with the bare minimum of stuff that was changed (generally DR, some pricing and changes to monster types). So WotC could have made allowances, but we can't really expect them to do much just because it makes sense.

So, basically I'm saying that Deities and Demigods couldn't have Epic Spellcasting in it, or make note of epic item creation, because those didn't exist at that point in the game.

Of course, by RAW they still don't have Epic Spellcasting, but there is a fair bet that some gods could create epic magic items, since some artifact-grade stuff can qualify for epic stuff anyway, like the Sword of Kas. Ignoring the fact that it's an artifact, it's also an epic item. Anyone that could make an artifact that strong is already making an epic item (it's a +6 weapon, explicitly epic).

Well, being straight, no they don't get epic Spellcasting. But again, it don't matter. The answer, as we've pretty much sussed out, is you kill a god by establishing the idea that you can kill a god. You keep piling on the rules use and the role playing and you keep it up until the DM stops saying "no, you don't have a chance" and if you're lucky you keep it up until the DM says "no, the god doesn't have a chance".

[TypoNinja]

Eh... We are assuming a fair DM, are we not? Even the gods' spells must be balanced. That's why I kept saying divine Spellcasting instead of arcane mastery; without divine Spellcasting you don't get the bang you want for your buck.

Boccob? Boccob is creating custom instantaneous level 15 spells to do his dirty work. That's as good or in some cases better than an epic spell; most epic spells to do this sort of thing require too much infrastructure to do, from hordes of spell casting minions, special regents, weeks of prep, all of which add more switches to the "am I detected beforehand" board and can be interrupted or even sabotaged. But "Boccob's Greater Latry Must Die, End Of Story" gets the job done and "Boccob's Transposition To A World Of Eternal Torment Where I will clone you And Murder You To Fuel The Skeleton War" is how high level deities pass the time.



Epic spells don't require spellcasting minions, special reagent, or weeks of prep. I don't know where you get they idea they do. You can design a spell to need these things, but you are not required to.



Well, being straight, no they don't get epic Spellcasting. But again, it don't matter. The answer, as we've pretty much sussed out, is you kill a god by establishing the idea that you can kill a god. You keep piling on the rules use and the role playing and you keep it up until the DM stops saying "no, you don't have a chance" and if you're lucky you keep it up until the DM says "no, the god doesn't have a chance".

You seem to be rather bitter about the idea that its possible to kill stated creatures. Why?

[Milo v3]

Epic spells don't require spellcasting minions, special reagent, or weeks of prep. I don't know where you get they idea they do. You can design a spell to need these things, but you are not required to.


Because those are the things used to make Epic spells castable, by lowering the DC.

[SiuiS]

Epic spells don't require spellcasting minions, special reagent, or weeks of prep. I don't know where you get they idea they do. You can design a spell to need these things, but you are not required to.


Tell me, if you have the theoretical optimization to start cracking out DCs in the 500-1000 range with aplomb, why are you bothering to use epic magic at all?



You seem to be rather bitter about the idea that its possible to kill stated creatures. Why?

That's funny for two reasons, one being my repeatedly mentioned epic game wherein we are specifically trying to kill vecna, and the other that no one has mentioned spoken word creatures at all — that's more a world of darkness monster concept than a D&D one.

Semantic jokes aside, it is poor form to assume that because I am playing by the rules I must have an emotional – and thus dismissable – bias against your position. I'm choosing the position I am because it's the correct position, as far as I can discern with all the information available. Not because of some vague and nebulous negative emotional state.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

An epic spell without weeks of prep, special reagents, hordes of minions and a long casting time needs you to be a 30th level caster to cast the equivalent of fireball. You do need all or most of the above in order to cast something majorly useful.

Boccob? Boccob gets 20+ level spells that he invents as a nonaction and casts as a swift action.

He also gets to craft artifacts with no upper cost limits to their basic abilities - he could craft epic items by cost alone.

[Brookshw]

So, basically I'm saying that Deities and Demigods couldn't have Epic Spellcasting in it, or make note of epic item creation, because those didn't exist at that point in the game.
Iirc it was actually an intentional choice as the designers didn't expect or want people to feel obligated to pick up the Epic book to use gods. I believe there's a side bar in Deities & Demigods that makes some reference re: gods when epic exists, and suggested they should be revamped with epic in mind. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the book handy to confirm this and am working off memory.

[TheGeckoKing]

Iirc it was actually an intentional choice as the designers didn't expect or want people to feel obligated to pick up the Epic book to use gods. I believe there's a side bar in Deities & Demigods that makes some reference re: gods when epic exists, and suggested they should be revamped with epic in mind. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the book handy to confirm this and am working off memory.

