Why are the gods so lazy?

[StevenC21]

Seriously, think about it.

I can't think of a single reason that any high level characters would be allowed to exist, at all. Especially Epic level characters. Any opposed God should absolutely see that PC as a threat on some level and come squish them. But they don't. This makes zero sense whatsoever.

The D&D gods are lazy.

[deuterio12]

-There's simultaneously a lot of people leveling up plus monsters (like dragons) and other gods, can't keep tab on all of them and some will slip through the cracks.
-Gods may be super powerful inside their divine realm, not so much outside. Personally going out to crush a PC leaves them vulnerable to other gods (and the PCs themselves).
-Immortality lasts a long time, maybe they're just bored and earn for a proper challenge.
-It's a game, of course the super powerful beings will be twiddling their thumbs waiting for the hero to level up and come crush them.

[BowStreetRunner]

The gods have artifact-quality couches and Netflix. That's why.

[Crake]

In many settings, gods have a non-interference policy, think of it like a nuclear arms standoff, no god is going to intervene lest it trigger another god to intervene as well, and another, and another, etc, until it's a full-on divine war. So the gods make a deal that none of them are allowed to directly interfere on the material plane, though some settings are looser on the term "directly", allowing avatars and aspects to intervene, but not the deity themself.

[Ualaa]

I totally read that as "The Gods must be crazy" on the first read of the thread title.

While the bottle of Coca Cola was a gift from the gods, in the movie...
Our characters within the D&D realm are likely as oblivious as to gods of D&D.

It depends on your take of D&D gods, I suppose.
If you give them stats, however absurdly high, they'll be killed by a group of characters.
If they're not given stats, and are just unhurt by anything the group can possibly do, then no PC is ever a threat (even if they reach level 5 million).

Depends on your gods, I guess.

[Crake]

If you give them stats, however absurdly high, they'll be killed by a group of characters.

I never understood why people seem to think this is the case. Considering deities literally have "no, you lose, I win" abilities of which the only defense is "I have a divine rank of at least X", and divine rank is only obtainable by DM fiat and permission, the only way players are going to kill deities is if the DM allows them to.

Deity stats are more for inter-deity fighting rather than player vs deity combat.

[Arbane]

They are lazy because if they aren't then there is no reason to adventure.

Pretty much this.

[StevenC21]

Deities & Demigods give the gods canonical statistics, so they are able to be killed, and thus should see PCs as potential threats/rivals.

[flappeercraft]

I never understood why people seem to think this is the case. Considering deities literally have "no, you lose, I win" abilities of which the only defense is "I have a divine rank of at least X", and divine rank is only obtainable by DM fiat and permission, the only way players are going to kill deities is if the DM allows them to.

Deity stats are more for inter-deity fighting rather than player vs deity combat.

Probably because of the "If it has stats then it can be killed." argument used, also then again, most of what a deity has can be warded against even if you're not a deity. Name any one example of an ability that one cannot beat and I'll agree that you are right.

[smasher0404]

The gods are doing things, however they are immortal and have a multitude of plans in motion at any given point. They do not have the time to deal with potential upstarts when there are other larger threats to deal with.

From the point of view of God's, adventurers very rarely become powerful enough to be a threat to them (unless your campaign world very frequently gets epic level characters). On the other hand, they have to move to counter the schemes of opposing gods, and external threats such as the Elder Evils (which also cultivates a need to foster said high-level adventurers to attempt to mitigate). While optimization makes it possible for a PC to defeat a god, it is clear that this is not meant to be undertaken until high epic levels (even if it is possible beforehand)

This is also part of the idea behind clerics. Deities have limited time to address so many issues AND manage mortals that they establish churches and grant them power to deal with the mortal side of things. Clerics and Favored Souls are explicitly granted power to promote the Deity's ideals onto the world and if Clerics don't do this they lose their powers.

In addition, the Deities are not a unified front. It is entirely possible that a Deity believes that an adventurer is a threat and want to kill them, but another has extended protection to that adventurer. This has been seen in several existing historical myths (such as the Trojan War where the gods themselves take different sides, and when Hermes brings aid to Odysseus when Poseidon wants him dead.)

[StevenC21]

Well, I understand your point, but think of it like this:

You are an armed gunman. You realize that a particular ant you have met will help you.

Another armed gunman attacks the ant. Sure, you're an armed gunman, but there's only a 50/50 chance that you can defend this weak, pathetic ant.

[Crake]

Probably because of the "If it has stats then it can be killed." argument used, also then again, most of what a deity has can be warded against even if you're not a deity. Name any one example of an ability that one cannot beat and I'll agree that you are right.

Divine Splendor: Any mortal who gets within 10ft per divine rank dies immediately, no saving throw, doesn't have the death magic descriptor so death ward doesn't save you. You just die. Combine with alter reality, allowing the deity to time stop at will, which allows them to get as close to you as they want without you being able to stop them, you lose, no save, just dead. Not that death ward would save you anyway, since deities aren't affected by mortal magic, so their abilities just bypass your defenses anyway. Also, before you say "just be undead, they're not mortal", deities and demigods defines "mortal" as "A creature with no divine ranks", so no, being undead or any other "immortal" creature will still result in your death.

But considering even the things that allow saves are generally spammable at nigh infinite range, and the only way to become immune to them is a high enough divine rank or to be hidden from the gods' sight (which generally requires the intervention of another deity or other higher power which again, comes down to DM allowance), if a god wants you dead, you're dead. Especially since practically every god has alter reality baseline, meaning the deity can be infinitely time-stopped and do whatever it wants to you while you're completely helpless, including walking right up to you then casting antimagic field and annihilating you while all of your "defenses" are completely negated.

Edit: There's also the fact that gods being killable in and of itself is a descision that the DM needs to make, so despite having stats, the gods may quite literally be unkillable. It is a desicion that is presented at the start of deities and demigods.

[smasher0404]

The thing is in your analogy, would you still attack the ant if it meant you might get shot (either because of someone protecting the ant, or some other assailant attacked you because you decided to focus on the ant over defending yourself).

The Deities have bigger fish to deal with than going around attacking adventurers.

[Arcanist]

Probably because of the "If it has stats then it can be killed." argument used, also then again, most of what a deity has can be warded against even if you're not a deity. Name any one example of an ability that one cannot beat and I'll agree that you are right.

Alter Reality.

swordsage'd

[StevenC21]

Okay, now imagine that ant can at any point detonate a bomb that may or may not kill you.

[Crake]

Okay, now imagine that ant can at any point detonate a bomb that may or may not kill you.

In this analogy, what is the "bomb"?

[smasher0404]

The issue is that adventurers don't have the capability to suddenly become powerful enough to kill gods and once they become threats going to pick a fight for no reason is not a good policy for continued survival. Actively trying to stamp out every adventurer that stands to become a threat a) takes focus away from other active threats such as other gods, Elder Evils (some of whom are explicitly immune to a deitiy's spell-like and supernatural abilities, and divine divination thus requiring a more active eye) and other large threats and b) encourages the mortal population to want to actively seek your demise (And thus require more exterminating and possibly aggravating other gods)

In addition, there is also the potential that there is some higher being that is preventing them from doing just that such as Ao in the Forgotten Realms.

[Mechalich]

Deities & Demigods give the gods canonical statistics, so they are able to be killed, and thus should see PCs as potential threats/rivals.

In 3e, and in 3.5, it is possible to outright murder the gods, sure. In earlier editions, which is when the fluff was written, it wasn't, and the fluff never got updated. There is a massive mismatch between the mechanical reality of 3.X D&D and how the worlds created for it are expected to work, something that extends to the present in the form of stories written for Pathfinder.

For example, there's a sequence in Elminster in Hell where Mystra, being cheesed off that someone had the temerity to kidnap her mortal bestie, marches into Hell and unleashes the full scope of her divine wrath. In the course of about two minutes she annihilates millions of CR worth of devils, hellfire wyrms, and assorted other outer planar denizens, and she only stops because she's doing so much damage that it threatens to rip the fabric of Baator apart, not because anyone in the vicinity is capable of challenging her.

The people who wrote Deities and Demigods did not produce those stats in any expectation of people actually fighting the gods. The wrote the stat blocks to supply word count and pad out the book to hardcover size - in the same way that Paizo fills Bestiaries with creatures of CR 25+ that you aren't actually expected to fight.

[Segev]

Lolth and Gith both canonically kill any of their worshippers that get too powerful.

[StevenC21]

In the analogy the bomb would be that one Overpowered PC who can do some newfangled spell combo that allows him to obliterate anythingTM​.

[flappeercraft]

Divine Splendor: Any mortal who gets within 10ft per divine rank dies immediately, no saving throw, doesn't have the death magic descriptor so death ward doesn't save you. You just die. Combine with alter reality, allowing the deity to time stop at will, which allows them to get as close to you as they want without you being able to stop them, you lose, no save, just dead. Not that death ward would save you anyway, since deities aren't affected by mortal magic, so their abilities just bypass your defenses anyway. Also, before you say "just be undead, they're not mortal", deities and demigods defines "mortal" as "A creature with no divine ranks", so no, being undead or any other "immortal" creature will still result in your death.

But considering even the things that allow saves are generally spammable at nigh infinite range, and the only way to become immune to them is a high enough divine rank or to be hidden from the gods' sight (which generally requires the intervention of another deity or other higher power which again, comes down to DM allowance), if a god wants you dead, you're dead. Especially since practically every god has alter reality baseline, meaning the deity can be infinitely time-stopped and do whatever it wants to you while you're completely helpless, including walking right up to you then casting antimagic field and annihilating you while all of your "defenses" are completely negated.

Edit: There's also the fact that gods being killable in and of itself is a descision that the DM needs to make, so despite having stats, the gods may quite literally be unkillable. It is a desicion that is presented at the start of deities and demigods.

