Immortals Handbook - Ascension Discussion

[WarDragon]

Then how do you determine the base size category of an immortal before any Divine Immensities are taken into account? I'm looking for some clear-cut rules on this, because the base size category of an immortal seems to be arbitrarily eyeballed off whatever seems right.

As I understand it, yes. That's exactly how it's done. Make it whatever size category you deem appropriate for its HD, and modify the ECL and CR accordingly.

 

[scifan888]

A player of mine was futzing around with the rules regarding divine artifacts during last night's game, and discovered a potential loophole that other DMs should be aware of- though this one's probably less serious than the Anyfeat one a different player found last year because no DM worthy of the title would permit it to go unchallenged.

What you do is, you take advantage of the fact that an item can contain a Divine ability. You have one of your four artifacts grant you the Extra Level divine ability. This grants you an extra HD, with all attendant benefits... including a slight boost in the capacity of your divine powers that depend on HD... for example the power and value of your four divine artifacts. It is thus possible to set up a situation such that you use your divine artifact to gain enough levels to increase the value of the same artifact to the point where you have enough "leftover value" to gain another Extra Level ability, and the whole thing snowballs. The player who discovered this showed me how he could use it to grant his character something on the order of 800 more levels, and he just stopped there because he got bored (more or less).

I don’t see how that would work. Wouldn’t you get a diminishing returns situation long before hitting 800 extra levels? Paradox42 could you post something to explain how your player got it to work?

 

[paradox42]

I don’t see how that would work. Wouldn’t you get a diminishing returns situation long before hitting 800 extra levels? Paradox42 could you post something to explain how your player got it to work?

It doesn't work, I'll take care to point out, because as I knee-jerk-reaction ruled at the time- and as Ltheb more succinctly summarized in rules terms above- the artifact is part of the divinity template that gets applied to the character. Therefore, whatever powers it has are already part of the character's ECL, whether or not they actually add class powers (via Extra Level put into the item). Also, I didn't write down the exact method used, but the numbers were pretty convincing. You have to cheese some stuff using feat-switching effects like Psychic Reformation (which the character in question, as a 30th-level Telepath before gaining his three Divine Ranks, has) and Nescient (which the character, as an INT-dependent entity, also has) to make it work, I think, or else diminishing returns kick in as you said.

 

[S'mon]

Hello all - this is Upper_Krust, I am staying at my friend Simon's place in London for a week. So I'll be posting 'as him' during that time.

Hiya Farealmer3 dude!

And Jaspers?

I don't honestly know enough about Jaspers to comment. But I presume the power he gained was more akin to a divinity 'power up' that included Alter Reality.

Why? Unless the grimoire powers are tons better than the ascension ones, characters are better off using at least one item for a pure stat boost if it is truly their "greatest ability".

The powers are balanced against the items.

As for stat boosting being essential, maybe thats the case from a purely 3E mechanical point of view. But not essential against Abrogate.

Big difference, Dead Magic is like cosmic nullification it takes out an entire line of abilities. While abrogate only does one. If abrogate it going to stay competitive it should cripple that one ability absolutely. Otherwise theirs no point in taking it over the dead magic power.

Yes and it does, but the problem is that we disagree on what constitutes an ability. To me it means either some immortal gained cosmic or divine ability or an ability score. To you it seems to mean a more all-encompassing 'ability', like spell casting.

Also have you heard of Rifts?

Yes, why? I own a few Rifts books (Atlantis, Africa, England, Mechanoids)

 

[S'mon]

Hello, Upper here!

So basically, an immortal starts off as Medium, and then he can spend X divine ability slots to permanently increase his size by X size categories (though he must meet the minimum HD to "naturally" be of a given size category), thus indirectly using "Divine Immensity". For example, a 100 HD greater deity starts off at Medium, and can spend 5 divine ability slots to make himself naturally and non-supernaturally Titanic size, though he couldn't spend 6 divine ability slots to make himself Macro-Fine because he doesn't have 128 outsider HD. Tetrad high lords and above can break the minimum HD rules though, but only to meet the minimum size category as dictated by their template.

The balancing factor is that taking actual Divine Immensities lets you resize yourself as needed (taking 4 divine immensities as a Medium creature lets you resize yourself anywhere from Fine to Colossal), but you revert to Medium size whenever you are subjected to the Dead Zone or Divine Nullification transcendental abilities.

Would that be a fair way to handle the "default" size category of an immortal?

