Divine Blood

[Aleolus]

Ok, here's the deal. In a lot of mythologies, especially greek, there is a common thread of the gods coming down and having relations with mortals, which normally led to half breed kids. In my campaigns, I want to incorporate that as a random chance for my players characters, including extra bonuses if they do turn out to be god born. I'm using the Bloodlines alternative in UA as a baseline for this, with a 2% chance that they are a gods progeny, and another roll to determine what god is their parent. I have two things I would like to ask the playgrounders regarding this.

1) Do you all think this a good mechanic to incorporate, or is there too much potential for abuse and overpowering?

2) What would you suggest as abilities for different godborn children to have? (I use Deities and Demigods as the basis for most of my worlds pantheons)

[The Glyphstone]

If you're going to do it, don't be a random chance. Either give it to all your players or don't use it at all. Anything else has too much potential for, sorry, bad blood.

[J-H]

You may want to check with your players first to make sure that everyone's OK.... and since player characters are special, a 5% or 10% chance would make it more likely to happen. You could also look at people's intended builds and give them a bonus based on expected tier. A CW Samurai (T6) gets a +6% chance, a Rogue (T4) gets a +4% chance, and a Wizard or Cleric (T1) get a +1% chance. A martial or skill-based character will probably benefit more from the abilities listed below... but isn't it always the case that martial & skill-based characters need more help?

You want to grant bonuses that are nice, but not game-changing. To prevent someone from hyper-optimizing it (and be more realistic), you also want to have a random element.

I suggest creating two tables (why two? because more adds more work for you!); At first level, and every even level afterwards, roll on the appropriate table. Abilities may be rolled more than once.

Here's a sample of abilities that I believe are reasonable. Nothing is game-breaking, but all are useful.

Table 1 Applies to levels 1-10 (total of 6 abilities from this table)
-Gain 5 hit points permanently
-Gain a +2 bonus to a saving throw (select the one most appropriate for the parent deity)
-Gain a 1st-level spell as a SLA, useable 3/day (select one appropriate for the parent, and useful for game balance; cure X wounds, lesser vigor, entangle, shield, shillelagh, longstrider, pass without trace, etc.)
-Gain +2 to an ability score (roll 1d6 to determine what score, and party members won't complain)
-Gain 1 point of DR per 5 HD (scales with HD)
-Gain 1 luck re-roll per day
-Gain 1 relevant reserve feat (if a spellcaster)
-Gain Weapon Focus & Weapon Specialization with the deity's favored weapon (if a martial character)
-Gain +4 to a parentally-relevant appropriate skill (possibly allow the player to choose between one of several skills)
-Gain the Scent special ability and the Track feat (if appropriate for parent)
-Gain Darkvision 60', or if Darkvision is present, See Invisibility 30'

Table 2 Applies to levels 11-20 (total of 5 abilities from this table)
-Gain Blindsight 10' radius
-Gain a 3rd level spell as a SLA, 3/day (select appropriate one; at level 12 it's not game-breaking if the fighter can throw a 10d6 fireball 3/day, but it is cool)
-Gain +2 Natural Armor
-Gain +6 to a relevant skill, and +2 to another
-Gain +2 CON
-Gain the Improved Toughness feat
-Gain +3 to a saving throw, and +1 to another
-Gain Evasion (if appropriate)
-Gain +10' move speed
-Gain fast healing 1
-Roll Twice on Table 1
-Gain a +1 sacred (or profane, or luck) bonus on attack rolls and AC
-Gain 2 luck re-rolls per day, which may be used on an ally or an opponent
-Gain 2 additional spell slots per day for the highest level of spells known

[Draconium]

I've had a divine-blooded character once. It didn't affect how I played him mechanically at all, I was just using the fluff for it.

If you want to give a mechanical benefit for it, though, I'd just use something similar to a Bloodline (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm), homebrewed to give you certain abilities similar to that of the divine being you descended from.

[Aleolus]

You may want to check with your players first to make sure that everyone's OK.... and since player characters are special, a 5% or 10% chance would make it more likely to happen. You could also look at people's intended builds and give them a bonus based on expected tier. A CW Samurai (T6) gets a +6% chance, a Rogue (T4) gets a +4% chance, and a Wizard or Cleric (T1) get a +1% chance. A martial or skill-based character will probably benefit more from the abilities listed below... but isn't it always the case that martial & skill-based characters need more help?

You want to grant bonuses that are nice, but not game-changing. To prevent someone from hyper-optimizing it (and be more realistic), you also want to have a random element.

I suggest creating two tables (why two? because more adds more work for you!); At first level, and every even level afterwards, roll on the appropriate table. Abilities may be rolled more than once.

Here's a sample of abilities that I believe are reasonable. Nothing is game-breaking, but all are useful.