Ok so here is my counter, the basic contingency spell. Set it to whenever a deity with Divine Splendor would get near you. To avoid gods teleporting in, then the same would work and even if it didn't then Greater Anticipate Teleportation would stop. Also the fact that deities are not affected by mortal magic is never stated, that is a line specific to AMF. Also deities being immune to your spells does not mean that they can bypass your protections even if we were to assume that they were immune to all mortal magic. Yes that defense only works once but add it stuff like craft contingent, immediate actions (Which RAW can still be used while someone is under the effect of Time Stop or similar effects), having Ice Assassins of Efreets with ready actions to teleport you out, just plain being undetectable and using Astral Projection, etc. Also using Alter Reality on Time Stop would be useless, its literally the same thing as the Persistent Time Stop debate, look it up and you will see the problem there.

Next, on the unlimited range no save abilities such as the DSA Life and Death which is the pinnacle of that line (except for the mass version but it works mechanically the same except for multiple targets) the defense is easy. It works like the destruction spell but no save and since its a DSA it bypasses SR. That still does not get rid of the Death tag which death ward makes you immune to. Get Deathward.

Alter Reality is next, its literally just the ability to cast spells but slightly better in some ways, not all. No component costs which is nice but then again a deity or high level character would cover that no problem anyways. The big downside is that its still a standard action to use, so only one use per round, and most of the powerful uses have cooldowns on the ability, hell using spells with metamagic makes it need cooldown. Plus it is always a standard action so applying quicken to a spell is impossible and immediate/swift action spells still have a casting time of a standard action. The biggest benefit is that it can make effects permanent but there are lots of shenanigans to do that with a character anyways such as for example temporal reiteration loops. The big threat given by Alter Reality is the ability to create creatures with class levels, but oh wait the cooldown makes it so the deity can't use the ability for the rest of the fight, plus it has a set duration so it can't be done before since it will expire. The one last argument would be using the Alter Reality DSA after the cooldown is over to make it permanent but that is not possible, Alter Reality only makes Supernatural or Magical effects permanent, Alter Reality is a DSA so its not either of those which makes it impossible to render it permanent via that method also making all buffs casted with Alter Reality not able to be rendered permanent with that method. Yes Alter Reality is powerful, but its not as powerful as people think.

Now I have not addressed AMF yet and that is for one reason, I don't need to. There are lots of ways to just plain ignore AMF.

While yes a god might be unkillable, a paranoid high level character for all purposes is too.

[ericgrau]

Seriously, think about it.

I can't think of a single reason that any high level characters would be allowed to exist, at all. Especially Epic level characters. Any opposed God should absolutely see that PC as a threat on some level and come squish them. But they don't. This makes zero sense whatsoever.

The D&D gods are lazy.

Too busy with other epic level characters and monsters on both sides, not to mention the general business spanning the entire cosmology. Simply leaving their realm could leave something vulnerable that's more important than a high level character. Epic, ok, maybe there will be a fight with a god but he probably won't leave his realm. And the PCs + any company they have may actually win.

Now can they absolutely can, should and do send someone else to take out the high level or epic PC. If their followers aren't already on the job on their own. Assassins need to be part of most campaigns.

Divine splendor likewise sacrifices one of the deities precious cosmos altering abilities just to take out pesky mortals. That may not always be a good trade off. Also it's for high divine rank deities, who may therefore be facing challenges far beyond most PCs, even most epic PCs. 5 more ranks and the deity becomes an overdeity, beyond ever dealing with mortals. Already they're busty taking charge of other deities. And the ability says "Any mortal who approaches". So technically it may not work if the deity approaches the mortal.

[Arcanist]

[snip]

Kay. So the God uses Alter Reality to give themselves a permanent Time Stop, walks up to you, and just starts leaving a bunch of permanent spell effects around you that will kill you as soon as they resolve, and when they are done? They produce a contingent Greater Dispel Magic (or Reaving Dispel) with a trigger for "someone else's contingencies activate in response to mine" to negate your contingencies and watch you explode into a bundle of flesh.

[Crake]

Ok so here is my counter, the basic contingency spell. Set it to whenever a deity with Divine Splendor would get near you. To avoid gods teleporting in, then the same would work and even if it didn't then Greater Anticipate Teleportation would stop. Also the fact that deities are not affected by mortal magic is never stated, that is a line specific to AMF. Also deities being immune to your spells does not mean that they can bypass your protections even if we were to assume that they were immune to all mortal magic. Yes that defense only works once but add it stuff like craft contingent, immediate actions (Which RAW can still be used while someone is under the effect of Time Stop or similar effects), having Ice Assassins of Efreets with ready actions to teleport you out, just plain being undetectable and using Astral Projection, etc. Also using Alter Reality on Time Stop would be useless, its literally the same thing as the Persistent Time Stop debate, look it up and you will see the problem there.

Next, on the unlimited range no save abilities such as the DSA Life and Death which is the pinnacle of that line (except for the mass version but it works mechanically the same except for multiple targets) the defense is easy. It works like the destruction spell but no save and since its a DSA it bypasses SR. That still does not get rid of the Death tag which death ward makes you immune to. Get Deathward.

Alter Reality is next, its literally just the ability to cast spells but slightly better in some ways, not all. No component costs which is nice but then again a deity or high level character would cover that no problem anyways. The big downside is that its still a standard action to use, so only one use per round, and most of the powerful uses have cooldowns on the ability, hell using spells with metamagic makes it need cooldown. Plus it is always a standard action so applying quicken to a spell is impossible and immediate/swift action spells still have a casting time of a standard action. The biggest benefit is that it can make effects permanent but there are lots of shenanigans to do that with a character anyways such as for example temporal reiteration loops. The big threat given by Alter Reality is the ability to create creatures with class levels, but oh wait the cooldown makes it so the deity can't use the ability for the rest of the fight, plus it has a set duration so it can't be done before since it will expire. The one last argument would be using the Alter Reality DSA after the cooldown is over to make it permanent but that is not possible, Alter Reality only makes Supernatural or Magical effects permanent, Alter Reality is a DSA so its not either of those which makes it impossible to render it permanent via that method also making all buffs casted with Alter Reality not able to be rendered permanent with that method. Yes Alter Reality is powerful, but its not as powerful as people think.

Now I have not addressed AMF yet and that is for one reason, I don't need to. There are lots of ways to just plain ignore AMF.

While yes a god might be unkillable, a paranoid high level character for all purposes is too.

I didn't say that the god teleported in, i said they infinite time stop walked right up to you, so anti teleportation doesn't work, and as soon as they come out of the time stop, you die, regardless of your defenses. By the way, when I say infinite time stop, I don't mean making their time stop permanent, i mean repeatedly using timestop over and over until they are where they want to be. AMF's line about mortal magic not affecting deities isn't limited to AMF either, it says "Artifacts and deities are unaffected by mortal magic such as this." so that covers more than just AMF, such as death ward. Also, there's only one way that I'm aware of to "plain ignore AMF", which is forgotten realms specific, which also technically counts as another god's protection, thus again, is tantamount to DM allowance, and by the way, only actually works on spells that were cast inside an AMF, and doesn't cover spells that were cast outside an AMF and then brought into an AMF.

Either way, none of what you've described will protect you from dying when the deity literally walks up to you in timestop and then appears out of nowhere and you instantly drop dead, your contingency can't trigger before the diety appears, not to mention it can be simply beaten by an alter reality dimensional lock spell, and being undetectable to gods literally is impossible with mortal magic, considering they're able to know quite literally entire histories of creatures they can see, and they can see practically anyone they want by liberal use of the hindsight spell, so they can know everything about you, not to mention if you ever come within 1 mile/divine rank of their worshippers/followers they can find you despite anything you might have in place using their remote sensing ability.

So as of yet, your arguments have not demonstrated a mortal capable of surviving infinite timestop and being walked up to by a god with divine splendor, nor any other combination of time stop, AMF, and any instant death DSA of your choice.

[Doctor Awkward]

Probably because of the "If it has stats then it can be killed." argument used, also then again, most of what a deity has can be warded against even if you're not a deity. Name any one example of an ability that one cannot beat and I'll agree that you are right.

The problem is that you never only have to worry about just one ability when dealing with a creature that has divine salient ranks.

For example, take any random greater deity (Divine Rank 16 or higher) that decides it wants you dead. For argument's sake, let's assume it is a combat oriented deity. Melee combat should be no problem for a spellcaster, right?

For starters, every greater deity has the following blanket immunities: any transmutation effect that alters its form, energy drain, ability drain, ability damage, mind-affecting, electricity, cold, acid, disease, poison, stunning, sleep, paralysis, and death effects.

Additionally, a greater deity is immune to any effect that would imprison or banish it, such as banishment, binding, dimensional anchor, repulsion, temporal stasis, and so on, has DR 30/epic, has fire resistance of 21, and Spell Resistance of 48. It can use any domain power that it can grant up to 16 times per day, every domain spell it can grant as an at-will SLA at caster level 26.

Additionally, with it's Remote Sensing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#remoteSensing) power, it can spy on you from up to 20 miles away and nothing save the intervention of another deity can stop it. This is entirely separate from it's Portfolio Sense, which makes them aware of any event involving any of their portfolios regardless of the number of people involved.


Next, a deity of that rank has the Always Maximize Roll (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#alwaysMaximizeRoll) power. They are considered to have the best possible result on any check, saving throw, attack roll, and damage roll they make. Thus any time they attack you, they are merely rolling to confirm the critical hit.

Using Alter Reality, a greater deity can duplicate the effect of a Wish spell to transport itself to any location on any plane. As this is not a teleportation effect, it bypasses Anticipate Teleportation. As it has already viewed you with Remote Sensing, it is well aware of what awaits it upon arrival.

