What advantages does being a god bestow?

[Tvtyrant]

I was thinking about the Tenebrous/Orcus conversion (Orcus wants to become a god, he became one after dieing, he got killed again and became Orcus again) and I honestly can't figure out why he wanted to be a god in the first place. He actually became more fragile then he was as a demon lord (he got killed by a demigod the first time, and some random adventurers the second), and while he went on a deicidal rampage that just proves the point (that they weren't all that powerful to begin with).

So my question is: Why does everyone, including already extremely power and immortal beings, want to become a god? What exactly do they get out of it that they didn't have as a Demilich or a demon lord?

(Sub-question: Is Asmodeus or Tiamat stronger? She lives in his realm, but she is a god and he a Devil (the devil in fact)).

[Coidzor]

Let's just say that's a sticky issue about Asmodeus's power level. Mostly because he prevents anyone from actually assessing it, even the designers. Partially due to fan-based immunity from it. And then there's the one creation myth where he's either part of or one of a pair of overdeities that created the multiverse.

Salient Divine Abilities, mostly.

Followed by membership in the country club.

[Vaynor]

What he said.

In general, deific abilities are more powerful than those of demons. Like the ability to instantly kill anyone, anywhere, with no save.

[SwordChucks]

It looks great on a resume.

[FelixG]

and the ability to create artifacts

[Shademan]

nubile worshippers at your beck and call?

[Alleran]

Let's just say that's a sticky issue about Asmodeus's power level. Mostly because he prevents anyone from actually assessing it, even the designers.

As I recall, Ed Greenwood had a big part of the initial design of Asmodeus. Then more recently in the Elminster in Hell book, a supercharged spell with the component of a divine curse (Halaster's Shar-given madness) and a huge pile of Mystra's power infused into it (and she is a goddess of magic who is an overdeity in Realmspace when given access to all the essence she has in Azuth and her Chosen) was used on him. And all it did was daze him for a few seconds (enough time to sneak off with Elminster - once back in Realmspace, Asmodeus would probably have to confront Ao in order to give chase).

So... yeah. If one of the best spells a goddess of magic can throw only dazed him for the equivalent of maybe a combat round, Asmodeus has some serious power backing him.

[TroubleBrewing]

Plus, being the lord of lies and hatred, if he was statted out, somebody would find a way to kill him, and THEN what happens? The forces of good beat the devils, and BOOM. End of all creation. The devils are the only thing keeping the demons at bay. The forces of good are waaaaaaaaaay outnumbered by the forces of the demons. You can thank the devil lords (namely Bel) for keeping your mortal skins from being ripped from your bones by demon legions on an hourly basis.

[Moglorosh]

...and it's a great way to stay in shape.

[Shademan]

...and it's a great way to stay in shape.

I have to know...were you just referencing hermes from master of olympus?

[Ravens_cry]

I don't like the idea of gods having statistics. Things worshipped as gods, sure, and they may even gain some measure of power from it, but things that are actual factual gods? Not so much.

[Togo]

It's great for getting tables at restaurants.

[Psyren]

Considering that the first thing Asmodeus did upon finally achieving divinity was end the Blood War... I can understand why it's desirable.

[Urpriest]

Ok, to actually answer the OP:

Deities and Demigods has rules for what you get by being a deity. It's generally pretty sweet. I believe it's in the SRD as well.

[Psyren]

(Sub-question: Is Asmodeus or Tiamat stronger? She lives in his realm, but she is a god and he a Devil (the devil in fact)).

By "is" do you mean present-day, aka 4e? They're about equal now I think.

If you meant back in 3.5, Tiamat was stronger (which is why her children weren't tormented in Hell like other creatures were.)

[PairO'Dice Lost]

If you meant back in 3.5, Tiamat was stronger (which is why her children weren't tormented in Hell like other creatures were.)

Stronger than Asmodeus's aspect, given the official stats, perhaps. I've made my position on this known every time this sort of debate comes up: The official stats for gods/demon princes/etc. are woefully weak, they break suspension of disbelief when the beings in question survive for aeons against all challengers only to be killed by the first random nonepic PCs to come along, and WotC devs couldn't optimize their way out of a wet paper bag with a GPS and a map.

If you look at the official numbers, yes, Tiamat could beat up a Lord of the Nine's aspect any day. If you look at it logically, Asmodeus has held off celestial and mortal incursions for a really long time when even some gods want to kill him (not saying he's the invulnerable Manipulative Bastard of fan fame, just that he's logically got to be pretty damn powerful to keep his position for so long), so there's no reason Tiamat would stand a chance. Anyone wanting to use either of them in a game should make up their own stats.

