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<blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 2009018" data-attributes="member: 2205"><p><em>Deities & Demigods</em> was one of those books that I went into with extremely high expectations. While I expected the book to be more of a curiosity than a really useful use it every day type of book, it really didn't do some of the basic things I would have expected it to do well.</p><p></p><p>Let's take a quick tangent and look at <em>Manual of the Planes</em> for example. Now there's another book that you're not likely to use everyday unless you're playing a <em>Planescape</em> game or one inspired by that erstwhile setting. Still, <em>Manual of the Planes</em>, as you read it, inspires you to want to play a Planes-centered game of some type, and it gives you the mechanics to do so easily and clearly. <em>Deities & Demigods</em> in many ways inspires you to want to play a game in which divine ascension and then everyday interaction with deities happen, but it doesn't really give you the tools to pull it off. The biggest problem with the book is that it reaches so high in scope but doesn't end up grasping it's goal.</p><p></p><p>And with that poor metaphor, let's look at the book a little more carefully.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: red"><strong>Chapter 1: Deities in Your Game</strong></span></strong></p><p></p><p>The first section is actually done fairly well. It will give you all kinds of options on how the divine interacts with your campaign, including describing tight and loose pantheons, monotheistic and dualistic systems, and animism. It also describes various other optional aspects of the divine that you could use, such as deity power generated by worshippers, or independent of them, deities as meddlers in everyday life, or as distant and aloof beings, why mortals worship deities, why deities want to be worshipped, etc. Each small section has an "adventure hook" paragraph or two which describes how, if you elect to follow this path, you can make it play into your campaign and generate things for your PCs to do. While that's welcome and a good idea, the usefulness is considerably diminished by the fact that most of those adventure hooks are mutually exclusive, so you can't really get that much use out of them.</p><p></p><p>It also gives some guidelines on creating a pantheon that is workable as a game mechanic: that is, make sure you have all the domains covered, how many deities do you want to include, etc. My beef with this section is minor, and quite possibly personal: little thought is given to real world religions and creating a pantheon that mirrors them, and a lot of discussion is given to creating deities that give you serve your "gaming needs." Of course, I could always research real-world religions on my own and read that article back in the older <em>Dragon Magazine</em>, but I was disappointed that deities were seen more as a game hook than as a way to really make your campaign seem alive and compelling.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: red"><strong>Chapter 2: Deities Defined</strong></span></strong></p><p></p><p>Then we get to the mechanics of deities, including divine ranks, salient divine abilities (super-feats), how to roleplay a god, divine agents like proxies, avatars and petitioners and how to read deity stat-blocks. The divine ranks is a disappointing mechanic to me, as it serves as a "arch-level." As a character advances in level, lower level characters simply can't hold a candle to him. As a deity advances in divine rank, the same holds true at an even greater pace. I found it unfortunate that so much is hung on the hook of divine rank, as it makes deity ranking a little too pat. In addition, an Intermediate Deity (divine ranks 11-15) of war would actually probably not be able to successfully prosecute any type of war against a high-level greater deity of any type, including one of the Harvest for instance (not that there are any examples of such, but there could be...) Therefore, all of the complaints about levelling (which typically I don't make, as I think it works OK) are magnified here. If you were to ever play a divine campaign, you really better pay attention to Divine rank, because that, more than any other factor, determines how powerful you deity is. Divine rank goes directly to your BAB, your AC, your hit points, your ability scores, etc. on a 1 for 1 basis.</p><p></p><p>Some of the salient divine abilities are also a bit iffy. Annihilation Strike in particular makes gods who have it practically unstoppable to anyone of lesser divine rank then themselves (see the ubiquitous presence of Divine rank again?) Personally I'd tone that one down significantly.