Upon arriving next to you, it then can use Clearsight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#clearsight), which functions much like true seeing to ignore any illusory defenses that might be in place. It then swings at you to confirm the critical hit, and then with Annihilating Strike (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#annihilatingStrike) forces you to make a Fortitude save of 36+damage dealt or be instantly reduced to -10 HP... assuming you live through the damage of the attack.

Or if you are such an epic spellcaster that you've cheesed off a magical deity, you are even more screwed. With Instant Counterspell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#instantCounterspell), a deity can instantly counter any spell they themselves are capable of casting as a free action. With Arcane Mastery (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#arcaneMastery), they have explicit access to every spell on the entire sorcerer/wizard spell list. Contingent Plane Shift? Countered. Astral Projection? Countered. Word of Recall? Mortal, please... And a greater deity can do this 20 times per round.

When properly utilizing the full salient divine rules presented in Deities and Demigods, the only possible outcome to a direct attack from a greater deity is, "You ****ing Lose." Don't count on the official underwhelming class builds to save you.

[Arcanist]

When properly utilizing the full salient divine rules presented in Deities and Demigods, the only possible outcome to a direct attack from a greater deity is, "You ****ing Lose." Don't count on the official underwhelming class builds to save you.

This is also not counting on the fact that the Deity in question can have an equally insane/cheesy build if they truly wanted to... And still be a God.

[Mordaedil]

What setting was it, where if you got too high level (10+ or so) you got picked up by the deities and dumped in a different plane of existance, forbidden from returning, where the deities were just a couple of dorks close to level 20?

[ShurikVch]

I never understood why people seem to think this is the case. Considering deities literally have "no, you lose, I win" abilities of which the only defense is "I have a divine rank of at least X", and divine rank is only obtainable by DM fiat and permission, the only way players are going to kill deities is if the DM allows them to.

Deity stats are more for inter-deity fighting rather than player vs deity combat.Savage Tide adventure path results in your PCs killing Demogorgon, and Age of Worms - Kyuss!

Also, this:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d9/f2/95/d9f29531d8ce6e91f36991ed499554a1.jpg



In 3e, and in 3.5, it is possible to outright murder the gods, sure. In earlier editions, which is when the fluff was written, it wasn't, and the fluff never got updated.It's not entirely correct: while in 2E and BD&D it was true, in 1E and OD&D - not so much...



Remote Sensing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#remoteSensing)Violet Rain can block it, and Anathematic Secrecy too
Also, it doesn't works in inner circles of Outlands, and in timeless planes you can't be observed by any non-local deity

[Andreaz]

I never understood why people seem to think this is the case. Considering deities literally have "no, you lose, I win" abilities of which the only defense is "I have a divine rank of at least X", and divine rank is only obtainable by DM fiat and permission, the only way players are going to kill deities is if the DM allows them to.

Deity stats are more for inter-deity fighting rather than player vs deity combat.
That statement is not limited to player characters, and dm permission isn't exactly a factor in-setting.

[Baroncognito]

The gods have artifact-quality couches and Netflix. That's why.

I'm not interested in stating out gods, but I would be interested to see stats for an artifact-quality couch or chaise.

[Mechalich]

It's not entirely correct: while in 2E and BD&D it was true, in 1E and OD&D - not so much...

AD&D 2e came out in 1989, and the heart of D&D fluff, with the exception of the Dragonlance Chronicles (which began earlier and had their own very weird assumptions about the gods that certainly don't match the 3e stats) emerged in the years that followed. Fluff-wise, D&D was, and to a very great extent still is, a product of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

[flappeercraft]

I didn't say that the god teleported in, i said they infinite time stop walked right up to you, so anti teleportation doesn't work, and as soon as they come out of the time stop, you die, regardless of your defenses. By the way, when I say infinite time stop, I don't mean making their time stop permanent, i mean repeatedly using timestop over and over until they are where they want to be. AMF's line about mortal magic not affecting deities isn't limited to AMF either, it says "Artifacts and deities are unaffected by mortal magic such as this." so that covers more than just AMF, such as death ward. Also, there's only one way that I'm aware of to "plain ignore AMF", which is forgotten realms specific, which also technically counts as another god's protection, thus again, is tantamount to DM allowance, and by the way, only actually works on spells that were cast inside an AMF, and doesn't cover spells that were cast outside an AMF and then brought into an AMF.

Either way, none of what you've described will protect you from dying when the deity literally walks up to you in timestop and then appears out of nowhere and you instantly drop dead, your contingency can't trigger before the diety appears, not to mention it can be simply beaten by an alter reality dimensional lock spell, and being undetectable to gods literally is impossible with mortal magic, considering they're able to know quite literally entire histories of creatures they can see, and they can see practically anyone they want by liberal use of the hindsight spell, so they can know everything about you, not to mention if you ever come within 1 mile/divine rank of their worshippers/followers they can find you despite anything you might have in place using their remote sensing ability.

So as of yet, your arguments have not demonstrated a mortal capable of surviving infinite timestop and being walked up to by a god with divine splendor, nor any other combination of time stop, AMF, and any instant death DSA of your choice.

I didn't say the God teleported in. I said that the contingency would protect you if they walked or approached you and greater anticipate teleport if they teleported to you. Also it doesn't matter if you die if you are just to come back or have an Astral Projection die instead of your actual body. On the timestop loop, anyone can make one of those if they're a full caster going TO. Plus Spell Stowaway is a thing, if you have it the time stop loop is meaningless.


The problem is that you never only have to worry about just one ability when dealing with a creature that has divine salient ranks.

For example, take any random greater deity (Divine Rank 16 or higher) that decides it wants you dead. For argument's sake, let's assume it is a combat oriented deity. Melee combat should be no problem for a spellcaster, right?

For starters, every greater deity has the following blanket immunities: any transmutation effect that alters its form, energy drain, ability drain, ability damage, mind-affecting, electricity, cold, acid, disease, poison, stunning, sleep, paralysis, and death effects.

Additionally, a greater deity is immune to any effect that would imprison or banish it, such as banishment, binding, dimensional anchor, repulsion, temporal stasis, and so on, has DR 30/epic, has fire resistance of 21, and Spell Resistance of 48. It can use any domain power that it can grant up to 16 times per day, every domain spell it can grant as an at-will SLA at caster level 26.

Additionally, with it's Remote Sensing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#remoteSensing) power, it can spy on you from up to 20 miles away and nothing save the intervention of another deity can stop it. This is entirely separate from it's Portfolio Sense, which makes them aware of any event involving any of their portfolios regardless of the number of people involved.


Next, a deity of that rank has the Always Maximize Roll (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#alwaysMaximizeRoll) power. They are considered to have the best possible result on any check, saving throw, attack roll, and damage roll they make. Thus any time they attack you, they are merely rolling to confirm the critical hit.

Using Alter Reality, a greater deity can duplicate the effect of a Wish spell to transport itself to any location on any plane. As this is not a teleportation effect, it bypasses Anticipate Teleportation. As it has already viewed you with Remote Sensing, it is well aware of what awaits it upon arrival.

Upon arriving next to you, it then can use Clearsight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#clearsight), which functions much like true seeing to ignore any illusory defenses that might be in place. It then swings at you to confirm the critical hit, and then with Annihilating Strike (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#annihilatingStrike) forces you to make a Fortitude save of 36+damage dealt or be instantly reduced to -10 HP... assuming you live through the damage of the attack.

Or if you are such an epic spellcaster that you've cheesed off a magical deity, you are even more screwed. With Instant Counterspell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#instantCounterspell), a deity can instantly counter any spell they themselves are capable of casting as a free action. With Arcane Mastery (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#arcaneMastery), they have explicit access to every spell on the entire sorcerer/wizard spell list. Contingent Plane Shift? Countered. Astral Projection? Countered. Word of Recall? Mortal, please... And a greater deity can do this 20 times per round.

When properly utilizing the full salient divine rules presented in Deities and Demigods, the only possible outcome to a direct attack from a greater deity is, "You ****ing Lose." Don't count on the official underwhelming class builds to save you.

Well that is a fair point, but it is still survivable. The damage is easily survivable via the typical delay death + beastland ferocity cheese and persistomancy, temporal reiteration loops or similar things to make it last long. O rjust hide life. On the Alter Reality as teleport that is true, yes the deity can be anywhere but it can't be used to go to a place the deity does not know exists. Cast Genesis and hide in your demiplane, or go in a place where they can't go, like sigil. Some place like that and Astral Projection would be the easiest way to just not die against a deity. Also yes, one can counterspell as a free action but its useless to counterspell astral projection since it has a long casting time, it won't be used in combat regardless, it will be used prior, after which it can't be counterspelled anymore. Even if it could, chances are you will just be using astral projection via a mindraped Nightmare which has it as a Su ability and at will, meaning it can't get countered and even if you die astrally you can get another astral projection for free.

In general I agree, yes the abilities of a deity are OP as ****, but that does not mean one can't defend from them. Yes a deity can also be optimized, but at some point optimization gets to a point where even deity and mortal are on equal footing as it would barely make a difference. Considering 3.5 barely has an optimization ceiling, it is rather possible for that to occur, but that is just going into TO territory near pun pun at that point. While I agree no sane DM would allow any of these things, it does not mean they are not possible.

Also if you want to survive all the DSA's, then you could use any way of bypassing material components to make an Ice Assassin of an abomination and just Fuse + Astral Seed with it, order it to give you its divine rank, kill it and take it for yourself or whatever way of getting a divine rank you can.


That statement is not limited to player characters, and dm permission isn't exactly a factor in-setting.

Also I fully agree. If we are talking mechanics fully on, then RAW is basically the most impartial thing one can get. If we are talking a DM'd campaign, then it depends on the DM of if the wizard can survive or not.

Edit: Also if we are going to continue with this, we might want to make a new thread as this is derailing off of the original purpose of the thread.

[ben-zayb]

Any deity has way more options/resources than PCs but can easily optimize on the same level, at minimum. A TO Deity fully knows the chinks in their stats and would've been able to anticipate stratetegies and tactics that a mere mortal would be able to think of.

