Can You Kill A Deity?

[Bartmanhomer]

Is it possible to kill a deity especially when you're in epic levels? :confused:

[Galacktic]

Is it possible to kill a deity especially when you're in epic levels? :confused:

Easily. Deity statblocks aren't great.

[Mike Miller]

Is it possible to kill a deity especially when you're in epic levels? :confused:

Yes. Deities are not immune to being killed. It may be difficult, but it is possible.

[Darth Ultron]

Is it possible to kill a deity especially when you're in epic levels? :confused:

Well, depends on your Game.

By default, if it exists you can kill it.

In some games, like my game, you can't ''kill" a deity...they are not alive. And you can't kill that which has no life. You can kill an avatar, sure. But that does not much effect the deity. You can destroy a deity...but most of the time not through combat roll playing.

[Mike Miller]

"Depends on the DM" does seem like the least satisfying yet most accurate answer to the thread title. However, I should have answered it with "With my bare hands!"

[DrKerosene]

I’m mostly going to gloss over linking to google results, as I’m sure mentioning something like releasing the Elder Evil known as Pandorym is not news, nor is the psionic artifact called the Annulus that is apparently capable of killing gods.

I’m just going to emphasis that since I’m under the impression by default the dnd gods are supposed to be able to see into the future in-setting, and by extension any plans you have to kill a god must pass an “unstoppable tipping-point” long before a god’s future vision catches on to whatever is going to kill it, so that no interventions will work.

Which is a hard thing to do if you’re not a DM or don’t have the DM’s interest in such a plot.

[Ruethgar]

Plotting outside the planes can be an ok way to act without gods knowing what you are doing. But even being outside of the planes, while they can’t use most of their abilities on you remotely, they can feel if you’re messing with their portfolios and Alter Reality to go to you personally and see what’s up.

Also gods of secrets are almost certainly going to know exactly what you’re planning regardless and may be inclined to stop you because mortals killing gods sets a bad precedent.

So basically, if played with caution(and I mean where any level 7 caster can become a god what deity wouldn’t air on the side of caution) it should be practically impossible to kill a god.

[Crake]

Easily. Deity statblocks aren't great.

Except for, you know, the divine salient abilities that let them curbstomp mortals without a second thought and everything.

[Mike Miller]

Not all deities have Alter Reality. Also, if you want to kill a deity, pick on the lowest ranked ones. If you succeed somehow, work your way up the chain. I assume if you are trying this that it is part of the campaign and therefore a possibility.

[Jack_Simth]

Not all deities have Alter Reality.Perhaps... but it's one of the better SDA's. Any spell of 9th level or lower as a standard action? Alter Reality(Time Stop), Alter Reality(Ice Assasin the person you don't like), Alter Reality(time stop), Alter Reality(Wish(Magic Item Creation clause to equip the Ice Assasin)), Alter Reality(Time Stop)... eventually let time resume when you've got 30 copies of your opponent, equipped better than your opponent.

Life and Death is pretty good too (no save just die), but has harsher requirements.

[Willie the Duck]

I’m just going to emphasis that since I’m under the impression by default the dnd gods are supposed to be able to see into the future in-setting, and by extension any plans you have to kill a god must pass an “unstoppable tipping-point” long before a god’s future vision catches on to whatever is going to kill it, so that no interventions will work.

Which is a hard thing to do if you’re not a DM or don’t have the DM’s interest in such a plot.

Or you have an inexperienced DM who lets this happen.

As others have alluded to, 3e carries in a long (now 42 years, I guess) tradition of giving gods mechanical stats which are unprepared for how powerful people would be making PCs (although, to be fair, oD&D and 3e are the high points of 'designers didn't predict this' game evolution). Unless the gods are played smart, or use universal god powers that let them just escape, evade, or wipe away the PCs somehow. The instant you are dealing with them on a stat-block to stat-block level, they simply aren't that strong (but that's only going to happen if the DM lets you).

[Necroticplague]

Depends on the the diety and the DMs interpretation of Portfolio sense. Some can be ultimately beaten like any other foe, once you get around their divine immunities. Others can basically pull TO level tricks out of their *** on a moment's notice, and there's basically no way to beat them. Greater dieties are especially troublesome for their ability to always hit and never fail a save, and know the future to a limited degree

[Falontani]

Let's be honest, if a dm expects you to fight a deity, they should be changing those deity statblocks

[denthor]

In 3.5 the current state shows there god of death. Negral has been defeated and replaced by a woman. Who is the new god of death.

So sure why not.

P.S. if I got name wrong feel free to correct he was Nuetral Evil.

[Phhase]

Lord British Postulate. If it's even remotely possible, people will try incredibly hard to, and inevitably succeed.

