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Been pondering the levels of the D&D Gods. While WotC seem happy enough to cap at 35 (and I agree that makes sense given the game currently stops at 30th) they did mention a few possible levels of the others in the past.
For my own purposes I have been using the followng guide to determine their power, though I am curious to hear what everyone else thinks about their levels.
300+ Million Worshippers = Solo Level 38
100+ Million Worshippers = Solo Level 37
30+ Million Worshippers = Solo Level 36
10+ Million Worshippers = Solo Level 35
3+ Million Worshippers = Solo Level 34
1+ Million Worshippers = Solo Level 33
300,000+ Worshippers = Solo Level 32
etc.
As such...
Solo Level 37
Bane
Corellon
Gruumsh
Moradin
Pelor
Raven Queen
Solo Level 36
Asmodeus
Avandra
Bahamut
Kord
Tharizdun (imprisoned/weakened)
Zehir
Solo Level 35
Erathis
Lolth
Melora
Sehanine
Tiamat
Vecna
Solo Level 34
Demogorgon?
Ioun
Mephistopheles?
Torog
If the system ends at level 30 for mortals, then I could see gods/archfiends/etc at around level 35-40, but only for their avatars. I would not give actual stats to their true forms since it seems (to me) silly to try to pin down a concept or a base idea of the universe made flesh into a stat block. That's not the answer for a very gamist approach to D&D I suppose, and it's very much at odds with your view on the interaction between PCs and gods Krust, but that's the one that I would go with given my style of running.
Mortals can (and do) fight such beings in my game, but there's no statblock for the deity when it happens, and there's never anything so straightforward as a combat between god and PCs (except for PCs versus avatars which has happened).
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
If the system ends at level 30 for mortals, then I could see gods/archfiends/etc at around level 35-40, but only for their avatars. I would not give actual stats to their true forms since it seems (to me) silly to try to pin down a concept or a base idea of the universe made flesh into a stat block. That's not the answer for a very gamist approach to D&D I suppose, and it's very much at odds with your view on the interaction between PCs and gods Krust, but that's the one that I would go with given my style of running.
I wouldn't call killing gods something that is inherently gamist. I am big fan of ancient mythology, and I tend to model my campaigns and campaign settings on mythology. As a result, while gods are incredibly powerful, they are like really, really, powerful mortals. They can be defeated or even killed by powerful mortals, demons, or spirits. As such, having gods at a power level where they can be actually killed by the PCs is desirable for me on the basis of flavor and narrative. Besides, if you can't kill gods, how do you have the PCs fight against god-killing abominations of the likes of the Midgard Serpent and Fenrir? I like the idea of the PCs taking a crack at one of those. Of course, I think Thor is an appropriate character to model an epic level PC on.
As for the opening post, I have always hated the idea that gods draw power from their worshipers. To answer the main question though, I think gods are appropriate threats for characters in the upper end of the epic tier, and should primarily be elite or solo creatures.
If the system ends at level 30 for mortals, then I could see gods/archfiends/etc at around level 35-40, but only for their avatars. I would not give actual stats to their true forms since it seems (to me) silly to try to pin down a concept or a base idea of the universe made flesh into a stat block. That's not the answer for a very gamist approach to D&D I suppose, and it's very much at odds with your view on the interaction between PCs and gods Krust, but that's the one that I would go with given my style of running.
Mortals can (and do) fight such beings in my game, but there's no statblock for the deity when it happens, and there's never anything so straightforward as a combat between god and PCs (except for PCs versus avatars which has happened).
This is basically my feeling on this as well. Well said.
In my game at least, the Gods did not create the universe, and don't have that kind of power, they are products of the universe. So I don't tend to think of them on that kind of unreachable level. I like them at the insane but just barely possible level.
As such, Upper_Krust, I'd agree with your levels that's about the range I'd use maybe top it at 37, as I can't see any party of level 30 touching a level 38 anything.
Your listing of gods looks pretty good to me, numbers are about where I'd place them, care to stat them up for us.
Deity power is not that strongly linked to number of worshippers, I don't think. The gods existed long before mortals did; faith may be a power source, but I would hardly call it the defining one. The Raven Queen doesn't give a damn what you think, as long as you don't start stitching Blaspheme legionnaires together without her permission. Hardly anyone even knows the Chained God's name--but even imprisoned in an immense, timeless, inescapable prison overseen by Torog the Jailor, cast down and bound by literally all the gods capable of wielding any power at all, he can still will servants into existence who are capable of butchering many Demon Lords merely by thinking about it! Tiamat is weak enough to die (and yes, that's worth commenting on) not because no one believes in her, but because she's literally half of the god she was.