You know the memetic Omae Wa Mou Shindeiru? That's a deity foiling a PC attempt at deicide, by sheer outmatching and outplaying.

[DdarkED]

at a certain level of optimization wouldn't the deity use mostly options available to the PC?

if the answer is yes, does it even matter that one of the combatants is a divinity?

if the answer is no, what specifically gives them a chance against a TO build?

just the thoughts i had while reading this.

[gkathellar]

You might as well ask why any high level adventurer suffers any mid-level adventurer to live. Life is not, in fact, a war of all against all.
Deities draw a significant portion of their might from the Prime and from the condition of the Prime, and so have a vested interest in leaving the Prime as free of direct influence as possible.
Gods have vast powers, functionally infinite material resources, areas of the Great Wheel where they are invulnerable to anything short of Plot Stuff, tremendous bargaining power on the Planes, countless allies, and hosts of loyal high-level characters. Should a god feel they have sufficient cause to disregard the various reasons not to bring their might to bear against a mortal, they will and under normal circumstances, unless they can make it to Sigil before things get real, that mortal is toast.
There are things out there on the Wheel that do not take kindly to messing with the Powers, and some of them make the powers look like ants.


Okay, now imagine that ant can at any point detonate a bomb that may or may not kill you.

Humans are not actually threatened by ants with explosives, and Powers are not actually threatened by mortals with kaboom spells.

Solitary ants can annoy or inconvenience a human, some species can even cause a person tremendous pain, and of course in large numbers under the right circumstances they could even threaten a person's life. So too can a solitary mortal irritate and cause problems for a god, and mortals collectively might even threaten a god's existence at times. But just as we don't see news headlines that read, "ANT BLOWS UP MAN," so do the papers in Sigil not run articles about wizards killing Powers.


Savage Tide adventure path results in your PCs killing Demogorgon, and Age of Worms - Kyuss!

Campaign arcs can absolutely lead to entities of extraordinary power getting ganked - but those stories are exceptional, which is why they're campaign arcs. But it's worth noting that even in Savage Tide, defeating an already-weakened Demogorgon (who is much less powerful than a god) requires the PCs to marshal all of his major rivals and enemies to even stand a chance. And Kyuss, who as Powers go is pathetic, isolated, and universally despised, still demanded the use of major artifacts and other exploits.


It's not entirely correct: while in 2E and BD&D it was true, in 1E and OD&D - not so much...

Absolutely true. I show my Planescape bias with every word.


Violet Rain can block it, and Anathematic Secrecy too
Also, it doesn't works in inner circles of Outlands, and in timeless planes you can't be observed by any non-local deity

Hiding from the Powers is even easier and more reliable than that if you just go hang out in Sigil. You'll never be able to leave and you'll want to keep a low profile because deities have hit squads and informants who go places that they can't, but you'll be safe from ganking.

[Segev]

I'm not interested in stating out gods, but I would be interested to see stats for an artifact-quality couch or chaise.

The Lay-Z-God Throne has reclining functions that operate responsively to the motions and desires of the god (for any who sit upon or lounge within it surely will feel divine) using it, and thus requires no levers nor complicated gyrations to force into the perfect alignment. It has selective gravity, allowing one to be leaned "back" at any angle desired while still facing the magic mirror portraying one's entertainment of choice. It can unfold and rotate in any direction, enabling leaning and slouching at any angle, and is designed to facilitate draping oneself stomach-over-back for reading in those positions favored by young-aspected gods of knowledge and nerdity as well as for omnipotent couch potatoes slumped in more traditional positions.

The cup holders and trays are on swivels which rotate and elevate and revolve around each other and the Throne Itself to always have the desired snacks and beverages in easy reach, and the selective gravity previously mentioned ensures no spills nor even tips which are not intended.

The perfect combination of soft yet firm, the Force Dragon hide used to upholster this most perfect of all seats never stains, punctures, nor tears, and is self-cleaning with the humble but ever-effective mortal magic of prestidigitation as applied in ways only divine genius could devise. This same technology ensures that the ambient temperature of the material itself, as well as the air around it, is perfectly suited to the comfort of the god enthroned, and maintains ideal temperature and freshness for all snacks and drinks it serves.

[martixy]

The Lay-Z-God Throne has reclining functions that operate responsively to the motions and desires of the god (for any who sit upon or lounge within it surely will feel divine) using it, and thus requires no levers nor complicated gyrations to force into the perfect alignment. It has selective gravity, allowing one to be leaned "back" at any angle desired while still facing the magic mirror portraying one's entertainment of choice. It can unfold and rotate in any direction, enabling leaning and slouching at any angle, and is designed to facilitate draping oneself stomach-over-back for reading in those positions favored by young-aspected gods of knowledge and nerdity as well as for omnipotent couch potatoes slumped in more traditional positions.

The cup holders and trays are on swivels which rotate and elevate and revolve around each other and the Throne Itself to always have the desired snacks and beverages in easy reach, and the selective gravity previously mentioned ensures no spills nor even tips which are not intended.

The perfect combination of soft yet firm, the Force Dragon hide used to upholster this most perfect of all seats never stains, punctures, nor tears, and is self-cleaning with the humble but ever-effective mortal magic of prestidigitation as applied in ways only divine genius could devise. This same technology ensures that the ambient temperature of the material itself, as well as the air around it, is perfectly suited to the comfort of the god enthroned, and maintains ideal temperature and freshness for all snacks and drinks it serves.

Now I want one of those for myself.
Also, I assume it comes equipped with the premium teleport-Z snack-and-drink delivery system.

[Segev]

Now I want one of those for myself.
Also, I assume it comes equipped with the premium teleport-Z snack-and-drink delivery system.

That's actually a feature of Moradin's More-than-ready Pantry and Kitchen Island, which comes neatly stored in its own demiplane filled with Quintessence mined from the dreams of recalcitrant psions. Guaranteed to keep your snacks heated or cooled to perfection by preserving their exact state as freshly as the most dearly-held grudges of the dwarf god himself.

Sold separately.

[Hackulator]

I mean, in no canon D&D world are there as many (or even any) optimized high level characters as there are in the kind of games discussed here, so the reason it doesn't happen in canon worlds is the situation you describe never arises. It doesn't happen in game worlds cause the DM doesn't want it to.

[Jay R]

What single individual do all the gods have an interest in killing?

It should be clear that Lolth doesn't want to kill the priestess of Lolth, Boccob doesn't want to kill the wizard, Garl Glittergeld doesn't want to kill the gnome illusionist, and Pelor doesn't want to kill the Paladin of Pelor.

It should then be obvious that Lolth, Boccob, Garl, Pelor don't want other dieties to kill them, either.


Any opposed God should absolutely see that PC as a threat on some level and come squish them.

Certainly. But there are non-opposed gods as well. What do you think Lolth is doing while Pelor is trying to kill her priestess?

I suspect that the gods aren't lazy at all. They are all busy protecting their followers from the other gods.

The answer to "Why don't the gods do X?" for any value of X, is the same as the answer to "Why haven't the dragons taken over the world?" Because they aren't a single group working together; they are each other's worst and most powerful enemies.

[BowStreetRunner]

What single individual do all the gods have an interest in killing?...I suspect that the gods aren't lazy at all. They are all busy protecting their followers from the other gods.This reminds me of Hera trying to kill Hercules. Although he was a demigod himself, he did get help at times from Zeus and other gods. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples in Greek mythology.

[ZamielVanWeber]

This reminds me of Hera trying to kill Hercules. Although he was a demigod himself, he did get help at times from Zeus and other gods. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples in Greek mythology.

There was the time Zeus took pity on the frog heroes of yore as they were being wiped out by mice so summoned an army of crabs to defend them.

[Quertus]

How do lice exist? Humans don't need lice, humans are NI more powerful than lice, yet humans haven't managed to exterminate lice from the planet yet.

Difference is, gods actively need followers.

As to why gods don't kill off high-level characters before they threaten the gods, there are two good reasons.

One, nothing presented this far in thus thread would pose more than an inconvenience for Quertus, my signature very epic academia mage, for whom this account is named. If the gods got uppity, and Quertus' allies got upset by it, they would trivially wipe out entire pantheons.

In D&D, the gods are weak, and they know it. This is why, when a mortal begins to approach questionable levels of power, some deity who has been "watching their career with interest" will offer them an opportunity to join up.

Yes, this opportunity requires the candidate to pass a number of tests, which have the very real chance of killing the candidate. In the unfortunate event that they survive, the gods spread their power one member thinner, and induct the individual into their ranks.

The other reason that the gods don't just murder the powerful is that doing so is bad PR. The gods need followers. If they keep killing off their heroes, the people will turn on them, and the gods will starve.

So, despite the gods canonically being idiots, even they aren't that dumb. They trick adventurers into willingly killing themselves trying to attain godhood, rather than suffer the PR backlash of killing them themselves.

[Milo v3]

If gods aren't doing anything in the setting, why have them? :smallconfused:

[Crake]

How do lice exist? Humans don't need lice, humans are NI more powerful than lice, yet humans haven't managed to exterminate lice from the planet yet.

To be FAIIIRRR, we have the capability to wipe out lice, but... our methods are rather indiscriminate >.> (nukes. I'm talking about nuking the planet). Gods on the other hand have pretty handy methods to wipe out mortals with.


Difference is, gods actively need followers.

This is very campaign setting specific. Not all settings require gods to have followers, and it is far from the default. In fact, there lacks any sort of precedence for this in any mythology that I'm aware of, so it's actually a very recent introduction. Usually gods have other motives to keep mortals around. According to deities and demigods, the dnd pantheons do not actually derive power from their followers:


WORSHIPERS OF THE D&D PANTHEON
The deities of the D&D pantheon are independent of mortals for their power, though it’s clear that many use worshipers to augment their power. Deities such as Corellon Larethian, Garl Glittergold, Gruumsh, and Yondalla are deeply concerned with their worshipers and undoubtedly draw some power from them. Boccob is infamous for his indifference toward worshipers.


