What should a god be able to do? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

FaerieGodfather

2020-05-25, 01:16 PM

First and foremost, they have to be able to die. Deities & Demigods is a bestiary and drinking those sweet XP shouldn't be the sole province of the morally dubious wizard who's always somehow twice the level of everyone else in his adventuring party.

But they shouldn't be capable of dying of neglect. Gods should encourage mortals to worship them-- or not-- for their own individual reasons, not because they'll die without it.

Their powers and their capabilities should vary wildly... though they should generally be high-level clerics/priests of themselves and have some... pretty amazing powers representative of their portfolios.

NotASpiderSwarm

2020-05-25, 01:39 PM

Anything. I'm a fan of the "Ants on a chessboard" approach to the divine. There's deities, and they do stuff amongst themselves, and there are mortals doing various mortal things. And the gods grant power to mortals for various inscrutable reasons of their own, and sometimes mortals manage to do something that affects the gods in some way, but in general, anything involving a god and a PC, the PC auto-loses. If you attack a god, you miss and then die. If you lie, they see through it. If you try to cast a spell, something darkly ironic happens instead. No roll, you just lose.

Fortunately, the gods don't interfere with mortals often, and keep things indirect. The most a mortal can do to the gods is interfere with their servants in this realm, screw up their existing plans. Attack Vecna, you lose. Steal the Hand from his cult, go on a quest to destroy it, he might let you and your Cleric's patron might reward you. Of course, then you spend the rest of your short mortal life dodging angry pro-Vecna outsiders and assassins.

Basically, the standard fantasy fiction "rule of plot" with gods, but it's a good way to keep the gods out of your PC's way while still letting stuff like oracles and cults be relevant plot devices.

Doctor Despair

2020-05-25, 02:16 PM

As others have said, it depends entirely on what sort of setting you want.

In 3.5, many of the deities are stated out in Deities and Demigods and they are... not that impressive, for the most part, although that doesn't mean the benefits of having a bunch of divine ranks and salient divine abilities don't give them a huge amount of power. Deities of a certain rank know about anything to do with their portfolio (relevant, iconic areas of life/the universe), when their name is spoken, things that go on around their temples, things that happen with their clerics and followers, going forward and backwards in time, and Alter Reality gives them a huge amount of power to snuff out threats before they become threats. Of course, that isn't to say there aren't RAW ways to defeat deities, such as using effects like God Blooded of Vecna or the Xorvintaal game to avoid detection, or getting another deity to foil that portfolio sense in some way, but they are few and far between.

However, the thread isn't what can a god do (read: just about anything), but what should a god be able to do. Ultimately, that's down to preference, and if you want to limit their power and still keep it RAW, you could do so by limiting the amount of divine ranks deities have (e.g., divine rank 0 is very different than divine rank 1, and even more different than divine rank 16).

I like a lot of the thoughts people have shared above, and I also like the idea of deities having some reason to care about belief, although by RAW belief has no impact on their abilities. I'd like to think deities might use followers as a form of currency, or game board pieces, in a 3.5-like setting, but that also implies very powerful gods, which may not be to a DM's liking.

Nifft

2020-05-25, 02:24 PM

Gods must be able to grant spells.

That's really all I need from a god as a PC.

If the thing can't grant spells, it's blatantly not a god.

(There are plenty of things which grant spells which aren't gods, too.)

Biggus

2020-05-25, 02:29 PM

I'm going to disagree a bit with most of the other posters and say that while I think greater gods should be completely beyond mortals, I have no problem with minor deities being killed by epic-level heroes. I like the idea of a continuous scale of mortality to divinity personally (with maybe mythic or something similar to bridge the gap), although obviously those who can tangle with even the weakest gods should be very rare, exceptional people.

As for what gods can do: one of the things I liked in Deities & Demigods is the way that they can sense in multiple places at once, manifest avatars in multiple places, and perceive anything to do with its portfolio extending into the past and future. A mortal only exists in a single place and time, but a god is a manifestation of some universal aspect of reality (death, water, love or whatever) and while it may concentrate its essence into a sort of focal point (its fully divine/non-avatar body) which can at least potentially be killed, its awareness extends throughout the whole world, or at least a region in the case of minor deities.

I think of the Ainur in the Silmarillion who can have bodies if they wish, but who can also exist unclothed in flesh unless they're "fallen" in the manner of Morgoth, and the Endless from the Sandman comics, who while their particular incarnation can be killed, will always re-manifest in a new form as the aspect of reality they represent will exist as long as the universe does. There's nothing to stop someone killing the goddess of love and assuming her portfolio, but there'll always be a love-deity as long as there are living creatures capable of feeling emotions: they're just the new face of a universal principle.

