Richard Baker on Orcus and Deity Slaying

[I'm A Banana]

Yep! This is a good direction, and god-killin' is lots of fun, so I'm very content with this. Definately a better solution than 3e's "Uh....no CR, but here's some stats!" approach.

 

[Steely Dan]

She was all powerful, but to maintain the peace in Sigil she couldn't be worshiped or it would break the truce that allowed for all alignments to mingle there in peace.

The Kriegstanz, right?

 

[dm4hire]

I don't remember off hand the agreement, but that's the gist of it. My books are buried away if I still have them. There use to be a pretty good Planescape fan site, but not sure if it is still active. It was sorta like the site for FR that led to "Grand History of the Realms" only Planescape.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Planewalker.com still is active and going.

But, really, the Lady of Pain is and IMO should always be Big Mystery territory. If one DM wants to define her/it, cool, but there shouldn't be an official explanation. Just a description of what she actually does and her effects on Sigil.

But that's all tangental to the discussion about PC's killin' gods.

 

[WyzardWhately]

Well, remember, 4E scales differently. That is, each individual level increase is less of a big deal than it was in 3.x. So, getting together like 10 30th level adventurers to take down something that should normally outclass a party is probably a much more reasonable option, if you really have to go out there and take down Moradin himself.

 

[ruleslawyer]

The Kriegstanz, right?

No; that's the faction war.

As to the Lady: The entire point of the PS materials is that all that people really know about her is that a) you don't worship her, or you'll come to a bad end; and b) she's effectively omnipotent within Sigil. Everything else is a mystery.

Doug: I tend to agree with you, but I will say that mysterious plot devices are fun, and that it's not so much that there should be some sort of prohibition on entities having stats (as there was in 2e), but that such a thing is a nice option for DMs. For instance, IMC it is unlikely (or, shall we say, impossible) that PCs will ever directly interact with gods. Demons, angels, strange otherwordly beings? Sure. But one of the major divine objects of worship? No. Gods IMC are plot devices; they may or may not have physical manifestations or avatars, they may act to empower places or people, they may send people on strange paths of destiny, but they're not necessarily tangible characters. Nothing wrong with Rich's approach, but I don't think it has to be the only one.

 

[lukelightning]

Oh Lady of Pain one of the most kick-ass characters ever in D&D.

Meh. She always struck me as rather hackneyed, like a clumsily implemented personification of DM-fiat plus deus-ex-machina.

Edit: I don't know much about her from the source materials, rather mostly from people's comments on the boards, which is probably tainting my impression, a la "she's so kewl she can kill gods and cut people's souls apart with her hair and when my PCs think they've defeated the BBEG she's gonna stop them with her L33t powerz to maintain balance!"

 

[MichaelK]

If someone wanted to treat the lady of pain as if she was the wizard of Oz (i.e. a big fake) for their own campaign then -that is how it is- in that campaign. That is "right" for their campaign.

That is the coolest idea I've ever heard for a planescape game.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

Feh, I still cannot for the life of me get behind "killing gods" in D&D.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

That is the coolest idea I've ever heard for a planescape game.

This one.