Is Primus a Great God or Overgod in 5e?

[gyor]

He created the Modron race, he accidently created the Slaads and made limbo stable enough that Modrons and Githzerai could colonize parts of it, he sat in judgement of Asmodeus and created his ruby rod, he created the Maruts and other inevitables, he rules all the layers of the infiniate plane of Machanis, so is Primus a God or Greater God, because he seems way more powerful and influencial in 5e then in previous editions?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Meh he got offed by a vestige of Orcus back in the day, so the current Primus isn’t the same one from all those past events. When Primus dies, one of the next tier of Modrons is elevated to become the new Primus. There’ve been a few of them I think

 

[Sunseeker]

What is this, a bad Transformers fan-fiction?

 

[Ganymede81]

He's just one of many cosmic movers and shakers of undertermined power seeking to influence the politics of the great wheel.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

He created the Modron race, he accidently created the Slaads and made limbo stable enough that Modrons and Githzerai could colonize parts of it, he sat in judgement of Asmodeus and created his ruby rod, he created the Maruts and other inevitables, he rules all the layers of the infiniate plane of Machanis, so is Primus a God or Greater God, because he seems way more powerful and influencial in 5e then in previous editions?

Lets go with... no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, sorta yes, no, no, yes he does/is if this is what you go by.

Pull out your Monster Manual II (yes, the AD&D one) and flip to page 91 for what "The Prime One" is. Everything after that, from other editions? As far as I'm concerned it's all bovine droppings. This was one of the MAIN things that kept ticking us off about 2e when they started rolling stuff out for it...and it got infinitely worse with 3.x. The designers "got lazy". They pulled a "hollywood", so to speak. Rather than take what was already there and use it as a bedrock to create NEW things...they took those things that made up the bedrock of "AD&D" and changed them. Why can't designers leave well enough alone and just build off of what was 'canon' before? Why take something that was already cool, and try and "fix it" to "make it kewler, like with lazer catz! pew pew pew!!!". :rage:

Primus was not a "god". He was...you know what? Here, straight from the AD&D 1e MMII:

"Primus is the ruler of all the planes of Nirvana. Primus, and Primus
alone, sets the order, writes the laws, and establishes the rules and
regulations. All others carry out the plans and obey the rules of Primus.
Failure to meet this powerful creature’s standards means a return to the
energy pool at best as a monodrone"

That's "The Prime One". When/if he is destroyed, a new Prime One is formed, typically from a Secundus I would assume, and everything below that sort of gets promoted to the next higher 'form'. Rinse, repeat. So, in a way, Primus is more powerful than a god in the sense that if he is killed on his home plane of Nirvana (Mechasomethingorother now?), "he" is reborn when the Secundi (there are 4 of them) have to choose a new Prime One. Then...POOF! He's back. Sorta. If Zeus is killed on his home plane...that's it. Game over. He doesn't get to "come back", and nobody chooses a new "Zeus"; some other Greater God/dess just tries to assume the role I guess. Probably quite the upheaval!

So, yeah, I'm going with "No, because all that listed in the books after AD&D MM2 is just propaganda, tall tales, epic songs, and hearsay". But you could go with "Yup. He's the super-duper god! He's like a Greater God, but turned up to 11!". It's your campaign, after all.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I appreciate how much Primus is being featured in 5E. He's gone from just being a godlike ruler of Mechanus to a being capable of taming Limbo, creating maruts that are as powerful as demon lords, and being an authority that even Asmodeus must answer to.

In my personal setting Primus was created by a god called the Prime Architect to take his place.

 

[Mouseferatu]

In my personal setting Primus was created by a god called the Prime Architect to take his place.

There's definitely an "Optimus Primus passed the Matrix on to Rodimus Primus" joke here somewhere...

 

[CM]

Glad to see modrons getting love once again in 5e. I hated that 4e all but swept them under the rug.

As for Primus, being the ruler of an entire plane seems like greater god territory to me.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm not a modron fan. Never have been. More or less hate them, in fact. The only way I've found to use them is to alter what they are. (For instance, in one of my forthcoming campaigns, they're basically the Borg, trying to convert everything into a purely lawful, static state.)

But...

If this is the direction WotC's going, I'll look to see what they do with it, and I'll either use it or not, like everything else.

 

[Shiroiken]

Everything after that, from other editions? As far as I'm concerned it's all bovine droppings. This was one of the MAIN things that kept ticking us off about 2e when they started rolling stuff out for it...and it got infinitely worse with 3.x. The designers "got lazy". They pulled a "hollywood", so to speak. Rather than take what was already there and use it as a bedrock to create NEW things...they took those things that made up the bedrock of "AD&D" and changed them. Why can't designers leave well enough alone and just build off of what was 'canon' before? Why take something that was already cool, and try and "fix it" to "make it kewler, like with lazer catz! pew pew pew!!!". :rage:

Sums up my feelings as well, and in a much more humorous way that I could