How would one kill a God?

[The Vagabond]

In 3.5, how would one kill a God? What's the earliest level one can?

I'd like to know, assuming it's the Gods as they are stated in any location.

[AvatarVecna]

It kinda depends on what level of TO you go for. Obviously, the absolute earliestyou can do it is whatever the earliest level is that you can make Pun-Pun. Beyond that, chain-gating solars/efreeti for infinite Miracles/Wishes would be the next step, and beyond that...Epic Spellcasting? I dunno, the gods have powerful stats that are basically lists of all the ways they no-sell everything, and then they use intentionally terrible tactics, so it's pretty much a wash whether or not the gods are easy or hard to beat.

[atemu1234]

Reducing them to -10 hit points does a disappointingly good job of it.

[Melcar]

I belive in FR, that divines cannot be slayn by mortal creatures... so its divine regeneration will keep it "alive"... AFAIK

[Silus]

I personally ascribe to the notion that if a deity is deprived of all worship and recognition, it dies. So essentially just kill off all the worshippers, level the places of worship and strike all mention of them from the history books.

Granted your mileage may vary.

[Telonius]

Depends on the god, and how foolishly they're statted. IIRC there are a few absurdly weak ones.

EDIT: Here's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?142317-3-5-Weakest-official-deity)a thread with a few of them. Imhotep (as noted by hamishspence) is particularly horrible.

[Flickerdart]

Yeah, killing gods through HP damage is a thing unless the god in question has Rejuvenation (in which case it is vulnerable only to things that are not attacks).

[Extra Anchovies]

EDIT: Here's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?142317-3-5-Weakest-official-deity)a thread with a few of them. Imhotep (as noted by hamishspence) is particularly horrible.

That may be true, but why would anyone want to kill Imhotep? He's an all-around pretty cool guy D;

[Flickerdart]

That may be true, but why would anyone want to kill Imhotep? He's an all-around pretty cool guy D;
For XP and loot, same as everything else.

[noob]

I do not want to kill a god for loot and xp I want to kill Orcus only to see it suffer and beg for mercy.(actually it is just because I keep drawing Orcus)
you might make a one way portal leading to an black hole and draw Orcus and throw it in the portal

[daremetoidareyo]

I personally ascribe to the notion that if a deity is deprived of all worship and recognition, it dies. So essentially just kill off all the worshippers, level the places of worship and strike all mention of them from the history books.

Granted your mileage may vary.

You want a combination of these guys:

1.) human martial rogue 1 with dodge, mobility, and spring attack/jaunter 5. Hunt and kill all the followers of a god on your world. Planeshift to another place where they are worshipped and repeat the extermination. Build the rest of this PC out as minmaxxy as possible, cuz an aleax will be coming for him.


2.)



Level

Human

Feats





1
Marshal

Sacred vow, Vow of poverty (Human), Nymphs kiss (vop), Skill Focus (diplomacy) (marshal)





2
Marshal

Vow of non-violence (vop)





3
dragonfire adept

words of creation, dragon touched





4
Marshal

Servant of the Heavens (vop)





5
Marshal








6
emissary of Barachiel

Vow of Peace (vop), Master manipulator





7
emissary of Barachiel








8
emissary of Barachiel

Gift of discernment (VOP)





9
emissary of Barachiel

Undead empathy





10
emissary of Barachiel

nimbus of light (VOP)





11
Exemplar








12
Exemplar

widen supernatural ability, Knight of Tyr’s Merciful Sword (VOP)





13
Exemplar

Negotiator (exemplar)





14
Righteous Zealot

stigmata





15
Righteous Zealot

Charming





16
Mythic exemplar

exalted feat





17
Mythic exemplar








18
Mythic exemplar

exalted feat, planar touchstone: catalogues of enlightenment (Herald or joy domain)





19
Mythic exemplar








20
Mythic exemplar

exalted feat






At level ten, with his calling ability, non good humanoids can be converted to good, permanently, if they fail a will save against your diplomacy check, which, if you don't roll a 1, will have to beat whatever you roll +42. At level 11, due to exemplar, he can take 10 on this diplomacy check, which according to my analysis means that the humanoids would have to beat a will save DC of 59 at first, which nearly no monstrous humanoid, even with 10 class levels can do. This calling ability affects everyone in a 30' aura, which can be expanded at level 12 with widen supernatural ability. Soooo....Go to the most densely populated evilest places where the god you want to kill is worshipped and force their alignment change. You won't die immediately cause you have calm emotions in effect ALL THE DARN TIME. Dimension door out of there. The new good guys will fight or get killed by their brethren.

Between your planeshifting genocidal maniac, and your "good guy" emissary who gets no blood on his hands whatsoever, you could extirpate entire regions of a world pretty quickly. The worshippers will become more like cults as you see success, the deities' portfolio will shrink, which will make the forces of good and evil supplant them more readily. If your emissary took leadership at 15th level, he could have a cohort and followers that all emulate his trajectory, and you could start a planar missionary school for the forces of good. You could easily supplant blibdoolpoop or even gruumsh this way by pairing emissaries with jaunters and sending them out to convert all humanoids to lawful good 3 times a day.