More or less. I'd say it wouldn't take much power to make Divine Immensity permanent so that you wouldn't change size within Dead Magic Zones.

On a vaguely-related note, when an immortal takes the Swarm Shape cosmic ability, does he retain his original space, or is his space set to a 10-foot cube just like any other swarm? If it's the latter, then is he still immune to the weapon damage of Titanic and larger immortals? According to the Epic Bestiary, a creature's attacks cover an X-foot cube, where X is the creature's AC/attack penalty from his size category. Titanic creatures have a -16 AC/attack penalty, so their attacks cover a 16-foot cube on average. I find it hard to believe that a Titanic immortal like Surtur can't squash a 10-foot cube of bugs with his fist, his foot, or the flat of his sword.

I suspect that if the swarm condenses its the same size as the original immortal, but when it disperses a medium immortal would fill a 10 ft. cube.

 

[S'mon]

Hello, Upper here!

So basically, an immortal starts off as Medium, and then he can spend X divine ability slots to permanently increase his size by X size categories (though he must meet the minimum HD to "naturally" be of a given size category), thus indirectly using "Divine Immensity". For example, a 100 HD greater deity starts off at Medium, and can spend 5 divine ability slots to make himself naturally and non-supernaturally Titanic size, though he couldn't spend 6 divine ability slots to make himself Macro-Fine because he doesn't have 128 outsider HD. Tetrad high lords and above can break the minimum HD rules though, but only to meet the minimum size category as dictated by their template.

The balancing factor is that taking actual Divine Immensities lets you resize yourself as needed (taking 4 divine immensities as a Medium creature lets you resize yourself anywhere from Fine to Colossal), but you revert to Medium size whenever you are subjected to the Dead Zone or Divine Nullification transcendental abilities.

Would that be a fair way to handle the "default" size category of an immortal?

More or less. I'd say it wouldn't take much power to make Divine Immensity permanent so that you wouldn't change size within Dead Magic Zones.

On a vaguely-related note, when an immortal takes the Swarm Shape cosmic ability, does he retain his original space, or is his space set to a 10-foot cube just like any other swarm? If it's the latter, then is he still immune to the weapon damage of Titanic and larger immortals? According to the Epic Bestiary, a creature's attacks cover an X-foot cube, where X is the creature's AC/attack penalty from his size category. Titanic creatures have a -16 AC/attack penalty, so their attacks cover a 16-foot cube on average. I find it hard to believe that a Titanic immortal like Surtur can't squash a 10-foot cube of bugs with his fist, his foot, or the flat of his sword.

I suspect that if the swarm condenses its the same size as the original immortal, but when it disperses a medium immortal would fill a 10 ft. cube.

 

[Farealmer3]

Yes and it does, but the problem is that we disagree on what constitutes an ability. To me it means either some immortal gained cosmic or divine ability or an ability score. To you it seems to mean a more all-encompassing 'ability', like spell casting.

No, i haven't been arguing for spellcaster for awhile, it's the item boosted ability scores remaining intact that i disagree on.

Yes, why?

I just thought it was something right up your ally, as it has a a rather nice system when it comes to mortal and immortal interaction.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

More or less. I'd say it wouldn't take much power to make Divine Immensity permanent so that you wouldn't change size within Dead Magic Zones.

That's good to know. It'll help when I get around to restatting the Epic Bestiary's angels to be more compliant with Ascension, after all my other plans with Ascension, of course. Would this be the official rule on how "permanent" Divine Immensity works, by the way?

I suspect that if the swarm condenses its the same size as the original immortal, but when it disperses a medium immortal would fill a 10 ft. cube.

