[Deities and Demigods] A couple of questions

[JPL]

After thumbing through "Exalted: Sidereals" yesterday, I'm looking into the idea of running a D&D one-shot where the PCs are all newborn godlings [Divine Rank: 1] in a vast Celestial Hierarchy [a sort of Hindu/Chinese pantheon, with hundreds upon hundreds of gods].

Since I don't own a copy of Deities and Demigods yet [my wife is getting suspicious of my growing stack of game books], maybe someone could field a few questions:

1. I know that most gods start with 20 levels of Outsider. How are class skills determined?

2. What's the standard ability score array for gods?

3. How does divine spellcasting work for gods? Even if my godlings all just have 20 levels of outsider with no levels in spellcasting classes, do they gain any spells related to their domains?

4. Are the diety rules going into the OGL at some point? I'd like to have them, but I'm not sure if I really need stats for Zeus and so forth [although were I to run this as a campaign, I guess I'd need as many god stats as I could find].

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mordane76]

1) It's not really "levels" of Outsider. You can do this portion of the development with a Monster Manual, and creating a 20HD Outsider. Character classes are determined normally after that. However, not ALL gods have 20 Outsider Hit Dice, some just have normal character levels. The real kciker for gods is what they have in Divine Rank. In the end, this will be very hard to delinate without having the book, because your divine rank affects so many aspects of your character's powers that have little to do with raw numbers, and answering questions in this public forum with portions of the book would be a breach of the OGL.

2) The book doesn't list a standard array for a god as being different from normal characters, so as standard -- but they are gods, so you might want to use the elite NPC array. Otherwise, I think this portion should be no different from standard character creation.

3) I'm at work right now, so I don't have the book in front of me. If someone hasn't answered this by the time I get home, I'll answer it then.

4) Because of the specificity of the rules in this book, I doubt it will go OGL any time soon. However, I am not an insider, nor do I have any connection to WotC, so my statement is entirely my own opinion on the matter, and should not be considered gospel or quotable as truth.

 

[Anabstercorian]

This is what you want.

 

[Spatula]

2. The divine array is:
35 28 25 24 24 24
Dieties get +1 bonus to ability scores per divine rank, in addition to normal bonuses from every fourth class level.

3. Dieties can use spells from granted domains as spell-like abilities.

 

[James McMurray]

D&Dg will never become OGL content. This can be considered gospel and quotable as truth. Of course, I don't really have a source, so if you do consider it gospel and quotable, you might be in for a surprise.

 

[Alzrius]

D&Dg will never become OGL content. This can be considered gospel and quotable as truth. Of course, I don't really have a source, so if you do consider it gospel and quotable, you might be in for a surprise.

D&Dg will (to some extent) become Open Gaming content. This may not be gospel, but it certainly seems to be strongly hinted by the fact that divine ranks are currently mentioned in the SRD (check the section for Epic Monsters A-E under the "Abomination" listing):

Abomination Traits
All abominations are born directly (or indirectly) from a god and some lesser creature (or idea), but none are favored, wanted, or loved. Still, they all share a tiny spark of deific energy, which grants them the qualities described in below. (Note: deity rules are used, abominations are rank 0 deities.)

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

D&Dg will never become OGL content. This can be considered gospel and quotable as truth. Of course, I don't really have a source, so if you do consider it gospel and quotable, you might be in for a surprise.

I seem to remember hearing last year that the SRD was 'soon' to be updated with Epic Rules AND D&DG rules...we've got the Epic ones...maybe D&DG are coming.

 

[JPL]

I seem to remember hearing last year that the SRD was 'soon' to be updated with Epic Rules AND D&DG rules...we've got the Epic ones...maybe D&DG are coming.

Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

I hope it happens. I've been really digging the epic level stuff since it was added to the SRD.

 

[JPL]

3. Dieties can use spells from granted domains as spell-like abilities.

How often, and at what caster level, for a diety at level 1?

And thanks.

 

[Spatula]

How often, and at what caster level, for a diety at level 1?

If you go to WOTC's site and download the D&Dg web enhancement, you can see an example of a diety (one without outsider HD, but still a diety) advance from Divine Rank 0 up to 20, fully statted out at each step. Looking at the stats should allow you to figure out the answers to whatever detailed questions you have.