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Do the people over in that forum not know what they want Shemeska?
I'm sure they know what they want, but if you missed my meaning above, what I meant was that I wouldn't exactly call the WotC forums a representative sample of D&D players, even of those players online.
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
Soundly derided!? Perhaps by a vocal minority brought up on the back of 2nd Edition's lily-livered tomfoolery.
As I recall from every thread prior to this one, 3e Deities and Demigods was soundly panned. I think it was up on the last poll as one of the worst/most useless books for 3e. And I also recall some rather amusing, if unflattering comments by at least one of the authors of subsequent books that used its rules on gods, and the precident for deity statblocks rather than more useful, detailed fluff (I want to say it was Mona talking about deity statblocks in 3e's Faiths and Pantheons).
Now I know that fully statted out deities are your thing. You're even crazier about them than I am about all things planar and fiendish, but I think you might be projecting your favored stance onto more people than might be warrented, given past discussions over the years on the topic.
Compare the generally posted opinion on 3e D&DG versus the 2e FR deity books. The former provides all the crunch you could want, and exceedingly slender flavor text. The latter provide avatar stats, tons of in-game history, details on their dogma, clergy, holidays, symbols, etc. The former was poorly received, and that reputation hasn't gotten much better. The latter is typically held up as the gold standard for sourcebooks on D&D deities.
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
I can only base this on what I have observed, but in the time I've been reading D&D forums (since 2002 or so), this is the first thread I've seen where the net sentiment on god-stats was positive.
While there certainly were some people who spoke out in favor of Deities and Demigods, the overall sentiment on it, in multiple threads of a span of years, seemed to be pretty constantly negative. Whether this reflects an attitude shift in the overall population, I don't know. But it's definitely a shift in the attitude around her.
Also, I'm not convinced it has anything to do with the mechanical implementation thereof. I don't recall many people deriding Deities & Demigods for being clunky or complicated, but for being a bad concept.
Well I think you had two crowds involved debating 3E Deities. The 1st Edition crowd and the 2nd Edition crowd. Obviously those brought up on the latter were only interested in continuing the whole Avatar business perpetrated during 2nd Edition. Naturally the 2nd Edition crowd was fresher and bigger.
But now with the advent of 4th Edition we have those raised on 3rd Edition too, another Edition where deities were statted, badly statted yes, but statted nonetheless.
So now you have the majority not necessarily in favor of stats for gods but certainly not openly against the idea - as the 2nd Edition crowd certainly were.
I'm sure they know what they want, but if you missed my meaning above, what I meant was that I wouldn't exactly call the WotC forums a representative sample of D&D players, even of those players online.
Even though its by far the largest community online...and the official community...in your opinion they don't represent a good proportion of D&D players.
I base that on its reputation and the exodus of many people over the past year for a variety of reasons (who may or may not have been replaced with new folks, but site traffic from what I've been told would suggest otherwise).
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
But now with the advent of 4th Edition we have those raised on 3rd Edition too, another Edition where deities were statted, badly statted yes, but statted nonetheless.
So now you have the majority not necessarily in favor of stats for gods but certainly not openly against the idea - as the 2nd Edition crowd certainly were.
I think you're assuming a bit much in your approach's favor about those of us raised on 3rd edition. I was raised on 3e, and I greatly favor the 2e approach.
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
But the fault wasn't that the book featured God stats - it was the way the God stats were featured...don't confuse the two.
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And I also recall some rather amusing, if unflattering comments by at least one of the authors of subsequent books that used its rules on gods, and the precident for deity statblocks rather than more useful, detailed fluff (I want to say it was Mona talking about deity statblocks in 3e's Faiths and Pantheons).
I remember that.
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Now I know that fully statted out deities are your thing. You're even crazier about them than I am about all things planar and fiendish, but I think you might be projecting your favored stance onto more people than might be warrented, given past discussions over the years on the topic.
I don't think so. What we have is you projecting your stance by saying that Deity Stats are a bad thing - then using 3E D&Dg (a terrible book) as an example.
When the reality is, people have moved on...to 4th Edition (which is what this thread is about) which does feature God Stats very successfully. So successfully in fact that, as Mouseferatu pointed out, there were a large amount of people disappointed that he didn't include the full Bane stats in his Insider article.
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Compare the generally posted opinion on 3e D&DG versus the 2e FR deity books. The former provides all the crunch you could want, and exceedingly slender flavor text. The latter provide avatar stats, tons of in-game history, details on their dogma, clergy, holidays, symbols, etc. The former was poorly received, and that reputation hasn't gotten much better. The latter is typically held up as the gold standard for sourcebooks on D&D deities.
Absolutely. 3E D&Dg = bad book (on gods or religions). 2E Faiths & Avatars = good book (on religions).
