D&D General The purpose of deity stats in D&D.

[Voadam]

It is funny, my Eberron style cosmology setup means that mostly it is the same as remote inscrutable gods who cannot be killed, because mostly it is a mortal focus with clerics just doing cleric stuff and there are religions with schisms and heresies and people just have to manage. Mostly there is a ton of religion and deific mythology but not a lot of gods made manifest. The stats of a god who does not show up and do stuff themself compared to transcendent remote beings are a bit academic.

And when it does happen, a god showing up and interacting, it is hard to evaluate in world. Is the thing that shows up and claims to be a god and fights actually a god? An avatar manifestation? The god itself? Something not a god masquerading as the god? If you kill it that does not even resolve anything, clerics still get their powers from religions even ones based around dead or even false gods. What you killed could have been a god or not.

It gives me a bunch of options when "gods" do show up on screen. In my 5e game I had a demigod AI Monster Truck as the boss fight in the second Iron Gods AP module and I was able to pick reskinned 5e stats for a CR monster that worked in the setting and context of my game easily for a climax fight.

 

[Maxperson]

I don’t think it is just for fighting. 1e and 3e have extensive lists of standard powers and individual powers for gods.

So if you unknowingly are dealing with a god the blessings or curses they can grant are fairly defined in many ways. Similar to the defined blessings or curses that a 1e nymph can grant through their Druid spellcasting though on a more powerful level.

So in 3.0 gods have omniscience in their sphere of influence dependent on their divine rank so if you want to talk to Thor going out to a storm and shouting at him he will hear you.

In OD&D Thor is more limited to controlling storms and storm magic near him and is mostly a 20th level fighter giant slaying machine who is not likely to hear prayers and be able to grant wishes. He may stride down the rainbow bridge and hunt giants in the world like in myths but is more an individual and not an omnipresent god.

For me stats are for the fun of it. 3e was my favorite version, because gods were gods. The god of death could just will you dead and you would be. It was fun to read their stats and abilities, even if I never once used them in game play. Plus the stats give them a sense of presence within the game and removes them from just being flavor text.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Plus the stats give them a sense of presence within the game and removes them from just being flavor text.

A big reason why lots of things, not just gods, have stats. It helps to enhance their reality in the world, if they have stats and can therefore have a tangible presence in relation to the PCs and other characters.

 

[Mecheon]

Not sure how familiar you are with Bollywood movies and television shows (I am) but India really seems to love dramatic depictions of its immortals in animated and live action format. I have also spoken to a few Indian roleplayers/DMs and none of the people I have gamed with or chatted to (at various London D&D meet-ups) have any problem with depictions of their deities.

Y'know, its funnny you bring up Disney and whatnot on this when DC actively does not use the Indian deities in it any more, despite one having played a bit of an important role in a Wonder Woman book. Like, they downright had the bants going on, you could ship it

So, yeah, there isn't just a clear 'yeah you can use these' on the Hindu gods

I'd have stats for AO. There is a place for Monotheistic 'Overgods'. The Tier above the Immortal Tier seems to work fine.

"Overgod" is such a stupid term. Like I cannot express how much I actively dislike this as a concept. It isn't a concept for anything but RPG esque powerscaling and is so far from something in an actual religion that I just mentally blot out any ideas of it

 

[AnotherGuy]

"Overgod" is such a stupid term. Like I cannot express how much I actively dislike this as a concept. It isn't a concept for anything but RPG esque powerscaling and is so far from something in an actual religion that I just mentally blot out any ideas of it

Well actual religions have Gods as does D&D but what would you call those with powers beyond. BECMI had the Old Ones above the Immortals. FR has Ao above the Gods and then Ao even has someone they answer to.

 

[Voadam]

For me stats are for the fun of it. 3e was my favorite version, because gods were gods. The god of death could just will you dead and you would be. It was fun to read their stats and abilities, even if I never once used them in game play. Plus the stats give them a sense of presence within the game and removes them from just being flavor text.

Depending on the death god they actually might have to have line of effect and you get a save. Can't do it through a closed window.

3.0 DDG page 44:

Hand of Death
The deity can slay any living mortal creature.
Benefit: The deity points to any mortal within the deity’s sensory range and snuffs out its life. There must be an unbroken line of effect between the deity and the target.
Notes: This ability works like the destruction spell, except that there is no material component. The mortal is allowed a Fortitude saving throw with a DC of 20 + the deity’s Charisma bonus + the deity’s divine rank. Even if the save succeeds, the subject takes 10d6 points of damage, which may kill it anyway. If the attack kills the mortal (either through a failed saving throw or through damage), the mortal cannot be raised or resurrected afterward, except by a deity of equal or higher rank using the Gift of Life, Life and Death, or Mass Life and Death salient divine ability.
Suggested Portfolio Elements: Death.

