D&D 4E Poll: 4E god stats

[broghammerj]

IMO, they need to make a decision: are the Gods killable?

Although I agree with your entire post's philosophy, I will play devils advocate (Man, am I punny)

Gods may not be killable, but they may be combatable hence the need for statblocks. We used to say that you may encounter a god on the Prime Material Plane and do battle with them, but they would not be slain unless "killed" on their home plane. Some would argue that really should be the avatar, but we figured if something is important to get the god's attention then they should take care of business themselves. Some groups would allow their epic level characters to travel to the home plane to slay a god, but my old group thought this was silly. No one could wrap their head around the idea of traveling to the Abyss since no one really new what pure chaos was. Planescape fans would disagree.

Now as for what I want in a book, I would rather take fluff over stat blocks. Tell me about the religions philosophy, outlook on life, daily dress, major holidays, etc.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

I want full on God stats and stats for thier aspects and avatars. I like the idea of being able to kill gods.
I still remember walking into Vivec and Killing him in two hits in Elder Scrolls III. Nothing like wiping out a god to feel manly.

 

[Tarek]

I don't mind one way or the other about the current rules for deities... what I want in the Core Rules instead of "Here's some gods you can worship", is advice on building a pantheon and the individual deities therein.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm not sure how my views fit your poll.

I would prefer the following for *all* deities in 4e:

NAME
Background/Mythology
Beliefs
Worshippers/Clergy

That's it. No stats at all.

Clerics depend on more detail than that...at least they do under the 3.5E rules. Domains, favored weapons, and alignment are pivotal to the cleric class in the core rules alone.

Not that your suggestion isn't a good one. When it comes to certain elements of the game (especially religion), less information is better than more. What I'd like to know is, if you were on the design team for 4E, how would you build a unique, faithful, and devoted cleric with just a deity's name, mythos, and clergy?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not sure how my views fit your poll.

I would prefer the following for *all* deities in 4e:

NAME
Background/Mythology
Beliefs
Worshippers/Clergy

That's it. No stats at all.

Add domains to this, and I'm good as well.

 

[Wormwood]

What I'd like to know is, if you were on the design team for 4E, how would you build a unique, faithful, and devoted cleric with just a deity's name, mythos, and clergy?

I apologize if my thumbnail list was unclear.

"Clergy" would contain all game info necessary to run a cleric. Because I don;t know what 4e has in store for clerics, I didn't bother fill in 3e-isms (like domain, favored weapon, etc.)

(In all honesty, if I *were* on the 4e design team I can't even guarantee the cleric would survive my brutal purges!)

 

[Delta]

I like stats for gods, but they have to be usably brief -- like 1E style, quarter-page jobs. The stats in 3E were unusably long and complicated.

Also, the concept of "avatars" should be used for Hindu deities and nobody else ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar; or 1E DDG p. 75).

 

[frankthedm]

I want a sliding scale for god killability. I want the option for a god's power to scale from;

"CR" = "Divine rank" plus 5: thus demigods have a Leg up on mortal men, but until a lot of heroic levels are under thier belt, the spawn of a randy god can be combated by heroes.

"CR" = "Divine rank" plus 30: Thus PCs can leap to godhood at the end of the standard rules, but battling deities before then is balls out hard

"CR" = "Divine rank x2" plus 20: Thus Lesser gods can be fought by epic PCs but swiftly do gods become too strong to fight.

No CR: gods are unkillable save by other gods and as such are beyond the scope of the campaign.

 

[delericho]

Although I agree with your entire post's philosophy, I will play devils advocate (Man, am I punny)

Gods may not be killable, but they may be combatable hence the need for statblocks.

Good point. I should have said 'combatable' (or somesuch) rather than 'killable'.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey all!

I don't think its ever a question of should we have stats for gods. Thats like saying should we have Eberron or should we have Psionics.

Just because some people don't want to use those stats (or Eberron or Psionics) shouldn't mean no one can.

I think the best way to perhaps approach this is by making two seperate books.

Legends & Lore ~ All the Religion stuff, with perhaps some sample Aspects and Avatars.

Deities & Demigods ~ All the Immortal stuff, including the crazy-epic 30+ material.

So a better poll might be, which of those books do you want to see?

I think the majority will want the former, but I would like to think enough would crave the latter to make it worthwhile for WotC.