4E to date has god stats in the Monster Manual (Orcus), Open Grave (Kyuss, Vecna), Manual of the Planes (Baphomet, Dispater, Graz'zt), Draconomicon (Tiamat), D&D Insider (Maglubiyet via the Bane Article) as well as the thus far detailed Primordials (of whom I'm not sure if they have Cults/Followers). All of these have been very well received by the community at large.
The gods have been statted since 1st Ed. I still have my original Deities & demigods, complete with Cthulhu gods, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, etc. When were gods NOT statted in D&D?
__________________ Being a DM does not require that you check your brain at the door. Much to the chagrin of munchkins & powergamers.
The gods have been statted since 1st Ed. I still have my original Deities & demigods, complete with Cthulhu gods, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, etc. When were gods NOT statted in D&D?
2e generally treated deities as beyond the relevancy of stats, and provided stats only for their avatars (hence Krust's bit about 'lilly-livered 2e'). Planescape used this approach during the latter half of the edition, but it was there and used heavily, well prior to that point.
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
I have a slightly different take: when a 4e Demigod ascends, per the PHB he becomes a very minor deity, so the corrupted Primordials and weaker deities such as Vecna, an ascended mortal, are levels 31-40, and proper deities (Erathis etc) and Primordials are levels 41+.
In effect you're inventing two new 10-level tiers, maybe three if you remember the old Lesser / Intermediate / Greater god rankings. WotC's marketing department should have an evilgasm over that.
I have a slightly different take: when a 4e Demigod ascends, per the PHB he becomes a very minor deity, so the corrupted Primordials and weaker deities such as Vecna, an ascended mortal, are levels 31-40, and proper deities (Erathis etc) and Primordials are levels 41+.
I don't think ascended deities are necessarily weaker, as all power is relative.
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In effect you're inventing two new 10-level tiers, maybe three if you remember the old Lesser / Intermediate / Greater god rankings. WotC's marketing department should have an evilgasm over that.
Remember that NPC deities are adjusted as follows:
Solo = Standard -9
Elite = Standard -4
Standard = Standard (obviously)
Minion = Standard +8
Therefore if we take Orcus as an example:
Solo Level 33 opponent
equivalent to:
Elite Level 38 opponent
Standard Level 42 opponent (meaning Orcus is the equivalent of a Lesser God)
Minion Level 50 opponent
Or how about a Balor as an example:
Elite Level 27 opponent
equivalent to:
Solo Level 22
Standard Level 31 (meaning a Balor is a relatively low-level Quasi-deity)
Minion Level 39
I have tiers going up to Level 80, but I don't believe I would be able to create enough monsters for six new tiers to make those tiers worthwhile. But I think I have enough for two new tiers. Naturally this will mean monsters up to 55th or maybe one or two levels higher being detailed.
I've liked the up until now statted gods and epic level threats of 4E. Mostly because 4E is capped at level 30 which means you cannot simply hope to overpower them. They are credible, deific threats to groups of the most accomplished of mortals (a group of level 30 adventurers). Honestly unless you use some broken mechanic from the CharOp boards you don't really have much a chance against any of them, even if you somehow manage to get them alone. And as with all 4E monster stats, the stat block only represents what a deity can do in fair combat. Nothing about what it can do in its own domain or what it can do offscreen.
About 4E ever allowing characters above level 30, god I hope not. Maybe I would like something like a Legendary Power book that allowed you to stay at level 30 and slowly gain additional benefits, like more powers per day or more feats, but allowing characters of levels higher than 30 would break all balance for me.
I can understand that anyone who had seen the D&D book would be appalled by the massive waste of space that 3E god stats was. Tons of unnecessary information that would take a day or two to actually interpret on how it works in combat. And as someone who played planescape during 2E i very much disliked the fact that the average deity could wtfpwn Demogorgon even inside Abysm. Deities certainly were statless in 2E but you could still encounter and interact with them meaningfully. And a couple of mortals did kill deities in 2E lore, always under special circumstances. They did not have stats, sure, but epic level play in 2E was very poorly developed anyway so noone could expect to actually face a deity in that ruleset.
I find that 4E are far closer to the statless deities of 2E than the statblock horrors of 3E. They are easy to interact with, impossible to be killed outside of special circumstances, and a terrifying challenge for the strongest of adventurers in the game.
And as someone who played planescape during 2E i very much disliked the fact that the average deity could wtfpwn Demogorgon even inside Abysm.
They could? The strong implication for the deity versus archfiends scenario was that within their home planes, and especially so their own domains/layers, an archfiend would wtfpwn a deity (but not so outside of having home field advantage). There was a reason that gods generally stayed as far away from the Blood War (and fiendish politics in general) that they could.
