Killing a God

[Calanon]

When i first started playing 3.5 My DM asked us all what we wanted to do and my friend said "I want to Kill the gods" the DM almost instantaneously said "You can't" Now later on in my life I learn the crushing truth: "You can in fact kill the gods" ...Now I'm confused...

So the question is:
"How do you Kill a god?" Hades from Disneys "Hercules"

and I keep coming back to the same problem "You can't, their immortal" so I stole the response "So make them Mortal" now a deeper and more complex problem comes to me. How would you go about doing that? It doesn't seem possible. It would clearly allow a saving throw, be subject to spell resistance and other factors that would just make the god want to slaughter you... So how could you do it without those things? I came to another Interesting fellow named Kasus, a Netherese Arcanist who created a spell so powerful that it actually killed a God (By accident and with drastic results of course...) So I ask you people of the Playground to help me figure out a way for the up and coming wizard to do the impossible and kill a god.

Use whatever source you have. (Epic Spells, Regular Spells, Swords, Spears, and Toothpicks for all I care)

I just want it to be laid down once and for all. Can you kill a god?
(No Divine Ranks. This is for just a regular NON-DEIFIED Creature)

[Doorhandle]

They mostly maintain immortality though not having R.A.W sanctified stat-blocks. You can't fight what does not have stats.

In Exalted, Killing a god is no harder than killing a decently-good exalted, depending on the god.

In 4th ed, Although you need to go on a plot-specific quest to get the item needed to stop a god from dissipating and disappearing once bloodied, but once you have it, you can truly kill them. Although being epic-level is probably necessary.

As for 3.5 and under, however, I have No Freaking Idea.

[dethkruzer]

There was this 3ed, Deities and demigods, I think it was called, which had stat blocks for a huge pile of gods. And while killing them is theoretically possible, they get their divine rank as a bonus to just about everything, some can kill entire nations with little more than a thought.

So to sum it up: the. gods. ARE. TOUGH. They make the tarrasque lokk like a paralyzed bedbug in comparison.

Now if you actually wanted to kill a god, you would need, at the least: really high levels (40-50 would be a good minimum), a party that know what they are doing(no solo shenanigans), and a well thought out plan. That isn't taking into account that fact that most can alter the very Plane they are on at will, and a most lkely guarded by petitioners and high-level outsiders.

[TroubleBrewing]

All you really need to be on equal footing with the D&D gods is to have a Divine Rank of some kind. I'll defer to other optimizers for a variety of ways to obtain this kind of thing, but rest assured, it's happened.

The gods stat blocks as provided in Deities and Demigods are laughably unoptimized. Killing them would almost be a mercy. Once you obtain that divine rank, it's just a matter of time.

[dethkruzer]

It's true the optimization level is subpar, but they can still be a terrifying force to mess with, especially with stuff like kord or hextor, because they are always treated as having rolled a maximum in all rolls, a full attacks will hurt unless you really pump that AC.

[TroubleBrewing]

It's true the optimization level is subpar, but they can still be a terrifying force to mess with, especially with stuff like kord or hextor, because they are always treated as having rolled a maximum in all rolls, a full attacks will hurt unless you really pump that AC.

If you've got a Divine Rank as well, your rolls are maxed too! AC isn't the best avenue of defense here; have a buttload of HP and a significant miss chance. Or just don't get attacked. Archery, hiding, spellcasting, grappling, etc... All of these things prevent you from getting smacked with some kind of weapon.

[drakir_nosslin]

1: Be a diplomancer
2: Convince all the worshippers of god 1 to worship god 2 (or you, for the lulz)
3: Watch god 1 fade away from the lack of worship
4: ??
5: Profit!

EDIT: A wizard 20 could probably kill most of the gods in the Deities and Demigods book one at a time, a wizard with epic spellcasting could definitely do it.

[jindra34]

1: Be a diplomancer
2: Convince all the worshippers of god 1 to worship god 2 (or you, for the lulz)
3: Watch god 1 fade away from the lack of worship
4: ??
5: Profit!

At best that would make the god simply a mortal, at worst it would only make them lose 1-2 Divine Ranks. Both cases also are likely to have the god gunning for you before you strip them of all worshippers.