That would be the sidebar on page 31 of Deities & Demigods. If you DO follow its advice and re-spec the gods using Epic rules, then it's game over for any would-be God-Killers.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

The deities can revamp themselves you know. Alter Reality: Chaos Shuffle. Now they got whatever feats they want to fit the situation best.

[TypoNinja]

Semantic jokes aside, it is poor form to assume that because I am playing by the rules I must have an emotional – and thus dismissable – bias against your position. I'm choosing the position I am because it's the correct position, as far as I can discern with all the information available. Not because of some vague and nebulous negative emotional state.

Your phrasing makes it seem like you feel like it should be DM fiat if a Deity can be killed or not.


Iirc it was actually an intentional choice as the designers didn't expect or want people to feel obligated to pick up the Epic book to use gods. I believe there's a side bar in Deities & Demigods that makes some reference re: gods when epic exists, and suggested they should be revamped with epic in mind. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the book handy to confirm this and am working off memory.

I actually always took the opposite, God are deliberately not Epic, because the opening of the Epic Spells section states that even the gods fear mortal casters of Epic spells.

Course, even if you did give gods Epic magic, it really doesn't change the nature of Rocket tag. Either you have the correct protection and attack and you win, or you don't and you lose.

The ease of pumping skill checks (and cheesing mitigating factors) means cost of development doesn't really come into the equation at any level of OP where you can challenge gods, and if you cheese it, fairs fair they can too, so it only comes down to what spells you decide to pack.

Hmm speaking of OP levels, I would concede that Dieites are pretty damn near un-killable if you stick to the same level of OP the game designers use.

[Brookshw]

I actually always took the opposite, God are deliberately not Epic, because the opening of the Epic Spells section states that even the gods fear mortal casters of Epic spells.
My friend, that is because everyone fears the mess we call Epic spellcasting :smallwink:

[TypoNinja]

My friend, that is because everyone fears the mess we call Epic spellcasting :smallwink:

You are not wrong, I had a game go to level 30ish not so long ago, back when we hit level 21 I told our DM. "Don't let us have Epic Magic. Just don't"

[Phelix-Mu]

My friend, that is because everyone fears the mess we call Epic spellcasting :smallwink:

I, somewhat unfortunately, forced a DM of mine to learn this the hard way. But he claimed he was up for it. And, to be fair, I didn't go for win buttons, and my character wasn't actually the spellcaster (but persuaded her friends to let her help them invent concepts). But one or two living, sentient spaceships made of thousands of awakened trees harnessed to a group-mind later....

[Brookshw]

I, somewhat unfortunately, forced a DM of mine to learn this the hard way. But he claimed he was up for it. And, to be fair, I didn't go for win buttons, and my character wasn't actually the spellcaster (but persuaded her friends to let her help them invent concepts). But one or two living, sentient spaceships made of thousands of awakened trees harnessed to a group-mind later....oh its entirely possible to have "responsible" epic casting. Last epic I ran my caster players didn't want to touch it outside of a few story related spells. Epic spell casting isn't bad in itself, its the potential for brokeness that's generally the turn off.

[SiuiS]

That would be the sidebar on page 31 of Deities & Demigods. If you DO follow its advice and re-spec the gods using Epic rules, then it's game over for any would-be God-Killers.

You mean, "game on". That's when it's fair and fun!


Your phrasing makes it seem like you feel like it should be DM fiat if a Deity can be killed or not.


Can you quote any particular phrasing and tell me why the context around it wasn't sufficient?

The only explicit passage on the subject I've written was "all parties should work together to have a good game".

[TypoNinja]

You mean, "game on". That's when it's fair and fun!



Can you quote any particular phrasing and tell me why the context around it wasn't sufficient?

The only explicit passage on the subject I've written was "all parties should work together to have a good game".

This bit


Well, being straight, no they don't get epic Spellcasting. But again, it don't matter. The answer, as we've pretty much sussed out, is you kill a god by establishing the idea that you can kill a god. You keep piling on the rules use and the role playing and you keep it up until the DM stops saying "no, you don't have a chance" and if you're lucky you keep it up until the DM says "no, the god doesn't have a chance".

Maybe I took it wrong? It seems like your saying killing a God requires the DM to agree you can.

[Vox Nihili]

Maybe I took it wrong? It seems like your saying killing a God requires the DM to agree you can.

I mean, to be fair, killing (or for that matter doing) anything with RAW involves pointing to the rules until the DM says you can.