As to why gods don't kill off high-level characters before they threaten the gods, there are two good reasons.

One, nothing presented this far in thus thread would pose more than an inconvenience for Quertus, my signature very epic academia mage, for whom this account is named. If the gods got uppity, and Quertus' allies got upset by it, they would trivially wipe out entire pantheons.

In D&D, the gods are weak, and they know it. This is why, when a mortal begins to approach questionable levels of power, some deity who has been "watching their career with interest" will offer them an opportunity to join up.

Yes, this opportunity requires the candidate to pass a number of tests, which have the very real chance of killing the candidate. In the unfortunate event that they survive, the gods spread their power one member thinner, and induct the individual into their ranks.

This isn't so much setting specific as it is game specific. If your mage is capable of whatever, the gods have been capable of it for eons. You aren't more powerful than the gods, unless your DM actively plays them below the table's optimization level. Sure, you might be more powerful than the stock standard gods, but I don't imagine your DM running you against stock standard enemies like... ever, why would you imagine the gods to be any different.


The other reason that the gods don't just murder the powerful is that doing so is bad PR. The gods need followers. If they keep killing off their heroes, the people will turn on them, and the gods will starve.

So, despite the gods canonically being idiots, even they aren't that dumb. They trick adventurers into willingly killing themselves trying to attain godhood, rather than suffer the PR backlash of killing them themselves.

Again, see above, the whole "deities are dependant on their followers" is really not a default assumption you should make.


If gods aren't doing anything in the setting, why have them? :smallconfused:

I'm actually quite fond of this sentiment, which is why I deleted my gods about 1400 years prior to the time period of my current setting in favour of lesser, but still strong higher powers such as archdevils, demon lords, celestial paragons and fey court queens

[upho]

In 3e, and in 3.5, it is possible to outright murder the gods, sure. In earlier editions, which is when the fluff was written, it wasn't, and the fluff never got updated. There is a massive mismatch between the mechanical reality of 3.X D&D and how the worlds created for it are expected to work, something that extends to the present in the form of stories written for Pathfinder.So much this. Most settings make virtually zero sense if their inhabitants are assumed to operate under the same rules as those of PCs and the creatures the PCs meet.

Although when it comes to the issue of less-than-immortal gods specifically, it thankfully doesn't extend to PF (or the 1PP setting Golarion), since no gods have been given stats, and AFAIK with only a single exception (adding HD by turning into a demon through a demanding series of horrific rituals), there simply are no levels to gain beyond 20th per RAW (and PF's "Mythical" abilities are far more limited than those of 3.5's epic). The closest you get from Paizo are a few empyreal lords, demon lords, great old ones and a few creatures less easily categorized, the supposedly most powerful of these being the CR 30 Achaekek "The Mantis God" (http://aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Achaekek,%20the%20Man tis%20God) (not a god despite the nickname), Leviathan (http://aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Leviathan), Oliphaunt of Jandelay (http://aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Oliphaunt%20of%20Jand elay), Pazuzu (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/demon/demon-lords/demon-lord-pazuzu/), Nocticula (http://aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Nocticula) (demon lord), Cernunnos (http://aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Cernunnos) (empyreal lord), Tawil at’Umr (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/great-old-ones/great-old-one-tawil-atumr/) (sorta-kinda avatar of Yog Sothoth), Mordiggian (http://aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Mordiggian) and Cthulhu (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/great-old-ones/great-old-one-cthulhu/). And I think at least Cthulhu could actually be a truly difficult foe even for many (most?) highly optimized level 20 PF parties (without mythic tiers).


The people who wrote Deities and Demigods did not produce those stats in any expectation of people actually fighting the gods. The wrote the stat blocks to supply word count and pad out the book to hardcover size - in the same way that Paizo fills Bestiaries with creatures of CR 25+ that you aren't actually expected to fight.This - mixed with some proportions of carelessness and poor thinking - unfortunately seems to be very close to the truth.


Since it's been ages since I last read up on the related 3.5 material, does anyone have an idea of what the highest CR WotC opponent a 20th level party could reasonably expect to defeat (without the most egregious levels of smelly cheese like wish-loops)?

[Quertus]

Since it's been ages since I last read up on the related 3.5 material, does anyone have an idea of what the highest CR WotC opponent a 20th level party could reasonably expect to defeat (without the most egregious levels of smelly cheese like wish-loops)?

NI - if you catch it while it sleeps, and coup de grace it, or after a tough fight, when it only has 1 HP left. :smallwink:

[Resileaf]

In my current campaign, I've had the gods limit the power mortals could attain naturally. It translates to lvl 5 being the maximum someone can reach, unless they do something truly heroic, in which case they can get to lvl 6.
The goal of the campaign is to have one character complete a fake prophecy, which through weird cosmic interference, will allow them to obtain godhood themselves, and remove the limit mortals are stuck in.

[Psyren]

The premise of this thread (that no possible gods would have an interest in any mortals achieving epic levels) seems deeply flawed to me, regardless of the level of divine intervention allowed in a given setting.

[upho]

NI - if you catch it while it sleeps, and coup de grace it, or after a tough fight, when it only has 1 HP left. :smallwink::smallbiggrin:

Wizard PC: "Aight, I've created our demiplane with adjustable time, filled it with nice comfy gold-tasseled velvet pillows, gourmet food, servants, every fun tabletop game in known history and enough booze and weird drugs to kill us a thousand times over. All surveillance divinations have been cast, and all deals with key entities have been made. Shall we?"
Other PCs: "Yeah!"
DM: "OK, you shift into your tastelessly pimped out private playboy/-girl plane, lean back into your - gold-tasseled - velvet pillows, pop the first bottle of champagne and set up the first game of Monopoly. Ok... You really sure you wanna do this?"
Players: "YES!"
DM: "Ok, ok... Fine. After... *rolls a long series of dice* ...Approximately 252,822 games of Monolopy later, one of your ala-"
Barb Player: "Did I win? C'mon, I must've won at least once!"
DM: *sighs* "Yes, Barbara "Brute-Babe" Barbariana wins three games of Monopoly and one of the 199,171 games of Go, her superior Fort save securing walk-over victories when the competition ended up far too inebriated to continue pla-"
Barb PC: "YES! Barbara CRUSHES!"
Wizard player: "Wait, say what? Did you just say 252 THOUSAND games of Mono...! Are you following the "Time-Shifted Hibernation with Tabletop-Breaks"-schedule we gave you? 'Cause that would be like... Like more than a million years on the Material plane!"
DM: "Approximately 1.3 million years, actually."
Wizard player: "..."
DM: "As I was about to say, after about 1.3 million years on the Material plane, one of your alarms finally interrupts your fantastically meaningful existence, informing you that Kord's long-standing challenge to beat him in an MMA fight has suddenly been answered by every major deity. Simultaneously. Kord has actually won the first ten fights, and is now fast asleep after having drunk himself into stupor to celebrate his first victories, and should have unusually few hit points left..."
Rogue PC: "Plane shift, Wizzy-man! Now, you old fart! It's KORD COUP D'ETAT-TIME!"
DM: *facepalm* "No, it's called de gra-... And you still have to beat his For-... Never mind. Know what? You succeed. You kill Kord. Kord is now dead. He is now an Ex-God. Happy? Now can we please play Call of Cthulhu?"

So... NI?

[ericgrau]

I also think the assumed level of optimization in most settings is lower than what many here are presuming. If you can do NI stacking or loops, then the whole multiverse shatters. For that matter, if the gods can do NI stacking/loops, then why hasn't all opposition down to level 1 died to infinite time stop or some such? After all, if you can use unlimited actions or unlimited anything, just take out the entire opposing army. Then both sides do it and there are no more mortals except maybe some truly apathetic neutral ones. That's assuming these tricks even work at all, and aren't just liberal interpretations.

So you can argue back and forth about whether such and such is "RAW", sometimes with a good reason and sometimes with the rules being ambiguous but you think it says such and such. But in the end even if it's correct and 100% by the book, an NI loop/stacking will result in any DM or any setting autror saying "lol no". Or uncapped trick, or etc. So then I default back to "Gods don't have time for anyone far below their average level of 50-70. They delegate those assassinations if anything."

High level epic characters OTOH totally should interact with gods. Perhaps level 40+. With decreasing degrees of separation until they're running from the god himself. Though with the support of another god or his underlings, so the PCs don't immediately get flattened.

[Quertus]

So, to those who like unkillable gods:

Killable gods makes sense to me, both from a "stories you can tell" and a "world-building" PoV.

Want to tell stories of killing the gods? You can only do that if the gods are killable.

Want to tell stories of defending the gods from something trying to kill them? You can only do that if the gods are killable.

Want to tell stories of finding the one cool way to kill a god? You can do that with both "normally mortal" and "normally immortal" gods.

Want to tell stories of not being able to kill gods? You can do that, it's called "low-level over-achievers". :smallwink:

Lastly, unkillable gods is an artificial ceiling on how much the PCs can accomplish. If they can't actually make things better, why bother?

For world-building, mortal deities gives the gods good reason to allow mortals to ascend. And sets up the whole "quest with mortal peril to prove your worthiness of ascension" thing.

Why would gods ever want to share their power with mortals, allowing them to ascend, if the gods were immortal, impervious to mortal harm?

In short, I understand the advantages of having mortal gods. What possible advantage could their be to having immortal gods, that one would make that choice?