Wait, so an immortal with Swarm Shape can turn it on/off at will? As a standard, move, swift, or free action? And I think it would make more sense for the dispersed swarm to fill up a cube with the same space as the immortal. I can't imagine that all of the insects that are packed together to form a 240-foot tall Titanic sidereal would only fill up a 10-foot cube when dispersed. We can also have enormous swarms of nanites that count as only one creature this way too.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I just noticed that there's a huge problem with save DCs: there's too big a gap between save DCs and save bonuses once you bring in greater deities. Let's take a lesser deity with 55 outsider HD (ECL 955) and 35 in all of his ability scores, and a greater deity with 80 outsider HD (ECL 160) and 55 in all of his ability scores. Assume that neither has any abilities or artifacts that boost save bonuses or save DCs, because if one side has them, then the other side should have them as well, so we might as well make them both lack any save bonus or save DC boosters. Recall that the base save bonuses for an immortal with pure outsider HD are equal to 2 + 1/2 Hit Dice + relevant ability score modifier + divine rank, and that the base save DCs for an immortal are equal to 10 + 1/2 Hit Dice + relevant ability score modifier + divine rank. Thus, our lesser deity has base save bonuses equal to 2 + 27 + 12 + 8 = +47, while our greater deity has save DCs equal to 10 + 40 + 22 + 16 = DC 88. The lesser deity will only make those saves on natural 20s, and since there's nothing in the core books that can make you immune to dazing (the official FAQ clarifies that Freedom of Movement doesn't prevent you from being dazed or stunned), the lesser deity is doomed to be stuck in a dazelock by the greater deity switching his divine aura to daze mode. And yet, by the encounter level system outlined here (www.immortalshandbook.com/sermon3.htm) and here (www.immortalshandbook.com/freestuff18.htm), an ECL 160 creature is only an EL +4 encounter for a group of four ECL 95 PCs.

Is there any quick fix to this dilemma? For that matter, on a minor note, is there any way to fix Infinite Deflection and Exceptional Deflection, which make you immune to all ranged attacks and ranged touch attacks, other than by giving every immortal Nullification? Legendary Archer doesn't help, because it still doesn't help ranged touch attacks.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

I just noticed that there's a huge problem with save DCs: there's too big a gap between save DCs and save bonuses once you bring in greater deities. Let's take a lesser deity with 55 outsider HD (ECL 115) and 35 in all of his ability scores, and a greater deity with 80 outsider HD (ECL 160) and 55 in all of his ability scores. Assume that neither has any abilities or artifacts that boost save bonuses or save DCs, because if one side has them, then the other side should have them as well, so we might as well make them both lack any save bonus or save DC boosters. Recall that the base save bonuses for an immortal with pure outsider HD are equal to 2 + 1/2 Hit Dice + relevant ability score modifier + divine rank, and that the base save DCs for an immortal are equal to 10 + 1/2 Hit Dice + relevant ability score modifier + divine rank. Thus, our lesser deity has base save bonuses equal to 2 + 27 + 12 + 12 = +53, while our greater deity has save DCs equal to 10 + 40 + 22 + 16 = DC 88. The lesser deity will only make those saves on natural 20s, and since there's nothing in the core books that can make you immune to dazing (the official FAQ clarifies that Freedom of Movement doesn't prevent you from being dazed or stunned), the lesser deity is doomed to be stuck in a dazelock by the greater deity switching his divine aura to daze mode. And yet, by the encounter level system outlined here (www.immortalshandbook.com/sermon3.htm) and here (www.immortalshandbook.com/freestuff18.htm), an ECL 160 creature is only an EL +3 encounter for a group of four ECL 115 PCs.

Is there any quick fix to this dilemma? For that matter, on a minor note, is there any way to fix Infinite Deflection and Exceptional Deflection, which make you immune to all ranged attacks and ranged touch attacks, other than by giving every immortal Nullification? Legendary Archer doesn't help, because it still doesn't help ranged touch attacks.

On DCs/Daze: Mindblank should block dazing. (It lists blocking mind affecting, and you could argue daze from a divine aura falls in there) An epic spell could render you immune. I am sure there are other spells from various sourcebooks and class features that would also likewise protect you.
Also, as the lesser in an encounter with a much more powerful foe, you absolutely need to be prepared. Its not like you could be in a dungeon with kobolds and open a door an encounter a Greater God. The lesser group needs to have every advantage. Epic Spells. Well Chosen Artifacts and powers. Etc. What it is more likely to come down to though is which powers the greater god has, and if the lesser group has an answer to it. (As well as being able to survive the greater god's attacks or spellcasting routine) The advantage the lesser group has is that in total, a group of 4 lesser gods brings more divine abilities to play than the greater god, which means more chances that someone in the group is immune to attack X or has a save boosting ability that protects them, or a class feature etc.

On Deflection: Seeking-Shot (Divine Power I believe) makes the first ranged attack each round work like magic missile (IE Unerring, no roll to hit) and calls out that a foe that has the ability to deflect the attack normally cannot deflect an attack made with seeking-shot. (Although you need to roll to hit normally in this case) I bring up Seeking-Shot because it just says 'shot', not ranged attack, or missile attack, and this probably needs to be corrected. It has archery-style prerequisites, so it seems like it was intended to work with bows/crossbows, but could be argued to equally work with rays, thrown weapons, etc because it doesn't specific any game terminology about what it effects.