Deities & Demigods continued

[Killer Shrike]

Whenever there's an apparent mismatch between powers of Good and powers of Evil that have been locked in a stalemate, I'd trot out one of the following (maybe contradictory) explanations:

1. When Good is apparently more powerful than Evil, the forces of Evil manage to be a credible threat because they are less constrained by ethics and can resort to all manner of underhanded tricks.

2. When Evil is apparently more powerful than Good, the forces of Good are united and co-operate with each other, while the forces of Evil are divided and spend as much effort fighting with each other as they do with the Good side.

You may be able to come up with more possible explanations for both cases.

Well, thats certainly debateable, particularly when you mix in the intolerance of Lawful factions, the lack of discipline of Chaotic factions, and rivalrys between different groups even when moral and ethical alignments match. The way I see it the only factions likely to cooperate for any length of time in any meaningful fashion are the Nuetral alignments.


All that aside, my point is Heironeous and Hextor are supposed to be evenly matched according to the mythos, they have identical level counts and divine ranks, but Heironeous is inexplicably better than Hextor to the naked eye and has higher attributes.

 

[Killer Shrike]

bump

 

[Buddha the DM]

So has anyone been able to solve the mystery of how to determine a god's ability scores? After that how about their skills? Do they, true gods, get skills for their 20 Outsider Hit Dice? If so, what skills are class or cross class?

Anyone have an answer to this?

 

[Rook]

Note that Hextor's hitpoints aren't quite high as they should be (he should have 1180) and Heironeous' damage total is much higher than it should be. He should have +38, not +48. WotC must have a cleric of Heironeous in the editing room. Even so, Hextor's going down fast if they just slug it out.

I will note that the situation changes immediately upon the use of spells. Hextor has a distinct advantage here, since he has far more Feats and has a sizable number of metamagic feats, including Quicken Spell and Still Spell. Heironeous has none such. This means that Hextor will be certain to be casting at least one Quickened, Stilled Spell per round in battle. This is something that Heironeous can't do. A simple Divine Favor (+6/+6) helps Hextor immensely in his battle against Heironeous. It brings his average damage total above that of "normal" Heironeous and nearly identical that of Heironeous with his own Divine Favor. Hextor's best chance is to cast off what 'buffing' spells he can during combat. I'll also note that with Hextor's Smite power and the Sunder feat, I see Heironeous' longsword going down fast. And without a longsword (and his divine bonuses with one), so will Heironeous.

The main problem with Hextor is that he's using a strategy that looks cool, but not particularly effective against Heironeous. He's quite good with almost every kind of weapon, but he lacks the raw power that specializing in a single weapon brings. Having six different weapons is nice, but he'd be much better off taking divine feats in a single type and loading up with six of those.

I'll also note that against most opponents, Hextor will be wiping them out much faster than Heironeous. If the AC is lower than 70 or so, he'll be doing 2-3 times as much damage per round. And, of course, he has the chance to use his combat feats *19* times per round. He's just got a problem against an AC of 89.

I'd also like to give some advice to the two gods. You're both Intermediate Deities with huge followings and millenia old churches. I think you can afford to upgrade to Full Plate, guys. Scale Mail and Chain Mail may look cool, but fashion points don't count on the battlefield.

 

[Rook]

My thoughts on Deities and Demigods match the ones that Ancalagon has expressed here and elsewhere. The rules simply aren't that good and need substantial revision. I can't imagine that playing a game that actually *used* these rules would be much fun, let along balanced. There are several problems:

1) The "Always Max" rules. Deities frequently get an automatic 20 on checks and Greater Deities get maximum results with any random die roll. This sounds cool for a minute, but that's about how long it takes to see the problem with it. It completely destroys any element of chance and reduces situations where deities are in conflict to pre-determination.

2) Large check bonuses. This may seem a bit strange, but the modifiers found in this book are simply too big. I don't mean that the numbers are too large. I mean that a single item, feat or such can completely overwhelm the variability of the d20. Indomitable Strength makes grapple checks a complete formality unless your opponent is far stronger than you or has the same bonus.

3) High saves combined with the "no failure on a natural 1". Look at Boccob. He's the God of Magic. His spells have a DC of 30+ S.L. Note that essentially *no* gods in the Greyhawk pantheon have the slightest chance of failing a save against his spells. Boccob simply can't use most of his spells against his fellow deities. However, note that for the most part, divine Spell Resistance is useless against the gods. Gods add divine bonus to caster level checks and most get "auto 20" on such. This means that most gods will automatically pierce any SR on a fellow god. I see Harm as a very popular spell, since SR is mostly useless in divine spell combat and saves are impossible to miss.

All above combine to make:

4) "I Win, You Lose" As I looked over the Greyhawk gods, the main thing I noticed is how *rotten* conflicts between them would play out. It's almost always "X beats Y", with no significant chance for error. Of course, any deity with Annihilating Strike is almost assured one attack victory against any being of lower Divine Rank. However, even beyond such obviously broken abilities, all too often results are either pre-determined success or hopeless failure. I just don't see the rules as being much *fun* when used, the most cardinal sin in my book. You'll have to take extreme care to avoid pitfalls as that in using D&Dg.

 

[jasamcarl]

Good Points...

I as of yet do not have the book, but your criticisms sound valid, assuming these Gods were ever meant to play out in direct combat as either PCs or NPCs. That and the fact that many of the special abilities have a 'strategic' air that would give a dm a reason for not making such an occurence likely.