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
4E to date has god stats in the Monster Manual (Orcus), Open Grave (Kyuss, Vecna), Manual of the Planes (Baphomet, Dispater, Graz'zt), Draconomicon (Tiamat), D&D Insider (Maglubiyet via the Bane Article) as well as the thus far detailed Primordials (of whom I'm not sure if they have Cults/Followers). All of these have been very well received by the community at large.
Humm? Wait a second. Maybe it's because I'm almost asleep right now, but about half of these aren't actually gods, are they?
Humm? Wait a second. Maybe it's because I'm almost asleep right now, but about half of these aren't actually gods, are they?
Two of them are gods (Vecna and Tiamat) the others are Archukes of Hell, Demon Princes, and an Exarch. Plus Kyuss I have no idea how he classes (beyond icky).
Two of them are gods (Vecna and Tiamat) the others are Archukes of Hell, Demon Princes, and an Exarch. Plus Kyuss I have no idea how he classes (beyond icky).
Ah, okay, so I wasn't totally wrong. I think 'Maglubiyet' is also a racial god of ... bugbears, or something...
In 3E Vecna was the only core god that didn't exist in my campaign setting. Vecna was a mortal, right? How does ascending to godhood work, anyway? If I remember the backstory from MotP correctly, technically, the Raven Queen is an example for this, too.
Bahamut and Tiamat, well, to me they've always been just big dragons, not gods. I guess, that's where I deviated from the core assumptions. I mean, how does borrowing the name of a Babylonian deity turn a critter into a god?
Similarly, I'm bothered about using the term 'demigod' for the epic destiny in 4E. How can someone become a demigod? I mean, you can't become a half-elf, either. You have to be born as one!
What are the qualities that define a god? Is being able to grant spells to followers important? In the Darksun setting the sorcerer kings were able to do this. In Ravenloft the Lords of a Realm were all-powerful within their realm (similar to Demon Princes and Archdukes of Hell). Does that make them gods? I don't think so. Is it simply the fact that they are worshipped by followers (or cultists)? That would make it quite easy to qualify as a god.
Let's look at some other systems:
- In Earthdawn there are no gods. There are passions, but they aren't worshipped like gods (though there are Questors dedicated to them which are granted certain powers). You cannot affect them in any way and they rarely (if ever) directly interfere with Namegivers.
- In Ars Magica there's the gods of the predominant real-world religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) which are all-powerful. And then there's the pagan gods of the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, German, etc. pantheons which are just powerful Faeries.
Ah, well, I think, I'm not getting anywhere here. I just don't like the idea of fighting (and killing) gods.
I've liked the up until now statted gods and epic level threats of 4E. Mostly because 4E is capped at level 30 which means you cannot simply hope to overpower them. They are credible, deific threats to groups of the most accomplished of mortals (a group of level 30 adventurers). Honestly unless you use some broken mechanic from the CharOp boards you don't really have much a chance against any of them, even if you somehow manage to get them alone.
Agreed. Certainly a solo opponent about 3 or more levels higher than the party level is going to be very tough indeed.
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And as with all 4E monster stats, the stat block only represents what a deity can do in fair combat. Nothing about what it can do in its own domain or what it can do offscreen.
Exactly, although I suspect most DMs will set the encounter up so the PCs can win, if indeed the encounter is played at all.
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About 4E ever allowing characters above level 30, god I hope not. Maybe I would like something like a Legendary Power book that allowed you to stay at level 30 and slowly gain additional benefits, like more powers per day or more feats, but allowing characters of levels higher than 30 would break all balance for me.
Not sure it would break balance, but I totally get what you are saying. With PCs capped at 30 they can't just roll over the top of gods by virtue of being higher level.
Of course that doesn't really deter me from instigating two new tiers. Primarily because the PCs will themselves be gods, so its not that big a deal to have a group of gods defeat another god. But secondly because I'll have the same dynamic at Level 50 when the Greater God PCs are taking on Overgods and the oldest Primordials who are Level 51+, whom they won't simply be able to go 'over the top' on from levels alone.
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I can understand that anyone who had seen the D&D book would be appalled by the massive waste of space that 3E god stats was. Tons of unnecessary information that would take a day or two to actually interpret on how it works in combat.
The stat blocks were a complete bland overload.
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And as someone who played planescape during 2E i very much disliked the fact that the average deity could wtfpwn Demogorgon even inside Abysm. Deities certainly were statless in 2E but you could still encounter and interact with them meaningfully. And a couple of mortals did kill deities in 2E lore, always under special circumstances. They did not have stats, sure, but epic level play in 2E was very poorly developed anyway so noone could expect to actually face a deity in that ruleset.
I like the idea that all power is relative. Thats why I never liked the 'well because hes a god' excuse.
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I find that 4E are far closer to the statless deities of 2E than the statblock horrors of 3E. They are easy to interact with, impossible to be killed outside of special circumstances, and a terrifying challenge for the strongest of adventurers in the game.
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