But those are just my thoughts, of course.
I'm just an ivory-tower theorist! Please don't kill me!
Deity power is not that strongly linked to number of worshippers, I don't think. The gods existed long before mortals did; faith may be a power source, but I would hardly call it the defining one.[/size]
Depends entirely on your setting (and if you change it since it's your game after all). 4e's cosmology, I have no idea how they defined that, but prior to 4e, deities were considerably younger than the first outsider races, and many of them arose entirely out of mortal belief (the first ones indeed didn't seem to appear till after mortal life already existed in some form).
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
Depends entirely on your setting (and if you change it since it's your game after all).
Oh, indeed. I've got a stting I want to play in which belief really is the driving force for many gods, and this is causing them to fracture in increasingly freaky ways as the Celtic- and Mesoamerican-analogue myths are being simultaneously assimilated and stomped out by the Christianity analogue (while being worshiped in secret by several forbidden cults, whose beliefs are themselves changing wildly and in different ways as the world moves on).
But since I see Zehir, Ioun, the Raven Queen, and Torog in the first post, I can only assume that the OP is talking about core cosmology--in which the Gods and Primordials, collectively the creators of the normal world and basically everything else (especially the mortal races), arose way before anyone else came onto the scene.
Granted, there are gods who came after that; both the Raven Queen and Vecna were mortals who ascended long after the creation of everything (both by accumulation of arcane power, though the Raven Queen got a boost when she won her own private war with the tyrannical death god Nerull--now very dead indeed). Bahamut and Tiamat arose from the corpse of Io well after the Big War (and creation of the world) had gotten underway. After the Big War ended, Asmodeus ascended by rebelling against and then devouring the power of the now-nameless deity who created him. And so on. But my point remains; the Gods, as a group, created and empowered Man... not the other way around.
Last edited by Inyssius; 14th March 2009 at 09:55 AM..
I vary my ideas of god's levels based on setting, but I enjoy the almost Grecian idea that heroes can kick a gods ass now and again. I'm sticking with this conceit of Core 4e in my semi homebrew world. I see the Core Deities as powerful beings who have have become patrons of the things that interest them and overseers of certain necessary tasks for realities function much in the same way that high level PCs. I'm unsure on exact levels, but I'm tending to think that it should be based on age somewhat. The only think I'm certain of is that Bahamut should be level 35 just like his sister.
Been a while, hope you have been keeping well since we last chatted?
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Originally Posted by Shemeska
If the system ends at level 30 for mortals, then I could see gods/archfiends/etc at around level 35-40, but only for their avatars.
Certain Archfiends (Orcus) and Gods (Vecna) have already been detailed in 4th Edition.
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I would not give actual stats to their true forms since it seems (to me) silly to try to pin down a concept or a base idea of the universe made flesh into a stat block.
Unless of course they are not 'concepts' but rather supernatural intelligences drawing power from those concepts. For instance a God of Fire doesn't necessarily control Primordials of Fire (such as Imix or Surtur) and vice versa, so there is no reason to assume that a God of Fire is 'fire' itself.
Likewise your idea doesn't allow for the possibility of two Gods of Fire coexisting simultaneously.
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That's not the answer for a very gamist approach to D&D I suppose, and it's very much at odds with your view on the interaction between PCs and gods Krust, but that's the one that I would go with given my style of running.
I know.
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Mortals can (and do) fight such beings in my game, but there's no statblock for the deity when it happens, and there's never anything so straightforward as a combat between god and PCs (except for PCs versus avatars which has happened).
I prefer the 'all power is relative' route...as you know.
In mythology gods were constantly going against mortals. And never forget that fact that, at level 30, a PC can very well be a demigod himself. I think a group of 5 demigods teaming up against a full god is entirely possible.
I'd put Bahamut and Tiamat of equal footing, since they're halves of Io, and place Melora in the highest rank. She is "Mother Nature", so to speak, so I'd say she should be on equal footing with the gods of War, Death, Magic and other basic forces. I'd even peg down Moradin and elevate Ioun.
Sounds good to me - maybe cap them out at level 40 solo and work down from there. Very like 1e D&DG capping at 400 hp and working down.
Oddly enough I have been putting together a new method of determining deities by worshippers and then converting Earth's Pantheons to the new format based on the time during Earth's history when they were at their strongest.
So for instance the Greek Gods would be weaker than the Roman Gods (or Roman incarnations of the same Gods).
