GOD RULES: Player's Guide (5e) Previews/Discussion

[Micah Sweet]

Hey U_K! When do you think the first book will be available for general purchase on Drivethru?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey U_K!

Hey Arcanist amigo,

I'm wondering, what exactly is Olam Ha-Ba/the plane of success,

If you reach there then you win the game!

Olam Haba is where you retire and put your feet up.

Everything after the Infinity Wall/Ego Curtain (the two were combined) gets progressively more Meta.

4th Wall (Infinity/Ego Curtain) = Self Awareness
Overvoid: 8D = Game Map, 9D = Game Table (beyond the map)
8D = Sentient Universes (or partial Universes), Characters know they are characters, self-aware miniatures
9D = Sentient Super-Universes (Supernals), Characters know they are Players, the hands controlling the miniatures

5th Wall (Akashic Records) = GM's Screen
Noosphere (Information Space): 10D = Game Rules, 11D = Internet (Fluid Online Rules; updates, errata)
10D = Sentient Multiverses; ie. Games Masters
11D = Sentient Hyperverses; ie. Games Designers

6th Wall (Mammonium) = Money
Oversphere (All Space): 12D = You need to work, 13D = You do not need to work
12D = Sentient Outerverses; ie. Games Publishers & the Market for such games
13D = Sentient Extraverses; ie. Shareholders controlling everything below

If you wanted to map certain characters into this system.

Anti-Monitor (DR 26)
Beyonders (DR 28)
Living Tribunal (DR 30)
The Presence/OOA or the Great Darkness/OBA (DR 34)
Ahl, God of Superheroes (DR 38)
The Eonymous (DR 40)

and what Divine Rank would a party need to be to get to/survive there?

I don't think its a matter of survival there. I think when you reach it, its game over. Absolutes are infinitely recursive and cannot be defeated in the conventional sense.

Also, I've noticed that there are some discrepancies between table A-2 and the higher dimensions chart, which of the two is more accurate?

The Map is the more accurate.

Also just to note all that accompanying text has been fixed and expanded upon.

-Arcane

All the best amigo.

 

[ArcanistDragonborn]

This is very interesting! I'll be honest that my campaign isn't using most of the super-meta stuff at higher Divine Ranks (even though the concepts are super cool for a storytelling perspective but they don't really fit with my vision for my game, so instead I'm just reflavoring things to stay away from the 4th wall breaking stuff and just focusing on standard scaling. Overall, though, once my campaign has its first real session this weekend, I'll keep a running track of what my party gets up to on their quest across the cosmos!
I'll probably share more of my expanded cosmology that I'm currently building with GLM and Claude next week or so, since my plan is to add Good and Evil-aligned planes (or shifting some of the planes like Bohu to Evil and making a new Chaos-aligned plane) as well as adding extra content to the post-Kuvachim dimensions based on my personal flavoring! I've got a lot cooking up, so I am very excited to share my lore of things like Quex'Atal'Xiel'Sura the Apostate Phoenix (probably DR 45-46, though once again none of the meta stuff from my game so he scales differently) and people like Doctor Gaster the Forgotten and the ever-enigmatic Woman in the Purple Dress!

 

[therealselah]

So I'm still working through my first spellcaster build under the rules.

As I was looking at 9th level spells and the multiplier being applied, I of course noticed how ridiculously strong meteor swarm is. The build in question uses a x4 multiplier, and so meteor swarm unfixed would deal 160d6 damage (560 avg). Fixing it (per your suggestion on p392) would mean reducing damage by half, so with the multiplier 80d6 damage (280 avg).

Which got me thinking about epic spells. Meteor swarm with multiplier of x4 is approximately the same damage-wise as any 13th level spell that this entity could cast. (Your parameters on p393 show that a 13th level spell targets 80 dice of damage.) Is this discrepancy intentional, or am I missing something important? For example, perhaps epic spells also apply the multipliers to damage - which would then mean that DR4 full spellcaster entities can cast 13th level spells that deal 320 dice of damage (1120 avg). (This seems like too much!)

 

[therealselah]

Thinking some more about that, I suspect this is a feature, not a bug. The issue arises as entities go up in DR - the discrepancy will be worse at DR 10 than at DR 4, and multiplying epic spell damage would be the bigger problem. So I assume epic spells don't have multipliers. Epic spells have other aspects which can be superior to non epic spells, even if damage may "lag" as DR increases.

It does suggest that higher DR gods of magic may find it more appealing to increase existing spell slots rather than to gain higher level spell slots. I believe your further updates will cover boons granting more spells of particular slots, and of course a Hieratic boon for spell slots grants the entity unlimited spell slots per your current guidelines. This makes a spellcasting ability score of 40 very desirable as soon as possible in a spellcasting build, coupled with such a boon.

 

[Upper_Krust]

So I'm still working through my first spellcaster build under the rules.

Okay cool.

As I was looking at 9th level spells and the multiplier being applied, I of course noticed how ridiculously strong meteor swarm is. The build in question uses a x4 multiplier, and so meteor swarm unfixed would deal 160d6 damage (560 avg). Fixing it (per your suggestion on p392) would mean reducing damage by half, so with the multiplier 80d6 damage (280 avg).

Which got me thinking about epic spells. Meteor swarm with multiplier of x4 is approximately the same damage-wise as any 13th level spell that this entity could cast. (Your parameters on p393 show that a 13th level spell targets 80 dice of damage.) Is this discrepancy intentional, or am I missing something important? For example, perhaps epic spells also apply the multipliers to damage - which would then mean that DR4 full spellcaster entities can cast 13th level spells that deal 320 dice of damage (1120 avg). (This seems like too much!)

I built my model of how much damage spells of each level should deal (roughly based upon Hit Dice at the time of being acquired).

Having done that I noticed many spells are undervalued and a few are overvalued.

Fireball for instance is basically a Level 4 spell in all parameters but given to PCs as a 3rd level spell because it is so iconic. Something the D&D designers have admitted.

Meteor Swarm is more like an 11th level spell.

My suggestion is to ignore spells that are 1 level 'out' but fix spells that are 2+ levels out.

I think the designers didn't really care about balancing Meteor Swarm because it is the Evocation end point. Its epic tier, only a small percentage play it - we don't really need to balance it. So it kind of falls upon me to balance it for immortal play.

So I would suggest DMs change that spell to 10d6 bludgeoning and 10d6 fire, but keep Fireball at 8d6.

The balancing factor is that while non-epic spells have their damage Multiplied by the Power Multiplier (to stay in line with epic spells); they have weaker ranges, areas, and effects (epic spells can get Super-energy for instance).

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey U_K!

Hey Micah!

only seeing this now buddy, apologies for the slow reply.

When do you think the first book will be available for general purchase on Drivethru?

PDF mid-late August available to the Public on Drivethru; Physical copies hopefully 2 weeks after that.

I should have a 99% finished version in about 2 weeks time (which I will update to Backers (Version 0.99 or something like that), so it will just be a lot of double-checking at that point and waiting for the last few sketch images to be completed.

 

[therealselah]

The balancing factor is that while non-epic spells have their damage Multiplied by the Power Multiplier (to stay in line with epic spells); they have weaker ranges, areas, and effects (epic spells can get Super-energy for instance).

Yep, this is kind of where I got to in the end. Thanks!