Pantheon design

[Pssthpok]

Hehehe, that's fine.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Ltheb dude!

Well, another problem I see with pantheon limits is evolution. If say, I took a campaign, say, Forgotten Realms, and advanced the timeline a few millennia, what happens? More people would probably be born, and probably worship something. Does the Qp Potential for the pantheon go up?

Not necessarily, perhaps the people will become too enlightened to need gods?

Setting a "maximum" only works if the status quo is preserved. If you wanted accuraccy, one should determine how much Qp there actually is available in the world.

The philosophical idea behind limiting a Pantheon (apart from the mechanical benefit of having cool Pantheon Wars) is that each Pantheon is tied to a plane and as such they cannot possess more QP than the Old One of that Plane.

Ex: If a god has one worshiper per point of Wp, then figuring out the world's sentient population = Maximum Wp available. (+/- events?) Maximum Power points available = ??? (Infinite?). Maximum Magic points = ??? (Mechanics unfinished, assumed either infinite, steady income, or limited by a universal maximum. [I am mentally picturing resource harvesting like in a strategy game like starcraft, where I get X resource every Y time intervals, possibly depleteing the source]).

QP is not always WP though. Gods can gain quintessence from slaying other immortals and so forth (as most demon lords do).

So you can't just base it on worshippers.

Example: So say there are 10,000 people in the world. (Wow, small world?) Barring a huge event, the total Wp out there is 10K. (Though probably not all of those people worship a god or even the same god.) Lets also say that totaling the possible PP of all beings CR 10+ = 10K PP as well. (note, not counting other deities, and it its not likely all these beings will be slain) As for resonance, I don't know. But so far it looks like there is a capacity for this "world" of 20,000 Qp, alowing up to 2 quasi-deities.
Note: Just ideas. I am forgetting some things, I know it.

Other than that, a pantheon should have as many or as few gods as needed. [/QUOTE]

I'd rather have my Pantheons all roughly in the same ballpark.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Setting a "maximum" only works if the status quo is preserved. If you wanted accuraccy, one should determine how much Qp there actually is available in the world.

Not at all [is it necessary to have a static pantheon if there's a maximum total power]. I have a very dynamic pantheon, but it's limited in terms of total power and power at each level. This is the hard limit, though, and it's not currently matched. There's a certain amount of untapped power 'out there' still. When a god dies, almost all of the energy returns to the cosmos -- some of it may be trapped on the god's death, but not more than a fraction. As a result attrition keeps the pantheon from its maximum, in general. When the limit is reached (off the top of my head, I think I'm at or near the limit for lesser gods*) no advancement is possible without a god advancing in power, being reduced in power, or being killed. As the total power in the pantheon increases, the difficulty of advancing in general increases, such that if all limits were reached it would be naturally impossible to advance, and if it was near it would be very difficult even if there was a 'slot' open.

In general this affects less powerful gods less than more powerful ones.

* I have two intermediate gods who are slumbering, during which time they have the power and effect of lesser gods, straining the limit.

 

[CRGreathouse]

So you can't set a maximum amount of quintessence for each Pantheon to possess and limit them in that manner because 10+ Intermediate Gods are far more powerful than a single Greater God.

All of your methods are essentially the same: treat a god of each rank as F times more powerful than the rank before, where F is one of {2, 3, 10} for your three systems. The power of a god is then F^p, where p is the power level (0 = hero, 1 = quasi, 2 = demi, etc.).

It would be easy enough to try this with other numbers, like 2.5 or 4.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

...

...I'd rather have my Pantheons all roughly in the same ballpark.

True, true.
Though on the subject of Worship; Everything below a sidereal is going to use Worship as a primary source of Qp, because convinceing 1000 mook commoners to follow you is easier than killing a CR 32 being (for a weaker god, a combat god might want to beat stuff up for Pp).
Sure, those worshipers can be killed, converted, etc. but Barring the resonance rules, Worship seems like the best early-game source of Qp. (Power from slaying immortals is technically the best, especially considering you don't loes any permenently when imprisoned, and divine abilities like Spirit stealer let you gain quite a bit from a defeated foe)

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi CRGreathouse mate!

All of your methods are essentially the same: treat a god of each rank as F times more powerful than the rank before, where F is one of {2, 3, 10} for your three systems. The power of a god is then F^p, where p is the power level (0 = hero, 1 = quasi, 2 = demi, etc.).

It would be easy enough to try this with other numbers, like 2.5 or 4.

Exactly. The idea is to parallel encounter level (where, on average, 2 gods of the same status will equal one god of the next highest status).

However the problem with simply using encounter level in this quick manner is that it doesn't take into account that a vast deficit in power can trump any amount of weaker characters past a certain point - so I think that also has to be represented.

I don't like going into fractions unless I can avoid it so it looks like a factor of 3 is the best way forward.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Ltheb dude!

True, true.
Though on the subject of Worship; Everything below a sidereal is going to use Worship as a primary source of Qp, because convinceing 1000 mook commoners to follow you is easier than killing a CR 32 being (for a weaker god, a combat god might want to beat stuff up for Pp).

Sure, those worshipers can be killed, converted, etc. but Barring the resonance rules, Worship seems like the best early-game source of Qp. (Power from slaying immortals is technically the best, especially considering you don't loes any permenently when imprisoned, and divine abilities like Spirit stealer let you gain quite a bit from a defeated foe)

The problem with this idea is finding 1000 mooks untouched by religion or maniulating ones who already have into turning away from their current gods.

If you are too obvious in trying to convert people, their initial gods may intervene. So you have to 'roleplay'* it.

Whereas with the other rules its more a mechanical approach.

*If thats not too much of a dirty word.