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I have always been fascinated by the idea of being able to fight a god. I imagined we'd see rules and information regarding the fighting of gods in the Manual of the Planes. But it seems Christmas has come early...
The first Draconomicon, released the other day, includes stats for Tiamat, the goddess whom at the sundering of Io split off and became the antithesis for Bahamut and the patron deity of chromatic dragons (zing). Not an aspect, mind you, the god, pure and simple. The stat block is enourmous, and has almost an entire column dedicated to it (the opposite column to her 5 heads; she has such a cool way of fighting). It only took a few moments to notice the two little columns added in.
The first describes the deity's special rules. There's a few nifty things like not being able to be attacked by anyone not in the epic tier, being able to do a savings throw against any effect immediately, and then the bit about "Discorporation". Discorporation is an ability that gods have (represented in their stat block) that allow them to, when bloodied, essentially retreat from the fight immediately and go into a sort of spiritual rehab on the Astral Plan, no longer able to take physical form for anywhere between a few weeks to a year, essentially making them immortal. Unless (!!) you meet specific set of requirements...
This leads to the second column, called "Destroying Tiamat". It contains 3 hooks for quests that once completed, allow you to truely destroy her. Put together, they're simply some of the most epic, badass quest hooks I've seen for epic-level play in a long time, including a plot to use a treasure recovered from a githyanki shipwreck on the astral sea to draw her into a domain of bahamut, killing her consorts and fashoning their bones into weapons, etc...
Now, the tricky thing is that the language is vague, and sometimes infers that if these conditions are met, she is (instead of discorporated) killed when reaching bloodied value. I think what the designers meant to do was to infer that this ability is disabled, and that you still have to bring her the rest of the way to 0 hp, instead of only halfway to 800-something. If anyone can shed light on this, let me know.
Anyhow, I thought someone else might have an opinion on this, and want to discuss. I am merely super-excited. It think it's epic, awesome, and totally friggin' cool, and wish I'd thought of it first.
I think what the designers meant to do was to infer that this ability is disabled, and that you still have to bring her the rest of the way to 0 hp, instead of only halfway to 800-something.
That is what we meant. I'm glad you like Tiamat and the quests, and I hope you look forward to the other deities that are on their way!
__________________ Logan Bonner
Designer, Dungeons & Dragons
Wizards of the Coast
Wow, that sounds amazing. I really like that deicide involves epic quests in addition to the ginormous slugfest that one would hope for.
Man, I haven't killed a god since 1st edition. This is a part of the game that we seriously needed to return to. 3rd edition Deities and Demigods was a mess of useless and gigantic statblocks, but I can see a 4th edition Deities & Demigods reading like a menu of epic murder.
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So, when do you think will the CharOp board find a way to either 1 hit kill Tiamat or solo Tiamat?
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
Shem, how would you prefer the game handle deicide? If we are starting with the assumption that some GMs want to run a game where the PCs have a chance to kill a god, how do you think it should go?
__________________ Ryan "RangerWickett" Nock
Author of the War of the Burning Sky serialized novel, free at EN World. Part Two, The Irons Have Tolled, now available.
Shem, how would you prefer the game handle deicide? If we are starting with the assumption that some GMs want to run a game where the PCs have a chance to kill a god, how do you think it should go?
Without resorting to treating them like end-level boss monsters at the end of a planar dungeon. And if they really truly want a PCs vs Deity roll for initiative style fight, make the stats to fit their needs, because at that end of things, the numerical stats tend to be an absolutely ludicrous block of numbers that you might as well make them up arbitrarily for your game.
Full blown deity stats are a waste of page space IMO (and I really do adore Erik Mona's comments on deity stat blocks after he had to write a ton of them for 3.x FR's Faiths&Pantheons) because they set as standard the idea of using such beings as even bigger monsters, rather than as anything more fantastic and removed from the mundane world of human vs orc, etc.
Avatars can have their uses certainly, but for actual conflict with a god, you can avoid the grossly mundane standup fight with the always fun use of artifacts and such Macguffins, playing the tricky game of planar politics and pitting gods against one another, or dragging planar lords like archfiends into the mix if you really want to get your hands dirty.
I've had deicide in my games before, but never once has a PC rolled to hit Thor with a +35 axe of overkill or anything similar. It's just not a playstyle I care for, and certainly one that makes me sigh to see implicitly promoted in 4e. As much grief as I've been prone to give WotC, I'd like to see them make a damn good planar book because it promotes the sub-genre of gaming that's my personal favorite. But if they're giving deity stats for PCs to fight, that's a step towards a vision of planar beings that's just about anathema to my own.
More coherent and possibly less unintentionally offense comments on this later tonight. At work, typing in between things as I can.
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
But that is simply one play-style for one style of campaign, what if a person wants a campaign where the gods aren't so high and mighty and away from the world.
