The New 4th Edition God-Killing Rules

[Cam Banks]

Yeah! Takhisis should only be killed by a single blow by a spear wielding adolescent elf!

That's after her godhood is stripped from her and you know it!

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Scribble]

That's after her godhood is stripped from her and you know it!

Cheers,
Cam

On a stage with "candy girl" playing on the loudspeakers?


Also what your saying is after someone went through a quest to complete several key steps in order to defeat her?

 

[pawsplay]

I'd fight William Shatner. But seriously, good stuff, this is very similar to what I had in mind for my 3e campaigns.

 

[Cam Banks]

Also what your saying is after someone went through a quest to complete several key steps in order to defeat her?

Dude. I have no problem with epic quests to get rid of a god, in any setting. I'm just saying Tiamat =/= Takhisis.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Scribble]

Dude. I have no problem with epic quests to get rid of a god, in any setting. I'm just saying Tiamat =/= Takhisis.

Cheers,
Cam

Sorry I wasn't saying that as if I thought you were... It was more of a comment on how well I think the system meshes with established storyteling ideas, and methods.

It's not a "new idea" per se, but it is a great use of an established concept in a game setting... If that makes sense.

 

[Cam Banks]

I should also note that I liked the statement in the core books that the gods' true nature is "beyond any physical form" which is exactly how we've presented the gods of Krynn in the MWP sourcebooks. They don't have a single physical body, like some giant superhuman monster sitting out in the Astral Sea waiting to get attacked by somebody. They can manifest an aspect with which to interact with mortals, but there is no "true" body to kill.

This thing with Tiamat seems like a reversal of that approach, which is a little sad. Good for the people who are into epic hero vs. god combat, but enh.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[justanobody]

Our main concern is, "Who will people want to fight, who will make the most compelling battles, and who will best fit in books we're doing."

Why? D&D is not a combat simulation game. Books as in novels, or rulesbooks?

If it is people to fight, then I think the gods detailed should start with those in the PHB. They are already in the books and someone might just want to have a story around a battle between the gods even if PoL design doesn't intend for ti to happen.

Tiamat's an easy one. If you like fighting dragons, here's the mother (in more ways than one). She's got five heads for five times the combat prowess. We're doing Draconomicon all about chromatics, and she's all sorts of chromatic.

Yeah. In a game about Dungeons and Dragons the god(dess) of dragons is a good opponent to have in plot and battle.

We'll probably be avoiding good an lawful good deities, just because it's less likely you'll fight them. Who really wants to put Pelor in his place in their game?

I might, so might many others. What difference do alignment really matter in why you fight for anything anymore. I thought the alignment movement was to get away from the dreaded focus on alignment and allow for more freestyle play without being bound to some code or morals that nobody every agreed upon anyway.

Seems awfully boring.

To you maybe, but what of people who want to play the antagonists of the game world, or anti-heroes or any number of other reasons they may want to fight with ANY deity as there story has laid out for them.

Now who wants to fight Bane or Tiamat or Torog? Those are more in the "big D&D monster who wants to kill you" mode. We might put out stats for non-evil, non-chaotic evil gods in books they really fit in, like Corellon in a book about the Feywild or the Raven Queen in a book about the Shadowfell or whatever, but it's still less likely.

There aren't many deities who are just too tough to take on. Especially with the evil/CE deities, we wanted ones that looked like you might be able to take them down.

Then to keep balance within the game level 35 seems to be a good place for all deities. This would further support PoL in that the gods really don't interfere with the mortals because they are pretty much at a stalemate. Two or more would have to work together to push their view over another deity to dethrone him....maybe that is just what the purpose of the PCs turns out to be.

Interesting reasons so far, and this thread has been something interesting to watch, but I wanted to ask those questions. Even though I am not one of them, maybe the D&D Insiders might get answers to those questions sometime in the future.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I should also note that I liked the statement in the core books that the gods' true nature is "beyond any physical form" which is exactly how we've presented the gods of Krynn in the MWP sourcebooks. They don't have a single physical body, like some giant superhuman monster sitting out in the Astral Sea waiting to get attacked by somebody. They can manifest an aspect with which to interact with mortals, but there is no "true" body to kill.

This thing with Tiamat seems like a reversal of that approach, which is a little sad. Good for the people who are into epic hero vs. god combat, but enh.

Cheers,
Cam

Well you can still have that as true with this approach. The epic quest prior to combat could be to trap the god in one of its forms, in this case Tiamat's Dragon form.

 

[Shemeska]

We'll probably be avoiding good an lawful good deities, just because it's less likely you'll fight them. Who really wants to put Pelor in his place in their game? Seems awfully boring. Now who wants to fight Bane or Tiamat or Torog? Those are more in the "big D&D monster who wants to kill you" mode. We might put out stats for non-evil, non-chaotic evil gods in books they really fit in, like Corellon in a book about the Feywild or the Raven Queen in a book about the Shadowfell or whatever, but it's still less likely.

Do you think that more players will want to fight evil gods and thus need a statblock for them versus games featuring non evil or even good non-deific antagonists for whom the support is rather slim at this point? God slaying is probably a pretty small fraction of the D&D playerbase. Beyond that, I can't say I particularly like the rather one sided "play the game the way -we- play the game" approach in which there's good and super good and they're only supposed to fight evil and super evil. It's a bit shallow IMO, but obviously you guys felt differently.

There aren't many deities who are just too tough to take on. Especially with the evil/CE deities, we wanted ones that looked like you might be able to take them down.

Again I have to disagree with that. The list of 'who are you capable of killing' ends up being populated almost entirely by the list of 'who does the game say you are supposed to be fighting under its playstyle mandates'. Rather makes it difficult to have moral ambiguity in campaign conflicts when the evil spectrum is weighted to be targets by design [and I won't get into conflating chaos with evil, or law with good, that's another debate entirely].

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I think it is less what WoTC views as "the way to play" and more. Okay, we have this amount of resources available to us, this much space in the books, etc, etc. We need to make as much content as possible that appeals to the widest audience.

The majority of D&D campaigns are more good or neutral oriented and thus the likelihood of having to go into combat against good or neutral gods is significantly diminished.

I am certainly fine with this approach, and I am someone who is more likely to have neutral-evil campaigns and characters then good-neutral.