Deity power level = Joke?

[Pentius]

What Sammael and I are saying though, is that even the lesser deities are high enough above mortals to be able to grant all of the spells mortals use. No deity, high or low, is giving 100% of what they've got.

From an strictly mechanical optimization point of view, when deity power levels have mechanical effect, then only picking the strongest one makes sense.

From a view that cares about mechanical optimization and also about the flavor(like my own), it makes no sense to force a choice of mechanical effectiveness on this issue, especially given my first sentence.

 

[Thanael]

The only problem with deity power levels is that they're essentially meaningless. The weakest deities are set to such a power level that they are only suitable opponents for the highest level characters (and allies rarely need stats). And, of course, virtually no groups ever make it to such high levels - 3e breaks down around level 13, while 4e has virtually no Epic level support. As such, providing any sort of power levels is rather pointless - they'll never get used by 99%+ of groups.

This would be true if everything in the game only ought to exist for PCs to fight. Some people like other aspects of the game though.

Dicefreaks did some very nice work to bring the 3E ELH and DDG rules better together. They also changed the Deity rules a bit so that deity builds got room for more flavour, and to more correctly model the power levels of deities and demon lords esp. in respect to each other. Check out their forums for some very nice deity builds.

 

[wingsandsword]

I'll agree 100% that the 1e/2e rule of nerfing clerics based on the power of their patron was poor game design.

I don't think there are 7 levels of power though, for the record. Quasi-deity and hero-deity are both Divine Rank 0, just different names for the same thing. Quasi-deity, demigod, lesser god, intermediate god, greater god, overdeity. . .and I don't know of any overdeities in official D&D settings that have Clerics, they usually don't need or ask them. Okay, in Forgotten Realms Ao had some "ministers" for a few years. . .but they get no spells, and it's implied that they only arose because Ao made his existence known to mortals at the end of the Avatar Crisis/Time of Troubles and thus drew worshippers who wanted to follow the mightiest deity of all, but that sect collapsed over time when it was clear he didn't grant spells or even want mortal followers.

Clerics are the envoys of their deities on the material plane, and their power level is more the power of that mortal (in skill and experience in using divine gifts) than what their deity grants them. A high level Cleric of a weak Divine Rank 0 quasi-deity is almost certainly the most senior priest of his religion (may even have been a friend of the deity before he ascended), and would wipe the floor with a low level Cleric of the Divine Rank 20 Greater God of a huge portfolio, and if that low Level Cleric thought that "My god can beat up your god" would be a good yardstick to base who to get into a fight on, he'll probably be standing before his god in the afterlife explaining that logic soon. In this case, no matter how strong the deities are, it's the skill of the clerics themselves that is at question.

 

[delericho]

This would be true if everything in the game only ought to exist for PCs to fight. Some people like other aspects of the game though.

For the most part, if we're not going to see them in combat there's very little call for stats. Just eyeball what they can do and call it "about right". Seriously, what percentage of groups have seen one deity crop up in their games (3e or 4e)? What percentage have had more than one crop up, thus making any distinction in power levels meaningful?

In actual fact, it might well have been better to put the lowest 'deity' level at CR 10 or thereabouts (level 10 in 4e), and extrapolate from there. That is being divine doesn't necessarily make you uber-powerful; that is the province of the 'big' gods.

 

[His Dudeness]

What Sammael and I are saying though, is that even the lesser deities are high enough above mortals to be able to grant all of the spells mortals use. No deity, high or low, is giving 100% of what they've got.

From an strictly mechanical optimization point of view, when deity power levels have mechanical effect, then only picking the strongest one makes sense.

From a view that cares about mechanical optimization and also about the flavor(like my own), it makes no sense to force a choice of mechanical effectiveness on this issue, especially given my first sentence.

About the bolded part, that is not always the case. For example, in FR (pre Godswar) it does not happen simply because while they have a higher power level than most mortals, they don't have the same power level as the patron deity.

This is made to give the game world a feeling of verosimilitude. If a minor diety has the same power level of a higher diety, why even bother with differentiating them, why not make all of them equal? Hell, if everyone has access to the same level of spells and the same spheres, why even bother with more than one god?

It is not bad game design, is different game design. I prefer differentiation in power levels over homogenization of power levels, because I find the later boring and rather bland. And I'm talking as a player.

 

[Rechan]

Seems to me the argument about lesser deities and spells is:

Greater Deities can Give It All to Everybody (all spell levels to lots of followers).
Lesser deities can't Give IT All to Everybody (all spell levels to few followers).