[Urpriest]

@ Pair'O'Dice: why doesn't the same argument apply to the Mother of all Evil Dragons though? She also occupied quite a contentious position.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

@ Pair'O'Dice: why doesn't the same argument apply to the Mother of all Evil Dragons though? She also occupied quite a contentious position.

It does, just to a lesser degree.

1) Bahamut, Bahamut's followers, good dragons of all sorts, etc. want to see Tiamat dead. Every demon, every celestial, many devils, and others want to see Asmodeus dead. Granted, most of the time the celestials won't attack him because of the Pact Primeval and because they like the Blood War tying up the lower planes, but let's face it--Tiamat doesn't really have much to do with Prime dragons (yes, she's their progenitor and goddess, but she doesn't often make an appearance) whereas there's constant squabbling, Blood War skirmishes, etc. in the Hells that would put its ruler in more danger than a goddess occupying a small section of one layer, averaged over the timespan from creation to now.

2) Gods get lots of abilities that just kill mortals, dominate mortals, etc. with no chance to avoid them, they can see the future perfectly weeks in advance, and have tons of other nifty abilities. The fact that Asmodeus can outplan deities, has not been killed by one of them with the "kill any mortal, anywhere, with a thought, with no save" SDA, and so forth without himself being a god points to a lot more personal power than Tiamat has; she's only a lesser deity, and there are several greater deities with the Life and Death SDA.

3) On a purely thematic note, when your party of good adventurers decides to go after a big bad, which do they go after first? One of Asmodeus, Demogorgon, Orcus, etc. or one of Tiamat, Nerull, Erythnul, etc.? Big A's getting a lot more death threats than Tiamat, methinks.

Neither of them should likely be within the reach of PCs of even low-epic level to kill, but most of the Demon Princes and Lords of the Nine are on a different tier of power than Tiamat.

[Coidzor]

@ Pair'O'Dice: why doesn't the same argument apply to the Mother of all Evil Dragons though? She also occupied quite a contentious position.

People want to be the Mother of all Evil Dragons? I thought her main enemies were Bahamut's ilk and her renegade devotees.

[Soren Hero]

I also feel that the stating of the Lords of the Nine and the Demon Lords was very weak in the official WOTC books, including the Fiendish Codexes and the BOVD. However, I was forwarded a link to the Dicefreaks "Gates of Hell" and their interpretation of Asmodeus is a deity with Divine Rank 18..which by SRD standards is an overdeity...he can even bestow divine rank on his subordinates (if i remember it correctly)...for all those who haven't checked it out, http://dicefreaks.superforums.org/vi...c.php?f=11&t=8

/two cp

[hamishspence]

It's the "Cosmic Rank 21" that makes his avatar an overdeity- and is only valid when his avatar is in Baator.

Out of Baator, his avatar is Divine Rank 18- not Overdeity-level, but Greater Deity level.

The avatar is statted- but Asmodeus's true form is not.

[faceroll]

The official stats for gods/demon princes/etc. are woefully weak, they break suspension of disbelief when the beings in question survive for aeons against all challengers only to be killed by the first random nonepic PCs to come along.

Not exactly random PCs, but highly optimized PCs with complete knowledge of their enemies' powers.

[Runestar]

Some demon princes/devil lords are notably more powerful than the gods themselves.

Demogorgon has killed quite a few gods on his realm before. Think one was from "accidentally" crushing them when he reformed his realm.

Ma Yuan has also killed quite a few deities in his heyday.

What I do find funny is that in Elder evils, Zargon was mentioned as being a challenge to Asmodeus, yet he is just a mere cr16...

Albeit a fairly tough cr16...

[Half-Orc Rage]

Well, Gods are most powerful on their own plane. If Asmodeus went to Asgard or Mount Olympus, I'm sure he wouldn't have fun.

[ffone]

Stronger than Asmodeus's aspect, given the official stats, perhaps. I've made my position on this known every time this sort of debate comes up: The official stats for gods/demon princes/etc. are woefully weak, they break suspension of disbelief when the beings in question survive for aeons against all challengers only to be killed by the first random nonepic PCs to come along, and WotC devs couldn't optimize their way out of a wet paper bag with a GPS and a map.
.

This is projection. The source/setting material is not supposed to be optimized. Optimization is not the same as realism. And the settings don't actually have "PCs" (chars with 3x NPC WBL who are immune to Diplomacy) anyway.

