[3.5] How to kill a Deity?

[drevil]

Have someone ever managed to kill a God?
WotC released their stats. Surely, its because the Gods are killable.


Here is my epic God-killing idea:

1) As a optimized chaotic Cleric 20 of [insert Good God], I hunt down all worshippers and churches of [Insert opposing Evil God] and burn them.

2) The Evil God gets angry, enters the Material world to ill me in his less powerful avatar-form.

3) The tricky part: My Good God and his God-allies are waiting to ambush the Evil God when he strikes me.
The Evil God was only prepared to fight a simple Cleric 20.
Suddently, a couple of Gods ambush him and hopefully kill him.

4) I get killed, and then resurrected.


Any thoughts?
Someone said something about a "Dagger of Immortal-killing".

[Innis Cabal]

Kill as many of his followers as you can.

[mikej]

golden rule; "If it has stats, it can be killed."

Become a god yourself. Gain worshippers. You could pump your Diplomacy soo high that you could make people worship you.

[Yuki Akuma]

Level up to around level 60 and smack the unoptimized wimps in the face.

[kamikasei]

Ask your DM. How deities work and what they're vulnerable to is highly dependent on the table you're playing at. In principle, if you're high enough level, you can simply fight and kill them as normal.

[Joey/Flake]

Ur Priest lvl 20.


I personally feel, that surpassing the epics of the class would enable a greater level of power to be taken from a deity. After all, stealing divine rank is even mentioned with in the Deity book(Inable to refrence with out book at hand).

Of course, learning /HOW/ and /SURVIVING/ are both highly difficult things. But if anyone was to render a God Mortal, in my view it would be te learners of Ur.

Then again, there is a lovely little thing a god can throw at you when you start killing his followers an Aleax, Book of Exalted Deeds pg. 158.

It's you. Just harder. And your group can't help you hurt it. Have fun!

[drevil]

Kill as many of his followers as you can.

That wont kill a God.
And he wont just sit and watch his people beeing slaughtered.
At some point, he will intervene.

Become a god yourself. Gain worshippers. You could pump your Diplomacy soo high that you could make people worship you.

You cant become a God by using Dipolomacy to gain followers.
Getting Godhood is more difficult.

Ur Priest lvl 20.

an Aleax, Book of Exalted Deeds pg. 158.
It's you. Just harder.

What does an Ur priest have that give him a better chance?
I am not very familiar with non-core.

[Lamech]

Dweamerkeeper/tainted scholar/fatespinner supernatural wish to send them into a sphere of annilation. A lot a bit of taint and no way they make the save except on a twenty, and no divine powers are a local effect so they don't protect the diety. No they don't have anything that stops them from being sucked into a sphere of annilation and annilated. Fatespinner is to force the reroll just incase, bit I'm not sure if that is possible pre-epic.

That kills one intermediate or weaker deity per caster level. If the DM is nice one could argue that Fatespinner can force and actual reroll, in which case greater dieties bite it too. In fact I would say the auto 20 of dieties doesn't apply to rerolls because it only mentions one reroll per save.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Pun-Pun. Commoner Railgun? Katanas?

Epic Spellcasting.

[kamikasei]

That wont kill a God.
...
You cant become a God by using Dipolomacy to gain followers.
Getting Godhood is more difficult.

Please describe what you know of how your DM rules gods work. Otherwise we're not going to be able to give useful advice.

[Foryn Gilnith]

What does an Ur priest have that give him a better chance?
I am not very familiar with non-core.

Nothing too unusual, by the rules, but an Ur-Priest's whole theme is that they steal power from the gods. They're a prestige class, lasts 10 levels, grants 9th-level spellcasting. So you can throw out a Miracle at level 15. They can steal spell-like abilities, wishes, etc from outsider (divine agents). An epic Ur-Priest, thematically, would be the best anti-god agent. Either that or an Athar Defiant, who has ranks in the prestige class of god-hating.

Pity about the "evil" requirement on Ur-Priests, though. But yeah, we're going to have to know more.

Holes I can poke ATM...
1) Track down all of them? Doesn't that seem a bit difficult?

2) How do you know he's going to incarnate? He could pay off some yugoloths and send a EL 23 strike force at you. And if he does incarnate, how do you know he'll come to you, instead of waiting in ambush while you continue your witch hunt?

3) Gods are typically super-intelligent. You don't think he'd be prepared for an ambush? Sure, he probably wouldn't expect a god, but he'd be prepared for (at the very least) your mortal allies. And who's to say your gods will intervene? If your gods gang up on this evil god, the evil gods will get pissed and strike back. You might be inciting a cosmic war here. Sure, gods will die. But the consequences might be a bit more than that.