But couldn't a lesser deity Give it All to Some (all spell levels to a few)? If he has few followers, he can concentrate his power into the few people he has. Larger deities have to support more people.

This could be mitigated by not all worshipers or even clergy getting spells. I mean, you can have people who are lay priests, or even who function as priests but have other classes. Only a select few get the spell power.

There's also the matter that a lesser deity might not have a lot of high level worshipers, thus he doesn't have to grant all those spells. Especially if many of those worshipers aren't adventurers, they likely aren't racking up a lot of xp to hit high level. Does the Goddess of Midwives really expect to be granting 7th level spells all that often?

Out of curiosity, what level of godliness does it take to create Life (i.e. your own race)? Or to create some force like magic/psionics/etc?

 

[Sammael]

Granting all priests an equal number of spells is not the same thing as having the same power level. It doesn't break verisimilitude in the least, because lesser deities have smaller churches, fewer worshipers, more narrow portfolios, and smaller divine domains.

Let's do the math.

Greater deity A has divine power X (coming from his 10,000,000 lay worshipers), which he can divide among his three avatars, five Chosen, twenty proxies, and 10,000 clerics (one cleric per 1,000 worshipers seems reasonable).

Let intermediate deity B have roughly one third of deity A's divine power because he has only about 3,000,000 lay worshipers. But he only has one active avatar, one Chosen, three proxies, and only about 3,000 clerics.

Not only can deity B grant his clerics the same level of power as deity A, but he has power to spare because he has fewer Chosen and proxies than his power level currently allows.

If you want verisimilitude, make sure that churches of weaker deities have fewer power centers, less cash, and less influence than churches of more powerful deities. Limiting clerics' spells is really poor design (and doesn't make sense, as I showed above).

 

[Dausuul]

Hiya.

Well, back in the day, I always took the power levels to indicate how "restricted" the deity was in following the cosmic "Rules of Godly Might".

This is a nice idea. Instead of "the bigger the god, the better the cleric," divine power could manifest as a shift in emphasis. Clerics of greater deities get stronger clerical powers and magic. Clerics of lesser deities don't have as much power on a day-to-day basis, but they get more personal attention--every so often, you can ask your god to send an angel with a big flaming sword to lay the smack down on your behalf. At high levels, the deity might intervene personally once in a while.

 

[Sammael]

Out of curiosity, what level of godliness does it take to create Life (i.e. your own race)? Or to create some force like magic/psionics/etc?

IMC, only greater deities have enough divine power for feats of that magnitude, and doing something like that expends so much power that it leaves the deity vulnerable.

By 3.0 RAW, all it takes is a relatively low-level Epic spell:

Origin of Species: Achaierai
Conjuration (Creation, Healing)
Spellcraft DC: 38
Components: V, S, DF, XP
Casting Time: 100 days, 11 minutes
Range: 0 ft.
Effect: One constructed creature up to Medium (20 cu. ft.)
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

To Develop: 360,000 gp; 8 days; 14,400 XP. Seeds: conjure (DC 21), life (DC 27), fortify (DC 17). Factors: +4 HD (5 hp per HD) (+20 DC), +6 to natural AC (+12 DC), add three more natural attacks (ad hoc +6 DC), add black cloud spell-like ability (+33 DC), add SR 19 (+15 DC), permanent (x5 DC). Mitigating factors: 50d6 backlash (-50 DC), increase casting time by 10 minutes (-20 DC), increase casting time by 100 days (-200 DC), burn 10,000 XP (-100 DC), eleven additional casters contributing 9th-level spell slots (-187 DC), ten additional casters contributing 8th-level spell slots (-150 DC), ten additional casters contributing 1st-level spell slots (-10 DC).

This spell creates a new creature: an achaierai. When first created, the achaierai is Medium, but it grows to Large size in 1d4 days. A created achaierai does not possess the treasure, culture, or specific knowledge of a normal achaierai. If released to be among its own kind, it quickly picks up achaierai traits and alignment.

XP Cost: 10,000 XP.

 

[His Dudeness]

Why are you assuming that both dieties have the same power level to share, if such power level comes from the number of believers in the first place?

Let's take Tempus, major diety and god of war, battle, conflict, warriors, etc. He is a very powerful god, since war and battle are happening all the time.

Now take for example Red Knight, semi-goddes of tactics and exarch of Tempus. Would it make sense that a diety that servers a more powerful beign and has a narrower portfolio to have the same level of power to distribute to its followers than such diety?

All this in addition to weaker church, fewer power centers, fewer political power, etc.