[RoboEmperor]

As long as you successfully create an Ice Assassin of a Deity you can. You just gotta be a better TO player than the DM.

[fallensavior]

If it has stats, it can be killed.

That being said, I'd suggest DMs to run deities without stats.

[noob]

If it has stats, it can be killed.

That being said, I'd suggest DMs to run deities without stats.

Well if you want an experience close to some of those settings where any god randomly gets beaten up by adventurers then you should definitively stat them up.
Actually it is a really huge proportion of the dnd settings that feature that kind of gods.(the kind of gods that gets randomly killed by adventurers)

[Mike Miller]

@denthor: Nerull


Well if you want an experience close to some of those settings where any god randomly gets beaten up by adventurers then you should definitively stat them up.
Actually it is a really huge proportion of the dnd settings that feature that kind of gods.(the kind of gods that gets randomly killed by adventurers)

Not all DMs want this to happen. I have never had my party fight a deity. The closest thing to it I even plan on having them fight is end game Age of Worms.

[Efrate]

I've killed deities as a player before. It's not hard. Greek and Norse gods are pretty good, but most the rest are pretty bad. Barring the nope abilities some have, any decent epic character level 30ish should handle most of the normal ones, I think that's when we killed a few.

Do all your plotting and such on sigil, makes you pretty much immune to them finding out. Then work out an Alpha strike.

[Yogibear41]

There is only one answer to this question that is universally correct:

"Ask your DM"


That being said I'm pretty sure the stat blocks people always talk about are Avatars not the actual deity itself. Big Difference.

[flappeercraft]

If you go with the statblocks as given the answer is yes but if played to their true potential with what they have and with all the connections they have in lore its going to be real hard to achieve in a normal game. However get to TO territory and it will just be a curbstomp against the deities. Assumning a standard game, you're completely ****** if you try face a deity on your own though.

Before someone says Life and Death or similar DSA's can kill you with no save, that effect while it has no save or SR is still based on destruction which has the death tag and is therefore a death effect. Deathward stops it. Alter reality though is going to be rather problematic. However due to the fact that using it for anything other than replicating spells gets it a cooldown it should still not be too hard to deal with assuming you're highly optimized.

[Goaty14]

-Yes
-If you're a Xorvintaal Dragon* and killing such deity is a part of your plans to move ahead in the game, then you cannot be magically divined by any deities.

*cough dragonwrought kobold cough

[Sleven]

Wizards actually did a much better job making deities unbeatable than people give them credit for. Stat blocks don’t mean anything if they include anything with the words “Salient Divine Abilities” or “Epic Spellcasting”.

It’s a common misconception, because most people don’t actually play in TO games. In TO games you stop looking at stat blocks and start looking at what a monster or character is capable of by virtue of their abilities. Once you consider the fact that a deity can make themselves permanently and nigh irrevocably invincible to any and all abilities just by having Alter Reality and two rounds of prep, it really starts to put things in perspective.

The only way I know to kill a deity who’s being played competently is to fight them at the base of the spire in the outlands. Anything short of that won’t work if the person at the other end of the table knows what they’re doing.

[Feantar]

That being said I'm pretty sure the stat blocks people always talk about are Avatars not the actual deity itself. Big Difference.

No, that's false. Avatars (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#avatar) are a specific ability and their stats are generated from the statblock of the original deities. So the stats are for the deity itself.

[Mordaedil]

There is the whole thing where a deity can't kill themselves in most casts, leading to ice assassin being mostly useless. Heck, I'm not sure if ice assassin can copy divine ranks, so that means they are going up against someone constantly rolling 20's.

[RoboEmperor]

There is the whole thing where a deity can't kill themselves in most casts, leading to ice assassin being mostly useless. Heck, I'm not sure if ice assassin can copy divine ranks, so that means they are going up against someone constantly rolling 20's.

They copy everything. Nothing in either texts say divine ranks are the exception to "everything".

If they can't kill themselves then you get a hundred ice assassins of other deities.

Ofc the deity in question can also make NI ice assassins.

[Mordaedil]

They copy everything. Nothing in either texts say divine ranks are the exception to "everything".

If they can't kill themselves then you get a hundred ice assassins of other deities.

Ofc the deity in question can also make NI ice assassins.

Not everything. It's a near-perfect copy that copies the characters skills, abilities and memories. Does not mention divine ranks.

[noob]

Not everything. It's a near-perfect copy that copies the characters skills, abilities and memories. Does not mention divine ranks.

So while it might not have the divine ranks it still have the abilities the deity did get from the divine ranks such as always getting 20 on his rolls and all the immunities and beating in divine rank competition all gods with a lower divine rank than the copied god.

[Mordaedil]

So while it might not have the divine ranks it still have the abilities the deity did get from the divine ranks such as always getting 20 on his rolls and all the immunities and beating in divine rank competition all gods with a lower divine rank than the copied god.

