FrostedMini1337 said:
As a general rule, do you bar PC's from ascending in a campaign other than where you as the GM have the ascension in mind beforehand? If so, why?
No, I do not bar PCs from ascending in a campaign. Usually it involves "sponsorship" to saint or demigod level by an existing divinity - this is one of the potential rewards for being a faithful servant/follower of a particular divinity. However, both in my homebrew and in published campaign worlds I've run, the possibility (however remote) has occasionally appeared where a PC can achieve direct god/goddess status. The PC immediately becomes an NPC upon ascension.
You homebrew a world with few dieties. A PC notices you have no god of Luck or Chaos or Change, and rolls up a Swashbuckler with the intent on becoming the diety of Luck Chaos and Change. Do you let him? (To clarify, this is more of a question "Theres an open Portfolio, would you let a PC take it?")
Only if the PC earns it. When I'm the DM, going from epic character to full god/goddess is a very, very rare and difficult thing. The PC would have to be a (non-game terminology definition) paragon example of the portfolio(s) the PC wants to take over to even have a hope of doing this.
In FR, a character has reached epic levels and literally 5 thousand people worship him. People flock from all across faerun to be near him, gain his advice and study under him. How about him? (To clarify, this more of a question of "Some of those low divine rank suckers don't even have 5 thousand worshipers. Would you let the PC steal portfolios like dieties do from one another")
5K worshippers isn't even a fraction of a drop in the bucket you'd need to even be on the road to divine rank 0. IMC, that few worshippers wouldn't even allow a divine being to grant spells, much less use them itself. It simply isn't enough faith. In fact, if any of those worshippers used to be sworn to another divinity, that god/goddess is probably ticked that the PC led them astray, and will take corrective steps. My knowledge of obscure FR low-ranked divinities is waaaay out of date. I run them as basically maintaining their divine status by carefully hoarding followers' faith from back when they were more actively worshipped. I also run it such that a divine being has an easier time stealing divine power from another divine being. It's like the barrier between normal 1-20 progression and epic levels: Epic powers are mostly unusable and inaccessable by non-epic beings. Same thing: Divine powers are mostly unusable and inaccessable by non-divine beings. So even if an epic PC slew all a god's worshippers, slew all a god's avatars, fought the god on its home plane and won, and then seated himself on that god's throne, it wouldn't make him a god. Unless, of course, the DM set out that specific formula for becoming a god.
Would you ever let a PC be responsible for the fall of a diety? Example: by killing his followers, and the spreading of a magical disease that implicated Kelemvor, a high level lich of an extraplanar diety on FR lowers Kelemvors divine rank (divine rank is tied to number of followers and ferverancy). Would you let the diety come to the realms and battle with kelemvor for control? Or would you be more apt to just elevate the PC instead for his hard work? Or would AO/Kelemvor smite him for the presumptiousness of it all?
Yes - wipe out its worshippers, and reduce everyone else's belief in the divine power of that divinity, and you cut off the supply of faith. Now that divinity only has the power it saved up. It can recall a few avatars to have more juice to work miracles (and regain followers), but that's a hard, uphill battle.
In FR, Kelemvor would probably call on the assistance of any divine allies he has (or recruit those allies by pointing out that this is a divine invasion of the realms, and therefore a threat to all the FR gods) to obliterate the interloper. AO would be annoyed at the disruption and probably would take corrective action so that Kelemvor's replacement was more attentive to maintaining his faithful and preventing divine invasions.
Bottom line: FR has had divine invasions before. If the DM wants to run one, there's certainly precedent for it. If your DM allows it, then that's great. Player input on a god's activities can result in some really cool stuff. IME, though, it's easier to keep the divine/mortal limit in place. If killing gods and replacing them with PCs looks like fun to, though, then give it a try. You can always have AO come along and set things back again.
Edit: Fixed the bad quote bracket.