EDIT: A wizard 20 could probably kill most of the gods in the Deities and Demigods book one at a time, a wizard with epic spellcasting could definitely do it.

Not likely because at relatively low Rank they gain the ability to take 10 on everything all the time which with their godly saves renders them immune to silver bullet class spells. And then there are those who have a high enough rank to just auto-save against all spells. And an Epic Spell would most definitely be using chain-gating and thus likely work a grand once.

[Emmerask]

There was this 3ed, Deities and demigods, I think it was called, which had stat blocks for a huge pile of gods. And while killing them is theoretically possible, they get their divine rank as a bonus to just about everything, some can kill entire nations with little more than a thought.

But wasn´t the stat block just for the deities avatars?

Which then would mean the deities are still unstated, only the "meatbag" they use to interact with mortals to not blow their brains out at first sight has stats and can be destroyed...

[ranagrande]

I'd go with a variant of what drakir_nosslin suggested:

1. Be a diplomancer.
2. Convince the god to worship you.

[Fouredged Sword]

Wasn't the wish and the word a pair of builds designed to kill all the gods at level 20?

Something about juggling alignments and high CL blashemy autokills to slay anything with HD<100 or so.

[Adamaro]

Gods in 3.5 can see the future, days even weeks into the future. So they know what you will intend to do. Its no-win situation.

[Lhurgyof]

Dust of sneezing and choking, anyone?

[Sgt. Cookie]

Here are some instructions given to me. (On a different forum, about a different game, modified to DnD) Perhaps they may be of use to you.

How to kill damn near anything:
Step 1: Stab it.
Step 2: Stab it again.
Step 3: Repeat steps 1 and 2 until dead.
Step 4: Loot everything of value.

[Orran]

Gods in 3.5 can see the future, days even weeks into the future. So they know what you will intend to do. Its no-win situation.

Yeah, when people talk about killing gods this is the bit they neglect to mention. Right when they start their plan, 10 weeks before they've even gathered all the plans and materials, curbstomp. Most abilities in the deities and demigods book can be blocked by deities with a higher divine rank, but good luck becoming one or getting one on your side.

Interestingly, about the wish and the word, the wish as I recall was just a 20th level wizard (may have had prestige classes, not really relevant though.) Who used the wish spell to wish for items of wishes, questionable use of the rules aside, that's pretty cheap, and also inferior to any deity who has alter reality. The word was a build using bloodlines to pump the CL of 'Holy Word' type spells and autokill anything with hitdice, more imaginative and more deadly, but still not really the kind of thing to take down a deity.

[tyckspoon]

Mechanically? Searing Spell Orbs of Fire; deities are not naturally fire immune, and the benefits of divine rank don't include an unhittably high AC (they get Divine Rank + Cha mod as touch-relevant bonuses. True Strike and go, or Limited Wish for an auto-hit if you really have to.) A Mailman build can do it pretty easy; it's just a matter of target selection. Pick on a lesser god with weak Salient ability selections and blow him up. If the metaphysics of the setting let you steal divinity by slaying a god, you are now divine yourself and in a much better position to attempt more powerful targets.

More powerful gods.. require a lot more planning. But your DR 1-5 gods of, say, personal combat or home/harvest/other non-fighting things? They're not that much worse to deal with than any other Epic enemy or even the nastier and better-designed high-CR non-Epic fights.

[Anderlith]

Be a Wizard & a Cleric of 20 Also half a dozen PrC's lure them to Sigil where they are weaker. Also you can become your own god, all you need are believers, so start evangelizing!(It wouldn't be a half bad PrC)

[drakir_nosslin]

Yeah, when people talk about killing gods this is the bit they neglect to mention. Right when they start their plan, 10 weeks before they've even gathered all the plans and materials, curbstomp. Most abilities in the deities and demigods book can be blocked by deities with a higher divine rank, but good luck becoming one or getting one on your side.

Nope.

Portfolio Sense
Demigods have a limited ability to sense events involving their portfolios. They automatically sense any event that involves one thousand or more people. The ability is limited to the present. Lesser deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios and affects five hundred or more people. Intermediate deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios, regardless of the number of people involved. In addition, their senses extend one week into the past for every divine rank they have. Greater deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios, regardless of the number of people involved. In addition, their senses extend one week into the past and one week into the future for every divine rank they have. When a deity senses an event, it merely knows that the event is occurring and where it is. The deity receives no sensory information about the event. Once a deity notices an event, it can use its remote sensing power to perceive the event.