This would actually make a great villain for a chaotic PC group. This mechanically "good guy" is basically changing the nature of sentient life. For big bad evil guys, he brings a maxed out transmuter with arcane thesis polymorph anything, to turn them into humanoids to convince. Otherwise they are subdued as is, and drug to re-education centers. The lawful good new world order has some tragedy associated with it. "Re-education" camps full of converted and atoned hellbred mindraper specialists making all the people "good" while wizards are pressed into service to "sanctify the wicked" creatures that cannot be affected by emmissary skills.

What happens 10 years down the line when drow and illithid hunting parties drag enough mindflayers to the surface for "rehabilitation" that there are sincere extra brain shortages from folks in hospice care on hand to feed them? Pressing artificers into service for rings of sustenance, that's what. Artificers that don't like it are "called" by emissaries who move them all the way to lawful good and given a stern brainwashy lecture on doing their part for goodness, to which they enthusiastically agree, much to the chagrin of those who loved them for qualities that lawful good alignment has issues with.

[Uncle Pine]

In 3.5, how would one kill a God? What's the earliest level one can?

By having a DM that play them badly enough to get them killed.

Unless you're taking on a random Joe with divine rank 0 (Imhotep is a great example, but iirc there are a few other terrible ones), you aren't supposed to kill a deity that is played with a grain of salt: even with terrible 20/20/20 builds all around and non-epic CLs, gods have can Alter Reality and create ad hoc magic items to kill you one week before you show up to kill them. That's not something that you can overcome, unless you are a deity as well.

EDIT: I thought only FR deities got powers proportionally to their followers. Or are all the gods affected by the Twitter effect? I'm AFB.

[Bad Wolf]

Depends on the God. In the case of Boccob, you just can't.

[Troacctid]

The easiest way would be to kill a god that wants to die and lets you do it. This can be done at level 1.

[danzibr]

I do not want to kill a god for loot and xp I want to kill Orcus only to see it suffer and beg for mercy.(actually it is just because I keep drawing Orcus)
you might make a one way portal leading to an black hole and draw Orcus and throw it in the portal
Is this related to that signature?

[Red Fel]

The bottom line is this: If the DM wants you to be able to kill a god, you can. If he doesn't, you can't. This is true of many things - for example, if the DM wants you to be able to find a spellcaster who can teleport you across the ocean, you can, but otherwise you're stuck paying for passage aboard a ship that you know full well is staffed entirely by pirates who will attempt to kill you once you clear the harbor, and will be stopped at the last minute by a sea monster attack. If the DM doesn't want you to do things a certain way, it's just not going to happen.

But it's particularly true of deities, who occupy a sort of awkward space between "tougher-than-average monster" and "plot device." Take the Lady of Pain. She is pure plot device. She has no printed stats. She can't be killed or stopped. Heck, you don't even know what she looks like. All you know is that her CR is "You lose."

Gods, as statted, are not particularly optimal. However, they are written to have precognitive abilities where their portfolios are concerned - that is, they become aware of events involving their particular area of jurisdiction. If Bob is the God of X, killing Bob would have a profound impact on X; as a result, Bob is aware of the attempt on his life before it happens. If your DM plays a god smartly - that is, with the same species of paranoia and power found in your average epic-level Wizard, only magnitudes higher - the PCs will be dead as soon as Bob determines that they pose him a threat. Because you're never just fighting one god - you're fighting his friends, his followers, even third parties with an interest in the outcome.

On the other hand, if your DM plays a god the same way he plays monsters, then a god is just a tougher-than-average monster, and the same tactics apply. Score well on Knowledge rolls to know what you're facing; neutralize the enemy's advantage, milk the action economy, and burn the bastard to the ground. If you're at a point that you think you're ready to fight gods, you've probably fought epic-level threats before; treat this like another one.

There's always the third option. The DM plays the god smartly, but he runs the game in a fun way. That particular stripe isn't about killing the god directly, but about exploiting things. For example, in some settings, killing their followers is sufficient. Otherwise, you might conspire with and trick other gods into doing the dirty work for you. Or you might unearth a secret ritual that binds a god in mortal form long enough to kill him. Or you might find a way to steal his power for yourself. Or any number of things that don't involve a direct confrontation.

[noob]

Maybe you can just progressively create a plan for killing entity omega without thinking about which guy you would kill just because you want to have ways to kill powerful people then at the last moment you drag a random god of an alignment opposite to you and you trap him.
The main problem is that a god have immunities to stuff made by mortal like antimagic zones and other kind of stuff but they are vulnerable to being portal thrown in a black hole since if the black hole does not kill them it make them stuck in time.
So if you find a way to put a god to place X you can defeat him.(good luck with that)

[Keltest]

There's always the third option. The DM plays the god smartly, but he runs the game in a fun way. That particular stripe isn't about killing the god directly, but about exploiting things. For example, in some settings, killing their followers is sufficient. Otherwise, you might conspire with and trick other gods into doing the dirty work for you. Or you might unearth a secret ritual that binds a god in mortal form long enough to kill him. Or you might find a way to steal his power for yourself. Or any number of things that don't involve a direct confrontation.

I had a DM run a really fun event for us like this. He gave us a half hour to plan our strategy (and he left the room) then started a timer. Every 15 minutes real time, a holy elf would be sacrificed to Lolth, and if all of them were killed, she would be summoned in her full power. Disrupting the ritual would make some sort of feedback that would shut the gate they were exploiting.

