Immortals Handbook - Epic Bestiary (Epic Monster Discussion)

[Pssthpok]

That's ridiculous. Dying doesn't mean you lose worshippers, nor does it mean you lose the power invested in a soul object. At worst you'd lose Power Points, and if the deity in question had little to no Power, they'd suffer almost nothing from dying and being brought back, under the assumption that raising an outsider were possible.
That is all, of course, assuming that Outsiders of Hero+ don't automatically recover themselves after death, unless slain on their home turf.

 

[paradox42]

That's ridiculous. Dying doesn't mean you lose worshippers, nor does it mean you lose the power invested in a soul object. At worst you'd lose Power Points, and if the deity in question had little to no Power, they'd suffer almost nothing from dying and being brought back, under the assumption that raising an outsider were possible.
That is all, of course, assuming that Outsiders of Hero+ don't automatically recover themselves after death, unless slain on their home turf.

I have to agree with this. Worship Points most definitely should not go away, unless perhaps the deity is slain in front of all its worshipers somehow (and in that case, I have to ask: what were they doing in its home realm anyway?). Soul Objects would not logically lose their quintessence either. However, I think that death should cost the being some if not all of its Power Points, and probably whatever Resonance it was getting from an Aperture (at least, assuming that the slayers then bond with said Aperture and become the new Custodians).

Resonance from another Immortal is a tough call, I'd say it would depend on precisely what the contract says. The character in my game, Equinox, had it in the Contract that Equinox's soul would be permanently lost to the god (Nexus) if killed, but in practice there was the possibility that it would take some time for Nexus to notice Equinox's death should it occur. This meant that I'd allow a certain "grace period" of perhaps an hour or so for the character to be brought back, after which the soul would be irretrievable and the player would need to make a new character. That's now null and void because the Contract was sort of taken over by a Far Realm entity due to circumstances I won't elaborate on- suffice it to say that Equinox now has a different Portfolio (Dominance got changed to Madness, though Concealment stayed in place), and the focus of the game has greatly changed in recent months as the party is now essentially crusading for the King in Yellow. What the "Contract" with the new owner says has never been determined...

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

(For the record, in case it caused confusion, I was speaking of resurrecting a deity who had been slain on his home turf)

I agree with you two. On the issue of Resonance especially. (Since it is tied to some situational conditions that generally resolve themselves if you die)

Worship, however, is a odd matter. If a deity dies on his home turf, (Perma-dead) he probably will lose worship points. However, it might not be all at once. Think about his clerics, who no longer receive their spells and the like. This is a real test of faith to them. And the loss of the deity in question's upper clergy could spell turmoil for the rest of it's following. I agree it should not be lost all at once. It might fall under DM decision to decide, but I doubt few followers of a religion, after finding out their deity has died/abandoned them/gone silent/etc are just going to shrug it off and say "oh well, he'll just get a true resurrection like the deity that died last week".

Given all the benefits an immortal gains on his home plane, and all the allies he or she is likely to have, the death of a deity, even an adventuring deity, is not going to be some common occurrence unless the campaign theme/cosmology make it so.

Bah, I think we've strayed a bit off topic for this thread.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi paradox matey!

Your math breaks here. Without responding to the rest of the post, I really must check this formula here as being unrealistically low- I would venture to say wildly low.

PCs at 40th level will have spent so much money/resources/magic on increasing their ability scores that the average numbers will be well above 17, if not far above it. If a PC in an Epic game that high has not gone out of his way to acquire enough Wishes or Tomes of Whatever to increase his inherent bonuses to all +5s, then either the DM is being very stingy or the player just isn't trying. Anybody who actually starts a game at 40th level is guaranteed to see most if not all of his players listing "read; exhausted" Tomes for every ability score- they're easily cheap enough by that level that every PC can spend the funds for all six +5 books without putting a large dent in the resource value available at that level (40th-level PCs start with 13.6 million; the books cost a paltry 137 thousand each). Items to increase ability scores are just as easy to acquire by that time, but more importantly, the Epic spellcasters in the party will be using serious buffs like that "+30 CHA to all allies within 30 feet of me" Aura of Glory that the Sorceress in my original Epic game uses. She's only 32nd level overall, and she researched that spell before she was even 30th.

Actually agreed, but I meant to put down an average of 20 - which is what I actually based my formula on...

So again you have a further discrepancy of roughly +1/4 to the DC per HD of the monster.

The cumulative effect of all this is difficult to overstate. Even if a PC has an ability score less than 20 by this level, it is guaranteed to be in a score that that character simply doesn't care about because its bonuses don't affect his or her specialty- for example, the sorceress mentioned above has a STR score below 20 (actually, I believe it's the one score she's never bothered to get a Manual for increasing- but I wouldn't be surprised if she does get one sometime within the next 8 levels since she, like the others, is practically swimming in resources right now). The scores that actually matter to the character- and I can guarantee that any player who pays attention will find that the save-boosting trio matters before reaching Epic levels in the first place- will be boosted. Spellcasters other than Divine ones may not increase WIS all that much, but they will do it for the slight boost to Will saves and the (more important) boost to the many WIS-based skills, particularly Spot and Listen (no PC likes to be caught by surprise). Melee tanks may not increase DEX much, but even they will appreciate having better Reflex saves and (more importantly) better initiative, plus access to new feats that help AC such as Dodge and others that help attacks such as Two-Weapon Fighting. And there isn't a character in the game who won't appreciate the all-important boost to hit points that come with a higher CON score- the Fortitude save bonus is really just icing on that cake for many.