</p><p></p><p>However, the section on role-playing the gods, while small, is full of some gems of ideas, including personalities and such. However, when it defines experience from divine encounters, the advice basically boils down to "eyeball it." My other big complaint with this section, which putatively delves into how to define gods, is that there is really no character generation rules. I have some that were posted on the WotC message board by the Sage, otherwise I wouldn't have any idea what kind of baseline for ability generation, for example, were used. That's a major gaffe, in my book, and something I was extremely disappointed in with the book.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: red"><strong>Chapters 3,4,5 and 6: Sample Pantheons</strong></span></strong></p><p></p><p>There are four pantheons detailed in the book (quite the reduction from previous editions, I know, but these chapters take up about 145 pages or so as is...) including, in order of presentation, the D&D (Greyhawk) pantheon, the Olympian (Greek) pantheon, the Pharaonic (Egyptian) pantheon and the Asgardian (Norse) pantheon. Each chapter starts off with a quick overview of the cosmology as defined in the mythos interpreted into D&D planar thought, then it jumps right into the listing of the deities. Each individual listing contains a one-paragraph description of the deity, a paragraph or two about their dogma, another paragraph or two about their clerics and priests, and then a page or two of their stats. A small illustration by Dennis Cramer of the gods' symbols is given, and then a larger illustration of the god itself. Not surprisingly (to me, anyway) my favorite illustrations are by Sam Wood and Wayne Reynolds. Sam Wood has that kind of "ultimate D&D" look to his work, and Wayne "I draw like Marc Silvestri" Reynolds really provides that over-the-top, action/comic book look as well. Matt Cavotta really does some good ones as well (I really liked Boccob, for instance) and Arnie Swekel even steps out of his role as the pencil-sketcher guy who does the yellow pages at the beginning of each chapter to provide a few full color illustrations. A curious fact about the art is that many of the illustrations are co-credited to Dennis Cramer. Exactly what Cramer did to the picture is a mystery to me, as his style doesn't show up in any of these co-credited works. Still, a curious fact nonetheless. My only complaint about the gods themselves is why are Ra and Horus combined as Re-Horakhty? In prior editions of the book that was not the case. I realize that the mythology kinda suggests such a thing, but it's still odd, especially when such common Egyptian names as Ra and Horus are combined and given alternate spellings.</p><p></p><p>In addition to the actual god-entries, there is a small handful of other "mythos related" monster manual entries for all the real-world pantheons, including the cyclops and faun for Greek, the Minion of Set and the Greater Mummy for the Egyptians, the Einherjar, giants and valkyries for the Norse. A new prestige class is added: Norse Berserk, and a little bit is also added in terms of new equipment.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: red"><strong>Chapter 7: Other Religions</strong></span></strong></p><p></p><p>In addition to those samples, the last chapter gives samples of a monotheistic religion, a dualistic religion and a mystery cult. Since these types of systems by necessity operate significantly different than a polytheistic system, this is welcome and well done. Two more prestige classes are presented here.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: red"><strong>Appendices: Domains, Spells and Divine Ascension</strong></span></strong></p><p></p><p>The book ends with a listing of some new domains, including the prestige domains of <em>Defenders of the Faith</em> which are now normal domains, and some new spells. Several pages are also given on how to handle PC ascension, and what kinds of activities and adventures they could face following such an elevation. These sections are well-handled, but not particularly special. As in the earlier role-playing sections, advice was good, but very brief, and many of the adventure hooks given were mutually exclusive: you could only use a few of them in any given campaign.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: blue"><strong>Conclusions</strong></span></strong></p><p></p><p><em>Deities & Demigods</em> had so much that it could have offered for those who want to occasionally indulge their high-level fantasies of playing a supreme-type being. However, it failed to deliver on some of the basics. Particularly galling was the omission of any type of chargen rules for creating your deity. The lack of much detail in what to do with gods other than "kill them and take their stuff" was also somewhat disappointing, although good DMs shouldn't have a problem with that. The lack of many of the older pantheons we had seen in prior editions, like the Celtic pantheon, the Aztec pantheon, the Chinese pantheon, the Japanese pantheon, etc. was also disappointing although understandable, as the book is fairly large as is. But without good rules to allow you to create these pantheons on your own, you're kinda up a creek. I would have expected them to perhaps be web enhancements, but the web enhancements available are completely different as well.