To be more specific about their powers, deities (or major ones at least) should be almost omnipotent within the boundaries of their portfolio. I like how the old Dicefreaks deity rules gave all deities the Alter Reality SDA, but it only works on portfolio-related matters (and DMs are encouraged to be quite strict as to what counts as portfolio-related). Outside their portfolio, they should be superhuman but not omnipotent, unless you're talking about an overdeity or montheistic deity.

Quertus

2020-05-25, 03:01 PM

In D&D? There are two essential things that the gods *must* be able to do: know fear, and die.

A third component, essential to the lore of the gods desperately trying to trick mortals into ascending, is that the gods must be *capped*, must be weaker than mortals are capable of becoming.

Reproducing with mortals like they were Dragons, while not essential, is strongly encouraged.

And it probably wouldn't feel like D&D if the gods couldn't project avatars, and weren't obnoxiously hard to kill (max HP, 20 outsider HD on top of class levels, "did you kill me on my home turf?", can come back even then, etc).

In other systems? It can vary a lot. But this isn't in the general RP. I will note, though, that the D&D gods are highly unusual in that it wouldn't feel odd to me if they couldn't actually specifically do anything explicitly because it was related to their portfolio.

(EDIT: reading through others' responses, "grant spells" is a tricky one. Before 3e, I would have included this; in 3e, afaict, it's the cleric's belief that does the heavy lifting. In 2e, for example, clerics could, by RAW, recover 1st & 2nd level spells without the intervention of a deity; in 3e, there's "Clerics of an ideal", and the idea of a "Cleric Atheist" is not incoherent.)

InvisibleBison

2020-05-25, 03:52 PM

I think it depends entirely on what you want gods to be. If gods are the personifications of concepts, and killing a god destroys the concept it personifies, the abilities of gods are going to be different than if the gods are just ordinary people who have figured out a way to leech power from the masses.

In D&D? There are two essential things that the gods *must* be able to do: know fear, and die.

I don't see how either of those characteristics are essential to D&D gods. Why do you think they are?

Quertus

2020-05-25, 09:13 PM

I don't see how either of those characteristics are essential to D&D gods. Why do you think they are?

Because, as I alluded to in my post, the earliest lore I read on D&D gods was that they were terrified of mortals, and their ability to grow more powerful than them. Their goals involved tricking mortals into ascending (under the guise of "sponsoring" them) to limit their power.

That, and early modules had you killing Lloth around, what, level 12 or so?

These two items, more than any, power the D&D divinity mythos. Without them, it's easy to see more efficient alternatives for the gods, and impossible for certain stories (like Queen of the Demonweb Pits) to happen.

InvisibleBison

2020-05-25, 09:49 PM

Because, as I alluded to in my post, the earliest lore I read on D&D gods was that they were terrified of mortals, and their ability to grow more powerful than them. Their goals involved tricking mortals into ascending (under the guise of "sponsoring" them) to limit their power.

That, and early modules had you killing Lloth around, what, level 12 or so?

These two items, more than any, power the D&D divinity mythos. Without them, it's easy to see more efficient alternatives for the gods, and impossible for certain stories (like Queen of the Demonweb Pits) to happen.

I suppose that's something that's changed over the editions, then. The 3.0 version of Deities & Demigods (at least the fluff, the mechanics are less impressive) presents gods as being enormously more powerful than mortals, and killing gods as something that only happens under the most extraordinary of circumstances.

Fizban

2020-05-25, 10:33 PM

Depends on what one means by "god" and what one wants them to do.

In order to support some things I think should be integral to a DnD world as well as certain spells:

They must be capable of unlocking spells. Because you don't need a god to get spells, and the spells you have are based on your level, your experience points. This is a fundamental truth of the world. Gods are useful, and it is in their interest for you to believe you need them, but it is not actually true. (Similarly, Warlock powers don't come from "patrons"- but many creatures are capable of unlocking the potential that resides in everyone, and will happily let you believe you're dependent upon them).

