Salient Divine Abilities - what caster level should be used?

[SolitonMan]

Within the last few months I've read the excellent story hour that starts in the thread http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/58227-tales-wyre-06-12-09-update.html and continues in the current story hour Viridity and Saizhan by Sepulchrave (awesome work, BTW). Reading about some of the epic adventures the characters are involved in and some of the godly opponents they face, I've started reviewing the divinity rules in the Hypertext d20. One thing I couldn't figure out or find is related to Salient Divine Abilities - what is the equivalent caster level of the deity for those effects that are spell-like? A specific example would be the Alter Reality ability: it allows the deity to duplicate any spell of 9th level or lower as a standard action, it doesn't require XP or material components, and it has a save DC of 20 + the deity’s rank + the deity’s Charisma modifier. But nowhere in this description, nor in the general description of SDAs does it specify the caster level of these effects.

If anyone has a link to a reference or just knowledge of this issue, I'd appreciate hearing of it. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Siuis]

I checked Deities & Demigods this morn, and darned if I couldn't find anything that really says one way or another on CL. The best I found was something in Alter Reality's description itself; I don't recall exact wording (it's not in the SRD that I can tell) but it says something to the effect of "Any spell effect cannot be counterspelled, and gets through antimagic". The gist of it seems like; There is no CL. Alter Reality can do a 1st level burning hands or an 800th level delayed blast fireball. You could read it strictly, though, and give the deity in question a maximum of CL 20, but that is based off of an incorrect reading of how to metamagic an altered reality spell effect; It's really just grasping at straws.

Over all I think it was an oversight, especially in what little conversion material there is. Best guess is, CL = Deities hit dice (or whatever they get for their clerical powers; should have thought of that earlier). Pretty sure that would be the general consensus.

 

[Coolplayer]

Within the last few months I've read the excellent story hour that starts in the thread http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/58227-tales-wyre-06-12-09-update.html and continues in the current story hour Viridity and Saizhan by Sepulchrave (awesome work, BTW). Reading about some of the epic adventures the characters are involved in and some of the godly opponents they face, I've started reviewing the divinity rules in the Hypertext d20. One thing I couldn't figure out or find is related to Salient Divine Abilities - what is the equivalent caster level of the deity for those effects that are spell-like? A specific example would be the Alter Reality ability: it allows the deity to duplicate any spell of 9th level or lower as a standard action, it doesn't require XP or material components, and it has a save DC of 20 + the deity’s rank + the deity’s Charisma modifier. But nowhere in this description, nor in the general description of SDAs does it specify the caster level of these effects.

If anyone has a link to a reference or just knowledge of this issue, I'd appreciate hearing of it. Thanks in advance for any help.

Good question, I'll do my best to answer

In Faiths and Pantheons (FR setting) it says under spell like abilities that the god uses a certain caster level, but its different for each of them. I would just use it based off that. Also, on all checks/saves/skill checks/attacks, the gods always roll a 20.

 

[the Jester]

I'd base the caster level off of the deity's HD + Divine Rank.

So, usually 60+.

 

[pawsplay]

Arbitrary and infinite. Alter Reality is not a spell-like ability, but a divine one. And perusing the description, it's easy to imagine that an endless bear's endurance is well within its capabilities. I'd be a little wary of letting the deity affect arbitrarily large areas or ranges; use the deity's perception range, I think.

 

[SolitonMan]

Thanks for the replies and insight, everyone. I think that HD + divine rank is probably a decent starting point for such considerations. The specific example of Alter Reality allows consideration of the possible situations in which caster level would be relevant - using Alter Reality to mimic Mass Heal, for instance. Since SDAs are not SLAs and are much more powerful (the fact that they'll work perfectly well within an antimagic field, for example) indicates to me that the caster level should be appropriately powerful as well.

While such large caster level values (60+ as the Jester points out) may seem inappropriate in normal gaming terms, I think that it's appropriate for the context here. Thanks again to you all for your input!

 

[the Jester]

You might also consider lifting level caps on many considerations for effects generated by vis. alter reality. For instance, an alter reality-generated fireball with a caster level of 64 might do 64d6 rather than being capped at 20d6 or whatever it is in 3e- especially if it is invoked by a god of fire or the like.