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Desdichado, post: 2009018, member: 2205"] [i]Deities & Demigods[/i] was one of those books that I went into with extremely high expectations. While I expected the book to be more of a curiosity than a really useful use it every day type of book, it really didn't do some of the basic things I would have expected it to do well. Let's take a quick tangent and look at [i]Manual of the Planes[/i] for example. Now there's another book that you're not likely to use everyday unless you're playing a [i]Planescape[/i] game or one inspired by that erstwhile setting. Still, [i]Manual of the Planes[/i], as you read it, inspires you to want to play a Planes-centered game of some type, and it gives you the mechanics to do so easily and clearly. [i]Deities & Demigods[/i] in many ways inspires you to want to play a game in which divine ascension and then everyday interaction with deities happen, but it doesn't really give you the tools to pull it off. The biggest problem with the book is that it reaches so high in scope but doesn't end up grasping it's goal. And with that poor metaphor, let's look at the book a little more carefully. [b][color=red][b]Chapter 1: Deities in Your Game[/b][/color][/b] The first section is actually done fairly well. It will give you all kinds of options on how the divine interacts with your campaign, including describing tight and loose pantheons, monotheistic and dualistic systems, and animism. It also describes various other optional aspects of the divine that you could use, such as deity power generated by worshippers, or independent of them, deities as meddlers in everyday life, or as distant and aloof beings, why mortals worship deities, why deities want to be worshipped, etc. Each small section has an "adventure hook" paragraph or two which describes how, if you elect to follow this path, you can make it play into your campaign and generate things for your PCs to do. While that's welcome and a good idea, the usefulness is considerably diminished by the fact that most of those adventure hooks are mutually exclusive, so you can't really get that much use out of them. It also gives some guidelines on creating a pantheon that is workable as a game mechanic: that is, make sure you have all the domains covered, how many deities do you want to include, etc. My beef with this section is minor, and quite possibly personal: little thought is given to real world religions and creating a pantheon that mirrors them, and a lot of discussion is given to creating deities that give you serve your "gaming needs." Of course, I could always research real-world religions on my own and read that article back in the older [i]Dragon Magazine[/i], but I was disappointed that deities were seen more as a game hook than as a way to really make your campaign seem alive and compelling. [b][color=red][b]Chapter 2: Deities Defined[/b][/color][/b] Then we get to the mechanics of deities, including divine ranks, salient divine abilities (super-feats), how to roleplay a god, divine agents like proxies, avatars and petitioners and how to read deity stat-blocks. The divine ranks is a disappointing mechanic to me, as it serves as a "arch-level." As a character advances in level, lower level characters simply can't hold a candle to him. As a deity advances in divine rank, the same holds true at an even greater pace. I found it unfortunate that so much is hung on the hook of divine rank, as it makes deity ranking a little too pat. In addition, an Intermediate Deity (divine ranks 11-15) of war would actually probably not be able to successfully prosecute any type of war against a high-level greater deity of any type, including one of the Harvest for instance (not that there are any examples of such, but there could be...) Therefore, all of the complaints about levelling (which typically I don't make, as I think it works OK) are magnified here. If you were to ever play a divine campaign, you really better pay attention to Divine rank, because that, more than any other factor, determines how powerful you deity is. Divine rank goes directly to your BAB, your AC, your hit points, your ability scores, etc. on a 1 for 1 basis. Some of the salient divine abilities are also a bit iffy. Annihilation Strike in particular makes gods who have it practically unstoppable to anyone of lesser divine rank then themselves (see the ubiquitous presence of Divine rank again?) Personally I'd tone that one down significantly. However, the section on role-playing the gods, while small, is full of some gems of ideas, including personalities and such. However, when it defines experience from divine encounters, the advice