I will defend the high roll by saying that, like mass combat systems, stronghold guides, leadership, etc, DaD was probably meant as a strict DM tool. The above subsystems probably do not mesh within the standard CR/EL/GP/XP 'game' paradigm, as they simply represent and 'alternative' to DM fudging and are used more to create a 'consistent' narrative element. The assumption was probably made that DMs would not chance such an important element of their campaigns as a god and thus made their ingame effect less random...but what do i know.....

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi there!

My thoughts on Deities and Demigods match the ones that Ancalagon has expressed here and elsewhere. The rules simply aren't that good and need substantial revision.

If anyone has problems with Deities & Demigods feel free to point them out and I will (if I agree) address them in the Immortals Handbook/Worship Points System.

I can't imagine that playing a game that actually *used* these rules would be much fun, let along balanced. There are several problems:

Like jasamcarl (and others) I still don't have the book (hopefully it will arrive on Monday) so I can only speculate rather than assess at this point.

1) The "Always Max" rules. Deities frequently get an automatic 20 on checks and Greater Deities get maximum results with any random die roll. This sounds cool for a minute, but that's about how long it takes to see the problem with it. It completely destroys any element of chance and reduces situations where deities are in conflict to pre-determination.

I agree. I can see a place for auto 20's though - but they do seem invasive when used too liberally.

2) Large check bonuses. This may seem a bit strange, but the modifiers found in this book are simply too big. I don't mean that the numbers are too large. I mean that a single item, feat or such can completely overwhelm the variability of the d20. Indomitable Strength makes grapple checks a complete formality unless your opponent is far stronger than you or has the same bonus.

I'll have to study this clearly.

3) High saves combined with the "no failure on a natural 1". Look at Boccob. He's the God of Magic. His spells have a DC of 30+ S.L. Note that essentially *no* gods in the Greyhawk pantheon have the slightest chance of failing a save against his spells. Boccob simply can't use most of his spells against his fellow deities.

Trust me, when you see Epic Magic at work those high saves are going to look insignificant; perhaps even irrelevant..?

However, note that for the most part, divine Spell Resistance is useless against the gods. Gods add divine bonus to caster level checks and most get "auto 20" on such. This means that most gods will automatically pierce any SR on a fellow god. I see Harm as a very popular spell, since SR is mostly useless in divine spell combat and saves are impossible to miss.

This is the problem with not adding Epic Levels to the gods.

All above combine to make:

4) "I Win, You Lose" As I looked over the Greyhawk gods, the main thing I noticed is how *rotten* conflicts between them would play out. It's almost always "X beats Y", with no significant chance for error.

I agree theres a definite aspect of 'trumping'.

Of course, any deity with Annihilating Strike is almost assured one attack victory against any being of less Divine Rank.

Cancel it with Anti-magic. Most divine combat takes place (from my experience) within Anti-magic. Thats the litmus test of whos the best.

However, even beyond such obviously broken abilities, all too often results are either pre-determined success or hopeless failure. I just don't see the rules as being much *fun* when used, the most cardinal sin in my book. You'll have to take extreme care to avoid pitfalls as that in using D&Dg.

One of the problems herein is (in combat notably), the dominance of bonuses over dice. In 1st Ed. dice rolls made a difference between deities.

 

[Kalanyr]

Actually I think the overwhelming urge to use Anti-Magic is why officially any creature at or above Demigod status is immune to it.

Another possible reason is that divine fighters benefit from maximum hit points more than divine spellcasters do, and since a fighter god could get Antimagic Field easily enough, I think the real use of divine antimagic immunity is to even the playing field for spellcasting dieties verse the "I'm gonna punch your head in" diety. A god of battle should not instantly be guaranteed of victory over a spellcaster because of antimagic. IMHO, It gets kinda ludicrous if Mr Demigod of Skirmishes Fighter 20/Barbarian 20 drops Antimagic Field (from an item or a domain spell) on Greater God of Magic Wizard 40 and is henceforth guaranteed of beating him to a pulp.

 

[jasamcarl]

Perhaps...

As UK pointed out, perhaps these gods would be more PLAYABLE within an Epic context. The more i hear of the book, the closer i come to the conclusion that the design goal was to craft a system that would be essentialy a DMs aide with the core rules, but which could be extrapolated into a playable form with the forthcoming Epic level handbook. The epic multiclassing that these gods utilize emphasizes versatility (always a good thing for NPCs) while if they were single classed, raw power would be their forte (better for the 'adventuring' diety). Subtle choice.....

 

[Arani Korden]

All above combine to make:

4) "I Win, You Lose" As I looked over the Greyhawk gods, the main thing I noticed is how *rotten* conflicts between them would play out. It's almost always "X beats Y", with no significant chance for error. Of course, any deity with Annihilating Strike is almost assured one attack victory against any being of less Divine Rank. However, even beyond such obviously broken abilities, all too often results are either pre-determined success or hopeless failure. I just don't see the rules as being much *fun* when used, the most cardinal sin in my book. You'll have to take extreme care to avoid pitfalls as that in using D&Dg.

After considering it for a while, I really don't have a problem with that. A game played at the Greater God level would basically involve jockeying for circumstance bonuses rather than simply hoping the dice are on your side. Amber and Nobilis, both dedicated "god games", work in essentially the same fashion.