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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 6537489" data-attributes="member: 907">Intermediate deities were a bit of a cheat anyway back in the day. Time for a history lesson:In 1e, you only had Greater gods, Lesser gods, and Demigods. Greater gods could grant up to 7th level cleric spells (the maximum back then), Lesser gods up to 6th level, and Demigods up to 5th level. Because people didn't want to play a cleric of Apollo all the way up to 14th level and then learn that they wouldn't get to cast resurrection, the various pantheons were rather top-heavy, with plenty of Greater gods around.In 2e, someone made the call that the term "Greater god" should primarily be used for the leaders of pantheons, like Zeus or Odin. But the issue of Lesser gods only granting lower-level spells remained, so the term "Intermediate god" was invented for gods that were still major players, but not pantheon heads. So in 2e materials, a bunch of gods that had previously been named Greater gods were "demoted" to Intermediate status. Forgotten Realms, instead kept all the Greater gods Greater, and instead bumped up all the Lesser to Intermediate and a good chunk of the Demigods to Lesser. FR also got rid of the rule about Lesser gods and Demigods being limited to granting 6th or lower-level spells. This all happened sometime between 1990 (which has Forgotten Realms Adventures still having gods like Beshaba and Helm described as Lesser powers), and 1993 (2e FRCS "promoting" them to Intermediates) - probably with the release of Legends & Lore, also in 1990.But these days gods aren't limited in what spells they may grant anyway, so there's really little point to the classification "Intermediate". Greater, Lesser, and Demigods (or Quasi-gods, with Demigods being a subgroup there) are enough differentiation.</blockquote>

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