That's all I could find in the SRD about gods seeing into the future. I might have missed something though.
However, if this is it, then you can feel pretty safe when going up against Intermediate Deities, just make sure that you decide very suddenly and very randomly that god x needs to die. That gives it precisely 1 round of warning.

[Emmerask]

If they could not, then most a lot of the divination school magic would be pointless ^^

[LibraryOgre]

1: Be a diplomancer
2: Convince all the worshippers of god 1 to worship god 2 (or you, for the lulz)
3: Watch god 1 fade away from the lack of worship
4: ??
5: Profit!

EDIT: A wizard 20 could probably kill most of the gods in the Deities and Demigods book one at a time, a wizard with epic spellcasting could definitely do it.

A couple problems with that.

A) No one worshiping them doesn't make them dead... just not a god.

B) Depending on the God, getting everyone is going to be a rough job. Sure, you may severely reduce them on a single Prime world... but then there's all the OTHER Prime worlds that the God may be worshiped on. And his vast number of petitioners in his own domain. Want to wipe out Torm (LG Faerunian deity of Duty)? Relatively easy... his followers are primarily on one world, plus a few rocks out in Wildspace. Want to wipe out Tyr (LG deity of law)? Well, sure, you may kill everyone on Faerun, but the Norse pantheon, from which he comes, is worshiped on many Prime worlds... and picking a fight with him is probably going to pick a fight with a number of other deities that he's involved in pantheons with (including the aforementioned Torm and their friend Ilmater). And that doesn't count the places where he's known by another name, but is still the same deity.

[drakir_nosslin]

If they could not, then most a lot of the divination school magic would be pointless ^^

I didn't say that the rules should make sense, I said that gods are relatively easy to kill in D&D 3.5.

EDIT:

A couple problems with that.

A) No one worshiping them doesn't make them dead... just not a god.

B) *snip*

A) After which a wizard 20 shouldn't have too much trouble against many of them (not all, but many, they are terribly unoptimized)

B) I agree, the diplomancer thing might not work on all gods, but it will probably work on quite a few. Also, a diplomancer shouldn't have too much trouble convincing a standard god not to kill him/her, so there might not be *that* much backup after all.

[Jeraa]

But wasn´t the stat block just for the deities avatars?

Which then would mean the deities are still unstated, only the "meatbag" they use to interact with mortals to not blow their brains out at first sight has stats and can be destroyed...

Unfortunately no. Those were supposed to be the gods themselves. (There was even a divine power that gave them avatars, and avatars usually don't have avatars as well, leaning to more evidence that those were supposed to be the real gods.)

Not likely because at relatively low Rank they gain the ability to take 10 on everything all the time which with their godly saves renders them immune to silver bullet class spells. And then there are those who have a high enough rank to just auto-save against all spells. And an Epic Spell would most definitely be using chain-gating and thus likely work a grand once.

Gods don't auto-succeed on anything. They still have to roll the dice. They just ignore the number and add +20 to their modifiers. Gods can still fail. But while they don't auto-succeed (unless the die come up a 20 as usual), they can't auto-fail on a natural 1 with attack rolls and saves.

Always Maximize Roll
Greater deities (rank 16-20) automatically get the best result possible on any check, saving throw, attack roll, or damage roll. Calculate success, failure, or other effects accordingly. When a greater deity makes a check, attack, or save assume a 20 was rolled and calculate success or failure from there. A d20 should still be rolled and used to check for a threat of a critical hit. This quality means that greater deities never need the Maximize Spell feat, because their spells have maximum effect already.

[GungHo]

I came to another Interesting fellow named Kasus, a Netherese Arcanist who created a spell so powerful that it actually killed a God (By accident and with drastic results of course...)

Ok, so feel like a dork for pointing this out... Karsus didn't kill Mystryl. Mystryl killed herself to stop Karus' Avatar, because the method of his apotheosis would have destroyed all magic.