The save-boosting ability scores of 40th-level PCs, in other words, will be considerably higher than a laughably low 17. They may not be "prime requisites" for most, but they are important enough even without considering the boost afforded to saves that they will be earmarked for increases (not to mention, having higher scores put into them in the first place during the die-rolling or point-buying of character creation). A character who focuses all powers and resources on increasing the prime requisite, and neglects the rest, is not going to survive to 40th level in the first place.

If we add spells to the equation then those modifiers work both ways, many epic monsters have spell-like abilities and/or spellcasting itself.

What I was simply pointing out is that pound for pound PC ability scores will be on average lower.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Re: Resurrecting a Deity

Hey guys!

As regards resurrecting a deity I see it much in the relationship between Anti-magic and Dead Magic.

Its a mortal and immortal divide.

Resurrection brings the dead back to life, but spirits are immortal and not technically "Living".

Destruction away from the immortals home plane is like a kind of Contingency Resurrection which brings the immortal spirit back to their home plane.

But destruction on their home plane totally obliterates an immortal. Such immortals can be pieced back together again by a sacrifice of ten times the amount of quintessence that immortal possessed.

Philosophically you could argue that the immortals existing worship points could be factored into that, but at best thats only 10% of whats needed.

Death for immortals has to mean something, otherwise it means nothing.

 

[dante58701]

You need to include that in a book somewhere.

 

[Pssthpok]

Yeah, let's add to the otherwise infinite delay...

 

[paradox42]

...spirits are immortal and not technically "Living".

I believe this is the essential disconnect. To me, Outsiders are living, whether or not you accept the idea that they are spirit alone. Therefore, there is a way to bring them back to life once they are killed, even if it's harder to do than it is for mortals.

This is how True Resurrection works: it can bring back a creature which has died so completely that absolutely nothing of the body remains (i.e. not even a single particle of ash). Since an Outsider is essentially body and spirit in one, destruction of an Outsider means that there is no body to target with lower-level raising spells. But because True Resurrection restores both at the same time, it works on an Outsider just fine, as long as you can unambiguously identify the target.

My theory on why that spell works as it does is essentially that it pulls stuff from the past, effectively from the exact moment the target died- and thus the restoration without level loss is easily explained. The mind/soul just sort of "zapped" across the intervening time into its new (or newly restored) body. As for the body, that's easy to explain as having the spell pull DNA or some other necessary scrap from that same past moment, and using the same magic that would normally be part of a Resurrection effect on that to make a new and living body. For an Outsider, either explanation works nicely. Of course, what works for me doesn't necessarily work for others, but whatever explanation you use- the spell is supposed to work as described in my previous paragraph.

Death for immortals has to mean something, otherwise it means nothing.

That's why I'd force such an Immortal to lose some Quintessence- I guarantee that hurts the being a Hells of a lot more than the level loss that a mortal gets slapped with when lesser raising spells are used. Your argument, though, essentially just takes the exact one used by DMs who house-rule out any sort of raising magic from their games and reinstalls it in a higher realm- the realm of actual gods. My feeling is, either you should allow raising magic to work for all, or you shouldn't let it work for any- and if you want a middle ground option, then it should work for gods but not mortals. That would be another power that the gods reserve for themselves and one of the things that "makes them gods." Saying that mortals can come back and gods can't... just makes no sense whatsoever to me. Thus, I reject the notion out of hand and always will.

 

[dante58701]

Saying that mortals can come back and gods can't... just makes no sense whatsoever to me. Thus, I reject the notion out of hand and always will.

I definitively agree with this.

Especially so since mortals can become gods WITHOUT dying and becoming spirit beings.

I would have to allow the resurrection and disallow them to keep any of their divine power.

Case In Point

If a god is slain for good, it's flesh can become a Hunefer. Essentially the same being bereft of it's godhood and very soul.

As a Hunefer is undead, it can be resurrected. Thus...the god itself can be resurrected. Your conceptualization that gods are so pitiful as to be incapable of doing what mortals can do on a whim does not just fly in the face of the rules...it also flies in the face of all logic.

Of course this isnt the only example...it is just one of literally thousands.

Mortal or God, you can resurrect a deity...or at least it's mortal self.

Now resurrecting a god and giving it back it's power...that would be nearly impossible.

You are essentially going back on your own rules by disallowing such a simple thing to occur.
Divine templates are just that...templates. They are not the core creature itself. They are an addition that can be sundered from the immortal.

Your own example of this was the quintessence elemental.

The god becomes mortal when it's quintessence is sundered.

Killing a god permanently most assuredly sunders a deities quintessence.

You cant very well have quintessence if you are deceased and not at the very least Undead.

You become a mortal corpse, while your cast off quintessence (the stuff that isn't absorbed by the cosmos and your killer) becomes a creepy memorial for astral hydra's to feast on.

 

[dante58701]

Yeah, let's add to the otherwise infinite delay...

Quality over expediency. Learn some patience, as you so often try to point out to me. Besides, I hardly doubt one little paragraph would delay anything by more than an hour at most.

Also...rule clarifications are a good thing. They help those who don't frequent this site. I could easily wait another year for an update, as long as I get one.

Let's try not to burn Krusty out with impatience. We've all been a little guilty of that. The man is an artist, ART cannot be hurried or rushed.

I understand you like to post negative responses to nearly anything I say...but for the sake of the adults, let's keep it down to a minimum.