Help Understanding Deity Creation

[supergoji18]

Hello. Lately I've been fascinated by the Deities and Demigods book and the d20srd sections about gods. I've been looking at it for a while now and I've been trying to make a deity of my own. However, there are a few things I am very confused about when seeing how they determined certain features on these beings. Here is a list of questions.

1. How are the stats for each deity determined? I recall on a forum somewhere that there is a Deity Ability Array, but there is no mention of this in the rulebooks, and the math doesn't seem to add up for me.
2. Do deities get a bonus to ability scores form their Divine Rank?
3. How is it decided that a deity gets Outsider Hit Dice? I read somewhere that only natural born deities get it, so ascended mortals don't get them. However, St. Cuthbert gets 20 Outsider HD despite his backstory saying he was an ascended mortal. Additionally, the dragon deities only have Dragon Hit Dice.
4. Do only the humanoid/outsider deities get class levels? Because none of the dragon deities seem to have them.
5. Speaking of class level, is there any relation between a deities class level and/or hit dice and their divine rank?
6. How are the stats determined for the Dragon Deities? Did they just take a dragon and give it the benefits of divinity? Because I've looked at Bahamut's stats and it doesn't seem to add up that he is any of the given Metallic Dragons.
7. How are the non outsider/ascended human hit dice determined?

I'm not sure if I missed something in the book or website, but if someone could clarify these things for me that would be great. Thank you!

[Quertus]

Hello. Lately I've been fascinated by the Deities and Demigods book and the d20srd sections about gods. I've been looking at it for a while now and I've been trying to make a deity of my own. However, there are a few things I am very confused about when seeing how they determined certain features on these beings. Here is a list of questions.

1. How are the stats for each deity determined? I recall on a forum somewhere that there is a Deity Ability Array, but there is no mention of this in the rulebooks, and the math doesn't seem to add up for me.
2. Do deities get a bonus to ability scores form their Divine Rank?
3. How is it decided that a deity gets Outsider Hit Dice? I read somewhere that only natural born deities get it, so ascended mortals don't get them. However, St. Cuthbert gets 20 Outsider HD despite his backstory saying he was an ascended mortal. Additionally, the dragon deities only have Dragon Hit Dice.
4. Do only the humanoid/outsider deities get class levels? Because none of the dragon deities seem to have them.
5. Speaking of class level, is there any relation between a deities class level and/or hit dice and their divine rank?
6. How are the stats determined for the Dragon Deities? Did they just take a dragon and give it the benefits of divinity? Because I've looked at Bahamut's stats and it doesn't seem to add up that he is any of the given Metallic Dragons.
7. How are the non outsider/ascended human hit dice determined?

I'm not sure if I missed something in the book or website, but if someone could clarify these things for me that would be great. Thank you!

I'm no expert on this, but sounds like WotC messed up on #3. Outsider HD are supposed to be for natural born deities. For #6, Bahamut is a platinum Dragon - the only platinum Dragon. So... his stats match his stats. For #7... um... well, by their HD?

[Ashtagon]

Deity stats are basically determined the same way that an untemplated orc's stats are determined. They picked some numbers that looked good and went with that. If you think of "orc" as a template that fits onto a basic "humanoid" chassis, then "Gruumsh" is a template that fits onto a basic "deity" chassis. Every deity gets their own unique template, which was created in the exact way the orc template was created. Fiat.

Basically, that book is a load of thumb-rules masquerading as a construction kit.

[Âmesang]

Deities and Demigods FAQ (http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/files/DeitiesDemigodsFAQ10252002.zip)
(includes questions for Deities and Demigods and Faiths and Pantheons)
Don't forget the SRD update, too: Divine Ranks & Powers (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/divineRanksPowers.htm), Divine Abilities & Feats (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm), and Additional Domains, Spells, & Divine Minions (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/divineMinionsDomainsSpells.htm) (I can understand the damage reduction update, but why-oh-why did they decrease fire resistance of all things?!).

…with that out of the way I think the only thing (that I can recall) that Deities and Demigods, the FAQ, and the SRD don't cover are the class skills for those Outsider HD; so I effectively house-ruled that all skills are considered class skills with regards to the Outsider HD—class skills pertaining to regular classes otherwise work the same way.

I'm also pretty sure that the idea that St. Cuthbert once walked the world as a man is a nod to the real St. Cuthbert of Northumbria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuthbert), but at least with regards to WORLD OF GREYHAWK® it isn't necessarily fact (as opposed to Heracles or Imhotep).