To add to the drama, my paladin was one of the sacrifices. And I only had one arm, because my team apparently could not live without my Drow Bane sword, and I was flesh-to-stoned. Yes, there were stoned jokes abound.

[Brova]

Killing a god is easy. They have alignments and a finite number of hit dice. Just circle magic yourself up to the magic number of 10 + HD and cast the appropriate holy word clone. It's easier if you happen to be a Dweomerkeeper as you can do it without worrying about SR. The hardest part is getting into a position to do it before the god notices. As a rough mockup a Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 4/Hathran 5 can use circle magic, super natural spell, and appropriate holy word variants to kill any god once a day.

Honestly, D&D gods are deeply unsatisfying. Basically all they actually do is demonstrate that the people writing D&D have no idea how to play D&D. The above Cleric, with some initiate of mystra goodness, random buffs, and acorn of far travel is basically better than any D&D god as written. The power of D&D is such that you can make people who are basically gods by the 12th to 15th range. simulacrum chaining, chain binding, Artificer skilldancing, Planar Shepherd, etc. Honestly, that might make a pretty sweet campaign.

[Jowgen]

Ahh, a favorite topic of mine. There are 2 preparatory steps you'll need to follow regardless of whom or how you're trying to kill.

Step 1: Know your enemy. Find out how your DM runs deities. As per Deities and Demigods, he is perfectly within his right to make them truly unkillable. If your DM indeed uses their powers as written (i.e. aren't omnipotent, and can die), then you can start planning. If your DM uses the printed statblock for the deity in question as written, you are in great luck; as their statblocks are terribly un-optimized. If your DM modifies anything, you'll likely find yourself at a major disadvantage.

Step 2: Know thyself. Check your resources. Will you be going solo? Will you have the back-up of a party? Could you find some planar allies to help? Are you going for direct combat, or work in a round-about way? How much, if any, cheese does your DM allow in character creation? What rule-sets does your DM use as written?

Based on what you learn from these two steps, you'll be able to tell whether there is or isn't any point in even trying; and what approaches may work or are right out.

Now here are some ideas and considerations in case you want to straight up battle with a deity (for the most part, these only apply if deities work by RAW):

- Deities have powerful information gathering skills. The most annoying one is their Portfolio sense. Portfolio sense is the reason why going directly against any deity of intermediate or high level is nigh impossible, as that allows them to see the future in a way that will invariably tip them off to your imminent attack. You'll need some real OP stuff or the aid of another planar power to have a shot against an intermediate. Even with Lesser and Demi-deities you need to be very mindful of how their divine senses affect your plans.
- You have more than just the deity to worry about. There is a powerful type of Inevitables from mechanus who exists purely to make sure no mortals mess with any deity. If your DM knows about them, expect a visit and be prepared. Aleax represent a similar problem. The deity in question may have allies you also need to consider.
-Deities can be hard to find. Taking on Vecna might seem like a good bet, since he's got low-ish HP and is of Lesser Deity status; but the location of his divine realm on the material is utterly unknown; and the guy makes his living by hoarding secrets.
- In a fair fight, most deities can kill you with a single standard action (e.g. Alter reality), or make a get-away as a standard action (Greater Planeshift). This assumes you can find it, not be immediately owned by it's divine aura and get into combat distance. If you want to take a deity on in combat, you'll need to be damn sure that you can kill it in a single turn before it has time to react. This arguably means getting the drop on it, which is a challenge in itself.

Non-combat approaches that work from the material have a good number of things going for them.
The main thing is that Deities are severely limited in how much direct influence they can have on the material plane because cosmic politics. If Orcus tried to just walk onto the material and subjugate it, he'd find himself in a comfy prison-dimensionl right next to Tharduzin following a massive throw-down with every single cosmic power with a stock in the material. Not only that, but the intermediate and greater deities would likely know about this ahead of time due to their Portfolio senses, which is why the Material Plane is till a thing despite the occasional mad God.

There are two exceptions to this, which can work to your advantage depending on how your DM handles the fluff. First we have the aforementioned Aleax, and second we have the risk of the deity sending one of it's avatars after you. Both are a direct manifestation of the deities power, which you can potentially handle on an average day. An Aleax is relatively little piece of power, but an Avatar is a much bigger chunk, so much so that deities are limited in how many of them they can have at any one time. Taking down an avatar is little different than dealing with a really tough monster, but -if- you can somehow manage to imprison one, you have effectively reduced that deity's maximum power output. Develop a strategy for imprisoning Avatars and Aleaxes, make the deity mad/desperate enough to send some after you, and before long said deity may find itself weakened enough for you to have a shot (e.g. slips from Intermediate to Lesser rank because it's maxed out it's avatar power budget plus some aleaxes).

Now really, the above is not a particularly realistic approach, and it won't kill the deity. The best non-direct approach, as other's have said, is to cut off the deity's worship. Emmisary of Barachiel shenanigans are one way. Another is the Redeemery protocol I developed, which abuses BoED redemption rules in combo with charm effects and such to industrialize the conversion of good to evil. Set up a Redeemery and get as many worshippers of your target as you can into one. If done right, the number of worshippers your target deity has should reduce at an exponential rate. This can either kill or at least severely weaken a deity given enough time. Works only on evil deities, for obvious reasons. Redeemery can be found in my sig.