The must be capable of unimpeachably contacting their followers. There should be no question in the mind of someone who is contacted by their god of whether it was true or not: if they have ever received such a message, they cannot be fooled. Similarly, it should be possible for followers to unimpeachably demonstrate to one another their allegiance. I don't truck with the "stolen worship" concept or attempts at grey morality in a world that has actual metaphysical definitions of Good and Evil- part of the power of a Paladin is that whether they like it or not, if the Paladin flies the flag, everyone knows that person is Good, and similar guarantees are basically required for any organization in a world with mind magic.

They must be capable of sensing much of the present and future, at least with regard to their followers, in order to grant the effects of spells like Divination and Commune. These can be cast be agnostic people as well, and the answers are just as effective (or ineffective), but the Cleric of a god knows their god's voice, and the answers must come from them.

They must command and surpass the most powerful of aligned outsiders which support their cause- if you aren't even as strong as a Solar, can't cow even a basic Balor, how can you be said to be above them?

King of Nowhere

2020-05-26, 05:02 AM

well, it depends strongly on what kind of setting you want to play. some say gods should not be killable, some say they should, pick your choice.

among the secondary powers that nobody mentioned, though, I think it is appropriate that a god knows what his high level clerics are doing. he is their boss, he give them spells, he automatically keeps tabs on them.
A god also can choose to not divulge information he does not want to when contacted with contact other planes. in my campaign the spell could be used for many things, but it could not be used to spy on a high level cleric in private, as the patron god would not want you to spy on their clerics, and other gods would be prevented by the patron god from interacting much.

Doctor Despair

2020-05-26, 11:57 AM

in my campaign the spell could be used for many things, but it could not be used to spy on a high level cleric in private, as the patron god would not want you to spy on their clerics, and other gods would be prevented by the patron god from interacting much.

I like that interpretation of spells with divine fluff, personally; would you treat an Ur Priest the same way though?

Nifft

2020-05-26, 12:04 PM

They must command and surpass the most powerful of aligned outsiders which support their cause- if you aren't even as strong as a Solar, can't cow even a basic Balor, how can you be said to be above them?

IMHO this criteria is only valid for Evil, where it would be implausible to see a Balor following something that the Balor could stomp out.

On the Good side of the wheel, Solars might be much stronger than their Gods, and only follow a particular God because the Solar respects and honors what that God represents. Good can pull off stuff like that -- might isn't a strict requirement when backstabbing insubordination and domination at all costs aren't your central moral tenets.

(In many of my games I don't have any Evil gods, and Arch-Fiend cults or Ur-Priest shenanigans are how you get evil Cleric-type BBEGs.)

Batcathat

2020-05-26, 12:48 PM

IMHO this criteria is only valid for Evil, where it would be implausible to see a Balor following something that the Balor could stomp out.

On the Good side of the wheel, Solars might be much stronger than their Gods, and only follow a particular God because the Solar respects and honors what that God represents. Good can pull off stuff like that -- might isn't a strict requirement when backstabbing insubordination and domination at all costs aren't your central moral tenets.

I'd argue that can be true of non-Good gods and their followers as well. "Might makes right" may be more common amongst Evil and to a lesser degree Neutral beings but I don't think it's mandatory for all of them.

Nifft

2020-05-26, 01:19 PM

I'd argue that can be true of non-Good gods and their followers as well. "Might makes right" may be more common amongst Evil and to a lesser degree Neutral beings but I don't think it's mandatory for all of them.

I guess you could argue that.

3.5e defines evil as harming others for fun or profit, which I take to mean that the strong will seek to subjugate all others, but it's true that taking the top place in a hierarchy is not necessary for either fun or profit.

So, I think you're right in the abstract, though over time I'd expect to see power struggles happen on the Evil side of the wheel, resulting in the strong being on top because they've faced and triumphed over countless attempts to push each of them them out of their top spot.

Fizban

2020-05-26, 08:43 PM

On the Good side of the wheel, Solars might be much stronger than their Gods, and only follow a particular God because the Solar respects and honors what that God represents. Good can pull off stuff like that -- might isn't a strict requirement when backstabbing insubordination and domination at all costs aren't your central moral tenets.
Could, but given how Good PCs are expected to spread their authority via the literal might of the right, I'd say it goes pretty strongly against the underpinnings of DnD. I'd call an entity like that a Saint (or something else) rather than a proper god- though the fact that they're saintly enough that they command (suggest, guide, whatever) aligned outsiders more powerful than themselves for an extended period does heavily indicate just how saintly they are.