[supergoji18]

Don't forget the SRD update, too: Divine Ranks & Powers (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/divineRanksPowers.htm), Divine Abilities & Feats (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm), and Additional Domains, Spells, & Divine Minions (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/divineMinionsDomainsSpells.htm) (I can understand the damage reduction update, but why-oh-why did they decrease fire resistance of all things?!).

…with that out of the way I think the only thing (that I can recall) that Deities and Demigods, the FAQ, and the SRD don't cover are the class skills for those Outsider HD; so I effectively house-ruled that all skills are considered class skills with regards to the Outsider HD—class skills pertaining to regular classes otherwise work the same way.

I'm also pretty sure that the idea that St. Cuthbert once walked the world as a man is a nod to the real St. Cuthbert of Northumbria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuthbert), but at least with regards to WORLD OF GREYHAWK® it isn't necessarily fact (as opposed to Heracles or Imhotep).

The only thing is that Bahamut and Tiamat clearly dont use the normal divine array of abilities.

But it seems like the consensus is that half of making a deity is just coming up with arbitrary things to make your deity seem like a deity.

[Afgncaap5]

Also, it's worth noting that there's a lot of story-first, rules-second behind how the individual deities are crafted. If I had to give a reason for, say, Cuthbert's outsider hit-dice, I'd say that he may have been human once but he has since fully embraced his deific status to become an all new being, or something like that. As opposed to, say, Imhotep who's pretty much just a level 20 Expert on steroids.

[Graypairofsocks]

Hello. Lately I've been fascinated by the Deities and Demigods book and the d20srd sections about gods. I've been looking at it for a while now and I've been trying to make a deity of my own. However, there are a few things I am very confused about when seeing how they determined certain features on these beings. Here is a list of questions.

1. How are the stats for each deity determined? I recall on a forum somewhere that there is a Deity Ability Array, but there is no mention of this in the rulebooks, and the math doesn't seem to add up for me.
2. Do deities get a bonus to ability scores form their Divine Rank?
3. How is it decided that a deity gets Outsider Hit Dice? I read somewhere that only natural born deities get it, so ascended mortals don't get them. However, St. Cuthbert gets 20 Outsider HD despite his backstory saying he was an ascended mortal. Additionally, the dragon deities only have Dragon Hit Dice.
4. Do only the humanoid/outsider deities get class levels? Because none of the dragon deities seem to have them.
5. Speaking of class level, is there any relation between a deities class level and/or hit dice and their divine rank?
6. How are the stats determined for the Dragon Deities? Did they just take a dragon and give it the benefits of divinity? Because I've looked at Bahamut's stats and it doesn't seem to add up that he is any of the given Metallic Dragons.
7. How are the non outsider/ascended human hit dice determined?

I'm not sure if I missed something in the book or website, but if someone could clarify these things for me that would be great. Thank you!

1: see the answer from the FAQ (http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/files/DeitiesDemigodsFAQ10252002.zip):


If I’m making my own deities, how do I determine what
ability scores, Hit Dice, skills, feats, domains, portfolios,
and salient abilities each deity should receive?
You can determine these mostly by assigning them, just as
you would with any other new creature or NPC.
Deities receive skills and feats according to their outsider
Hit Dice and class levels, just as a monster with a class does.
Most of the deities in Deities and Demigods started out as 13-
HD outsiders; the designers used the titan from the Monster
Manual as a starting point and worked from there.
Domains, portfolios, and salient abilities, along with the
methods for assigning them, are discussed in Chapter 2 of
Deities and Demigods.
All the deities in Deities and Demigods have a standard
array of ability scores (similar to the standard array for NPCs
in Chapter 2 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide). The standard
array is 35, 28, 25, 24, 24, 24. To this standard divine array,
the Deities and Demigods designers added +1 for every 4
class levels a deity had and +1 for every point of divine rank.
Certain deities also received racial ability adjustments for the
races they created or rule over. For example, Corellon
Larethian received elf racial adjustments.
All the deities in the book have ability scores generated
this way, including the ones that are (or are reputed to be)
ascended mortals. If you include divine ascension in your
game and you want to use the standard divine array, you can
require these scores before ascension (the Epic Level
Handbook offers some ideas and information on how
characters can acquire these high scores), or you can just give
the characters the scores as a benefit of ascension. Of course,
there’s no reason for you to give your deities any ability
scores except the ones you think they should have.


2: see question 1.

3: I think St. Cuthbert having outsider HD may be a mistake.

4: I think it is just that the dragon deities don't have any class levels, not that they can't gain.

5: I am not sure.

6:
Bahamut is a unique creature, he is the only platinum dragon.
Also see question 1.

7:
I think think it is arbitrarily determined.
According to "Deities and Demigods" most have 30-50 character levels.