4) If you can be resurrected, why can't the evil god? After all, he only sent an avatar. In my experience an avatar of a god is simply a powerful mortal possessed by a good portion of the god's energy.

[bosssmiley]

Planescape says kill their worshippers (or gank them in their place of power...)
Faerun has spells that can kill gods and take their power.

[Joey/Flake]

Gah, this is where having the book to have would be damn useful.

I know that for example creating a Anti Magic Zone won't work around them, as it done by a Mortal(Non DR 0+) and they ar immune.

I'm not sure if this will also apply to the normal casting of a character. On top of that, they have InnateSR, Godly Evasion, ect

Presight.. The ability to hear for mile per DR.. List goes on.

But with out the book, I can;t tell you how they would avoid a mix caster wish spell.. My betting is SR, or simply laughing at the Mortal magic.

Ur Priest have no Epic Progression rules. This would need to be figured out along side your DM.

And Aleax destroy your soul. No ress allowed.

I'ld simply let Helm Punch a hole into X god head. Like he did with another one!

Free point to who ever gets the god/ess name?

[drevil]

Thank you for a great reply, Foryn Gilnith.
I know my plan is not perfect. But I have never heard of any better.

@Lamech: Nice wish-tactic. Does it really work by the rules? What is a supernatural wish?

Holes I can poke ATM...
1) Track down all of them? Doesn't that seem a bit difficult?

All of them is unlikely. All a Cleric 20 can find is more likely.

2) How do you know he's going to incarnate? He could pay off some yugoloths and send a EL 23 strike force at you. And if he does incarnate, how do you know he'll come to you, instead of waiting in ambush while you continue your witch hunt?

Valid points. I dont know what "yugoloths" or an "EL 23 strike force" is, but I see your point.
I was hoping my cleric 20 was so optimized, that nobody in Monsters Manual could kill him :)
But I totally see your point.
I dont know when the Evil God will strike me, but my Good God always watches over me during my mission.
The Evil God reveal himself for the Good God when he ambushes me.
His job is to ambush the Evil God when I get ambushed.
I am the sacrifice :)

3) Gods are typically super-intelligent. You don't think he'd be prepared for an ambush? Sure, he probably wouldn't expect a god, but he'd be prepared for (at the very least) your mortal allies. And who's to say your gods will intervene? If your gods gang up on this evil god, the evil gods will get pissed and strike back. You might be inciting a cosmic war here. Sure, gods will die. But the consequences might be a bit more than that.

He may be prepared for an ambush, but he will never suspect that I have planned this epic mission with my own God. That is why my own God will intervene.
Cosmic war, indeed. After all, I am chaotic good.
Fight the evil. Dont just sit and watch as evil spred around the world :)

4) If you can be resurrected, why can't the evil god? After all, he only sent an avatar. In my experience an avatar of a god is simply a powerful mortal possessed by a good portion of the god's energy.

You are right. I will probably be killed in an uresurrectable way.
Both me and the Evil God must die.
Killing the avatar will kill the God, right?
I remember a God beeing killed during the Times of Trouble (all Gods in Avatar-form).

[drevil]

Faerun has spells that can kill gods and take their power.

Interesting! Which spells?
Can mortal magic harm Gods?

Please describe what you know of how your DM rules gods work. Otherwise we're not going to be able to give useful advice.

I have not discussed this with my DM. I just wanted to hear your opinions.

I'ld simply let Helm Punch a hole into X god head. Like he did with another one!

Actually, thats what I am doing in my plan. The problem is that Helm wont be able to find God X. Thats where I come in the picture.
I hopefully reveal the Evil God for the Good God, as he ambushes me.

[Foryn Gilnith]

The "easiest" path is epic spellcasting. Let's say we're going after Erthynul. Develop a spell that summons him and blasts him with 1260d4 sonic damage. Pump up the DC by, let's say, 45 points, so he can't pass the save except on a natural 20. Backlash as much damage as you can, and collect as many people as you can to contribute spell slots. Gathering a whole arseload of solars would be best, to make a dramatic first strike. Contribute spell slots until the DC is 0, making it free and instantaneous to research. You now have a corpse of Erythnul lying in front of you.

Problem: You're not epic level, and Deities and Demigods wasn't really designed to mesh with epic level rules.

Rules for avatars can be found http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Avatar_(Divine_Ability)

The Time of Troubles did not involve avatars in the strict rules sense. It was an special plot thing Ao cooked up.

EDIT: There's a 12th-level spell called Karsus's Avatar that can temporarily steal a deity's divinity. It's setting-specific, and in the setting it is specific to, Mystra bars all mortals from accessing 10th/11th/12th level spells. It would be higher-level, but the material components required are insane.

