A Deity Campaign

[Buufreak]

So, after spending much time doing religious studies for a term paper along side getting really into Smite with my usual gaming buddies, we decided it might be cool to play a campaign where the PCs are various gods. The issue we run into is how to exactly to go about doing something like this. We have tossed around the possibility of certain gods staying in place while others "fall," having no gods at all, leaving in only those who actively took part in the shaping of the world according to each individual pantheon, and a few other options. Has anyone else run a campaign similar to this? How did it work out? Any suggestions to helping mine run smoothly?

[Remuko]

Epic levels are pretty wonky but it can be fun if you dont optimize too hard.

Make sure all the PCs pick gods with similar level totals preferably.
Have the PC gods "fall" as in for the duration of the campaign they lose all Divine Ranks and powers associated (maybe let them keep max hp per HD tho)

Like this most Gods would be lvl 40-60 and theres plenty of epic level things to throw at people of that level or advancing non-epic things to challenge them.


I can imagine it being very fun.

[Buufreak]

Epic levels are pretty wonky but it can be fun if you dont optimize too hard.

Ah. That is definitely something I should have addressed in the OP. We have no intention of starting this with PCs being straight from DaD gods. Not the levels, nor the divine ranks.



Have the PC gods "fall" as in for the duration of the campaign they lose all Divine Ranks and powers associated (maybe let them keep max hp per HD tho)


This is one of the ideas we had that we were building on. They were gods, now they aren't, and they are gradually working their way back to divinity, be it something like Hercules' trials, or all out Deicidal war.

I guess I can add to the OP question: If possible, what would be a good way to downgrade gods (from 1st party material AND otherwise) such that they were humanoid or similar, while retaining certainly godly points. Obviously, RPing is a part of that answer, but can it be quantified reasonably?

[LordOfCain]

If possible, what would be a good way to downgrade gods (from 1st party material AND otherwise) such that they were humanoid or similar, while retaining certainly godly points. Obviously, RPing is a part of that answer, but can it be quantified reasonably?
Hm... remove all outsider HD/Divine Rank abilities, and remove the last... 10 or so class levels?

[Lord of Monies]

Taking this more from a roleplaying standpoint as I am far from the most mechanical bro around here. In my homebrew world my gods have a duality of sorts. There is the personality and there is the divinity. The divinity holds all the crunch of divine ranks, profile and answering prayers to their clergy for spells and such. The personality is the fluff like alignment, relationships to other gods and the more direct forms of communication with mortals. Because of this duality, they have in the past left their divinity behind to work on auto-pilot while they assume mortal form to walk amongst the people and explore the world/planes. Sometimes they do this to influence history or their own religion, while sometimes they do this just to update their own understanding by exploring and having some fun (good fun and evil fun are notably different, but still 'fun').

Your players could be the same way, a small selection of gods that have a specific job to do, or went on a road-trip for the hell of it until something went wrong. In my case, the god could return to their divinity by performing a short ritual or being killed. In your case, this could be interrupted somehow and therein lies a plot point to discover. Now they're stuck down here until they uncover what is keeping them away from their holiest of selves.

[the_david]

You might want to look into Pathfinder. With the Mythic rules you can have 6th level characters grant up to 3rd level divine spells to followers. (With 12th level characters granting up to 6th level, and 18th level granting up to 9th level.) I suppose it would work great with leadership.
You would have to use mythic tiers though, which makes encounters kinda wonky. Player characters typically gain mythic tiers when they pass certain milestones such as killing a mythic opponent. Killing a minor deity certainly would count as such, so you could have your players hunt down deities.
Instead of the usual planes, you could set the story in a setting that doesn't have that much beyond the material plane. Something that's more in line with Greek mythology. An underworld that's theoretically accessible to the living and mountains that house the gods. This way the gods can roam the world.