Life and Death
The deity can kill a mortal creature almost anywhere. Likewise, the deity can bestow life upon any dead mortal being almost anywhere.
Prerequisites: Divine rank 6, Gift of Life or Hand of Death salient divine ability.
Benefit: The deity designates any mortal and snuffs out its life. Or the deity can designate any dead mortal and restore it to life.
Notes: This ability works across planar boundaries and penetrates any barrier except a divine shield. However, the subject must be in a location the deity can sense, either within the deity’s sense range or in a location the deity can perceive through its remote sensing ability. If the deity cannot see the subject, the deity must unambiguously identify the subject in some fashion, such as by reciting the subject’s time and place of birth or death, listing the subject’s notable or infamous deeds, or something similar.
If the deity chooses to kill a mortal, the ability works like the destruction spell, except that there is no material component or saving throw. The mortal cannot be raised or resurrected afterward, except by a deity of equal or higher rank using the Gift of Life or Life and Death salient divine ability.
If the deity restores life to a mortal, this ability works like the true resurrection spell, except that there is no material component and the amount of time the subject has been dead is irrelevant.
This ability cannot restore a creature to life against its will, but it can resurrect an elemental or outsider. It can resurrect a creature whose soul is trapped (as the trap the soul spell in the Player’s Handbook), provided the soul is not held by a deity of higher rank than the one using this ability.
This ability cannot restore life to a creature that has been slain by the Hand of Death, Life and Death, or Mass Life and Death ability of a deity with a higher rank.
Rest: After using either version of this ability, the deity must rest for 1 minute per level or Hit Die of the creature affected.
Deities whose portfolio includes death do not have to rest after using this ability.
Suggested Portfolio Elements: Death, supreme.

 

[Lanefan]

Foreign religious figures were treated as fair game 'cause they're "Myths" rather than, y'know, Religious Figures of the Abrahamic religion which are treated as if they're real and thus something not to be messed with.

There may well have been some of that thinking involved, but there's also the game-side design practicalities to consider.

In the 0e-1e era alignment was a Big Deal. The deities were to a large extent representative of and core to their alignments, which makes a pantheistic system (with one or more discrete deities per alignment) immensely more game-useful and design-friendly than a monotheistic system where one deity has to try to cover all the bases.

I've run up against this myself when designing setting pantheons - if a society is monotheistic, how can that deity represent and support Clerics of all alignments at once? One alternative is that there's only one alignment of Cleric in that whole society, which isn't much fun for anyone. Another is that the deity says "Screw it, I don't care what my Clerics do or think as long as they worship me", which would quickly lead to the rather silly situation (see far too often in reality!) where Clerics to the same deity go to war against each other.

But that's a cute Strawman you've built ...

It's giving "Whataboutism" ...

Gallop along, Gish!

Seeing stuff like this, whether posted by you or anyone else, makes me immediately want to dismiss whatever else is being said in that post.

 

[Mecheon]

Well actual religions have Gods as does D&D but what would you call those with powers beyond. BECMI had the Old Ones above the Immortals. FR has Ao above the Gods and then Ao even has someone they answer to.

Yeah we had a word for this in real life. It was called 'chief deity' representing the ruling deity due to various religious reasons at the time. They weren't 'overgods' and weren't treated as a seperate class of thing like we're trying to powerscale Goku

 

[AnotherGuy]

There may well have been some of that thinking involved, but there's also the game-side design practicalities to consider.

In the 0e-1e era alignment was a Big Deal. The deities were to a large extent representative of and core to their alignments, which makes a pantheistic system (with one or more discrete deities per alignment) immensely more game-useful and design-friendly than a monotheistic system where one deity has to try to cover all the bases.

I've run up against this myself when designing setting pantheons - if a society is monotheistic, how can that deity represent and support Clerics of all alignments at once? One alternative is that there's only one alignment of Cleric in that whole society, which isn't much fun for anyone. Another is that the deity says "Screw it, I don't care what my Clerics do or think as long as they worship me", which would quickly lead to the rather silly situation (see far too often in reality!) where Clerics to the same deity go to war against each other.

This is a good point. I'd imagine a monotheistic system could "cheat" - i.e. many different facets/aspects of the same deity.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not fan of the "overgod" concept, but I'd like to point out that the grandfather of the fantasy settings, Middle-Earth, has one. It probably has influenced how later fantasy creators conceive things.

And as Finnish mythology was already mentioned earlier, funny thing relating to that and Tolkien's overgod Eru Ilúvatar. Name Ilúvatar was probably inspired by the Finnish creator goddess Ilmatar. And in Finnish -tar is specifically a feminine suffix. So when I as a kid was reading the Finnish language translation of the Silmarillion, due the aforementioned association and the fact that Finnish language doesn't have gendered pronouns, I imagined Eru Ilúvatar as a female deity. And I've heard of other Finnish people who have had the exact same experience.