:smallbiggrin:

Wizard PC: "Aight, I've created our demiplane with adjustable time, filled it with nice comfy gold-tasseled velvet pillows, gourmet food, servants, every fun tabletop game in known history and enough booze and weird drugs to kill us a thousand times over. All surveillance divinations have been cast, and all deals with key entities have been made. Shall we?"
Other PCs: "Yeah!"
DM: "OK, you shift into your tastelessly pimped out private playboy/-girl plane, lean back into your - gold-tasseled - velvet pillows, pop the first bottle of champagne and set up the first game of Monopoly. Ok... You really sure you wanna do this?"
Players: "YES!"
DM: "Ok, ok... Fine. After... *rolls a long series of dice* ...Approximately 252,822 games of Monolopy later, one of your ala-"
Barb Player: "Did I win? C'mon, I must've won at least once!"
DM: *sighs* "Yes, Barbara "Brute-Babe" Barbariana wins three games of Monopoly and one of the 199,171 games of Go, her superior Fort save securing walk-over victories when the competition ended up far too inebriated to continue pla-"
Barb PC: "YES! Barbara CRUSHES!"
Wizard player: "Wait, say what? Did you just say 252 THOUSAND games of Mono...! Are you following the "Time-Shifted Hibernation with Tabletop-Breaks"-schedule we gave you? 'Cause that would be like... Like more than a million years on the Material plane!"
DM: "Approximately 1.3 million years, actually."
Wizard player: "..."
DM: "As I was about to say, after about 1.3 million years on the Material plane, one of your alarms finally interrupts your fantastically meaningful existence, informing you that Kord's long-standing challenge to beat him in an MMA fight has suddenly been answered by every major deity. Simultaneously. Kord has actually won the first ten fights, and is now fast asleep after having drunk himself into stupor to celebrate his first victories, and should have unusually few hit points left..."
Rogue PC: "Plane shift, Wizzy-man! Now, you old fart! It's KORD COUP D'ETAT-TIME!"
DM: *facepalm* "No, it's called de gra-... And you still have to beat his For-... Never mind. Know what? You succeed. You kill Kord. Kord is now dead. He is now an Ex-God. Happy? Now can we please play Call of Cthulhu?"

So... NI?

Happily, I made my Will save to stop laughing. Mostly. I'm down to just the occasional chuckle as I write this.

Yes, the sufficiently intelligent party can, in theory, handle any foe. If only by waiting for* the opportune moment to strike, or even by being patient, and letting said foe live themselves to death.

* better (both more expedient, and more entertaining), of course, to engineer such a moment, if possible.

[Bohandas]

I never understood why people seem to think this is the case. Considering deities literally have "no, you lose, I win" abilities of which the only defense is "I have a divine rank of at least X", and divine rank is only obtainable by DM fiat and permission, the only way players are going to kill deities is if the DM allows them to.

Or by casting Planar Bubble on a critter from the base of the outlands spire


I mean, in no canon D&D world are there as many (or even any) optimized high level characters as there are in the kind of games discussed here, so the reason it doesn't happen in canon worlds is the situation you describe never arises. It doesn't happen in game worlds cause the DM doesn't want it to.

What about, in Forgotten Realms, all the Faerunians who slew gods who were forced into the material plane during the Time of Troubles?

Or, in the World of Greyhawk setting, the time Zagyg Yragerne imprisoned the gods in his basement and stole their power?

Those are both canon.

[Jay R]

Seriously, think about it.

I can't think of a single reason that any high level characters would be allowed to exist, at all. Especially Epic level characters. Any opposed God should absolutely see that PC as a threat on some level and come squish them. But they don't. This makes zero sense whatsoever.

The D&D gods are lazy.

Why are the DMs so lazy?

Seriously, think about it.

I can't think of a single reason that any high level characters would be allowed to exist, at all. Especially Epic level characters. Any DM should absolutely see that PC as a threat on some level and come squish them. But they don't. This makes zero sense whatsoever.

The D&D DMs are lazy.

Psssst. Because they are the only reason the world exists at all.

[Crake]

Or by casting Planar Bubble on a critter from the base of the outlands spire

Well, firstly, "base of the outlands spire" isn't a plane, it's a location within a plane, so planar bubble wouldn't do anything, secondly, if it did work, then it would enter a feedback loop as the effect itself cancels the planar bubble, only to be reactivated when the planar bubble is canceled, which then cancels the planar bubble etc.


So, to those who like unkillable gods:

Killable gods makes sense to me, both from a "stories you can tell" and a "world-building" PoV.

Want to tell stories of killing the gods? You can only do that if the gods are killable.

Want to tell stories of defending the gods from something trying to kill them? You can only do that if the gods are killable.

Want to tell stories of finding the one cool way to kill a god? You can do that with both "normally mortal" and "normally immortal" gods.

Want to tell stories of not being able to kill gods? You can do that, it's called "low-level over-achievers". :smallwink:

Lastly, unkillable gods is an artificial ceiling on how much the PCs can accomplish. If they can't actually make things better, why bother?

For world-building, mortal deities gives the gods good reason to allow mortals to ascend. And sets up the whole "quest with mortal peril to prove your worthiness of ascension" thing.

Why would gods ever want to share their power with mortals, allowing them to ascend, if the gods were immortal, impervious to mortal harm?

In short, I understand the advantages of having mortal gods. What possible advantage could their be to having immortal gods, that one would make that choice?

To be fair, it's one thing to have killable gods, and another to have killable by mortal gods. If you want to have stories of players killing gods, they need to invoke other higher powers who are willing to cover their tracks, either other gods, or great old ones/elder evils.

On the topic of ascension and the divine essence, that is again, highly setting specific. For example, in my setting, gods are literally the amalgamation of souls formed when a planet reaches the point of ascension. A single mortal doesn't ascend, an entire planet does. Great old ones are formed when that process goes wrong. If that all sounds familiar, it's probably because that's the recently revealed warcraft lore on how titans and old gods are made, using the worldsoul of a planet. I swear I had my idea in place before that was revealed though.

But many of the gods were killed off simply because I really despise the all-powerful nature of gods, and thus, for many of the reasons you described, I actually removed gods from my setting, and replaced them with still powerful, but far more fallible entities, what my setting calls "planar paragons", which is basically a collection of archdevils/demon lords/celestial paragons/fey queens, as well as the two remaining actual gods, the god of travel and the god of magic, though they are for the most part quite strong in the non-interference department. Thus, if players want to "ascend" to "paragonhood", that's actually something that's possible, and in fact, has happened in my setting, but you don't have to do anything particularly special, just get strong enough.

The issue I have is when people dismiss just how stupidly powerful proper gods are.

[Bartmanhomer]

Maybe gods or deities aren't challenging and fun at all.

[Bohandas]

Well, firstly, "base of the outlands spire" isn't a plane, it's a location within a plane, so planar bubble wouldn't do anything, secondly, if it did work, then it would enter a feedback loop as the effect itself cancels the planar bubble, only to be reactivated when the planar bubble is canceled, which then cancels the planar bubble etc.

What if it was through a magic item then. IIRC the spire doesn't cancel items.

[BWR]

What if it was through a magic item then. IIRC the spire doesn't cancel items.

Yes it does.

[Quertus]

Note: I have several custom settings; one of which, one cannot ascend to divinity, because, tied into the world-building, "deity" is a different species, not an ascended position (a secret that the gods of the world actively hide from mortals). So I'm not against changing from the norm per se - I'm asking what value others get when they do so.


To be fair, it's one thing to have killable gods, and another to have killable by mortal gods. If you want to have stories of players killing gods, they need to invoke other higher powers who are willing to cover their tracks, either other gods, or great old ones/elder evils.

Why should the PCs "need to"? Historically, D&D has had several modules where the PCs slay gods (or maybe only avatars thereof); IIRC, the first of which had them doing so at 10th level.

D&D gods are weak.

Now, sure, there could be odd worlds where that is not the case, but, again, why? What does it buy you?


On the topic of ascension and the divine essence, that is again, highly setting specific. For example, in my setting, gods are literally the amalgamation of souls formed when a planet reaches the point of ascension. A single mortal doesn't ascend, an entire planet does. Great old ones are formed when that process goes wrong. If that all sounds familiar, it's probably because that's the recently revealed warcraft lore on how titans and old gods are made, using the worldsoul of a planet. I swear I had my idea in place before that was revealed though.

But many of the gods were killed off simply because I really despise the all-powerful nature of gods, and thus, for many of the reasons you described, I actually removed gods from my setting, and replaced them with still powerful, but far more fallible entities, what my setting calls "planar paragons", which is basically a collection of archdevils/demon lords/celestial paragons/fey queens, as well as the two remaining actual gods, the god of travel and the god of magic, though they are for the most part quite strong in the non-interference department. Thus, if players want to "ascend" to "paragonhood", that's actually something that's possible, and in fact, has happened in my setting, but you don't have to do anything particularly special, just get strong enough.

The issue I have is when people dismiss just how stupidly powerful proper gods are.

Well, this sounds a bit like word games. Mortals can kill and ascend to these pathetically weak things (that D&D calls "gods"), but they aren't real gods.

[Crake]

Note: I have several custom settings; one of which, one cannot ascend to divinity, because, tied into the world-building, "deity" is a different species, not an ascended position (a secret that the gods of the world actively hide from mortals). So I'm not against changing from the norm per se - I'm asking what value others get when they do so.



Why should the PCs "need to"? Historically, D&D has had several modules where the PCs slay gods (or maybe only avatars thereof); IIRC, the first of which had them doing so at 10th level.

D&D gods are weak.

Now, sure, there could be odd worlds where that is not the case, but, again, why? What does it buy you?



Well, this sounds a bit like word games. Mortals can kill and ascend to these pathetically weak things (that D&D calls "gods"), but they aren't real gods.

Ever get into typing a super long reply, only to realise it's a jumbled mess? Yeah, that just happened to me.