Using this new system, Odin works out as a Level 35 Solo opponent (the same as Vecna and Tiamat in 4E), while Thor would work out as a Level 31 Solo opponent (less than Graz'zt in 4E who is Level 32).
The reason for this being of course that the D&D World has a single Pantheon whereas Earth has multiple Pantheons. So less worshippers to go around more deities.
Of course in your campaign (where deities are potentially worshipped on multiple planets) Odin would probably be about Level 41 or so.
As for capping deities at Level 40, I actually cap Greater Gods at Level 41 - though that Level would require a single Pantheon (with a single figurehead) having 10+ billion worshippers.
So for instance the Greek Gods would be weaker than the Roman Gods (or Roman incarnations of the same Gods).
Hmmm. Two points:
1. The Pantheonic Roman gods like Jupiter were not really a big deal by and large, just copies of the Greek gods. I can see Mithras being more powerful, though.
2. More importantly, what happens when civilisations and cultures come into conflict? Take the Persian wars with Greece that I think we studied in Classical history back in BRA. If # worshippers is the sole determinant of power, then the Persian gods with many tens of millions will easily kick the butts of the Greek gods with only a couple million. That doesn't seem right to me. At any rate, Persian gods fighting on the plain of Marathon (as described by Herodotus, who supposedly saw one kill the man next to him!) should not be more powerful than Greek gods fighting on the Greek side.
These can be treated in-game as 'avatars' of course, but that is an Indian concept, you don't see it in Aryan (or Greek, or Norse) myth AFAIK. The Greek approach was more that gods were beatable, as Diomedes beat Ares at Troy, but being immortal were hard-to-impossible to permanently kill.
In mythology gods were constantly going against mortals. And never forget that fact that, at level 30, a PC can very well be a demigod himself. I think a group of 5 demigods teaming up against a full god is entirely possible.
Absolutely.
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I'd put Bahamut and Tiamat of equal footing, since they're halves of Io,
My reasoning behind this was to represent Bahamut's singular head against Tiamat's five. I am not sure how you could make a Level 35 Bahamut the equal of Tiamat without some ridiculously arbitrary powers and abilities. Both Tiamat and Vecna are the same level but it seems to me as if Tiamat is dealing on average around three times Vecna's damage.
Bahamut in 1st Edition had 168 hp while Tiamat had 128 hp but a higher damage output. So there is a precedent for this.
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and place Melora in the highest rank. She is "Mother Nature", so to speak, so I'd say she should be on equal footing with the gods of War, Death, Magic and other basic forces.
Possibly. At the very least I would swop Avandra and Melora, making Melora 36th and Avandra 35th instead of the other way around.
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I'd even peg down Moradin
Well didn't an official source by WotC peg Moradin at 37th?
Also would you have Moradin lower than Gruumsh and Corellon? Based on the new warring mythology of the core Pantheon it appears Gruumsh and Bane are also roughly equals (although naturally that doesn't have to mean the exact same level - but its a pretty good marker I think).
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and elevate Ioun.
Isn't Corellon meant to be the defacto God of Magic though?
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1. The Pantheonic Roman gods like Jupiter were not really a big deal by and large, just copies of the Greek gods. I can see Mithras being more powerful, though.
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2. More importantly, what happens when civilisations and cultures come into conflict?
A defeated culture would be subsumed by the victor, likewise the defeated Pantheon (assuming the fight took place simultaneously on the Earthly and Astral planes) would become a Slave Pantheon with its members reduced in power (possibly to Avatar status - still fleshing out the exat details).
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Take the Persian wars with Greece that I think we studied in Classical history back in BRA. If # worshippers is the sole determinant of power, then the Persian gods with many tens of millions will easily kick the butts of the Greek gods with only a couple million. That doesn't seem right to me.
The difference between the 30+ million (45 was the nearest I could glean rounded down to 30 as the start of this thread notes) of the Persian Gods and the 1+ million (2.5 million rounded down to 1) of the Greeks only translates into a 2 Level difference (on average) between the deities. Not insurmountable by any means - especially if you have home (realm) advantage.
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At any rate, Persian gods fighting on the plain of Marathon (as described by Herodotus, who supposedly saw one kill the man next to him!) should not be more powerful than Greek gods fighting on the Greek side.
Its possible that that there were numerically more Persian Gods but that individually they were only on a par or weaker than their greek counterparts.
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These can be treated in-game as 'avatars' of course, but that is an Indian concept, you don't see it in Aryan (or Greek, or Norse) myth AFAIK. The Greek approach was more that gods were beatable, as Diomedes beat Ares at Troy, but being immortal were hard-to-impossible to permanently kill.