Of course, any question of gods in dnd also ends up linking into the too many gods problem. The racial gods could function as regional religions, but then there's a whole group of alignment gods that are separate (presumably because they didn't dare declare a god of humans), and these basically form two different pantheons, yet each god is written as if it's a primary god rather than one of of a polytheistic pantheon. And that's before all the extra regional gods from the hot/cold/wet books, and every intelligent evil creature having their own god, and so on. FR kinda takes some of these and seems to organize them into good guy pantheons, but I'm pretty sure the evil guys still expect singular worship, which even in FR's comparitavely massive world just leaves hardly anyone.

In order to make the gods a thing you have to do the same thing as you would for PC races, and cut the number way down, with at most one major deity for each sufficiently large city-state or kingdom. Then the other deities/religions actually function more like guilds, doing various crafts or services (or even controlling dangerous fringe territories for knightly orders), but with a divinely backed unification rather than just trade interests.

After all that, then you can say that the non-primary "trade" gods are definitively less powerful than the primary gods, possibly to the point PCs can kill them, and for those that live in nice Good outer planes maybe even not have much personal power at all. But I'd still say they should be called something else.

Esprit15

2020-05-27, 12:40 AM

As others have said, it is very campaign and world dependent, and sometimes even when it that world's existence the timeline is at. The world I generally run has two major eras that have stories happen when the PCs are involved, falling on either side of the devouring of the world tree.

Before it, the Gods are a fairly standard pantheon, with the Lords of the Seven Realms of Heaven and Lords of the Seven Layers of Hell equally balanced groups of gods, themselves the children of the elemental Gods, and the elemental Gods the children of the prime deity, plus a few offshoots of the family tree filling niches. All of these beings are the embodiment of aspects of life, whether it be gluttony, forgiveness, fire, negative energy, etc., and draw their power from said world tree. They have their own inscrutable goals, and use the mortal races to carry them out, but they don't specifically need them, anymore than a tree doesn't need squirrels, but they certainly make some aspects of life easier (or harder).

After it, with the loss of their life source, the natural Gods died, leaving only those few who had managed to forge their own divine sparks. These are the 'gods need faith badly' variety, and so are more characterized by aggressively trying to spread their faiths, and there being many holes in the pantheon. They're not so much Gods with a capital G as they are 'The people who found the throne room empty' and so took up the task of keeping the paperwork flowing and working to prevent any repeats of what snuffed out the tree from devouring the rest of existence, too.

***

Neither kind of deity is 'wrong,' they just reflect aspects of their world - one where everything has been stable for millennia, and everyone roughly understands that the future will probably look a lot like the past, versus a world in disarray where people are trying to keep things running and adapt to situations that have never been encountered before. So I guess that kind of answers things in a roundabout way - deities should mirror their worlds, having as much power as is necessary. In a world in constant turmoil, they are likely not even true gods, but either gained divinity through their own effort, or are not gods at all, just impressive individuals, and what power people think comes from them just just the underlying magic of the world. In a more structured and stable world, the gods should be the long game chess players, or otherwise feel largely absent from the world to the everyday person.

King of Nowhere

2020-05-27, 01:07 AM

I like that interpretation of spells with divine fluff, personally; would you treat an Ur Priest the same way though?

good question; i never considered it because nobody at my table heard of ur priests at the time.

if i recall correctly, an ur priest is somebody who is tapping into divine magic without worshipping the god or serving him, right? sort of like an informatic pirate who stole your credit card access data.
in which case there are many options. I could rule that the god isn't particularly aware of it, and therefore does not know the ur priest any better or worse than anyone else.
or i could rule that this guy has found a way to mask himself from the god, otherwise the god would shut down his magic immediately, so the god would never know the whereabouts of the ur priest.
or i could even rule that the god is aware of what the ur priest is doing, but he's just unable to stop it. in which case the god knows exactly where the ur priest is every time the priest uses divine magic, and the god will always happily share the information with the priest's enemies, hoping that someone will get rid of this pesky guy stealing his power.

basically, it would depend on how i would decide to fluff it. if a spell has a strong fluff component, i always prefer to determine its effects by the fluff when it makes sense.

rel

2020-05-27, 02:07 AM

I like gods to be local, involved, and relevant in scope and power.

They should be linked to a particular geographic area that you can physically visit. The god of the city, valley, reef or dungeon is good.
There are stories I want to tell about such gods and if the players aren't interested they can go elsewhere and do something else.
Gods of broad nebulous concepts like swords or magic are less useful in terms of what stories you can tell and harder to introduce or set aside when the time comes.