Honestly, the main difference is whether you're using the deities and demigods rules for divinity, which basically puts gods on a whole different playing field, or if you're just using powerful beings who call themselves gods. Deities and demigods divine beings and their SDAs are just too powerful for mortals to contend with, but if you're not using that as your definition of godhood, then sure, but then the question is, is godhood in your game nothing more than a title? That's the difference in my setting between paragons and deities. Paragons are just titleholders, gods actually have a tangible power over mortals.

Also, deities being a separate "race", as in, divinity is intrinsic and not a gained power, is actually more often than not the default in my mythologies, so I wouldn't call that changing the norm, though the fact that you think it is does tell me a bit about how you view divinity.

A lot of the things people throw around on this forum regarding divinity seems to mostly be whichever optional choice best suits their agenda, but for many settings, divinity is intrinsic, and the divine are not reliant on mortals. In most cases it seems, the divine leaders are benevolent gods who seek the betterment of mortals, which they have the evil opposition who seek to corrupt/destroy mortals, for whatever reason, or mortals are creations of the gods, like playthings or a science experiment.

[Arcanist]

Yes it does.

Actually it doesn't. At worst, the Spire of the Outlands gives you the Impede magic trait, which doesn't affect magic items at all.


Particular spells and spell-like abilities are more difficult to cast on planes with this trait, often because the nature of the plane interferes with the spell.

To cast an impeded spell, the caster must make a Spellcraft check (DC 20 + the level of the spell). If the check fails, the spell does not function but is still lost as a prepared spell or spell slot. If the check succeeds, the spell functions normally.

The same applies for the Limited Magic trait as well


Planes with this trait permit only the use of spells and spell-like abilities that meet particular qualifications.

Magic can be limited to effects from certain schools or subschools, to effects with certain descriptors, or to effects of a certain level (or any combination of these qualities). Spells and spell-like abilities that don’t meet the qualifications simply don’t work.

And furthermore, even if it didn't, it wouldn't get past the Vestment of Steadfast Spellcasting because the Spire of the Outlands does not ever apply the Dead Magic trait.

[magic9mushroom]

Actually it doesn't. At worst, the Spire of the Outlands gives you the Impede magic trait, which doesn't affect magic items at all.



The same applies for the Limited Magic trait as well



And furthermore, even if it didn't, it wouldn't get past the Vestment of Steadfast Spellcasting because the Spire of the Outlands does not ever apply the Dead Magic trait.

Spell completion items would definitely be affected, as you are "casting a spell from a scroll".

[Psyren]

Even if Impeded Magic works on magic items (it's definitely not clear) there doesn't appear to be a penalty for failure. The normal penalty is losing your spell slot or use of the SLA, neither of which apply to a scroll or wand. So RAW even if the trait applies to those items, you can just keep trying again until the scroll goes off. Seems like a dysfunction but here we are.

[Bohandas]

Yes it does.

not according to the table on page 147 of the 3e Manual Of The Planes

[zlefin]

one way to justify it would be:
the more direct an action by a deity, the more it "costs"
admittedly this doesn't fit well with the listed salient divine ability rules. (and I don't think it fits that well with the established settings lore)
anyways:
like they have some sort of "divine power" pool; and the cost depends on several factors, including how closely it ties to their portfolio, how cloes their centers of power are (like temples), and especially the directness of the action. something like manifesting an avatar to directly smite an opponent would be super pricey, as would some other sort of direct kill mechanism.
another factor could be the existence of ways to escape/avoid a problem (Which reminds me of the gargoyles tv series, where iirc there was a rule that magics with an escape clause were a LOT easier to cast than magics which were just plain permanent, or something like that; and it was even relevant for very high powered beings)
one could also add the directness and preciseness of the targetting as a factor.

[noob]

The gods have a syndicate that asked for the 0 perceived or actual hour day and thanks to its divine powers and epic checks it did succeed so now the gods have to not work or else they might lose that right.
Also only lazy people becomes gods: let us compare the likelyness of advancement to goodhood of those following two clerics:
Holy super good awesome cleric of goodness and lazy cleric that sits around wasting its time.
Both are praying the same "good" god.
Super good cleric is so good that when it approach an evil creature it turns good by seeing how much cool awesome and good being good is unless it is the vilest spawn of evil.
So Super good cleric is so much good it wants to help all the people and so good cleric runs around at 500 times the speed of light and convert all the evil creatures by showing them how being good is awesome in one instant and also super good cleric feed the poor people and heal all the diseases and provides with employment those who wants it and make people immortal and full of hope and happiness(Thanks to how blindingly good and awesome the cleric is its mere presence is enough for the two last things) by spending tons of actions with celerity(so it happens all within a turn) and when it meets the vilest spawns of evil it defeats them without harming them and brings them to the holy super good paladin where the paladin will personally make sure they see how doing good is the best thing ever by speaking to them.
Meanwhile lazy cleric waste its time walking around slower than the speed of light and periodically have crisis of faith and complain constantly to its god and so its god is more aware of lazy cleric and can understand it better than the good cleric.
so afterwards the god favor more the lazy cleric then one day once it is too lazy to even be a god it transmits its divine powers to the cleric it knows the best so to lazy cleric.
It is also why the "good" gods are often super flawed: the most good people do not get promoted to godhood and the gods are possibly not even aware of their existence because they move around and do good too fast for the gods to notice

[skunk3]

The gods aren't lazy per se, it's just that their plans roll forth at a glacial pace compared to what PC's are used to. While gods might have stat blocks, those are just recommended guidelines and your average D&D game isn't going to reach levels by which your average party is going to get even close to being able to touch them, and even if they did, the DM can always just modify their stats/powers accordingly. I think this misconception comes from the fact that so many people play in silly, high-powered games that exist in munchkin land these days where a party can reach epic levels in ~9 months of playing. DMs want to make games fun and appealing but if they wanted to put the brakes on they absolutely could... which is why they tend to advance players much faster than expected and also players are now wiser to the system so they know all sorts of little exploits and builds.

Anyway, to get back on track, it's not that the gods are lazy, it's that they aren't omnipotent and are dealing with far more things than PC's (and even players) realize.

[MPA2000]

Seriously, think about it.

I can't think of a single reason that any high level characters would be allowed to exist, at all. Especially Epic level characters. Any opposed God should absolutely see that PC as a threat on some level and come squish them. But they don't. This makes zero sense whatsoever.

The D&D gods are lazy.

Actually it makes total sense, and here's why. The gods in mythology can be hurt and in fact some can be killed. Ares was mortally wounded by a mortal, and limped home to Zeus to heal him. Even though the Greek gods are immortal, they can still bleed and hurt apparently.

So why are the gods lazy. Because they are smug in their powers. Only mortals think of potential threats and how to either defeat them or wither away at the intruder's morale. Gods just don't think that way. They don't conceive any mortal being a threat to their existence.

The only exception being the Norse Gods, who ensures no one can pass into Asgard without first appearing on the Rainbow bridge, where Heimdall awaits. Even then, Asgard is surrounded by a wall built by giants.

I would also say what is true above, is also true below. I don't believe Asmodeus has his forces of Pit Fiends on high alert 24/7 because he thinks a party of mortals my decide to pay him a visit or because he might be paranoid about Mephisto, in the next realm up. I believe if you went to any of the hells, ti would be sparsely populate with a clear path to the Duke's castle. Now how things go inside is up for debate, but you might be able to just waltz in and see Beelzbub discussiong torture assignments with one of his advisors.

Yes it is inconceivable I know. But that is how deity works, you are smug by your own sense of almightiness. :smallsmile::smallsmile:

[magic9mushroom]

Since it's been ages since I last read up on the related 3.5 material, does anyone have an idea of what the highest CR WotC opponent a 20th level party could reasonably expect to defeat (without the most egregious levels of smelly cheese like wish-loops)?

50 or 57. Those are the CRs of the Devastation Beetle and the Hecatoncheires respectively, both from the ELH. The Devastation Beetle is a joke, because it's basically a Tarrasque with bigger numbers but less immunities, and dies easily to flight plus Walls of Force plus a Shadow (the Walls of Force are to stop it from running away). The Hecatoncheires is tougher, because it has 500ft blindsight, flight, ranged attacks, and GMW at-will, but with enough cheese it'll probably cave.

The only monsters with higher CRs are the final age categories of the Epic Dragons (Great Wyrm Force Dragons at 59, and Ancient+ Prismatic Dragons at 57/61/66), and beating those sub-epic is not possible if they're played with similar competence to the PCs (they are epic casters).

[upho]

50 or 57. Those are the CRs of the Devastation Beetle and the Hecatoncheires respectively, both from the ELH. The Devastation Beetle is a joke, because it's basically a Tarrasque with bigger numbers but less immunities, and dies easily to flight plus Walls of Force plus a Shadow (the Walls of Force are to stop it from running away). The Hecatoncheires is tougher, because it has 500ft blindsight, flight, ranged attacks, and GMW at-will, but with enough cheese it'll probably cave.Thanks!

*checks up epic vermin and titans*

:smalleek:

By the Blasphemously Bulbous Buttocks of Bawdy Baalzebul! Who - or what - in the Nine Hells think those are CR 50 and 57?

Oh wait, WotC's 3.5 devs. :smallsigh: But still, just... Why?

Those two are definitely far worse than I remember them. Ridiculously over-CR:ed. Especially the Hecatoncheires actually. I'll let Hulk illustrate what happens to the poor titan when it meets a decently high-op PF "Abyssal Supercharger":

https://res.cloudinary.com/upho/image/upload/v1552438978/Hulk_puny_god_tuhgc6.gif

Replace the beat Loki with an utterly pasted ex-titan and Hulk's line with "Puny titan" and you get the picture.