basically boils down to "eyeball it." My other big complaint with this section, which putatively delves into how to define gods, is that there is really no character generation rules. I have some that were posted on the WotC message board by the Sage, otherwise I wouldn't have any idea what kind of baseline for ability generation, for example, were used. That's a major gaffe, in my book, and something I was extremely disappointed in with the book. [b][color=red][b]Chapters 3,4,5 and 6: Sample Pantheons[/b][/color][/b] There are four pantheons detailed in the book (quite the reduction from previous editions, I know, but these chapters take up about 145 pages or so as is...) including, in order of presentation, the D&D (Greyhawk) pantheon, the Olympian (Greek) pantheon, the Pharaonic (Egyptian) pantheon and the Asgardian (Norse) pantheon. Each chapter starts off with a quick overview of the cosmology as defined in the mythos interpreted into D&D planar thought, then it jumps right into the listing of the deities. Each individual listing contains a one-paragraph description of the deity, a paragraph or two about their dogma, another paragraph or two about their clerics and priests, and then a page or two of their stats. A small illustration by Dennis Cramer of the gods' symbols is given, and then a larger illustration of the god itself. Not surprisingly (to me, anyway) my favorite illustrations are by Sam Wood and Wayne Reynolds. Sam Wood has that kind of "ultimate D&D" look to his work, and Wayne "I draw like Marc Silvestri" Reynolds really provides that over-the-top, action/comic book look as well. Matt Cavotta really does some good ones as well (I really liked Boccob, for instance) and Arnie Swekel even steps out of his role as the pencil-sketcher guy who does the yellow pages at the beginning of each chapter to provide a few full color illustrations. A curious fact about the art is that many of the illustrations are co-credited to Dennis Cramer. Exactly what Cramer did to the picture is a mystery to me, as his style doesn't show up in any of these co-credited works. Still, a curious fact nonetheless. My only complaint about the gods themselves is why are Ra and Horus combined as Re-Horakhty? In prior editions of the book that was not the case. I realize that the mythology kinda suggests such a thing, but it's still odd, especially when such common Egyptian names as Ra and Horus are combined and given alternate spellings. In addition to the actual god-entries, there is a small handful of other "mythos related" monster manual entries for all the real-world pantheons, including the cyclops and faun for Greek, the Minion of Set and the Greater Mummy for the Egyptians, the Einherjar, giants and valkyries for the Norse. A new prestige class is added: Norse Berserk, and a little bit is also added in terms of new equipment. [b][color=red][b]Chapter 7: Other Religions[/b][/color][/b] In addition to those samples, the last chapter gives samples of a monotheistic religion, a dualistic religion and a mystery cult. Since these types of systems by necessity operate significantly different than a polytheistic system, this is welcome and well done. Two more prestige classes are presented here. [b][color=red][b]Appendices: Domains, Spells and Divine Ascension[/b][/color][/b] The book ends with a listing of some new domains, including the prestige domains of [i]Defenders of the Faith[/i] which are now normal domains, and some new spells. Several pages are also given on how to handle PC ascension, and what kinds of activities and adventures they could face following such an elevation. These sections are well-handled, but not particularly special. As in the earlier role-playing sections, advice was good, but very brief, and many of the adventure hooks given were mutually exclusive: you could only use a few of them in any given campaign. [b][color=blue][b]Conclusions[/b][/color][/b] [i]Deities & Demigods[/i] had so much that it could have offered for those who want to occasionally indulge their high-level fantasies of playing a supreme-type being. However, it failed to deliver on some of the basics. Particularly galling was the omission of any type of chargen rules for creating your deity. The lack of much detail in what to do with gods other than "kill them and take their stuff" was also somewhat disappointing, although good DMs shouldn't have a problem with that. The lack of many of the older pantheons we had seen in prior editions, like the Celtic pantheon, the Aztec pantheon, the Chinese pantheon, the Japanese pantheon, etc. was also disappointing although understandable, as the book is fairly large as is. But without good rules to allow you to create these pantheons on your own, you're kinda up a creek. I would have expected them to perhaps be web enhancements, but the web enhancements available are completely different as well. [/QUOTE]
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