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

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Geminisaga777 amigo,

How can I get it?

If you backed the Kickstarter you should have received an email from Drivethru saying you can download:

God Rules Ascension Version 1.0 Cover A PDF (the default colour version)
God Rules Ascension Version 1.0 Cover C PDF (Sketch Edition)

if you backed Cover B (Kickstarter Exclusive) that will be another day or two - as I need to add the trade dress and various illustrations need to overlap the trade dress and its all a bit fiddly and its just going to take a couple of days; but it will look gorgeous.

Should you send the link, or is it handled via private message?

If you have not backed the Kickstarter you will need to wait until its available to the Public (hopefully within a few weeks).

Also, when is the monster manual (big, really nasty monsters) coming out?

Well there are multiple Bestiary books in the pipeline, some small (in terms of page count), some big.

As of today, my plans for the immediate six months after Ascension are:

God Rules: Epic Artifacts (free to backers of Ascension) the cut Artifacts chapter with some added extras. Should end up 112 pages or something like that, half this book is already written so hopefully I can get it all done with 2 months (once Ascension is available to the Public). So if you want to add Excalibur, Ark of the Covenant, Green Lantern Rings, Cosmic Cube etc. and even crazier stuff to your campaign, this is the book for you - and obviously I will have my own names for stuff like Green Lantern Rings, to avoid the wrath of the (12-dimensional) Copyright Gods

God Rules: 'something monster related' I'm being vague on the title for now but the monster list is set. This will be about 96 pages of content with a few pages either side (Contents, Introduction, Tables etc.). So this is just a sort of mini-Bestiary that will be bigger than my Immortals Handbook: Epic Bestiary.

An Epic Adventure (yes I have the title, I am just not revealing it yet) an introductory Epic Adventure (For Epic Tier Characters or Divine Rank 1 Immortals - though scalable enough for maybe Divine Rank 2 immortals). This will be a 32-48 page Adventure. So if you want to end your Epic Campaign or start your Immortal Campaign this Adventure will work either way.

Once the above is completed I will review what works, what doesn't and see what way the wind is blowing as to whether I should go immediately into my 'BIG' 160 Monster, 320 page Epic Bestiary Kickstarter, or do a couple more smaller books first. The 'Big' Bestiary will take approx. 6 months of writing and I want to have it fully written before I begin the Kickstarter. I am planning it now and that list already includes the maddest monster ideas I have ever created.

 

[Geminisaga777]

I’m a huge fan of your books, and I really miss the epic-level content from the 3rd Edition era. If you were to convert this new bestiary to 3rd Edition, I’d definitely buy it—and so would plenty of others here; it’s a niche we really miss. You could simplify things a bit to make it easier, but like I said before: if you released ten epic bestiaries, I’d buy all ten. I feel like your monsters bring back the horror-fantasy vibe, the challenge, and a sense of respect for the creature itself—and I absolutely love that. Great work! If I could make a request: please make this bestiary the first one released after the new manual.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I’m a huge fan of your books,

I appreciate the love amigo.

and I really miss the epic-level content from the 3rd Edition era. If you were to convert this new bestiary to 3rd Edition, I’d definitely buy it—and so would plenty of others here; it’s a niche we really miss.

I love all you guys, but 3E is an epic pain in the bum to design for.

I did recently play a bit of Pathfinder 2 and I do believe you could add 10 levels to Pathfinder 2e and have a book of Monsters between 20-35 Levels that would certainly cover "immortal" Play (up to Greater Deities). However, I am maybe not the guy to convert the actual stats, plus 5e is much more design friendly space for me.

But I think Pathfinder 2e Immortal Play would be possible. In fact I don't understand why Paizo keep going down this silly Mythic route; I hated the 1e Mythic Rulebook and I checked out reviews of the 2e War of Immortals stuff and it just looked terrible other than the awesome cover by Wayne Reynolds (although his covers are always awesome).

If someone approached me wanting to do a Pathfinder 2e "Epic/Immortal Tier Rules including a sizable Bestiary" using some* of my 5e monsters (that I release over the next 4-18 months) I'd be up for a collaboration (details to be discussed).