Looking at this new worshipper conversion system Ares probably would have been about a Level 27 Solo encounter (circa his fight with Diomedes), so its possible that a Level 30 mortal PC could have bested him.
The difference between the 30+ million (45 was the nearest I could glean rounded down to 30 as the start of this thread notes) of the Persian Gods and the 1+ million (2.5 million rounded down to 1) of the Greeks only translates into a 2 Level difference (on average) between the deities. Not insurmountable by any means - especially if you have home (realm) advantage.
OK, I'm not that familiar with the 4e power gradient. One thing I know is that NPC stats in 4e are only there for interaction with PCs; so calling a deity a Level 35 Solo means "We expect him to fight alone with level 30 PCs as a difficult encounter", yes?
I'm currently tending to the Moorcock approach of having deities' stats/power vary wildly depending on the setting/world in which they appear, which would argue against any single "real" set of stats as encapsulating that deity. Which fits 4e's postmodernist approach very well, I think. So maybe "What level is Bane?" is the wrong question - his level will vary depending on the world/setting in which he appears. This gives more flexibility to having say Kord be level 35 & killable on Greyhawk but level 40+ and unkillable in a homebrew, etc. Kord's death on Greyhawk will not affect homebrew-Kord, except that homebrew-Kord might be dimly aware of events in other worlds and times. Again, this is taken from Moorcock.
Closely linked clusters of planes that form a single setting may have just one Kord, who draws power from worshippers on all of them, but faraway world will have their own Kord. This certainly helps maintain continuity when minor demon lord Lolth is killed on Oerth without having the great goddess Lloth vanish from Toril.
OK, I'm not that familiar with the 4e power gradient. One thing I know is that NPC stats in 4e are only there for interaction with PCs; so calling a deity a Level 35 Solo means "We expect him to fight alone with level 30 PCs as a difficult encounter", yes?
An Elite monster is equal to 2 monsters of the same level, a Solo monster is equal to 5 monsters of the same level (and a Minion is 1/4).
Five levels higher is roughly the maximum threshold you would use against a group (five levels lower is probably the minimum).
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I'm currently tending to the Moorcock approach of having deities' stats/power vary wildly depending on the setting/world in which they appear, which would argue against any single "real" set of stats as encapsulating that deity. Which fits 4e's postmodernist approach very well, I think.
Agreed. Although you could say that a deity would be maximum level on the Astral Plane (or wherever their home plane is) but when encountered on a particular world the level of their faith on that world might determine their power when encountered there - sort of like Avatars in a roundabout way.
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So maybe "What level is Bane?" is the wrong question - his level will vary depending on the world/setting in which he appears. This gives more flexibility to having say Kord be level 35 & killable on Greyhawk but level 40+ and unkillable in a homebrew, etc. Kord's death on Greyhawk will not affect homebrew-Kord, except that homebrew-Kord might be dimly aware of events in other worlds and times. Again, this is taken from Moorcock.
Closely linked clusters of planes that form a single setting may have just one Kord, who draws power from worshippers on all of them, but faraway world will have their own Kord. This certainly helps maintain continuity when minor demon lord Lolth is killed on Oerth without having the great goddess Lloth vanish from Toril.
My reasoning behind this was to represent Bahamut's singular head against Tiamat's five. I am not sure how you could make a Level 35 Bahamut the equal of Tiamat without some ridiculously arbitrary powers and abilities. Both Tiamat and Vecna are the same level but it seems to me as if Tiamat is dealing on average around three times Vecna's damage.
Bahamut in 1st Edition had 168 hp while Tiamat had 128 hp but a higher damage output. So there is a precedent for this.
Possibly. At the very least I would swop Avandra and Melora, making Melora 36th and Avandra 35th instead of the other way around.
Well didn't an official source by WotC peg Moradin at 37th?
Also would you have Moradin lower than Gruumsh and Corellon? Based on the new warring mythology of the core Pantheon it appears Gruumsh and Bane are also roughly equals (although naturally that doesn't have to mean the exact same level - but its a pretty good marker I think).
Isn't Corellon meant to be the defacto God of Magic though?
Re: Bahamut and Tiamat: well, D&D has a history of making good creatures more powerful than their evil counterparts. But I see your point.
You're right that Corellon is the god of Magic. Ioun is the goddess of study (could say wizardry) and of prophecy (whereas the Raven Queen is the goddess of fate).
Moradin can stay up there, he is also the god of creation, hearth and family.
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