So a rather straight-forward PF half-orc natural attack martial can quite reliably and easily solo one-shot a friggin' CR 57 monster in the opening round... Yeah, seems 'bout right. Just do the usual ol' monster-Hulk-out 'n' pounce-maneuver-AoO routine and the epic CR 57 monster turns into fine red mist. Why should there have to be anything more to it? :smallamused:

(The same supercharger would of course find it extremely difficult - if not flat out impossible - to successfully do the same against tons of monsters with a CR less than half of that of the Hecatoncheires. At least the "Devastating Bug" can't be smacked into oblivion in the first round by a lone PF Supercharger, and is thankfully far more difficult to throw around like a piece of wet tissue paper in combat maneuver combos... Not that CR 50 is anywhere near appropriate for the bug either, of course, and it's still far less difficult for most PF parties to beat than most of the highest rated Paizo-made monsters I mentioned in my previous post.)


The only monsters with higher CRs are the final age categories of the Epic Dragons (Great Wyrm Force Dragons at 59, and Ancient+ Prismatic Dragons at 57/61/66), and beating those sub-epic is not possible if they're played with similar competence to the PCs (they are epic casters).Yeah, I think I remember those as far more epic, at least in terms of being well and truly impossible to beat without epic (caster) levels. Though IME a monster certainly doesn't need epic casting to be far more challenging for a level 20 party than the above two jokes. A few decent high level spells including some divination stuff is usually enough for an opponent to be a royal pain in the butt of most non-epic parties in practice. AFAIK, the same is pretty much true for non-mythic parties in PF, although with some good research and prep work I think a high-op party could actually have a very decent chance also against the highest rated mythic monsters with decent casting.

[SimonMoon6]

In 3e, and in 3.5, it is possible to outright murder the gods, sure. In earlier editions, which is when the fluff was written, it wasn't,

Really? I'm pretty sure 1st edition was an earlier edition. And I'm pretty sure that the 1st edition module "Queen of the Demonweb Pits" was all about killing a god, even if it was "merely" a very minor and weak goddess (Lolth).

And the 1st edition Deities and Demigods book didn't seem to suggest the unkillability of the gods, or if it did, I certainly don't remember it.

[BWR]

not according to the table on page 147 of the 3e Manual Of The Planes


Planescape Campaign Setting, Sigil and Beyond p.21: "At the center of the Outlands, around the base of the spire that supports Sigil, is the ultimate negation of power. No magic or godly faculties of any type work here."

[Telonius]

Thanks!

*checks up epic vermin and titans*

:smalleek:

By the Blasphemously Bulbous Buttocks of Bawdy Baalzebul! Who - or what - in the Nine Hells think those are CR 50 and 57?

Oh wait, WotC's 3.5 devs. :smallsigh: But still, just... Why?

Those two are definitely far worse than I remember them. Ridiculously over-CR:ed. Especially the Hecatoncheires actually. I'll let Hulk illustrate what happens to the poor titan when it meets a decently high-op PF "Abyssal Supercharger":

https://res.cloudinary.com/upho/image/upload/v1552438978/Hulk_puny_god_tuhgc6.gif

Replace the beat Loki with an utterly pasted ex-titan and Hulk's line with "Puny titan" and you get the picture.

So a rather straight-forward PF half-orc natural attack martial can quite reliably and easily solo one-shot a friggin' CR 57 monster in the opening round... Yeah, seems 'bout right. Just do the usual ol' monster-Hulk-out 'n' pounce-maneuver-AoO routine and the epic CR 57 monster turns into fine red mist. Why should there have to be anything more to it? :smallamused:

(The same supercharger would of course find it extremely difficult - if not flat out impossible - to successfully do the same against tons of monsters with a CR less than half of that of the Hecatoncheires. At least the "Devastating Bug" can't be smacked into oblivion in the first round by a lone PF Supercharger, and is thankfully far more difficult to throw around like a piece of wet tissue paper in combat maneuver combos... Not that CR 50 is anywhere near appropriate for the bug either, of course, and it's still far less difficult for most PF parties to beat than most of the highest rated Paizo-made monsters I mentioned in my previous post.)

Yeah, I think I remember those as far more epic, at least in terms of being well and truly impossible to beat without epic (caster) levels. Though IME a monster certainly doesn't need epic casting to be far more challenging for a level 20 party than the above two jokes. A few decent high level spells including some divination stuff is usually enough for an opponent to be a royal pain in the butt of most non-epic parties in practice. AFAIK, the same is pretty much true for non-mythic parties in PF, although with some good research and prep work I think a high-op party could actually have a very decent chance also against the highest rated mythic monsters with decent casting.

As a minor point of defense of the ELH, back when it was published in 2001, the Ubercharger didn't/couldn't exist. Pounce was very hard to come by; Shock Trooper and Leap Attack hadn't been published yet. There were still plenty of ways to break the game into little bitty pieces, but most of what we would consider standard optimization just wasn't there. Massive pile of hit points, plus massive amount of attacks (5/round are going to hit a 20 just by averages), plus a whole lot of immunities was a lot scarier back then than it is now. Not saying it was worth CR 57 even back then, but the number of ways you could hurt the thing was a lot smaller than it is today.

[Bohandas]

Planescape Campaign Setting, Sigil and Beyond p.21: "At the center of the Outlands, around the base of the spire that supports Sigil, is the ultimate negation of power. No magic or godly faculties of any type work here."

I was talking about something from the first ring, not actually touching the spire itself. There's probably plenty of things that live their whole lives in the innermost ring, though admittedly probably not many that spend any appreciable time actually touching the spire

[Arbane]

So, the spire is 'base' in the ultimate game of tag.

[Bohandas]

Savage Tide adventure path results in your PCs killing Demogorgon, and Age of Worms - Kyuss!


And you kill a deity in [u]Quicksilver Hourglass[/i] too

[BWR]

I was talking about something from the first ring, not actually touching the spire itself. There's probably plenty of things that live their whole lives in the innermost ring, though admittedly probably not many that spend any appreciable time actually touching the spire

What you said was "the Spire" - and anyway nothing says you have to touch the Spire. Some degree of closeness should be enough, considering how the rest of the rings work. The rings negate all magic of a certain level, which includes items that produce such effects.

[Clistenes]

In Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance and Planescape the gods have a ton of rules and restriction preventing them from acting directly. These rules are in place to avoid the destruction of the world because of their quarrels.

I got the feeling that, the younger the world (and hence the gods), the more active they are, and the oldest the world, the more contained the gods are... Like, they pile rules and safeguards over time, or they just become more cautious as time passes by and their direct interventions provoke more and more disasters...

In Scarn (Scarred Lands), the gods just defeated the Titans in a massive Godswar that almost obliterates the world. Scarn is a world at the dawn.

In Krynn (Dragonlance), the gods are still waging global wars at the head of massive armies, but they have some restrictions put in place. If a god acts directly, their counterpart in the opposing alignment camp gets to do the same. Krynn is still relatively young, their foundational myths aren't that old.

Toril (Forgotten Realms) is older than Krynn; it has gone through several ages with a long list of different dominant races. Toril is a world at its prime. Gods are still quite active, but they can't act as directly as their Krynnian counterparts.

Oerth (Greyhawk) is older than Toril. It's a world already entering its twilight. Magic will start weakening soon. Its gods are old, and they almost never interfere directly, save new upstarts like Iuz and Vecna, who nobody really likes. A divine avatar in Oerth typically has the power of a mortal 20 lvl character, or even lower...

[upho]

As a minor point of defense of the ELH, back when it was published in 2001, the Ubercharger didn't/couldn't exist. Pounce was very hard to come by; Shock Trooper and Leap Attack hadn't been published yet.That's actually part of the reason I said "PF Supercharger" rather than "Ubercharger", as the former build type uses none of the options which make up the latter aside from pounce (which is still very hard to come by in a PF game limited to 1PP options). So no Shock Trooper, Leap Attack or easy pounce, as none of those exist in PF. Same goes for saying "rather straight-forward half-orc natural attack martial" rather than, say, "half-minotaur martial Battle Jump-ing with size-cheesed 24d8 sugliin". The point here being that it's actually a lot harder for a PF martial to one-shot "high AC hp mountain"-types above a certain number of HD.

That said, the PF Supercharger of course still has a far easier time defeating these foes than any martial build I can remember being possible back in 2001. And a 20th level PF natural attack Supercharger build of course plays very similarly to a typical 3.5 Ubercharger build in combat even though many of the specific methods and options may be different, both builds simply pouncing for max DPR. It's just that it's impossible to cheese up the PF build's DPR to the 3.5 build's insane overkill numbers (the PF build will instead typically have significantly more versatility both in and out of combat). IOW, PF martials are generally clearly superior to the 3.5 counterparts in all regards except when it comes to high-op DPR.


There were still plenty of ways to break the game into little bitty pieces, but most of what we would consider standard optimization just wasn't there. Massive pile of hit points, plus massive amount of attacks (5/round are going to hit a 20 just by averages), plus a whole lot of immunities was a lot scarier back then than it is now. Not saying it was worth CR 57 even back then, but the number of ways you could hurt the thing was a lot smaller than it is today.True. And yes, I'd say CR 57 is absolutely ridiculous even by 2001 measures (as far as I can remember).

(Nitpick detail: note that a hecatoncheires can't make more than 20/15/10 attacks per full attack against a single Large/Medium/Small (or smaller) creature, respectively. So even against an really stupid party, the abomination probably wouldn't even get to make as many as 50 attacks. Not that those attacks aren't likely to deal more than enough damage to kill every targeted PC, but...)

[Bohandas]

Really? I'm pretty sure 1st edition was an earlier edition. And I'm pretty sure that the 1st edition module "Queen of the Demonweb Pits" was all about killing a god, even if it was "merely" a very minor and weak goddess (Lolth).

And the 1st edition Deities and Demigods book didn't seem to suggest the unkillability of the gods, or if it did, I certainly don't remember it.

Yeah, if anything they got way more unkillable in 3e. I never personally played 1e, but I've seen all these statblocks of gods with only a hundred and something hitpoints and a small handful of special powers