(Although for the sake of argument I can readily assume you and must of GiTP are better optimizers than the manual authors, even if they were trying.)

[onthetown]

Speaking purely fluff-wise, it has a lot more grandeur than just being a really strong or immortal hero, villain, etc. "Sure, you defeated that guy and have parades in your honor and a mandatory holiday, but I'm more closely associated with the type of people who are reputed to have created you and your parades with nothing but a dim flicker of a thought in the back of their omniscient minds."

[Tvtyrant]

Hmmm, well that gives me a lot of interesting answers. I'm not sure I actually like how they do the gods/ultrapowerful immortals thing, but whatever.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Not exactly random PCs, but highly optimized PCs with complete knowledge of their enemies' powers.

Still. Based on the 3e XP guidelines, a character can go from a 1st-level apprentice wizard to a 20th-level physics-breaking reality-rewriting monstrosity in about 2.5 months or so on the short end. Let's give said adventuring wizard some down time and give him 2 years to go from 1st to 20th. Let's also assume, for simplicity, that 1/9 of all such wizards will be CG. Let's assume that 0.01% of those CG wizards decide to take on Asmodeus when they hit 20th level, with a party of equal-level peers.

Now let's assume that wizards and other spellcasters have been doing this since...oh, the creation of the multiverse, give or take a millennium or two. That's, let's see, carry the 7...approximately "arbitrarily many" spellcasters on the low end, if not aleph-null. Don't you think that if it were at all possible for a party of 20th level characters to defeat him, or even 21st or 25th or something like that, it would have been done already? Heck, you're the one who specified optimized, so we can assume that at least one party was a wizard/wizard/cleric/cleric party spamming gate for solars, so the Big A can probably take on several dozen 20th-level full casters at once.

See what I mean?

This is projection. The source/setting material is not supposed to be optimized. Optimization is not the same as realism. And the settings don't actually have "PCs" (chars with 3x NPC WBL who are immune to Diplomacy) anyway.

(Although for the sake of argument I can readily assume you and must of GiTP are better optimizers than the manual authors, even if they were trying.)

It's not a matter of optimization, necessarily; I'm just poking fun at the devs because...well, whenever they try to write anything meant for level 12 or so and up, they fail miserably.

The meaning of the PCs reference is exactly as you said it--PCs are just people with extra wealth and diplomacy immunity. The idea that something like that will make a difference when fighting some of the most powerful beings in the multiverse is laughable, yet quite often people talk about their campaigns ending with a big battle against Orcus or Vecna, or talk about practical-op characters beating up gods, and so forth.

If you don't feel WotC should take optimization into account, let's reduce this to a matter of probability. Put every single ability, feat, spell, etc. in D&D in one big table, and randomly create every single legal character possible from permutations of those statistics. Remove Pun-Pun and similarly omnipotent builds, as (A) PCs wouldn't get to play those and (B) if they existed they would be overdeities already. Now chuck every single one of those possible builds at your Big Bad of choice, as there's been an effectively infinite period of time for those possible characters to go up against said Big Bad. The fact that the Big Bad still exists means either (A) they've held out successfully against all those characters, or (B) they are one of those characters who succeeded.

Again, note that I'm not talking about just Asmodeus and Tiamat here. The published stats of every god and unique Power should really be redone to fit more with an internally-consistent power level. There are currently precisely three SDAs keeping the gods from being pushovers to moderately-optimized parties (and I'm not talking CharOp wonders, I'm talking any characters that can get to 20th level while defeating things like intelligently-played dragons and solars and such) and nothing similar for the aspects. Restat them to CR 40 or more, give them more flavorful and more effective stats than X 20/Y 20/Z 10 or the like, and you'll have something more fitting for such creatures.

[Amiel]

Hilariously and ironically, per the rules as written, nothing short of another deity will be able to wound, like alone destroy, another deity. Not even Pun-Pun is capable of harming a deity if said god disallows this course of action.

The particulars of deific might ensure their hegemony to the detriment of any challenger and challenge.

A deity's powerful salient abilities are designated as Ex, and thus function perfectly well irrespective of the presence of an antimagic field, and are never subject to spell resistance. In fact, the deity could just alter reality to induce an antimagic field of variable radius and divine blast the opponent to a fine powder. Or it could lay a Hand of Death upon the victim and snuff out its life.

[Tvtyrant]

Except that several of them have been knocked off by mortals. Including Tenebrous.