Those aren't abilities, however...

[Menzath]

ROFL planar Shepard>>the common grounds.
Now, you is invincible.

[winteranfang]

As stated in other posts, any character has stats can be killed. A wise DM should treat gods as GODS. They are concepts that mortal minds shall not understand. One of my friends has said that role-playing demons or devils is hard thing, as their psychology is much different than ordinary people. One should suffer playing such characters, not enjoying. :nale:

I think the gods in D&D should be considered as epic and powerful NPCs such as prophets with some divine ranks.

[zergling.exe]

In 3.5 the current state shows there god of death. Negral has been defeated and replaced by a woman. Who is the new god of death.

So sure why not.

P.S. if I got name wrong feel free to correct he was Nuetral Evil.

Actually that's just a PDF error. Someone made a thread about it and the consensus is that whatever software made the scanned images into text screwed that up. I forget what their actual name is though.

[noob]

As stated in other posts, any character has stats can be killed. A wise DM should treat gods as GODS. They are concepts that mortal minds shall not understand. One of my friends has said that role-playing demons or devils is hard thing, as their psychology is much different than ordinary people. One should suffer playing such characters, not enjoying. :nale:

I think the gods in D&D should be considered as epic and powerful NPCs such as prophets with some divine ranks.

Except that gods being killable by mortals is a thing in many the most known settings of dnd.
So if you make gods beyond mortal in a way that does not makes them killable then you are probably not playing one of the most known dnd settings or you are playing it in a way that contradicts its lore.
Many writers hate having unkillable mary sues and do not want a setting dominated by gods so there must be a way to have those gods not just go around and do whatever they want.
So either there is no gods or the gods could as well not exist and it would change nothing or the gods are vulnerable.
For example in the forgotten realms most gods are trivially easy to kill and can also die from lack of followers.(except ao but having a single god beyond the other does not means that the gods in that setting are unkillable in general)

[daremetoidareyo]

Kill all of their followers and eliminate all mentions of them from the cultures where they operate. That should do it.

[winteranfang]

So if you make gods beyond mortal in a way that does not makes them killable then you are probably not playing one of the most known dnd settings or you are playing it in a way that contradicts its lore.


You are right. I use these unkillable concepts in my generic setting. The thing that I want to say is that a god is actually the concept that s/he represents. For example, Neutral God of nature in my setting is nature itself. All life, matter and energy forms are part of her, as she is the Mother Nature. You cannot (at least should not :smallbiggrin:) kill the nature. If one kills such deity, the whole nature must be perished, in my opinion.

However, what I meant is not that a god must be 'true immortality'. They can still be killed by other concepts (I mean Gods). If a PC finds the way of being a god, s/he shall be able to kill another god. For example (in my setting again), the god of chaos (CE)(who was mortal once) has killed the judge god of destiny (LN) whose main portfolios are fate, spirit and death. But this caused a crisis in the whole universe. After death, a person's soul cannot go heaven or hell anymore because there is no concept of 'judging'. After the god's death, the necromancy is invented by those who learn to bind those 'stray souls' into the corpses. Or the priests of fate lost their divination abilities, etc. Anyway, there should be horrible consequences when a god dies.

In this sense, I prefer taking the term god serious. But you are also right, it differs setting to setting.

[Calthropstu]

A God can only be killed by its opposite.

So buy a dog.

[noob]

A God can only be killed by its opposite.

So buy a dog.

I confirm: dogs are awesome.
Buy a dog in dnd.

[Mystral]

Is it possible to kill a deity especially when you're in epic levels? :confused:

Depends on the world you are playing in, but in most worlds, the answer to that is "theoretically yes, but it is propably not a good idea".

[Mordaedil]

Better yet, buy a dog and SICK IT on the Elder Gods.
https://i.imgur.com/iKwLpgV.png

[Jay R]

That depends so much on what a deity really is, according to the DM.

And suppose you killed, for instance, the god of magic. What effect does that have? Is there no more magic in the world? Or do all magic spells go off at once in a giant cataclysm? Or is a new god of magic created? [What does the new god of magic think about a character who killed a god of magic?]

In any game I ran, it would either be impossible, or the entity that killed the god of magic would now be the god of magic, and would no longer be a PC. [Or possibly they aren't really gods, but just high-level creatures with delusions of grandeur.]

[ATHATH]

What a fool you are. I'm a god, how can you kill a god? What a grand and intoxicating innocence. How could you be so naive? There is no escape. No recall or intervention can work in this place. Come, lay down your weapons, it is not too late for my mercy.
C'mon, someone had to do it.

[Mike Miller]

C'mon, someone had to do it.

Lord Vivec praises this post.