Hi there! I see this may be a good thread for questions in general. Unfortunately I'm no rules master but would anyone familiar with the product perhaps answer some conceptual questions for me?
I was the book's editor, so I'll give it a shot.
I purchased the IH:Ascension book a while back before it was completed, so I still have the Beta 2.4 version.
Just so you know, the last version released was v.3.1.
So question #1 would be better off as a scenario.
Suppose level 0 commoner Upper_Dust with stats of 12 across the board stumbled upon a potion that conferred permanent High Lord Status (it operates like the Epic Spell divine ascension).
This is nitpicking, but he'd be a level 1 commoner unless you were using some third-party rules for 0-level creatures. Of course, to have 12 in all stats is slightly better than most commoners ever have anyway!
1) What happens to his body? Its indicated a high lord can't be below some massive size. Does he crush the entire world he's on? It is also indicated they embody a campaign, does he suddenly become the campaign universe he was inhabiting, or does he get ejected?
He'd hardly crush the world. He'd be, at the smallest, Macro-Tiny, which is between 1,024 to 2,048 feet tall, and weight between 512,000 to 4 million tons...that's heavy, but hardly heavy enough to seriously fracture the planet he's on.
Beyond that, the pantheistic nature of creatures beyond greater deities isn't necessarily a hard-and-fast rule (at least, I don't think so). It doesn't mean that he instantly becomes a universe, just that he gains power commensurate with an incarnate universe, and perhaps will develop one within himself over time (in essence, his apotheosis is his own personal big bang). Alternately, you could say that this does catapult him straight to Muzaloth. It's up to you.
2) How do you increase his stats appropriately for the CR boost? Does it operate like 1 for every 4 levels?
Beyond the stat increases he'd get for the stacked Time Lord templates, you'd be presumably bumping his Hit Dice up to meet the minimum Hit Dice listing for his High Lord level, so then yes he'd also gain 1 ability point per 4 Hit Dice gained (which'd be just under 250 ability points for each time you stacked the Time Lord template on him).
3) Newly minted high lord Upper_Dust puts all of his stat boosts into Int and uses the divine slots for omnific infinite Intelligence. He can now with the Alter Reality ability cast any epic spell he can imagine, no? If so can he cast permanent Divine ascension High Lord to keep multliplying his power level? (Duad to Tetrad to Sextad I presume). Wouldn't any time lord or high lord with infinite intelligence keep multiplying their powers in this way before running off to challenge the supreme being?
Well, this trick will never let them successfully challenge the Supreme Being, since even with Infinite Strength (which is necessary to even try and cross the Great Wall to make such a challenge) you only have a 1 in 4,096 chance of making it there to begin with.
That said, the idea of using Infinite Intelligence (and thus an infinitely high Spellcraft bonus with which to cast
divine ascension) should probably be flatly disallowed to prevent just such a trick. Personally, I'd rule that any being beyond greater god can't gain anything from that spell, as it's just influxing them with mana (magic, the fifth element) and they need a perfect infusion of quintessence to ascend to sidereal or higher.
4) Omnipresent- does that mean occupying all aspects of the planet (Prime Material Universe) or all planes simultaneously?
It means that your divine aura extends across all planes of existence in your cosmology. Upper_Krust tends to write "universe" where he means the multiverse.
5) What is/was the Omega template? Some info if it will ever be detailed?
I posted my interpretation of the Omega template
here (with a brief follow-up
here).
For what it's worth, Upper_Krust didn't care too much for the template as I wrote it.
6) What are meta-empiric abilities? Does that just stand for the umpire abilities of a DM and hence have no need for detail?
Yeah, pretty much. Remember, the Supreme Being is the DM, so these are the "powers" that the DM wields when he sits behind the DM Screen, and thus are beyond stats (and remember, they're hypothetical anyway)!
Glad to be able to help out!