*I say some because there is no point doing a Pathfinder book beyond Level 30 (where characters = approx. Greater God) with monsters capped at Level 35 (Old Ones or so). You cannot infinitely scale PF2e without buckets and buckets of work (even more than 3e)

My First** planned 'BIG' Epic Bestiary will skew 80% to the CR 12-44 range with 20% CR 48-184. So converting those 128 CR 12-44 monsters to Pathfinder 2e would give you enough for an Immortal Tier.

**If I get to do more of those BIG Bestiary books each subsequent book will skew +20% more to the CR 48+ higher dimensional monsters. 1st = 80/20, 2nd = 60/40, 3rd = 40/60, 4th = 20/80. But obviously these are all pie in the sky as of this moment and each takes at least 6 months of solid work to create...and this is still me we are talking about.

You could simplify things a bit to make it easier, but like I said before: if you released ten epic bestiaries, I’d buy all ten. I feel like your monsters bring back the horror-fantasy vibe, the challenge, and a sense of respect for the creature itself—and I absolutely love that. Great work!

I am sure there are people who can easily convert 5e to PF2e (or 3rd Edition or PF1e; which ever you prefer).

If I could make a request: please make this bestiary the first one released after the new manual.

I have been working the past few years (technically 8 years with caveats) on God Rules: Ascension, plus that book has been delayed almost 10 months after the Kickstarter release date during which I have not been earning any (significant) income beyond the 2023 Ascension sales (which are selling well, but you can't live on it), and I am now in a position where my job is writing full time.

So while I have a small financial buffer to work with, I really need to have a few "easy wins" under my belt for a while. That's why I want to do some smaller books for the immediate future, and have some steady income coming in, before I put 6 months hard work in on a new Big Epic Bestiary; which then segues into a Kickstarter Pre-Campaign and then the Kickstarter Campaign itself (which is more effort on my part during which I am not writing/earning).

Now if God Rules: Ascension sells well on Drivethrurpg when its released later this month, and I am hoping it does okay as its my best work ever, then that might make me lean towards doing the Epic Bestiary sooner rather than later. But I still need to do the Artifacts book next and I still think the 'Something Monster Related' project and Short Adventure module after that will give the line a bit of variety before potentially jumping into the time trap of writing a big 320 page Epic Bestiary + Kickstarter; even though I believe that will likely do better than the God Rules: Ascension Kickstarter.

Its all time-time-time; with the added pressure of actually needing to release books to earn a living...which isn't fantastic when you are a procrastinating, tinkerer never happy with your own work.

I'm still trying to figure out the right balance for each project, but I am not sure going from one massive Kickstarter book straight into another massive Kickstarter book is currently the right approach.

So bear with me for the next few months while I figure things out.

 

[KyandoruKingu]

Hey Upper_Krust!

I've been following this rule book for ages, but unfortunatly I missed the opportunity to support it on kickstarter! You've said it will become publicly available in the comming weeks, but I do have some questions tho:
1. where will the book (mainly the pdf) be available? is it just going to be drivethrurpg or else where as well (or instead of)
2. the illistration/sketch version will be publicly available right?
3. more of a content question, I know you've used a lot of gods and other things from real mythologys, will there be godly creatures and such from dnd lore? by extention do you have an estimate on how much of it are your own characters and such? if theres a good bit of your own content what sort of mythological style is it? (that's if any of it has a consistent style)
hope these question aren't too much to ask! (incase my username makes you think so, I'm not japanese nor speak it in any capasity, it's just that candle king is often taken and I was watching jojo part 5 when I started using it, so kingu crimson is my insparation for my username (yes that was mainly an excuse to talk about jojo's))

edit: one more question; will these rules work well (enough) for an archlich (the non evil kind) acending to godhood? I guess no matter what if it works for a wizard (especially a school of necromancy one) it can work for a lich but is there anything extra concerning liches?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Upper_Krust!

Hey there KyandoruKingu!

I've been following this rule book for ages,

I appreciate the interest amigo!

but unfortunatly I missed the opportunity to support it on kickstarter!

Easily done buddy.

