GOD RULES: Player's Guide (5e) Kickstarter Pre-Launch Page

[Upper_Krust]

Hey U_K! I have a question about the Boons for you.

Fire away buddy.

If you can only get Boons at Divine Ranks 1,2,4,8,16 (Which is what I got from the progress update,)

That's the current build (I've been toying with minor differences but that seems the best)

are you forced to skip out on certain tiers of Boons or buffs?

Each time you gain a new Divine Rank you can change all your Divine Boons.

Also if you gain a new Divine Rank and your Ability Scores improve you could choose stronger Divine Boons (with higher Prerequisites).

Also, are there any other major non-leveling progression buffs as well other than Purviews and Boons?

Divine Ranks. Potentially Artifacts.

 

[ArcanistDragonborn]

Hey U_K! Can you tell us some more about the mass combat rules for the God Rules? Specifically, I was wondering what DR a character would have to be to handle 50,000 goblins/orcs/other minor humanoid medieval troops solo, and what a DR 20+ scale mass combat would look like, and how many dice would be rolled in such a scenario.

Hope everything's going great,

Arcane

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey U_K! Can you tell us some more about the mass combat rules for the God Rules?

There are rules for creating Units of creatures in the book. All done on one page...with a few examples of the Template in the Epic Spell Section: "Orc Army", "Company of Devils", "Reign of the Iron Golems" (where it literally rains 10,000 Iron Golems then they fight for you).

Specifically, I was wondering what DR a character would have to be to handle 50,000 goblins/orcs/other minor humanoid medieval troops solo,

Well, off the top of my head (without looking it up) I 'think' Orc Army is either a CR 24 or 28 Unit and that is 10,000 Orcs.

and what a DR 20+ scale mass combat would look like,

Likely battling Kantor's Dust Swarms, Kynomorphs such as the Ur-cat.

and how many dice would be rolled in such a scenario.

My suggestion is never roll more than 19. Instead just roll 10 dice and multiply the result, then roll any odd dice.

So 1-19 dice...just roll the dice.
20 dice or more, roll 10, then double it, then roll the odd dice.

ie. 69d6 dice = Roll 10d6 x6, + roll 9d6.

At Divine Rank 20 I'd expect the damage would be approx. 4000 dice (before mods).

Hope everything's going great.

Chapter 5 looking good. Chapter 6 still a nightmare but I think I 'cracked the case' yesterday and I am writing my Universal Boon Properties Table today (so everyone can build their own Divine Boons - and it keeps my balance worries in order) and that should help facilitate finishing the Chapter.

Arcane

I appreciate the interest amigo!

 

[ArcanistDragonborn]

Here's another question! How much damage would a DR 30/Supernal level entity specced for Melee combat do on a particularly good round, and what kind of weapon/modifiers would that Immortal use to deal that much damage? Also, are there any custom Immortal-tier weapon types, like Daiklaves from Exalted, or other particularly over-the-top weapon types?

-Arcane

 

[Upper_Krust]

Here's another question!

Fire away amigo - I appreciate the interest.

How much damage would a DR 30/Supernal level entity specced for Melee combat do on a particularly good round,

Tricky to calculate at this point since the Boons chapter is still being worked on - plus the last few tiers go a 'tad' crazy. At Divine Rank 30 (ie. the Dungeon Master enters the fray) baseline you are likely hitting 100,000 dice before beginning to factor the Boons. Plus they could have x10 Crit Damage and the crit impact hits every enemy in sight and once they scored a Crit on you every subsequent hit from anyone on you is a Crit and their Crit Duplicates you and the copy now also attacks them.

and what kind of weapon/modifiers would that Immortal use to deal that much damage?

With a Strength or Dex of 30+ Gods of War can get Boons that allow them to always hit unless they have Disadvantage on a Roll. So attack bonus gets less of an issue the higher you go.

Also, are there any custom Immortal-tier weapon types, like Daiklaves from Exalted,

I'm not familiar with Exalted. But I am sure you'll have enough potential items to scratch that itch.

or other particularly over-the-top weapon types?