[Flickerdart]

Gods, as statted, are not particularly optimal. However, they are written to have precognitive abilities where their portfolios are concerned - that is, they become aware of events involving their particular area of jurisdiction.
Unless of course, they have DR15 or lower - which is the case for the vast majority of gods.

[Extra Anchovies]

Unless of course, they have DR15 or lower - which is the case for the vast majority of gods.

Hm. Only greater deities get future portfolio sense. I could've sworn that intermediates got it too.

Regardless, there's a solid chance that whatever you're doing to eliminate one god triggers the portfolio sense of another, who might then alert and/or aid your target.

[Flickerdart]

Hm. Only greater deities get future portfolio sense. I could've sworn that intermediates got it too.

Regardless, there's a solid chance that whatever you're doing to eliminate one god triggers the portfolio sense of another, who might then alert and/or aid your target.
That's why you should go after gods that share portfolios with gods across the alignment spectrum. Going after Heironeous? Gruumsh, Erythnul, and Hextor will do their best to help, while Corellon Larethian probably wouldn't help either since he's not Lawful and also kind of xenophobic.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Intermediate deities can only see portfolio events in the past, not the future, that may be what you're thinking of.

Imhotep would be warned 19 weeks in advance, by Re-Horakhty, or possibly Osiris. As leader of the pantheon, Re would know about anything happening to any god, and Osiris would know about Imhotep entering the afterlife - if you can enter the afterlife, as mortal-ascended-to-pharaonic-god.

[Red Fel]

That's why you should go after gods that share portfolios with gods across the alignment spectrum. Going after Heironeous? Gruumsh, Erythnul, and Hextor will do their best to help, while Corellon Larethian probably wouldn't help either since he's not Lawful and also kind of xenophobic.

Objection! Assumption not supported by the evidence!

Fact is, opposed deities who share the portfolio might be inclined to help you. Gruumsh and Erythnul are probably up for killing more or less anyone, because they're not exactly known for being picky or tactful. Hextor, however, might be a challenge - he might have that whole "nobody can kill you but me" schtick going on for Heironeous, depending on how the DM runs him. Never assume that a cosmic power will side with you just because you're siding against an enemy. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is not the mentality of an exponentially paranoid cosmic powerhouse; "The enemy of my enemy is worth watching cautiously" is a more accurate position.

[Venger]

That may be true, but why would anyone want to kill Imhotep? He's an all-around pretty cool guy D;

be that as it may (loved him in the mummy) there is one reason:

if you're playing in a grognardy FR game where there is finite divine power, and divinity is a zero sum game, then you can't become a god by yourself by just getting a few hundred people from the mall to come over to your basement and worship you. you have to go and kill a god and steal his divine levels, like in highlander.

if this is what your DM throws at you, then you have to go and find a puny god to pick on. most people pick imhotep since he has 20 levels of expert and few offensive abilities. personally, I suggest you go pick on dorsein, who's only CR 10. there's another god who's available at various levels, including CR 1, some kind of beggar pickpocket guy, but your DM might not allow him since he is primarily intended for the module where he appears, but he's still worth mentioning for the sake of completeness.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Fact is, opposed deities who share the portfolio might be inclined to help you. Gruumsh and Erythnul are probably up for killing more or less anyone, because they're not exactly known for being picky or tactful. Hextor, however, might be a challenge - he might have that whole "nobody can kill you but me" schtick going on for Heironeous, depending on how the DM runs him. Never assume that a cosmic power will side with you just because you're siding against an enemy. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is not the mentality of an exponentially paranoid cosmic powerhouse; "The enemy of my enemy is worth watching cautiously" is a more accurate position.

You forget that, in the fluff, when god killing things show up the gods have a tendency to band together to deal with the problem. If your power has grown enough that you can challenge deities directly then you may suddenly find yourself with far more enemies than intended. Hextor would enjoy you slaughtering all of Heironeous's minions and draining his power by removing worship of him, but if you have the power to take on Heironeous directly you also have the power to take on Hextor directly and that is not likely to be something that he will tolerate.

[Venger]

You forget that, in the fluff, when god killing things show up the gods have a tendency to band together to deal with the problem. If your power has grown enough that you can challenge deities directly then you may suddenly find yourself with far more enemies than intended. Hextor would enjoy you slaughtering all of Heironeous's minions and draining his power by removing worship of him, but if you have the power to take on Heironeous directly you also have the power to take on Hextor directly and that is not likely to be something that he will tolerate.

that's certainly true, but it's largely dependent on how the DM chooses to roleplay the gods.

the fluff on the published deities, even the old guard like the H brothers, is pretty scant, so a lot of disparate behaviors can be justified as IC for them, especially since there's no internal consistency to how they act in the published fluff.

it's possible that hextor would backstab you, but he'd kind of do anything to take heironious down a peg, so whos' to say he's not helping you? if you want to replace heironious, then you're probably no threat to hextor's turf.

of course, if your DM's saying "all the gods team up and fight you," then what he probably wants to do is say ooc "please don't try to kill gods, it's not allowed."