Table 1 Applies to levels 1-10 (total of 6 abilities from this table)
-Gain 5 hit points permanently
-Gain a +2 bonus to a saving throw (select the one most appropriate for the parent deity)
-Gain a 1st-level spell as a SLA, useable 3/day (select one appropriate for the parent, and useful for game balance; cure X wounds, lesser vigor, entangle, shield, shillelagh, longstrider, pass without trace, etc.)
-Gain +2 to an ability score (roll 1d6 to determine what score, and party members won't complain)
-Gain 1 point of DR per 5 HD (scales with HD)
-Gain 1 luck re-roll per day
-Gain 1 relevant reserve feat (if a spellcaster)
-Gain Weapon Focus & Weapon Specialization with the deity's favored weapon (if a martial character)
-Gain +4 to a parentally-relevant appropriate skill (possibly allow the player to choose between one of several skills)
-Gain the Scent special ability and the Track feat (if appropriate for parent)
-Gain Darkvision 60', or if Darkvision is present, See Invisibility 30'

Table 2 Applies to levels 11-20 (total of 5 abilities from this table)
-Gain Blindsight 10' radius
-Gain a 3rd level spell as a SLA, 3/day (select appropriate one; at level 12 it's not game-breaking if the fighter can throw a 10d6 fireball 3/day, but it is cool)
-Gain +2 Natural Armor
-Gain +6 to a relevant skill, and +2 to another
-Gain +2 CON
-Gain the Improved Toughness feat
-Gain +3 to a saving throw, and +1 to another
-Gain Evasion (if appropriate)
-Gain +10' move speed
-Gain fast healing 1
-Roll Twice on Table 1
-Gain a +1 sacred (or profane, or luck) bonus on attack rolls and AC
-Gain 2 luck re-rolls per day, which may be used on an ally or an opponent
-Gain 2 additional spell slots per day for the highest level of spells known

Nice ideas, and that is actually less work than my original idea, having a separate chart of abilities for each god parent to bestow. I've never been super clear on the tier system (I've read part of the thread about it, but meh), and I've always felt build is more important than class when it comes to power (I DMed a game where one of the players was a monk that had high enough attack bonuses and ac he could have gone toe to toe with epic monsters when he was only level 12), so I probably won't use the bonuses part, but the rest is good

[Lhurgyof]

You could look at the bloodlines (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm) section of the SRD and work from there. Instead of making the bonuses cost experience points, you could give each player a minor bloodline for free.

[Red Fel]

You know that there are already Godblooded templates, right? Monster Manual V gives several, which forms the basis of creating other ones. Basically, these are creatures blessed with a few morsels of a deity's power, usually by exposure to that deity's blood or torture at their hands, although it could easily be refluffed as ancestry. It's an LA+1 template with benefits depending on the donor. For example, a Gruumsh-Blooded Orc (because Orcs only), can create a paralyzing gaze attack, or go into a rage. A Vecna-Blooded creature has a 50% chance to be completely untargettable, can penalize saves against its spells, and can become forgotten and completely nondetectable. And so forth.

Alternatively, Deities and Demigods discusses "hero deities," (also found here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm)), a category including mortals with a divine parent. They have Divine Rank 0 (as compared to the non-rank most beings have), which grants them certain limited abilities of deities.

If you're going for distant ancestry, just go with something planetouched. There are plenty of planetouched races out there; let the PCs take them, or some kind of template reflecting their ancestry.

What I would not do, however, is make it random. If some players get it and others don't, you've just created celebrities. Look, in Greek myths, even if being a divine scion didn't turn you into Herakles, it made you an instant star; a player being told that his PC will have to sing in the chorus while another PC takes center stage because of a lucky roll is just rude. So you have three options, as far as I can see.
Nobody gets it. That's fair. And it allows you to play with the issue of godblooded-as-monsters. They're not of this world or that of the gods, so they're unnatural, and it raises the question of whether that kind of power guarantees madness.
Everybody gets it. That's fair too. And it allows the PCs to explore whether they wish to embrace or rebel against their heritage.
Anybody who does not get it instead gets an equivalent bonus from another source. So, this guy didn't get the lucky roll? Fine; a magical research accident gives him an equivalent. That one didn't? That's fine; his mentor took him through training from literal Hell, and now he has a similar bonus. And so forth.

[Telonius]

Personally I'd go with Red Fel's suggestion number 3. If you're going to give something that big to anyone, be prepared to give something to everyone. A really nice side effect of that: if everyone gets it, it won't be overpowering, it'll just raise the power floor.

But yeah, I'd go with a mixture. Maybe not everybody in the group would want to be god-descended. That's fine; some people like playing Superman, some people like playing Batman.

[Geddy2112]

I second having an all or nothing approach to handing out boons. Even if everybody gets them, random boons may favor some characters more than others, and not all boons are equal. But if some people have a boon and some don't, that is asking for trouble in and out of game. If it must be random, let your players roll it in the open and show them the table so they know it is fair.

You could use the variant abilities at the bottom of this page (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-aasimar) for random boons.

[Flickerdart]

I can see a sensible argument for not wanting everyone in the party to be related to gods - if 4-6 guys are all god-blooded, it makes god blood a lot less special.

However, I agree that there should be a trade-off involved. So I would give every player a choice:

Embrace their god blood. Grant them (scaling) bonuses related to their god. I would customize it by god, after they choose the god. But being god-blooded represents a commitment - the character can't do things like cast spells opposing the god's alignment, use relics of other gods or access their PrCs, prepare at least one spell that appears on the god's domains, or can be turned by clerics of opposing faiths.
Reject their god blood. Grant them something else - perhaps a god-blooded being that chooses their mortal side gets free Racial Paragon abilities.