PCs are supposed to be able to stand up to deities?

[Kae'Yoss]

"You should roll the d20 anyway and use that roll to
check for a threat or a critical hit."

That sounds to me that you have to roll a d20 to see if it is a threat! That's also the way it makes sense. If they really get a natural 20 automatically and always maximize their rolls, why would they have to check for the crit? They'd roll attack, would (automatically) get a 20, hitting automatically and posing a threat. On the "roll" to see if it is an actual crit, they'd also get a nat 20, another automatical hit! So they'd always make a critical hit.
And that would mean that, when greater gods fight each other with their weapons, they would not have to roll at all, cause they would always get crits. So you can dump the AC of the two, determine how much damage they deal per round and see who holds out longer. Why then stat gods out in the first place?

Also, the maximize entry in the web enhancement states the following:

"For instance, when Erbin makes an attack roll, assume you rolled a 20 and calculate success or failure from there."

Why would you ever calculate success or failure when he has 2 natural 20's?


I think, concerning the maximize rolls rule, it is asumed they get a 20, but not a NATURAL 20. For that they still have to actually roll a die.


And consider a god having a vorpal sword (OK, that's not much of an issue since they are veritable one hit killers anyway!)

 

[Dalin the Monk]

"is there a chance that there is a crit?"

That's what you roll for. You automatically get a chance for a critical hit when you roll a nat 20. The god's of rank 16-20 automatically get nat 20's with every single attack, thus they automatically get a chance for a critical hit, just like every other creature, player, and NPC in 3rd Edition. Also, just like everyone else, they must confirm the threat.

Ok, correct my terminology if I'm wrong... but in a normal fight you roll a d20. If the roll falls within the crit range of the weapon you are using, it is called a threat.

From the SRD:

When a character makes an attack roll and gets a natural 20, the character hits regardless of the target's AC, and the character has scored a threat.


Once it is determined that the character has scored a threat, they must roll again to confirm the threat.

From the SRD:

To find out if it's a critical hit, the character immediately makes a critical roll — another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll the character just made. If the critical roll also results in a hit against the target's AC, the character's original hit is a critical hit.


So, the first roll determines if there is a threat.... the second roll determines if the threat is confirmed.

That being the case, "You should roll the d20 anyway and use that roll to check for a threat of a critical hit." seems, to me, to mean the same thing as the first roll of a normal combat. It mentions threats, not confirms.

 

[abri]

As has been already said these gods get a result of 20 BUT NOT a NAT 20. So they don't automatically save/crit...
Let's be logical: they're supposed to have playtested this stuff, so if it was really "auto nat 20" they would have realized all the problems. (The fact that gods become quite boring in a fight and can't really defeat each other[kind of a problem for myths])

As to the problem of having stats for gods: well why not? IMC I plan that there will be a battle between 2 gods, of course the players can't really fight a god, but they can help/interfere. Stats for the gods doesn't mean that D&Dg is a monster manual, and the high stats doesn't mean that gods cannot be defeated either.
After all DnD is about epic (old sense) fights and quest. And what's more epic than a quest to defeat a god (yes a quest, not a fight, I don't see how anyone could kill a god without questing to find some legendary artifacts! As it should be!)?

 

[kreynolds]

As to the problem of having stats for gods: well why not? IMC I plan that there will be a battle between 2 gods, of course the players can't really fight a god, but they can help/interfere. Stats for the gods doesn't mean that D&Dg is a monster manual, and the high stats doesn't mean that gods cannot be defeated either.
After all DnD is about epic (old sense) fights and quest. And what's more epic than a quest to defeat a god (yes a quest, not a fight, I don't see how anyone could kill a god without questing to find some legendary artifacts! As it should be!)?

Here, here!

 

[Ketjak]

JFC, I hate munchkins...

...and this smacks of institutional munchkinism. Thank you, WotC, for legitimizing all those bloody freaks who want to kill Zeus.

- Ketjak

 

[Kae'Yoss]

If they want to kill Zeus, what's your problem with? They don't kill YOUR Zeus. They're in quite another campaign. (If you are the only non-munchkin in a munchkin-party: I feel sorry for you). And even though Zeus is statted out: look at those stats. Look at the divine stuff Zeus gets on top of the benefits of his class levels. Try to figure out how many levels you'd have to obtain as a mortal in order to be better than THAT. Now you tell me about killing Zeus.

