Upper_Krust said:
Yes these are factored for the minimum Hit Dice of that Divine Status.
Ah- then my example Sidereals are probably slightly more powerful than they should be. That said, the facts that the smallest of them is a 1400-HD creature (split six ways this gives +58 to each score with 2 left over for fixing odds, increasing the highest two, or whatever), and has the equivalent of 60 divine ranks besides, mean that the difference in power will probably be pretty small in the final analysis.
Upper_Krust said:
I remember you saying you were making the changes. But I can't remember why?
Personal aesthetics more than anything- I actually define the two classes of Immortal based on how they exist as beings, what their "souls" or consciousness are housed in before we even consider their interaction with the rest of reality. Deity-level beings aren't housed in bodies as such; they're constructs of pure energy that merely happen to form material bodies (their avatars) to make interaction with the rest of the cosmos more convenient. Taking it to the next level, Sidereals are entities existing as patterns of quantum probability waves, which form "avatars" of pure energy to interact on the divine level (and those avatars can, being gods, form material avatars to interact with the mortal realm). So for me, the leap from mortal to god is considerably more complex than merely getting a certain amount of "Energy X," and likewise the leap from Deity to Sidereal takes a lot more than just gaining enough divine ranks. I also thought that any entity representing the mind of an entire plane of existence should have a lot more than a mere 200 or so hit dice.
Representing this in game terms is of course a challenge, but I thought the best way would most likely be to have one class of being have an order of magnitude (or more) HD above what the lesser class does. So mortals can go up to about 100 HD maximum, and most will be a lot lower; deities will typically have HD in the 100-1000 range (those near the top of this scale will be extremely rare, and actually constitute a class well beyond Greater Deity since I long ago set Greater Deity at 400 base). Sidereals will be 1000 and above- and actually I set out the First One-type beings a level even higher than that, starting at 10000 HD.
On top of this, I didn't really like the idea of forcing each divine "tier" to have a single set number of divine ranks, though I certainly see why that decision was made from a game simplicity point of view (plus it makes the system much easier to playtest in its balancing stages and that's a Very Good Idea). But since I went ahead and added a lot of complexity on top of the core rules to create my setting, I figured that treating the IH as "core rules" for deities and above, and adding complexity on top of that would provide a satisfying fit with my existing setting.
So getting back to the divine ranks, I allow Demigods to have either 5 or 6, Lesser to have anywhere from 7 to 12, Intermediates to go from 13 to 18, Greater 19 to 24, and then the two classes above that (taken from world background I had written up for 2nd Edition and earlier- I believe I mentioned once before how I had my own rules for super-gods and Overgods long before 3rd Edition came around) are called Elder Deity (25-36 ranks) and Incarnation (37-48 ranks). The Incarnations are so named because they're supposed to be the supreme incarnations of their Portfolios in the cosmos, whatever those portfolios happen to be. In my original version, each Incarnation would only have one concept to be the Incarnation of, but the d20/IH-inspired version is less stringent about this. With respect to Portfolio powers, I'd give Elder Deities the ability for an Elder One in the IH sense, and Incarnations the power for an Old One. The First One Portfolio abilities are reserved for true Sidereals.
Actual Sidereals in my scheme have something besides divine ranks. They start a new scale entirely: the Cosmic Rank. There are nine classes of Sidereal, divided into three tiers which more or less correspond conceptually to your IH Elder One, Old One, and First One. Actually I based the new scheme on my old tables going back to 1st Edition, and was surprised to discover that both you and I had arrived at a 3-tier scheme for Overgods independently. The difference between us essentially is, I subdivided mine further, and you didn't.
Obviously the Divinity Templates require a major overhaul to make my scheme work, but fortunately you provided the tools to create new templates right there in the same chapter- so I basically took the standard abilities granted to each template, and added what was necessary to make the changes. For example, it could mean changing the ability score bonuses, changing the minimum HD requirements, adding a few more standard powers depending on the concept behind the template- but, all Greater Deities would get the same set of powers beyond just their Divine Ranks and associated Divine Abilities, regardless of whether their actual number of DRs is 19, 24, or whatever. At the Sidereal level, all members of the lowest three tiers use the Elder One template powers, the middle three tiers use the Old One, and the upper three tiers use the First One.
This does slightly throw off the balance of the templates in terms of CR increase at the low ends and high ends of each spectrum, but I accepted that problem as soon as I set out to work on this new scheme.
So far, I've been fairly satisfied with the results in the creation of the three Sidereals for my game; two are in the lowest third (one has only 1 Cosmic Rank, the other has 2) and the other one- which my players are only now becoming aware of in game terms, and even then only vaguely and for reasons which will not be apparent to them for years to come in real time- is my setting's version of Zurvan, with 21000 HD and 16 Cosmic Ranks. The major reason I wanted him to have stats is that he created an artifact which is going to become important in my future game timeline, and thus I need his stats to determine what his artifact can do. My main problem with "finishing" the three has been what to do with their feats (among other things, I'm waffling on whether I should allow them to trade in 6 feats for another Divine ability, or 36 for another Cosmic), and in the case of Zurvan and the 2-CosR being, what artifacts with a market value of billions of gp can do exactly.
Upper_Krust said:
I think you are going to face some problems with interaction between the different ranks if you have such large gaps in between.
It changes the forms those interactions can take, certainly, but I wouldn't call them "problematic" myself. They're just different, really. In your scheme, it's theoretically possible for a small group of Intermediate and/or Greater deities to take down an Old One, at least to the point of making it dormant again and forcing it to take advantage of its Cosmic String ability. In my scheme, it really isn't, unless the deities in question acquire some supremely powerful Cosmic artifact or have at their disposal such massive technologies as, say, a warship the size of a whole planet. And even then, the battle will be in doubt. Likewise, mortals- even Epic ones- who try to face down even a demigod in direct combat are in for the fight of their lives, if they have even a slim chance of survival. Facing down a demigod's 30-HD avatar is possible, certainly- perhaps even easy- but facing the demigod's actual 120-HD base manifestation? Not so much. To me, this is a satisfying state of affairs.