PS:

Valid points. I dont know what "yugoloths" or an "EL 23 strike force" is, but I see your point.
I was hoping my cleric 20 was so optimized, that nobody in Monsters Manual could kill him :)

Yugoloths aren't in core. A better example, in the SRD: Pit Fiends. Pit Fiends normally work in pairs of up to 4. Let us suppose, that because he's a god, your enemy has acquired 4 Pit Fiends with their annual Wish available for use. Can you handle 4 Pit Fiends? Can you handle 4 Pit Fiends, 4 Horned Devils, 2 Ice Devils, and 2 Erinyes; if they go nova and spend all their summoning? Maybe you can, with your adventuring friends and divine support.

[hamishspence]

Faerun has spells that can kill gods and take their power.

the spell Karsus's avatar was a "high level spell" of 12th level or so, rather than an Epic Spell.

EDIT: Ninjaed.

Mystra, after reincarnating from being killed by it, revised the magic system to prevent that sort of thing happening again.

Generally, in Faerun, when mortals kill deities, they usually have some sort of divine backing- Cyric slaying Bhaal, for example, had the backing of the deity Mask. Finder Wyvernspur slaying Moander, had the backing of Tymora. And so on.

[kamikasei]

I have not discussed this with my DM. I just wanted to hear your opinions.

Our opinions are pretty much useless until we know how your DM is running gods, though.

[Lysander]

You are right. I will probably be killed in an uresurrectable way.
Both me and the Evil God must die.
Killing the avatar will kill the God, right?
I remember a God beeing killed during the Times of Trouble (all Gods in Avatar-form).

Unfortunately not. An avatar is just a puppet of the god, a weaker version of themselves they can send out and command via remote control. They can have several at a time and replace them if killed. It takes a while to replace them though but doesn't killing one doesn't harm the deity otherwise:

An avatar serves as a deity’s alter ego, effectively allowing the deity to be in two or more places at the same time. An avatar is an extension of a deity. The deity senses and knows everything the avatar senses and knows and vice versa. Each avatar counts as a remote location where the deity is sensing and communicating. A lesser deity can have up to five avatars at once, an intermediate deity can have up to ten, and a greater deity can have up to twenty avatars at once. It takes a deity one year to create an avatar or replace a destroyed avatar.

[kamikasei]

He may be prepared for an ambush, but he will never suspect that I have planned this epic mission with my own God.

Why wouldn't he suspect that? If this tactic is a good one, why wouldn't it have been attempted before in the history of the multiverse, and gods know to watch out for it?

I remember a God beeing killed during the Times of Trouble (all Gods in Avatar-form).

Actually, thats what I am doing in my plan. The problem is that Helm wont be able to find God X. Thats where I come in the picture.

Are you playing in Forgotten Realms? Then we at least have some guidelines on how gods work in the setting.

[drevil]

@Lysander: Thanks for the avatar-info. I was wrong.

Are you playing in Forgotten Realms?

Yes.

[Volkov]

You need to have a divine rank higher than any god presented in the book to permanently kill some of them off. If you are seeking to fight an overdeity, quit now while your ahead. They are unstatted for a reason. And that reason is that they are to weaker gods as gods are to mortals

[magic9mushroom]

The DM being kind, basically. Deities and Demigods basically tells the DM they should think about scaling gods to always be a massive challenge (CR a bit more than party level + 8).

There's also funky stuff like Rejuvenation and Life And Death to worry about. Either of those can really ruin your day. And Alter Reality (on most full gods) means you can have Miracles and Wishes in your face in really short order.

Your best chance of killing a god is to use some sort of plot method. After that, you're in trouble. Some are horrendously unoptimised as statted in Deities and Demigods, but whether the DM keeps them that way is, of course, up to her.

If the god is as optimised as you are, you're screwed unless you actually go and get divine ranks yourself. If given as in the book, you could do it by abuse of metamagic (make sure to include Searing Spell) or epic spellcasting abuse, or probably a couple of other things.

Spheres of Annihilation aren't guaranteed. It's spelled out that the intervention of a deity can restore an annihilated character.

[Xenogears]

The only really important thing to know is what Salient Divine Abilities the god in question has. If the have stuff lik Hand of Life and Death he kills you from his throne room, Rejuvination means only gods stronger than him keep him dead for more than a few weeks, Avatar means a series of semi-gods sent after you while he sits back and sips tea, Divine Spellcasting means 10+ level spells, True Knowledge + Bard levelsmeans knowing everything possible, etc.

There are just too many Salient Divine Abilities that are instant wins and the god gets one of them per divine rank. Without knowing them then it is just about impossible to see if killing them is possible for even your god without DM Fiat.