 

[Bastoche]

depends on the dieties in your world. FR has at least one dietie who once was mortal and then pimp slapped some god to become a god, in worlds like that way over the top powers which no mortal could stand against don't work.

Me I prefer gods to be in the near omnipotent levels where you kill pcs with gm fiat if they are dumb enough to atack them.

Actually, it did not quite happened that way. I guess you're talking about Cyric. Well he didn't slay a deity, it was Mask (another deity) in the guise of a sword that slew (I think it was Myrkull IIRC). Then Ao ascended Cyric, Kelemvor and Midnight. Afterward, Cyric went on a rampage slaying Leira, breaking Mask's back and some other god. But at that time he was a greater power.

The only mortal that I know of who ascended by slaying a deity was Raistlin, in Dragonlance, not exactly the munchikin's world.

IMO, mortal should not be able to wack deities.

 

[abri]

The only mortal that I know of who ascended by slaying a deity was Raistlin, in Dragonlance, not exactly the munchikin's world.

IMO, mortal should not be able to wack deities.

No mortals should not"wack deities", but what about defeating them: imagine that your players are the sworn ennemy of god X (insert name of your local evil god), instead of fighting his clerics and champions, why not go on a quest to defeat the god himself.
That's a whole campaign right there: they'll need to go through ancient ruins to find secret lore about X, they'll learn of his abilities and then will start researching ways of by-passing X's abilities. Chances are they will go on a quest for an artifact (something that will protect them from certain divine powers...).
Then they will have to find a way to meet X (as attacking his divine plane is suicidal)...
Ok, let's see it seems like a good 6 month campaign to defeat a god.

 

[Bastoche]

Hehehe Crysania found out that it was a bad idea to defeat deities...

I think that the only way to "defeat" a deity is with ideals and philosophy. Defeating it's clerics plans IS defeating the deity. I think PC should not directly fight deities. Deities are supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent how could a bunch of self-righteous heroes dare defeat them ? Like I said it's all in my humble opinion. The strongest dragon should be stronger that the strongest party of four PCs. How could these PCs be able to defeat deities ? In my mind, in order of power level, there is a party of 4 20th level PCs. After there's an ancient red or gold dragon and the tarrasque and way beyond that there is the lesser deities and the demi-gods.

 

[Ketjak]

Why I hate god-slaying

If they want to kill Zeus, what's your problem with? They don't kill YOUR Zeus. They're in quite another campaign. (If you are the only non-munchkin in a munchkin-party: I feel sorry for you). And even though Zeus is statted out: look at those stats. Look at the divine stuff Zeus gets on top of the benefits of his class levels. Try to figure out how many levels you'd have to obtain as a mortal in order to be better than THAT. Now you tell me about killing Zeus.

My problem with it is by giving stats to deities, players now have an opening to kill them. If they have an opening to kill them, they will kill them. I don't have to worry about that IMC - my players expect to get stomped by Zeus's sandals of indifference should they even contemplate it.

Why is killing a deity a problem for me? Such an event, unless one is running in the power-saturated Forgotten Realms, should be rare indeed. By GenCon there will be players who've murdered entire pantheons. I blame the players for letting their sucky DMs permit it, and I blame the DMs for bending to the players' will.

These "adventures" cheapen the entire genre and further marginalize us in the eyes of the non-gaming public. I'm a DM for the most part - but my character's epic adventure to slay the Wyrm of Haunted Glacier (two years of RL time, players manage to get to 10th level and collect a minor artifact to slay a white dragon)* is shrugged off by some munchkin who relates how he caught the Greek Pantheon after a party and slit all their throats with his Epic-level Perfect Sneak Attack.

despite knowing that these people are bad players and DMs, it disgusts me that can be done in a non-humorous setting. We're already bad in general, but talk of god-slaying makes us look & sound like such geeks! Have you ever listened to a conversation like that at GenCon? (The phrase "Let me tell you about my character" bears stigma in the developer community because overweight white men with bad skin from living in their parent's basement and eating high-fat low-nutrient food constantly try to tell stories to developers at conventions like it's a novelty to the listener, and now those attempts will be liberally peppered with tales of god-slaying.) Those conversations are downright embarrassing, and I'm a gamer!

Yeah, I'm in counseling.

- Ketjak

*The example never happened, I made it up but there are campaigns like that. I, after all, would never allow my players an artifact.