You've said it will become publicly available in the comming weeks, but I do have some questions tho:

Yes.

1. where will the book (mainly the pdf) be available? is it just going to be drivethrurpg or else where as well (or instead of)

Only available on Drivethrurpg

2. the illistration/sketch version will be publicly available right?

Two versions will be available to the Public:

1. Colour Art version (default version)
2. Sketch Art version

The Kickstarter Exclusive version (with the Trade Dress) is only ever available to Backers.

3. more of a content question, I know you've used a lot of gods and other things from real mythologys, will there be godly creatures and such from dnd lore? by extention do you have an estimate on how much of it are your own characters and such? if theres a good bit of your own content what sort of mythological style is it? (that's if any of it has a consistent style)

I like a mix to keep readers on their toes. I like to research mythology and the occult for these books, but I also incorporate D&D elements, comic book elements or anime elements - for instance someone mentioned an epic spell from the Overlord Anime a few months back so I made my own version of the spell in the book (with added Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath stat-block).

I use non-Copyright D&D characters or elements such as Orcus, where stuff is copyright I may tweak a few names to create something new - for instance the spell Arkuss Apotheosis is inspired by a famous D&D spell; originally that spell was going to be called Castle of the Inferior Man - which is an occult term.

hope these question aren't too much to ask!

Fire away amigo - happy to chat about Epic and Immortal stuff (or adjacent stuff) anytime you want.

(incase my username makes you think so, I'm not japanese nor speak it in any capasity, it's just that candle king is often taken and I was watching jojo part 5 when I started using it, so kingu crimson is my insparation for my username (yes that was mainly an excuse to talk about jojo's))

Cool looking character.

One annoyance with being so busy writing all the time, I don't have a lot of time to watch as much anime or play games as much as I did - but I can catch up on all that stuff when I finish another 40 books.

edit: one more question; will these rules work well (enough) for an archlich (the non evil kind) acending to godhood?

Are you an Ainz fan per chance?

Lich's Phylactery is a spell in the book.

Epic Spells can be learnt by anyone. However, Class and (Godly) Purview Affinities will double or triple the learning cost if you don't meet them - but that is the only restriction (double or triple the spell research costs - which are very fair)

I guess no matter what if it works for a wizard (especially a school of necromancy one) it can work for a lich but is there anything extra concerning liches?

A bunch of epic spells have the Necromancer class listed as their 'Class' but again this was just so DMs could look up the Spell List Table by Class at the back of the book and have a ready made spell list relevant for Liches.

I also have a big list of "Spellcasters By Age" and what happens to them (how powerful do they get). I was thinking to myself how could I stat the likes of Mordenkainen or Elminster since I cap Class levels at 20. Turns out the answer was fairly easy.

So if you want to stat-up Mordenkainen, you take his Age, apply it to the Table and see he is in the Challenge Rating 20 bracket, same thing for Tasha or Elminster who are in the CR 24 bracket.

So you can have Spellcasters transcend Level 20 in their class without requiring Level 21, 22, 23, 24, etc. Each Divine Rank = +4 Challenge Rating so the Ranks are much more powerful than single levels. The Spellcasters by Age table parallels Immortal Divine Ranks. There are 28 ranks on the Spellcasters by Age Table from: 75+ years old to 10^10^10^100+

 

[Alzrius]

I am sure there are people who can easily convert 5e to PF2e (or 3rd Edition or PF1e; which ever you prefer).

I don't know about "easily," but I did recently finish converting a (2014) 5E monster book for Pathfinder 1E. I'd dabbled in doing so and edited other conversions before, but this was the first time I went through the entire process, start to finish, myself (plus some editing from the publisher after the fact). While I've got about a bajillion other pet projects in the works, not to mention everything else going on in my life, I'd like to at least take a crack at converting another epic monster book over to 3.X (though that's just different enough from PF1 that I'd need to re-learn a few things).

Hmm, now I wonder if I should make a conversion of your Vampire Bestiary in the meantime.

So while I have a small financial buffer to work with, I really need to have a few "easy wins" under my belt for a while.

