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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dark Dragon" data-source="post: 6301206" data-attributes="member: 1115">I fully agree, the powers at the disposal of gods are vast, and if they want, they could annihilate any potential threat well in advance before it materializes. But there some points argueing against such a strategy.1) There are other gods. If one evil god decides to unleash hell directly versus his mortal adversaries (e.g. members of a good church), their patrons are likely to intervene. This normally makes sure that there is no mutual destruction of good and evil but a balance of power. This balance protects mortals from being killed by the greater powers. Granted, if PCs challenge a god directly, they in particular may loose their protection by their patron deities. This avoids too many challenges of gods by would-be mortal god-slayers, and keeps fights limited to the clan of the gods. But I would say that the gods do not know in particular what a PC plans until he tells it a god or a faithful servant of the god directly. And so it makes predictions of the future more difficult.2) Retreat (teleport) or avoiding combat is not a good option, especially concering gods that rule as tyrants. That would make them look weak among their followers.3) Surprise is still possible. Other gods may support the PCs indirectly, shielding them from scrying, but using them as pawns to either keep the evil god busy or distracted for a while to proceed with their own plans instantly. Evil gods are known of not being reliable allies among themselves, they all have their own plans, and sometimes overlapping portfolios. Some PCs causing trouble for one evil god may be a helpful group for an other evil deity...A smart AND powerful group has a good idea about the supporting troops of a deity... well they should have. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Mephistopheles' Barbed and Ice Devils would cast their spells, but breaking SRs between 35 and 40 is impossible for them. And some protection against energy is a basic preparation. These devils can't fly either, so real threats are only flying and strong body guards like pit fiends and horned devils. Even these guys would have a lot of trouble with the PCs' SR. So I assume that the fight would involve more the elite guard of M (like advanced fiends and devils) and M himself, maybe first supporting his guard before joining they battle more directly. Well that could/would be a first step. Since the cults of Fierna and Mephisotopheles are not really big in number of members, and the mortal cult leaders are well known to the PCs, it makes sense to weaken the divine power of F and M by shattering their cults. This draws of course the attention of these two gods on the PCs...    Yes, that was something I had in mind. IIRC, some of the gods were killed in that bloodbath...</blockquote>

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