Gods should be allies or foes, patrons or rivals to the PC's. If they show up at all they should play an active role in the adventure. A god that does this adds something concrete to the game. A god that judges from on high and exists only in the backstory of the cleric too stupid to take 'my own awesome' as their source of power adds less to the game than bob the turnip farmer pleading with the PC's for assistance.

A Gods strength should such that the PC's can meaningfully interact with them. A god so powerful they can simply dictate how things go without recourse leads to boring stories. A god that can be fought or at least tricked or convinced is a seed from which quests can be grown.

Ottriman

2020-05-27, 05:45 AM

AnimeTheCat

2020-05-27, 07:05 AM

I think it would also depend on how the cosmology of your world is set up.

This is it for me. What a deity is capable of is entirely dependent upon how you've got your world set up. For example, I have three variants of the same world set up. In this world I've got seven nations that are prominent forces in the world, and have been for the known history. Each nation is responsible or representing a dominant magical force that makes up the material plane.

In one world, the seven leaders (or council that leads the nation) are absolute deities who hold mighty power, but are absolutely mortal (they can be killed and they can die of aging) though they are heavily augmented by magic (they are very powerful and they age much slower).

In another, the leaders are demigods that posess great power, but less than that of a real deity, and they act as the agents of their deity in the world. These leaders are powerful, and not entirely mortal (they can't die of aging, but they can be killed). Their patrons are absolute deities who exist outside of reality and are more or less primal forces that communicate with their agents on the world who then communicate those messages to the world.

The third involves the deities being active and real, similar to how Forgotten Realms portrays their deities. Real individuals who are subject to natural and magical forces, but they hod great sway over those forces.

To bring this around to a point, what those different deities *should* be able to do are drastically different compared to each other. The way that they, and the players, interact with them are different. I wouldn't even say that a Deity should always need to grant spells, as even in a "standard" D&D setting (one that just uses the PHB) allows for clerics to gain spells from ideals rather than deities. Deities should do whatever makes the most sense and works best for your setting.

Ottriman

2020-05-27, 07:58 AM

This is it for me. What a deity is capable of is entirely dependent upon how you've got your world set up. For example, I have three variants of the same world set up. In this world I've got seven nations that are prominent forces in the world, and have been for the known history. Each nation is responsible or representing a dominant magical force that makes up the material plane.

In one world, the seven leaders (or council that leads the nation) are absolute deities who hold mighty power, but are absolutely mortal (they can be killed and they can die of aging) though they are heavily augmented by magic (they are very powerful and they age much slower).

In another, the leaders are demigods that posess great power, but less than that of a real deity, and they act as the agents of their deity in the world. These leaders are powerful, and not entirely mortal (they can't die of aging, but they can be killed). Their patrons are absolute deities who exist outside of reality and are more or less primal forces that communicate with their agents on the world who then communicate those messages to the world.

The third involves the deities being active and real, similar to how Forgotten Realms portrays their deities. Real individuals who are subject to natural and magical forces, but they hod great sway over those forces.

To bring this around to a point, what those different deities *should* be able to do are drastically different compared to each other. The way that they, and the players, interact with them are different. I wouldn't even say that a Deity should always need to grant spells, as even in a "standard" D&D setting (one that just uses the PHB) allows for clerics to gain spells from ideals rather than deities. Deities should do whatever makes the most sense and works best for your setting.

You appear to have double posted there, would be best to correct that.

AnimeTheCat

2020-05-27, 09:19 AM

You appear to have double posted there, would be best to correct that.

So I did. My internet wigged out when I clicked submit the first time, so I guess hitting it a second time caused the double post. My bad.

King of Nowhere

2020-05-27, 10:23 AM

A lot of pop mythology and pop culture has focused a bit too much on big gods and neglected smaller gods like that.

this make me think: what, exactly, is a god?
if we move away from the all-powerful gods with specific portfolios, what is the difference between a small god and any other magical creature?
And if the answer is "none, really", then perhaps it would make sense an atheistic set where there are no gods in the commonly accepted meaning, only magical creatures, more or less powerful

the thing is, the very word "god" comes with a huge baggage of expectations that can be misleading. mostly about being all-powerful.
in fact, I'm in the field of "the gods are nebulous concept that cannot be interacted with directly" because, otherwise, they would not be gods. Not with the meaning that I give to the word.

