Deity power level = Joke?

[His Dudeness]

This is exactly what I was talking about with the design issue, though. What benefit does the game get by driving a wedge between people who like more mechanically powerful characters, and those who like lesser gods? You say verisimilitude, but there are plenty of ways to make it felt, in the fiction, that the Red Knight is less powerful than Tempus, without taking away her ability to let a high level follower cast Control Weather. Why pound this nail in with a screwdriver, when there are hammers available?


Limitations aren't there to force a choice. They're there to make the choice for you. Now, I'm not saying that priests of the ice god ought to be stocking up on Fire spells, but in my experience, the ones who cared about that detail weren't taking Fire spells anyway, and the ones that didn't only get annoyed by the limitation. It's a net loss.

We will just have to agree to disagree. I think it's an excellent mechanic to provide a differentation between the clerics of different religions and adds a lot of flavor to the game. Lacking things like this is why newer editions don't appeal to me. It seems this is the inverse to you and while I can understand where you are coming from, I don't see it the same way.

In my experience this mechanics is well recieved in my group and we enjoy using it. I have played clerics that weren't of a greater power, although I was playing a multiclasse dwarf which level limit was 10, enough to get me level 5 spells.

But I suspect you are not too fond of racial level limits so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

I think 3 different definitions are being used for the quasi/demi/lesser/greater god terms.

Definition 1: Power - The term refers to how much power the god has access to.

Example: Gods of Fire

• Demigod - Can start a forest fire
• Lesser God - Can set off a volcano
• Greater God - Can set off every volcano in the Ring of Fire

Definition 2: Focus - How diverse the portfolio that the god covers is.

Example: Earth gods

• Demigod - covers a specific mountain and anything relating to that mountain.
• Lesser God - Could cover mountains and anything related to them.
• Greater God - Covers mountains, stonework, rock and anything even tangentially related to the word "earth."

Definition 3: Prevalence - How many beings worship the god.

Example: Rough minimum population for rank.

• Demigod - A town's worth.
• Lesser God - Several city's worth.
• Greater God - Multiple nation's worth.

In some worlds (like FR) Prevalence determines Power. In others Focus determines Power.