[Origomar]

Locate city bomb lul.

that is of course assuming they dont have improved evasion

[SoC175]

Well, generally the short answer would be: Reduce the deity to -10 by means against which she is not immune

Have someone ever managed to kill a God?
WotC released their stats. Surely, its because the Gods are killable.


Here is my epic God-killing idea:

1) As a optimized chaotic Cleric 20 of [insert Good God], I hunt down all worshippers and churches of [Insert opposing Evil God] and burn them.

2) The Evil God gets angry, enters the Material world to ill me in his less powerful avatar-form.

3) The tricky part: My Good God and his God-allies are waiting to ambush the Evil God when he strikes me.
The Evil God was only prepared to fight a simple Cleric 20.
Suddently, a couple of Gods ambush him and hopefully kill him.

4) I get killed, and then resurrected.


Any thoughts?
Someone said something about a "Dagger of Immortal-killing".

Actually part two isn't needed. If he sends an avatar to the prime and the avatar is killed, the deity itself suffers no harm from it. And if your deity and his pals ambush him on the outer planes, there's no difference in whether he send an avatar to the prime or not.

Dweamerkeeper/tainted scholar/fatespinner supernatural wish to send them into a sphere of annilation. A lot a bit of taint and no way they make the save except on a twenty, and no divine powers are a local effect so they don't protect the diety. No they don't have anything that stops them from being sucked into a sphere of annilation and annilated. Fatespinner is to force the reroll just incase, bit I'm not sure if that is possible pre-epic.

That kills one intermediate or weaker deity per caster level. If the DM is nice one could argue that Fatespinner can force and actual reroll, in which case greater dieties bite it too. In fact I would say the auto 20 of dieties doesn't apply to rerolls because it only mentions one reroll per save.

Actually there's a problem with that: A SoA is a transmutation effect and deities are immune to this.

Faerun has spells that can kill gods and take their power.

That's not correct. 'Karsus Avatar', the spell you're refering to, only allows the caster to temporarily merge with a deity and after the duration is over, the caster and the deity are seperated - killing the caster and leaving the deity none the worse for wear

Are you playing in Forgotten Realms? Then we at least have some guidelines on how gods work in the setting.

Unfortunately these would also be the worst guidelines for this purpose, as the FR has a setting specific rule that no deity can be slain by a mortal. Divine aid is always requires to land a true killing blow. See F&A for an explanation why even during the ToT this rule was never broken and the F&P Web Enhancement to see that the rule made it over to 3.x

[Fitz10019]

Terry Pratchett covered this.

Spoiler

Show

You take over the Tooth Fairy's castle, and use the tooth collection to command all the world to stop believing in that person/diety. Consult your DM for specifics on spells needed, and where the #$%@ Tooth Fairy stores her tooth collection.
Anyone see the BBC movie version? Great stuff!

[Milskidasith]

Locate city bomb lul.

that is of course assuming they dont have improved evasion

The locate city bomb doesn't work. Even if it did, the deity wouldn't be thrown far unless he was on an entirely flat plane (and you assumed that it was a cylinder, not a circle, the spell covers). The only working version gives a negative level to everything, good but not amazing.

[drevil]

...go and get divine ranks yourself. If given as in the book, you could do it by abuse of metamagic (Searing Spell) or epic spellcasting abuse, or probably a couple of other things.

Getting Divine Ranks by abusing metamagic and epic spellcasting?
How can I get the Divine Ranks? I thought only the Gods could get them.
Are you talking about 'Karsus Avatar' ?


Mortals challenging Gods have always amused me. Reminds me of Raistlin.

[Samb]

I think Pun pun had a way to gain divine ranks using Ice assassin, but Pun-pun has been examined so much that he is considered to be cheating to begin with.

The literature on obtaining godhood and killing gods does exist in canon despite what Gods and Deities say about "it's up to the DM".

Orcus, a "mere" demon lord, killed Primus while he was just a shade of his former self using some ancient power word. Although there is some debate that Orcus really is a god himself.

Gods have killed each other permanently throughout time so it is assumed that one would need to be a god to kill one. The means to becoming a god is more than just having fanatics worship you. The Lich queen of the Githyanki had the whole race under her complete control that githyanki over level 15 willingly (for the most part) sacrificed their life (force) to her, and yet she was not a goddess. She used the life force from the near epic giths to fuel thousands upon thousands of wish spells the try to steal the divine spark of The One in the Void. So no, it is not as easy as everyone say.

The astral plane is full of dead/sleeping gods. Killing the faith in one god is what causes them to become dormant, not killing its followers. The Romans tried to do that to the Christians and you can see the result of that. Killing faithfuls only makes martyrs and in the end counter-productive.