Deities & Demigods continued

[Drew]

Bump.

 

[Grazzt]

Hey, Scott! The plug was more that welcome. The Tome sounds great. I love monster books, and this is the best one I've heard of (next to the monster manual, I suppose).

I believe you will be very happy with it, especially when you see what is going to be in the book. BTW- at last count we are up to 422 monsters, one to a page (except for hazards, animals, and vermin), full artwork for each monster and best of all....(last time I heard) $29.95.

Anyway know why my gods keep coming up at -5? Are we sure the formula is correct? Someone do one of the gods I listed and see if you come up with -5, will you please?

I ran Boccob, Ehlonna, and Corellon and came up with the same numbers you did. I almost thought (before running Ehlonna) that maybe Greater Gods got a bonus of +5 points to spend, but Ehlonna comes up wrong and she is Intermediate. Maybe it is one of those cases where they used the formula ([24 x 6] + 21 + class levels + divine rank) and then tweaked a few of them here and there for diversity, uniqueness, or just to be tweaking them.

There had to be a formula of some sort though...too many gods match up (unlike the Dire creatures which as I said, I have studied all possible ways and there is NO connection whatsoever).

 

[drowdude]

if you reverse engineer all the deities in DDG you will find that most (not all, but most) deities do indeed follow a pattern with their ability scores:

24 (base) + 21 points (randomly assigned) + divine rank (randomly assigned) + ability increases for class levels.

Thanks for posting that, *very* useful.

Any idea what the formula for determining the number of salient abilities is?
(Sorry, if that is covering old ground, I havent been around on the boards for a while, and I dont have time to read the entire thread...)

Also... consider the Tome bought dude

 

[drowdude]

Anyway know why my gods keep coming up at -5? Are we sure the formula is correct? Someone do one of the gods I listed and see if you come up with -5, will you please?

Couldnt inherent bonuses account for some of the differences? Or possibly (more unlikely) Size bonuses/penalties?

 

[Grazzt]

Thanks for posting that, *very* useful.

Any idea what the formula for determining the number of salient abilities is?

Page 32, DDG: "...deity has one salient ability for each divine rank the deity has..."

It continues "demigods receive one bonus ability, lesser deities receive two bonus abilities, intermediate deities receive three, and greater deities receive five."

 

[Grazzt]

Couldnt inherent bonuses account for some of the differences? Or possibly (more unlikely) Size bonuses/penalties?

I thought about the Size thing, but Boccob is Medium-Size (as are some of the others that are off).

Inherent bonuses could be it (in most cases).....It says in the DMG (page 177) that "characters are limited to a total inherent bonus of +5."

So- inherent bonuses could be it. I mean, hell, they are gods. And they could easily wish a score up by +5. And this accounts for any diety that is +1 to +5 off the formula. The others (those that are +6 or greater which I believe is only one or two) either get additional bonuses elsewhere or it is simply a typo (which is possible considering the sheer size of the volume and the massive amounts of number crunching that went into the book).

 

[drowdude]

I thought about the Size thing, but Boccob is Medium-Size (as are some of the others that are off).

Inherent bonuses could be it (in most cases).....It says in the DMG (page 177) that "characters are limited to a total inherent bonus of +5."

So- inherent bonuses could be it. I mean, hell, they are gods. And they could easily wish a score up by +5.

You would almost think that for any gods capable of casting Wish that would be a given...

 

[Squire James]

Then I guess the question is "Why didn't they wish ALL their ability scores up by +5?"

 

[Grazzt]

Then I guess the question is "Why didn't they wish ALL their ability scores up by +5?"

DMG (page 177) states that a limit of +5 (TOTAL) can be gained through inherent bonuses. Hence, even though they are gods, they are limited by this rule as well. So- they can raise any or all scores by however many points they want, but the TOTAL gained can never be more than +5.

 

[Drew]

Also, did we ever resolve the issue with Annihilating Strike? As it stands, one crit from Hextor annihilate Kord, a deity only one rank lower? That seems a little, well, stupid. Wouldn't a battle rager like Hextor have wiped out lesser deities a long, long time ago?