[Debihuman]

Killing a god is easy. They have alignments and a finite number of hit dice. Just circle magic yourself up to the magic number of 10 + HD and cast the appropriate holy word clone. It's easier if you happen to be a Dweomerkeeper as you can do it without worrying about SR. The hardest part is getting into a position to do it before the god notices. As a rough mockup a Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 4/Hathran 5 can use circle magic, super natural spell, and appropriate holy word variants to kill any god once a day.

Honestly, D&D gods are deeply unsatisfying. Basically all they actually do is demonstrate that the people writing D&D have no idea how to play D&D. The above Cleric, with some initiate of mystra goodness, random buffs, and acorn of far travel is basically better than any D&D god as written. The power of D&D is such that you can make people who are basically gods by the 12th to 15th range. simulacrum chaining, chain binding, Artificer skilldancing, Planar Shepherd, etc. Honestly, that might make a pretty sweet campaign.

Creatures whose HD exceed your caster level are unaffected by holy word. Most deities have more than 14 HD. Magic circle can be broken by minions.

[Venger]

Creatures whose HD exceed your caster level are unaffected by holy word. Most deities have more than 14 HD. Magic circle can be broken by minions.

then you boost your CL. doing so is trivial.

[Extra Anchovies]

Creatures whose HD exceed your caster level are unaffected by holy word. Most deities have more than 14 HD. Magic circle can be broken by minions.

That's what the Circle Magic is for. It lets you boost your CL to 40, which kills any deity with 30 or fewer HD. And that's not counting other CL increases.

[Hecuba]

For lesser deities and below, reasonable prep will allow you to address them much as you would any other character with similar level--the deific perks are nice, but they essentally mean that the outsider HD keep pace with decent character levels rather than just boating ECL. The most important perks are the automatic actions.

For intermediate and greater deities, portfolio sense starts extending intro the future. This is a big issue unless you have another deity backing you and blocking it or you have a very friendly ruling on what it covers (i.e the attempt on the life of the god of X does not count as a major event for portfolio X). Additionally, automatic actions will have ballooned at this stage to such an extent that the deity probably has more actions per round than a moderately optimized party of 5.

[Venger]

That's what the Circle Magic is for. It lets you boost your CL to 40, which kills any deity with 30 or fewer HD. And that's not counting other CL increases.

I think she's confusing circle magic with the magic circle against x spells.

circle magic is a different thing, most notably used by red wizards. everyone stands around together and boosts the primary caster's CL by kicking in some juice. it is not keyed off of or in any way related to magic circle against x.


For intermediate and greater deities, portfolio sense starts extending intro the future. This is a big issue unless you have another deity backing you and blocking it or you have a very friendly ruling on what it covers (i.e the attempt on the life of the god of X does not count as a major event for portfolio X). Additionally, automatic actions will have ballooned at this stage to such an extent that the deity probably has more actions per round than a moderately optimized party of 5.

nope. intermediate deities only see into the past, not the future. that's greater only.

[Aharon]

Wow. It's been 13 years since Imhotep's stats have been published, and this still crops up...

Well, here's one of my previous takes on it: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14590504&postcount=29

Amusingly, each time I look at his stats, I see some new way to deal with high level attacks=> Divination+Prismatic Sphere as SLAs.
Divination can serve as a poor man's Contact Other Plane => Question: In which six-second-increment of today should I cast Prismatic Sphere at the start of my turn?
Works less well than Cubing him, but a or being constantly surrounded by Prismatic spheres, lso diverges less from what the designers probably intended.

[Brova]

Creatures whose HD exceed your caster level are unaffected by holy word. Most deities have more than 14 HD. Magic circle can be broken by minions.

As others have pointed out, that's what the circle magic (not magic circle) is for. You need to pump 26 spell levels into it*, which is doable (assuming Hathran circle magic works like Red Wizard circle magic) with the five other participants tossing down a 5th level spell. How exactly you plan to get five people capable of casting 5th level spells is entirely up to you. I personally recommend greater anyspell emulating dominate person (you are an initiate of mystra, after all). You could also opt to use planar binding to bind some creature that casts 5th level spells, though I can't recall one of the top of your head (remember, a Hathran gets the planar binding line added to her spell list). Finally, you are required to take leadership to be a Hathran. This allows you to have a mini-me cohort who you can feed spells so they can feed you heightened spells (perhaps with the aid of couatls summoned with planar binding).

EDIT: Apparently, people have to have taken ethran (a crappy regional feat for Rasheman) to participate in circle magic. So that locks out the planar binding options. The best line is probably the leadership based one**. So have a cohort who is a Cleric 5/Fullcasting 2/Hathran 5. Now have that cohort do circle magic with five followers (5th level Clerics with ethran), pumping in one 6th level slot from your cohort and five 3rd level slots from followers. Now have your cohort heighten a 6th level spell to 20th level. Now do circle magic with your cohort and some followers. Have the cohort use her 20th level spell and find six more levels of spells somewhere. Now your CL is 40 and you can go kill some gods.

*: Assuming a 30HD god. Weaker gods will require less levels, stronger gods will require more (perhaps with the use of orange ion stones).
**: dominate person works, but it seems likely to jeopardize your status as a "member in good standing of the Witches of Rashemen".

[Jowgen]

So I just checked, and yeah, intermediates do not get to see the future. That actually makes some of them more achievable targets.