You mean like the Big Bang Bell...?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Minor update, I have tweaked the Damage Threshold Rules so that the baseline is now Hit Dice x 0.3 rather than Hit Dice x 0.5.

Behind the Curtain, the new Damage Threshold formula is: (Material* AC x 0.0273 rounded down to nearest tenth) x Hit Dice.

*Not Monster AC

So...
An Adamantine Golem (CR 24 with 60 Hit Dice) would now have Damage Threshold 36; whereas Nezha (also CR 24, 60 HD) would have Damage Threshold 18.

The change is a bit more forgiving. Testing of Boons like Adamantine (Anvil) Form work better with the new scaling. Right off the bat (Tier 2 Divine Boons...with Tier 1 being Epic Boons) you'll be able to take Boons that give: Stone Form, Steel Form, Elastic Form, Sand Form, Plasma Form etc. and these come with multiple features (usually six) and drawbacks (any more than 3 features need to be cancelled by drawbacks that cannot be mitigated).

While on the face of it, Steel Form would seem more powerful than say Stone Form it might have different Vulnerabilities that mean for your Immortal one might be a better fit over an other. For instance if you are a Sky-god you get Lightning Immunity and Acid Vulnerability (among other things), you probably won't want to take Steel Form which has Lightning Vulnerability and that would supercede your Lightning Immunity, etc. So there is a bit of planning to be done when putting your build together - remembering of course Immortals can change all boons each time they gain a new Divine Rank. So you won't get stuck with a bad choice for too long.

The higher the tiers the more ridiculous the Forms: Quark Form, Anti-Matter Form, Neutronium Form...and those are just the mid tier Boons.

The Universal Boon Properties table mean you will be able to create your own Divine Boons or Form-Boons within a few minutes. Even though I have a good amount of boons I can't cover every possibility in the book - try as I might. This chapter alone is over 80 pages and counting.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I just posted the following Preview in the latest Kickstarter update, let me know what you think!

 

[ArcanistDragonborn]

I actually love this, my game's Dwarven Barbarian might just end up taking this.

 

[Just Passing Through]

I also enjoyed the sneak peak look at a purview and some boons.

I am curious as to what you would put as the most powerful “official” being in the dnd multiverse, and what divine rank they would be.

You have quite a few options among statistic less entities:

Overpowers like Ao. as well as his mysterious superior who was referenced exactly one time and never again.

Cosmic entities like the lady of pain and the serpent

The heavy implication that the entirety of the abyss is actually a living creature.

You also apparently have some planet sized creatures in spelljammer that are explicitly beyond the capability of even powers to harm, though I honestly don’t know much about them.

Even amongst creatures that technically have stats throughout the different editions, there are some real wild ones:

Draeden from BECMI are fully capable of fighting multiple immortals at once, with about 40 attacks a round and hundreds of hit dice.

Constellates from 2e spelljammer technically have a stat block in the loosest sense of the word, their hit points is listed as N/A, they deal an average of several thousand damage in a multi hundred mile cone with each attack (in an edition where the max hit points literally anything has is about 300), and are explicitly capable of crushing planets into dust.

There is some creature in 2e planescape that I forget the name of, that has infinite reactive wish spells per round. Yes, infinite reactive wishes every round.

In 3rd edition you have great wyrm time dragons, and also some extremely powerful outsiders (such as a paragon infernal epic assassin with some of its statistics being close to triple digits.)

And there are probably more that even I don’t know about, both with and without stats.

Trying to compare all of these beings and put them on a power scale is very difficult for a number of reasons. Many have never had statistics made for them, were made as pure plot devices, or with assumptions that are difficult to translate to other editions. But a rough estimate of what the strongest being is in official DnD would give a starting point to work with.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I also enjoyed the sneak peak look at a purview and some boons.

Glad you liked it. Initial response seems positive. I wish I had more room to detail more Petit Purviews and even stat-out NPCs like Grog God of Beers but the book is already titanic.

I am curious as to what you would put as the most powerful “official” being in the dnd multiverse, and what divine rank they would be.

'Officially' probably AO, maybe DR 14. If an Overgod is interacting with Gods then its not too far removed from them.