I still say you should collect and release the articles on your website. I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

 

[KyandoruKingu]

hey again Krust, thanks for the answers,

Fire away amigo - happy to chat about Epic and Immortal stuff (or adjacent stuff) anytime you want.

Cool! I know the book contains rules for forging your own godly weapons so I've got some questions about that:

1. How customisable are the weapons? theres a few way's you might have gone with it;
   • just crafting premade weapons
   • crafting premade weapons and being able to add your own modifiers, traits, attributes, etc, with some that change the aperance and others that dont, like most shooter games with attatchments
   • modular weapon crafting with different weapon parts being able to be (somewhat) freely interchangable
   • theres a good chance its not one of these or one of these but different, they're just examples of what I mean
2. Is there a way to upgrade weapons from lower godly teirs or even base dnd?
3. More specificaly is there a way to upgrade sentient magic weapons? Like I dont want to leave Dawnbringer (a legendary sentient longsword with attachment issues from Out of the Abyss) behind just because it can't keep up with godly progression. And are there ways to make sentient weapons? Do sentient weapons have special interactions with the crafting system?
4. Is the crafting just for weapons and (presumeably) armour or does it include magic items and such?
5. the book also lets players make their own divine realms, can you give some more info on that

sorry if these questions are too in-depth for you to reveal here before the public release, if there are things you can't answer then I'll happily be patient for the release!

edit: just one more question for now, does the book include stuff for making npcs? is is similar to player character creation/ascension, or if it's pretty different, how is it different (if you can answer that)

 

[Upper_Krust]

I don't know about "easily," but I did recently finish converting a (2014) 5E monster book for Pathfinder 1E. I'd dabbled in doing so and edited other conversions before, but this was the first time I went through the entire process, start to finish, myself (plus some editing from the publisher after the fact).

You are a braver man than me buddy.

While I've got about a bajillion other pet projects in the works, not to mention everything else going on in my life, I'd like to at least take a crack at converting another epic monster book over to 3.X (though that's just different enough from PF1 that I'd need to re-learn a few things).

You are welcome to do it.

The Hit Dice are relatively similar; its wading through the skills, feats and spell-like abilities I just don't have the patience for. Too tedious at Epic Levels.

Hmm, now I wonder if I should make a conversion of your Vampire Bestiary in the meantime.

That would have been great had I got the three PDFs completed - but 4e Sales were basically not worth it.

But I think it was:
Mountain of the Cannibal God; Cannibals + Vampires
Temple of Death (ie. Temple of Doom) with Thuggee cultists + Vampires
Castle Dracula with Bewitched and Frightened Townsfolk + Vampires

4e encouraged cool design (push, pull, knock prone etc.), plus the stat-blocks were tiny compared to 3e.

I would totally re-release it for 5e if I had the time.

I still say you should collect and release the articles on your website. I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

Some are reviews, some are copyright material converted for fun (and non-profit), I dunno...

I reworked the Ten Commandments of Epic for Ascension and then cut the whole completed 26 page chapter because it makes more sense in an Epic Campaigns book.

 

[Upper_Krust]

hey again Krust, thanks for the answers,

Its my job buddy, no need to thank me.

Cool! I know the book contains rules for forging your own godly weapons so I've got some questions about that:

Unfortunately I had to cut that chapter for space reasons (the book is already 496 pages).

But Kickstarter Backers get the God Rules: Epic Artifacts book (the cut chapter, but doubled in size to 128 pages) when I release it in about 2 months after Ascension goes public.

How customisable are the weapons?

Infinitely. Its all about how much Quintessence you expend to empower it.

Gods of Craft get discounts on Creation, for instance Hephaestus could make you a +4 sword at 70% the cost and in 10% of the time, but he'll charge you 85%, then he makes a 15% profit (with sliders depending on whether he likes you or not).

He will have you gather the components first. Or you can pay more Quintessence to bypass components and time altogether and create the +4 sword out of thin air. But such methods are not cost effective.