Also, I read up on avatars a bit more. A deity does not have any special ability to un-make or re-summon it's avatar. Unlike with a Proxy, the deity does not sacrifice divine ranks when creating one, but an existing avatar does count as one of it's remote sensing locations. Now interestingly, an avatar counts as having half the number of divine ranks the creator deity has. Immunity to imprisonment and banishment only kicks in at divine rank 6, so any avatar of a lesser deity (or divine rank 11 intermediate) can be imprisoned via normal methods. Also, most of them don't get alter reality as a salient divine ability.

So yeah, hunting and imprisoning avatars seems to be a decent approach. Get them all and the deity looses it's remote sensing ability; which would make it much harder for them to see you coming. Also, there actually is a precedent for a mortal successfully imprisoning beings of demigod-level power: Zagyg's God-trap. Finding a means to recreate it IC shouldn't be too hard. It would probably take the deity coming itself to break them out, which can work to your advantage considering you could fight it without breaking into it's divine realm, and it would be under the pressure of not overstepping the bounderies of how much divine power it can manifest, lest other deities take offence.

Iggliw's imprisonment of that one Demon-lord is another one, which is probaby more appropriate to Orcus. You know, to my knowledge, Orcus only ever got that statblock in BoVD, and it's pretty pitiful. He doesn't even have a divine rank in most descriptions afaik.

EDIT: Ah, forgot Fiendish Codex I. I think he's actually weaker in that one, but it's an actual 3.5 note; and even the Epic-level suggestions of boosting the Demon lords don't really add that much threat. They do get avatars, although the rules... Lower plane powers are weird. :smallannoyed:

[nijineko]

In 3.5, how would one kill a God? What's the earliest level one can?

I'd like to know, assuming it's the Gods as they are stated in any location.



generally, the same way you destroy an artifact. despite the given stats, and the in-book recommendation of using the ELH to refactor them, the divine rank and immortality thing makes it really tough to actually kill one off short of dm fiat - you generally also have to get most of their followers too, lest their faith bring about a return even after you manage to put one out of action.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I forgot to mention: the Annulus can kill psionic gods, if you can survive concentrating for 10 rounds with it making a huge display.

[Debihuman]

I think she's confusing circle magic with the magic circle against x spells.

circle magic is a different thing, most notably used by red wizards. everyone stands around together and boosts the primary caster's CL by kicking in some juice. it is not keyed off of or in any way related to magic circle against x.

Indeed I was. That still only gets you a maximum of level 40. Many deities have 60 HD. Still doesn't get you the big ones. Also, that gives 24 hours only to find and kill the deity in question.

Debby

[ZamielVanWeber]

Indeed I was. That still only gets you a maximum of level 40. Many deities have 60 HD. Still doesn't get you the big ones. Also, that gives 24 hours only to find and kill the deity in question.

Debby

You can repeat the process every day. You might need the massive caster level to take care of the legwork for destroying a god.

[Aharon]

So, having gotten a high enough caster level - prismatic sphere still blocks the holy word. :smallbiggrin:

[Melcar]

Killing a god is easy. They have alignments and a finite number of hit dice. Just circle magic yourself up to the magic number of 10 + HD and cast the appropriate holy word clone. It's easier if you happen to be a Dweomerkeeper as you can do it without worrying about SR. The hardest part is getting into a position to do it before the god notices. As a rough mockup a Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 4/Hathran 5 can use circle magic, super natural spell, and appropriate holy word variants to kill any god once a day.

Honestly, D&D gods are deeply unsatisfying. Basically all they actually do is demonstrate that the people writing D&D have no idea how to play D&D. The above Cleric, with some initiate of mystra goodness, random buffs, and acorn of far travel is basically better than any D&D god as written. The power of D&D is such that you can make people who are basically gods by the 12th to 15th range. simulacrum chaining, chain binding, Artificer skilldancing, Planar Shepherd, etc. Honestly, that might make a pretty sweet campaign.

Im not disputing you, but can we perhaps see a god build by you? You sound as if you have one ready? :smallbiggrin:

[ZamielVanWeber]

Im not disputing you, but can we perhaps see a god build by you? You sound as if you have one ready? :smallbiggrin:

I could always try to find my fixed Boccob :smalltongue:. He was disgustingly OP, even without TO tricks.

Also, Brova, many of the tricks you mentioned the gods can do, but better. They can simulacrum chain (Alter Reality), chain bind (Alter Reality), copy Planar Shepard's abilities (via Alter Reality).

Actually, strictly better wish is ridiculous. Fighting Boccob would be fighting the man who made every good cleric and wizard buff in the game permanent. This includes, but is not limited to, divine power, righteous might, and shapechange. If you duplicate the spell to made permanent via Alter Reality it isn't a spell or spell-like ability so you cannot dispel it.

Actually it just occurred to me: every god with Alter Reality would have every good buff in the game made permanent.

[Melcar]

I could always try to find my fixed Boccob :smalltongue:. He was disgustingly OP, even without TO tricks.

Also, Brova, many of the tricks you mentioned the gods can do, but better. They can simulacrum chain (Alter Reality), chain bind (Alter Reality), copy Planar Shepard's abilities (via Alter Reality).

Actually, strictly better wish is ridiculous. Fighting Boccob would be fighting the man who made every good cleric and wizard buff in the game permanent. This includes, but is not limited to, divine power, righteous might, and shapechange. If you duplicate the spell to made permanent via Alter Reality it isn't a spell or spell-like ability so you cannot dispel it.