Ottriman

2020-05-27, 11:04 AM

this make me think: what, exactly, is a god?
if we move away from the all-powerful gods with specific portfolios, what is the difference between a small god and any other magical creature?
And if the answer is "none, really", then perhaps it would make sense an atheistic set where there are no gods in the commonly accepted meaning, only magical creatures, more or less powerful

the thing is, the very word "god" comes with a huge baggage of expectations that can be misleading. mostly about being all-powerful.
in fact, I'm in the field of "the gods are nebulous concept that cannot be interacted with directly" because, otherwise, they would not be gods. Not with the meaning that I give to the word.

It no doubt stems from how this word has been used to refer to a vague concept that exists in different implementations across different religions. Our idea of it having to be a powerful transcendent entity no doubt comes mostly from the monotheistic faiths in real life.

An interesting contrast would be how ancient polytheists saw it. There is an excellent series about it here by a historian (part 1 of a series): https://acoup.blog/2019/10/25/collections-practical-polytheism-part-i-knowledge/

But yes the difference between a spirit or a distant emperor or a small god is not absolute and more contextual and about influence in many polytheistic past faiths.

An important part of divinity is influence, the god is something of an invisible member of the community that has opinions about things and the ability to influence things. Much like people have different standing and power, so do gods. Lots of people talk about the big shots, but how often is the big shot relevant to your daily life? Thus much like you don't usually talk to the president IRL, you are instead most often going to be making sacrifices to and honoring more local small gods than the big ones.

But that's just one of many ideas presented in this series, definitely recommend a full read.

zlefin

2020-05-27, 08:13 PM

that was a very interesting read; and I think it makes a great way to setup DnD gods. Thank you for mentioning it.

False God

2020-05-27, 09:55 PM

I mean, in a general sense, anything.

...within their domain.

So a god of forges should be able to craft anything, no questions asked. Maybe he still needs special materials or a certain amount of time (but obviously less than any mortal foolish enough to attempt the task), but still, he can do it. Likewise a god of the sea can create great storms (probably overlaps with the god of air) and waves and command the great monsters of the depths (probably overlaps with a god of nature), but if its ocean related, they can do it.

But things outside of their domain should be limited and/or weakened. God of the oceans wants more fish? That's actually the nature gods domain (or even the fish gods domain, depending on how specific your deities are). God of the forge needs more iron? That's actually the earth gods domain. But by gum if you need a sword, the sword god is there for you! And maybe sometimes these things overlap. So a goddess of the seas and nature has powers of both the sea and nature gods, but they are more specific relating more to fish, kelp, and undersea life than they are to the tides or the trees.

Circles within circles, the god of venn-diagrams is truly the most powerful.

smasher0404

2020-05-28, 02:27 AM

At bare minimum? I think there are 3 points a God should be able to meet in D&D:

Immortality (not necessarily Invulnerability). A God shouldn't be able to die of old age. Gods may be able to kill each other, but one shouldn't be able to just wait for a God to die. If they absolutely must have a life span, it should exceed multiple generations of the longest-lived mortals. There needs to be time in-universe to establish myths and half-forgotten legends.

Meet and or Exceed anything a mortal can do. Gods should by definition be exceptional. A mortal besting a God at something should be recorded in legends, and maybe come at a horrible costs.

Benefit from Worship. This is a bit of a grey area. Maybe the Gods derive literal power from belief/worship. Maybe it's all about power projection. The Gods need a reason to want to grant spells to clerics, or provide powers to a paladin. If they can't benefit from being worshiped, why would they interact with mortals to the point that mortals know about them?

Ottriman

2020-05-28, 02:59 AM

that was a very interesting read; and I think it makes a great way to setup DnD gods. Thank you for mentioning it.

You are welcome, it really opened my eyes to different ways of running gods to say the least.

Warmjenkins

2020-05-28, 01:23 PM

While I like the idea of lesser deities being killed by player characters and mortals the truth is even the lower end of 3.5 dieties is more than a match for pretty much any party on their own. This is mostly due to two big abilities that I think many people either forget about or severely undervalue.

The first being portfolio sense. In the hands of an intelligent dm this ability is incredibly powerful and should be used to ensure the diety in question is pretty much always prepared for any possible threat that doesn't involve another diety(at which point it's not the party fighting the god anymore, they are simply pawns in a much larger game.)

The second and probably most powerful ability of dieties is their followers and allies. Even a lesser diety may very likely have epic level followers to call on who can match or overpower pretty much any player character, there's always a bigger fish after all. It's also not unlikely that they could call in favors or be allies of greater dieties of similar portfolios. Leadership is a very powerful feat and dieties have a near infinite leadership score.