1. theres a few way's you might have gone with it;
   • just crafting premade weapons
   • crafting premade weapons and being able to add your own modifiers, traits, attributes, etc, with some that change the aperance and others that dont, like most shooter games with attatchments
   • modular weapon crafting with different weapon parts being able to be (somewhat) freely interchangable
   • theres a good chance its not one of these or one of these but different, they're just examples of what I mean

You can Craft, Modify, Merge, Disassemble, Remake and anything else you can imagine.

Aside from Quintessence the only limit is that certain weapon, armour, shield, item powers need to be contained within a vessel of a certain power.

ie. You cannot have a +1 Vorpal Weapon, a weapon must be at least +3 to hold the Vorpal Property and each property increases the price by +1. So a +3 Vorpal Weapon is now effectively a +4 weapon (+3 and vorpal), if you make it +3 and vorpal and flaming its +5.

This method keeps every weapon or item from being a laundry list of half a dozen powers. Better to have 1-2 powerful abilities than a bunch of weak abilities.

Note that my system revises 5e weapon damage so that a +1 longsword deals 2d8 (instead of +1 to damage) and is a Rare item, +2 longsword is 3d8 (very rare), +3 is 4d8 (legendary), +3 Vorpal deals 32 damage (max. 4d8) and decapitates on a 20 (CON save to avoid decapitation). This is an Artifact. Although I also have 4d Artifacts, 5d, 6d etc.

1. Is there a way to upgrade weapons from lower godly teirs or even base dnd?

You can do anything by expending enough Quintessence (Divine Power; basically Immortal Experience Points).

1. More specificaly is there a way to upgrade sentient magic weapons? Like I dont want to leave Dawnbringer (a legendary sentient longsword with attachment issues from Out of the Abyss) behind just because it can't keep up with godly progression. And are there ways to make sentient weapons? Do sentient weapons have special interactions with the crafting system?

Sentient weapons in your possession automatically upgrade themselves as you gain power; the trade off is that they siphon some of your gained XP.

1. Is the crafting just for weapons and (presumeably) armour or does it include magic items and such?

Crafting is for everything. I have a few soft guidelines on what certain vessels specialise in, for instance Books lean towards effects that grant no saving throw (forcing Legendary Resistance uses) whereas Orbs are good at summoning, Wands are good for Ray attacks, etc,

1. the book also lets players make their own divine realms, can you give some more info on that

Sadly, again that was material I had to cut even though the Divine Realms material was finished (about 16 pages) although the Divine Stronghold material (another 16 pages) was still being worked on I will add it to a later book (and double the material) fairly soon. God Rules: Epic Realms or something like that, plus add a few example Realms.

For Divine Realms I created this 100 Hex formula (where Hex size is based on Divine Power) and you can either create or roll randomly for biome areas. But the best bit is that the outskirt areas are not 100% under the god's control, so there might be Tombs of defeated gods, Vaults for captured evil artifacts and much much more where you can have adventures.

Following is an early Map prototype I created in Photoshop. The Hex layout can be any configuration, but this is the default.

Red hexes are portals on the very edge.
Orange hexes are the outskirts
Green hexes are the Heartlands
Blue hexes are the City
The Violet hex is the Stronghold
The lettered areas bordered by red designate different 10-hex biomes (although you can have the same biomes)
The numbers allow for each Hex to have all its features, randomly generated if you wish.

sorry if these questions are too in-depth for you to reveal here before the public release, if there are things you can't answer then I'll happily be patient for the release!

That's okay amigo, I appreciate the interest.

edit: just one more question for now, does the book include stuff for making npcs? is is similar to player character creation/ascension, or if it's pretty different, how is it different (if you can answer that)

The only difference between creating NPCs and PCs is that PCs get a character sheet and NPCs get a monster Stat-block.

Hopefully all the examples in the book will show how that is done.

 

[Akira Whitlock]

I copied your entire immortals website and shoehorned it unceremoniously into a pdf, in case it ever goes down permanently

I am currently in the process of converting spheres of powers 4700 abilities into a half pf2e format style that will include a portion of hand picked IHB abilities.

I guarantee when I get my hands on the 5e book I will be placing the lore into the lore blend and the new creatures, abilities and artifacts will be deconstructed and put into the mix.
So hurry up with the release, you have been edging us for a year.