Actually it just occurred to me: every god with Alter Reality would have every good buff in the game made permanent.

I myself have been trying to do Mystra as I would think her power would fit her mantle, but is quite the work. I would therefore love to see someones try!

[ZamielVanWeber]

I myself have been trying to do Mystra as I would think her power would fit her mantle, but is quite the work. I would therefore love to see someones try!

Off the top of my head:
I changed his class levels to Wizard 3/Cleric 7/Mystic Theurge 10/Archmage 5/Heirophant 5/something(s) 5. I think it was a pile of dips to grab abilities and to round both castings out to 20.

He had a pile of Automatic Metamagic; I believe it was twin for both sides, maximize for both sides, persistent for cleric. He had Alter Reality and Supreme Initiative. Divine Spellcasting for Cleric and Wizard. Instant Counterspell, See Magic, Arcane Mastery and Spontaneous Wizard Spells.

I gave him epic feats. Automatic Quicken Spell x5 was on there, along with Enhance Spell and Intensify Spell. He had Tenacious Magic for Wish and Miracle.

I really need to try to find him. He was cool.

Edit: I don't know if I gave him Rapid Spell in an attempt to be able to quicken spells with a casting time of longer than one full round action. I am also not sure if that is legal, so maybe it is for the best.

[Brova]

Im not disputing you, but can we perhaps see a god build by you? You sound as if you have one ready? :smallbiggrin:

Sure. The thing to bear in mind is that I consider both Deities and Demigods and the ELH essentially worthless. I'm not actually trying to get something using those rules to work, I'm trying to hammer out a build that plays like a god, in a way that seems to me as elegant as possible. So these builds aim for a level 14 target and power that would seem divine to an outside observer. Obviously, you could turn them into literal gods by layering on a bunch of levels and divine traits. I'm also using a bit of a gentleman's agreement to avoid each of them using wish abuse for real ultimate power.

The first build is the one presented for killing gods. Cleric 5/Dweomerkeeper 4/Hathran 5. Feats of note are initiate of mystra, DMM:Persist, leadership, and force of personality. Domains are Magic (Dweomerkeeper qualification, antimagic field at 6th) and Spell (limited wish). Qualification for Dweomerkeeper via anyspell. So what does the build do?

First, she abuses the Dweomerkeeper's supernatural spell and limited wish. There are a lot of abuses here. Any overpowered Sorcerer/Wizard spell of 6th level or less (or spell of 5th level or less) that was balanced by restrictive components or casting time now isn't. The big abuses are permanency and awaken. Using permanency involves boosting her caster level to 40 with circle magic (letting her ignore both her antimagic field and other people's dispels), casting whatever spell (either from Cleric slots or via greater anyspell), and then emulating permanency with limited wish (ignoring XP costs). I've discussed the awaken loop in great detail before, but the gist is that she acquires the animal type (via polymorph via greater anyspell), uses supernatural spell to cast wish, and uses wish to emulate awaken. As she can't maximize and empower it, she will have to drain an average of half the hit dice, but half of infinity is still infinity.

Second, she abuses acorn of far travel and the Hathran's Rashemi Spirit Magic. Using limited wish to emulate acorn of far travel (with a circle magic'd CL of 40) in Rasheman, the Hathran always counts as beneath an oak tree there and, in turn, as within Rasheman. Allowing her to spontaneously cast any Cleric spell.*

Third, she abuses circle magic. This has been detailed above. A caster level of 40 is fun. She actually has some spells left over, so she could heighten or empower some spells. Does a maximized empowered limited wish emulated maximized empowered spells?

Fourth, she abuses initiate of mystra. This is a pretty well established trick. Cast antimagic field while wearing (ideally) fifteen orange ion stones. This sets the DC for someone with initiate of mystra to cast within your antimagic field to 41 (11 + 15 Base CL + 15 Orange Ion Stones). Do circle magic boosting your caster level to 40, preventing you from ever failing that DC.

Fifth, she abuses DMM:Persist. Note that the arbitrarily large Cha modifier from awaken looping means that she gets to persist as many spells as she wants. There's the obvious antimagic field, but other options include sadism to cycle damage back into offenses and defenses, various Cleric buffs (i.e. divine power), antilife shell to keep people away from her, and any one 2nd level or lower arcane spell (anyspell).**

Finally, she has leadership. Her cohort has to be either a guy with a level of barbarian (read: Idiot Crusader or Frenzied Berserker) or another woman with ethran (read: mini-me). They both have virtues, but the mini-me dramatically simplifies ciricle magic, so go with that one.

So what's the overall? Well, arbitrary hit dice, spontaneous Cleric casting, an antimagic field she ignores, massive buffs, and a cohort that can stack some more buffs on her.

*: Rashemi Spirit Magic has two interesting clauses. First: "a hathran who prepares spells may choose to spontaneously cast any spell she knows in place of any spell of the same level that she has prepared". Potentially that means she can heighten a spell via circle magic, then spontaneously cast 8th or 9th level Cleric spells. I don't know off the top of my head if Clerics spell knowledge is phrased in a way that allows that though. Second: "even if it is not on the same spell list as the substituted one". This one is a little more interesting, as it potentially allows her to cast any spell on the Sorcerer/Wizard list spontaneously. It depends if a Wizard knows every spell in his spellbook, or just ones he can cast.
**: This may be as many as she has slots (and include 5th level spells), as initiate of mystra adds anyspell and greater anyspell to the Cleric list. However, those spells specify the use of a domain slot, so all it would let her do is what she does already via the Spell domain.