Gods have died in FR, but it''s generally "god-on-god crime". I can only think of a couple of instances where a mortal did it. There was Cyric killing Bhaal (he had the avatar of Mask in a sword, though) during the Time of Troubles, when the gods were made mortal. And there was Halisstra beheading Qiule Velorn when Eilistraee put her avatar in Qiule with a special sword (made by Elistraee) that could kill gods. Seveltarm was also killed by the same sword, but I want to say that happened in the Abyss itself.

But wasn´t the stat block just for the deities avatars?

Which then would mean the deities are still unstated, only the "meatbag" they use to interact with mortals to not blow their brains out at first sight has stats and can be destroyed...

Yeah, it was just for their avatar, if encountered on the Material Plane. The closest they ever got to giving you a character in D&D that was capable of actually killing a god outright was in the Immortals' box set.

There were some "relative" power levels provided in the Forgotten Realms Faith & Avatar's book, I believe, which outlayed what powers different levels of gods had (from demi all the way to greater)... but none of them really said anything about "if you're level 20 and have 10 levels of Epic you're in the god-killing club"

[drakir_nosslin]

Yeah, it was just for their avatar, if encountered on the Material Plane. The closest they ever got to giving you a character in D&D that was capable of actually killing a god outright was in the Immortals' box set.

Uh, do you mind sourcing that, because I'm sitting here with Deities & Demigods right now and I can't find where it says the stats are for avatars.

[Jeraa]

Uh, do you mind sourcing that, because I'm sitting here with Deities & Demigods right now and I can't find where it says the stats are for avatars.

Thats because it isn't there. Those are the gods. All the abilities say "the deity", not "the avatar", as well as there being an ability to give the god an avatar, point to those being the actual gods. Faiths and Pantheons for Forgotten Realms works the same. Those are the gods, not their avatars.

(The stats for the gods being as weak as they are is what make many people say that the avatars are stated, not the gods. The books disagree though.)

[Bladesinger]

Uh, do you mind sourcing that, because I'm sitting here with Deities & Demigods right now and I can't find where it says the stats are for avatars.

Yeah. I was under the impression that there were stats for the deities and then for their avatars, as well. For example, there are stats for Bahamut, and then for Bahamut's avatar.

Avatar of Bahamut: As Bahamut, except divine rank 5.

It then goes on to give stats for the avatar that differ from the actual God's stats. Most, if not all, of the gods described in the book have this entry.

[GungHo]

Thats because it isn't there. Those are the gods. All the abilities say "the deity", not "the avatar", as well as there being an ability to give the god an avatar, point to those being the actual gods. Faiths and Pantheons for Forgotten Realms works the same. Those are the gods, not their avatars.

(The stats for the gods being as weak as they are is what make many people say that the avatars are stated, not the gods. The books disagree though.)

I'm wondering if I was thinking of 2E? I could have sworn I've read that somewhere (and, no, I don't go onto WotC's forums, so it's not from there). I'm not disputing that I may be wrong, but I don't think I'm that befuddled.

[LibraryOgre]

A) After which a wizard 20 shouldn't have too much trouble against many of them (not all, but many, they are terribly unoptimized)

Xykon said it best. "You know what power is? Power. Just power."

At a certain point, it doesn't matter how much you're optimized, when you're swinging 30 levels of cleric and a number of feat slots that say "as the DM determines"

[gkathellar]

Xykon said it best. "You know what power is? Power. Just power."

At a certain point, it doesn't matter how much you're optimized, when you're swinging 30 levels of cleric and a number of feat slots that say "as the DM determines"

The problem here is that optimization isn't just about acquiring a wide variety of stupid tricks — it's about acquiring power. And a lot of gods, by virtue of their lack of optimization, don't have nearly as much power to swing around as you're implying.

I just want it to be laid down once and for all. Can you kill a god?

Take their spellbook.

[Jeraa]

I just want it to be laid down once and for all. Can you kill a god? (No Divine Ranks. This is for just a regular NON-DEIFIED Creature)

So just to reiterate. Yes, you can kill a god. No, divine ranks are not required to do so. (Though divine ranks are required to keep some of them dead, as some gods have Rejuvenation. )And non-gods must be careful, as some gods can kill any mortal they desire because of Life and Death.