Mortals < Godlings < Gods < Great Old Ones/Elder Gods < Outer Gods/Overgods < Archons < Aeons < Monads < Finaliters < Ownons < Minds* < End Point (Information Singularity)

*Still toying with that category name.

Unofficially (in my Rules) there are two competing DR 38 entities, I don't want to reveal their names just yet.

You have quite a few options among statistic less entities:

Overpowers like Ao. as well as his mysterious superior who was referenced exactly one time and never again.

Ao is likely in the DR 11-14 Outer-god bracket (and could well be the same entity as Daoloth. His superior could be one of the Archons - but with nothing to go on we are just speculating.

Cosmic entities like the lady of pain and the serpent

The Lady of Pain Fate will be in the book, she is DR 8

If we'd have hit the next stretch goal I would have added Tharizdun Erebus at DR 9.

The Serpent would also be DR 8 - I would equate him to Ahzi-Dahaka or Ahriman.

The heavy implication that the entirety of the abyss is actually a living creature.

I've got an Adventure-Bestiary idea planned to do with the bottom of the Abyss so I won't comment on that...though it won't be the first Adventure Bestiary as that is indirectly Hell related.

You also apparently have some planet sized creatures in spelljammer that are explicitly beyond the capability of even powers to harm, though I honestly don’t know much about them.

Planet sized creatures (such as the Tera-Shark) will be around Divine Rank 11 (ie. Challenge Rating 56), those of Star size around DR 13-14 (Azathoth is DR 14).

Even amongst creatures that technically have stats throughout the different editions, there are some real wild ones:

The Quasar Dragon was always a cool one.

Draeden from BECMI are fully capable of fighting multiple immortals at once, with about 40 attacks a round and hundreds of hit dice.

The Draeden were my favourite BECMI beasts.

I detailed my version of these in the 2005 Immortal's Handbook: Epic Bestiary, where I called them the Cogent.

I will likely have a CR 36 version in the new God Rules Bestiary. They are the brains of Great Old Ones and they consume the Dead Gods floating in the Astral Plane and can devour their heads and animate the mountainous stone-corpses to do battle against whole Pantheons.

Constellates from 2e spelljammer technically have a stat block in the loosest sense of the word, their hit points is listed as N/A, they deal an average of several thousand damage in a multi hundred mile cone with each attack (in an edition where the max hit points literally anything has is about 300), and are explicitly capable of crushing planets into dust.

Maybe Divine Rank 16 ish. I have a weird Constellation based monster but don't want to reveal it yet.

There is some creature in 2e planescape that I forget the name of, that has infinite reactive wish spells per round. Yes, infinite reactive wishes every round.

Cool. Does anyone else know anything about these?

In 3rd edition you have great wyrm time dragons,

Challenge Rating 90 was certainly high for 3rd Edition though it was only about Intermediate God (Divine Rank 5) in power. That said if I was doing a Time Dragon I'd likely have it at least CR 40/Divine Rank 7.

Dragons are a bit slippery to give a good Challenge Rating to because Ancient Dragons are effectively akin to Demigods (albeit without Mythic Form).

CR 24 = Ancient 'Mortal' Dragons.
CR 28 = Ancient Fey/Shadowfell Dragons
CR 32-36 = Ancient Astral/Elemental Dragons
CR 40-48 = Ancient Fear/Time Dragons
CR 56-64 = Cosmic Dragons

I'll have it all worked out for the Bestiary though. I think the big problem is just having Tiamat and Bahamut as Intermediate Deities.

and also some extremely powerful outsiders (such as a paragon infernal epic assassin with some of its statistics being close to triple digits.)

Any other details? I have a simple Paragon template for 5e, adds +16 to Challenge Rating.

And there are probably more that even I don’t know about, both with and without stats.

In God Rules there is no such thing as Un-stat'able my friend.

Trying to compare all of these beings and put them on a power scale is very difficult for a number of reasons. Many have never had statistics made for them, were made as pure plot devices, or with assumptions that are difficult to translate to other editions. But a rough estimate of what the strongest being is in official DnD would give a starting point to work with.

Literally my job amigo.