For a second build, an arcane spell caster. Wizard 5/Incantatrix 4/Shadowcraft Mage 5. Feats of note include improved familar (mirror mephit), persist spell, and the whole Shadowcraft Mage array. This is a bit tight, so either he takes some flaws or he chaos shuffles after dedicating himself to an elder evil. So what does the build do?

First, let's talk simulacrum. That spell is nuts. The questions that need to be answered (for this build) are "what happens to templates?" and "what does half mean?". I'm assuming you keep templates (as you keep your race) and that half means the first portion of your advancement (so Wizard 5/Incantatrix 2). This build acquires simulacrum through a mirror mephit improved familiar. These mirror mephits have simulacrum once per day and can make a copy of the original character. This copy being 7th level and possessed of the improved familiar feat, he is entitled to his own mirror mephit, with its own simulacrum. So all at once, an arbitrary number of duplicates.

Second, let's talk spell-stitched undead. This lovely template from complete arcane can be applied to an undead with wisdom 10 or greater, offering progressively better SLAs up to 19 wisdom. So the character becomes necropolitan and gets himself spell-stitched (doing this involves either the help of a caster willing to lose levels, or complicated tricks involving spark of life, a wight, and a thought bottle). Doing this provides him with some spell resistance, damage reduction, and turn resistance. And some SLAs. All of which his simulacra inherit. Good choices include enervation for offense, planar binding for utility, and contingency for defense.

Third, he gets both Incantatrix and Shadowcraft Mage shenanigans. Neither one is go-nuts insane or anything, but persisting spells and not losing evocation (despite banning it for Incantatrix) is pretty nice.

Overall, he's got a very, very large legion of mini-mes with some nasty SLAs (and good casting), good metamagic, and shadow illusions.


Also, Brova, many of the tricks you mentioned the gods can do, but better. They can simulacrum chain (Alter Reality), chain bind (Alter Reality), copy Planar Shepard's abilities (via Alter Reality).

That's true. As the gods are simply higher level characters, they could do most of the listed tricks. But they essentially don't. Their stat blocks are basically just piles of abilities, which aren't actually used. They could stack shapechange to be immune to everything, but they don't. They could use hide life to be immortal, but they don't. They basically don't (explicitly) do any of the things they could/should do to be powerful.


I myself have been trying to do Mystra as I would think her power would fit her mantle, but is quite the work. I would therefore love to see someones try!

The Cleric build I posted does a pretty good Mystra impression. Another direction to go could be Artificer. There's a lot of magic diversity there and knowstones + UMD is good (especially if it works with body outside body).

[I3igAl]

The Deities and Demigods web enhacement has Erbin Fighter 1/Rogue 1, Divine Rank 1.
While he has certain immunities, DR, Ac in the 40ies, some nasty spell likes, he also only has 30HP.

A low level group could likely find a way to bring him down without abusing too much cheap stuff.

[Venger]

The Deities and Demigods web enhacement has Erbin Fighter 1/Rogue 1, Divine Rank 1.
While he has certain immunities, DR, Ac in the 40ies, some nasty spell likes, he also only has 30HP.

A low level group could likely find a way to bring him down without abusing too much cheap stuff.

yes, this is the beggar god I mentioned earlier. thanks, I couldn't remember his name. he's also available at other levels. stats here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20020406a)

[Hecuba]

nope. intermediate deities only see into the past, not the future. that's greater only.

You're right -- I was confusing the timeframe progression with the progression reducing the number of people that have top new involved.

The latter still means that intermediate is where portfolio sense starts mattering. It's less pronounced than I recalled, but still an issue. Planning out your attack could get you detected, but you don't have to worry about a deity killing you before it even occurs to you to pick a fight with it like you do for greater deities. In contrast, you have to get a small army involved before it trips for a lesser deity.

[Venger]

You're right -- I was confusing the timeframe progression with the progression reducing the number of people that have top new involved.

The latter still means that intermediate is where portfolio sense starts mattering. It's less pronounced than I recalled, but still an issue. Planning out your attack could get you detected, but you don't have to worry about a deity killing you before it even occurs to you to pick a fight with it like you do for greater deities. In contrast, you have to get a small army involved before it trips for a lesser deity.

that does provide the amusing idea (storywise) of a greater deity's preemptive strike against you being precisely the thing that causes you to resolve to kill him in the first place. self-fulfilling prophecy. very greek.

[Aharon]

yes, this is the beggar god I mentioned earlier. thanks, I couldn't remember his name. he's also available at other levels. stats here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20020406a)

He has time stop, PAO, blasphemy, create undead... low-level PCs won't win against him without cheese.

[Xuldarinar]

I was never one for a direct approach. Deities, if i recall correctly, depend upon worship for their power. So, if you can end their worship, you can end them, be it far easier at the tip of a sword or spelling their doom in of itself.


Isn't there a monster somewhere in one of the editions, perhaps a template, that is a killer of deities?