Hell, I have run both types of campaigns in a essentially Planescape world. One where the gods are distant and essentially unkillable (besides other gods obviously). In another while the gods are certainly powerful you see in the newspaper the next morning that one was stabbed to death while engaging in a chess match with some crazy, ass devil for instance.
It is easier to take away something like full-blown God stats then it is too create it. So if I have a campaign where the Gods don't die I don't need the stats, if it is a campaign where they do I need the stats.
I remember my god hunting days of glory in 1E. Took Odin out without much effort. Just kept teleporting him to places I didn't know until the roll came up that he wound up underground and auto-killed. Then went and dug up his spear and shield. Ahhh, the good old days.
The talk of how things seem to work reminds me a bit of the D&D cartoon, specifically where they decide to go on the offensive against the "bad guy", even making a deal with Tiamat.
That is what it sounds like. You have the epic portion of the campaign where the god has taken notice of the adventurers and is basically using their divine influence to try to stop the party ... it eventually reaches the point where the party takes on the quest to basically force the god to fight them on their terms. There may be a way to stop the god without directly confronting it ... but the god can show up and try to stop them from accomplishing the goal ...
While the god stat blocks encourage DMs to use 'em as a big bad end boss ... the attached "quest to be able to kill, and not just bloody and scare off" plot hooks can give the kind of campaign where it's not just a fight to kill the god. A fight may take place to finish the job ... but you have to get it to that point in the first place.
I'd like to address a couple of Shemeska's comments, because they tie into the philosophy we had designing deities for 4E.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shemeska
Without resorting to treating them like end-level boss monsters at the end of a planar dungeon. And if they really truly want a PCs vs Deity roll for initiative style fight, make the stats to fit their needs, because at that end of things, the numerical stats tend to be an absolutely ludicrous block of numbers that you might as well make them up arbitrarily for your game.
Tiamat is set up to be at the absolute upper end of fightable monsters. She's level 35, which should make for an incredibly difficult fight even for 30th-level characters, but she's absolutely meant to be within reach. If a deity is too tough for PCs to take on, sure, there's no point in statting up that deity. But we're talking about Tiamat, who we consider to be defeatable through combat. The numbers aren't arbitrarily large, and we took pains to make sure a fight against her wouldn't be impossible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shemeska
Avatars can have their uses certainly, but for actual conflict with a god, you can avoid the grossly mundane standup fight with the always fun use of artifacts and such Macguffins, playing the tricky game of planar politics and pitting gods against one another, or dragging planar lords like archfiends into the mix if you really want to get your hands dirty.
The discorporation ability of deities, and the sidebar that lists some ways you might be able to actually kill the god, is designed to avoid having a deity battle be a "mundane standup fight." You can't just jump in and kill a deity on a whim: You'll go through entire adventures late in the game just to get the tools you need if you really want to destroy a god, and you'll be carrying those tools to the true culmination of your campaign. Killing a god IS A BIG DEAL and doing so is the defining end point of an entire campaign. We didn't design this to let parties hop from domain to domain, slaughtering deity after deity. That's not the point. The point is making it so the final battle really is the final battle, and feels like a worthy end after years of play and 30 levels of adventure.
__________________ Logan Bonner
Designer, Dungeons & Dragons
Wizards of the Coast
playing the tricky game of planar politics and pitting gods against one another,
No matter how much Planescape tried, D&D is not Vampire. Players generally do not go adventuring & dungeon busting for 25+ levels planning to switch over to Negotiations & Netherlords for the least few levels.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shemeska
or dragging planar lords like archfiends into the mix if you really want to get your hands dirty.
Super NPCs fighting the boss is a no-no. Does not matter is that NPC is named Eliminster, Orcus or DMPC, the players are the ones who need to be the main threat to the BBEG. They may need a plot device +12 to have a chance, but that plot device better damn well better be in the Player's hands. Bonus points if the plat device has multiple parts so everyone has a piece of the action
Man, I haven't killed a god since 1st edition. This is a part of the game that we seriously needed to return to. 3rd edition Deities and Demigods was a mess of useless and gigantic statblocks, but I can see a 4th edition Deities & Demigods reading like a menu of epic murder.
I completely agree! 3E's Deities & Demigods never really inspired me, except to want to drop -- what were they called? salient divine abilities? -- onto my epic-level NPCs; it really didn't make me want to run a campaign that involved a battle against a deity. OTOH, the description by the OP of the 4E god-slaying rules makes me think, "Holy... ____.... When can I start?"
(Okay, that's it, I've decided: Tiamat will be the BBEG in my next campaign, set in Eberron. She'll be an demon Overlord, as per her description in Dragons of Eberron. <-- Great book, btw.)
Ahhh, the good old days.
Why hasn't Amazon delivered my copy yet?!?
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