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

[Mannahnin]

Similar? It had a direct 3.5 back-conversion of several epic destinies, including demigod, in Dragon #363.

I was speaking speculatively, as I was never interested in epic level play in 3.x. I played a bunch into the high teens, and it got so darn slow and clunky at those levels already.

But thanks for confirming!

You can detail the gods and their religions without telling how many hit points they have or what loot they drop if you kill them. The mythology books that would have been most familiar to the TSR writers, like Bullfinch's Mythology or the wonderful D'Aulaire's books of Greek and Norse myths managed to do it without ever discussing how easy it would be to kill them.

Absolutely.

Given that the introduction even points out that there were PCs at that point that could kill Odin and they included all the stats anyway ... it was a high-level Monster Manual.

...

The only purpose of the stats was because they wanted to model them as big monsters. And given how gonzo D&D was right from the start in the 1970s, they knew full well that Zeus and company's days were numbered.

Thinking about Supplement IV, this was 1976. I don't know that the game yet had any way to encompass beings without stats. That was, perhaps, the only way that they could conceptualize them within the world of D&D at the time.

Yeah, I think I would hazard a guess that to some extent it was simply a failure of imagination. They knew how to stat monsters. They didn't spend the time or effort to come up with a different way to lay out deities to make their powers, spheres of influence, curses they might inflict, attitudes toward and expectations of their followers (etc.) clear and support worldbuilding and adventure rather than making them super-big monsters.

Still, there was a serious market for it, as I understand the royalties on it let Jim Ward buy a house. Which inspired many later TSR employees to work hard for credit and similar royalties (most of whom were denied, sadly).

 

[Voadam]

Thinking about Supplement IV, this was 1976. I don't know that the game yet had any way to encompass beings without stats. That was, perhaps, the only way that they could conceptualize them within the world of D&D at the time.

They had already had mentions of unstatted gods before this in the earlier supplements referencing Crom and Odin and such. I think they just wanted stats for monsters and heroes they could insert fully into campaigns like presumably Conan and Elric and then demigods and gods to be on a similar interaction basis if a DM wants.

My memories of the fantastic D’Aulaire Norse myths book is of Thor as a warrior god who hunts trolls and giants and goes on adventures and gets and uses magic items and not a numinous being who is remote and working indirectly through miracles or omens or such. So the OD&D super fighting man with items and some powers model can work for me conceptually there.

I personally prefer more narrative descriptions for gods and their religions in D&D but stats can have uses for more direct interactions.

 

[Willie the Duck]

There is precedent for mortals fighting the gods and winning in western myths and legends. With a little help from Athena, Diomedes stabbed Ares in his nethermost belly forcing him off the field of battle at Troy. (Ares goes and cries to his father about what a mortal had just done to him.) Hercules fights a few gods, but when you're the son of Zeus I guess you can get away with a lot.

If you read the Norse myths, a lot of them sound like D&D adventurers. Oden and Loki or Thor wandering around and getting into mortal peril like running into giants that could potentially defeat (and kill?) them, but then always persevering in the end (well, minus the very end). I seem to recall many of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mythology doing the same.

Thinking about Supplement IV, this was 1976. I don't know that the game yet had any way to encompass beings without stats. That was, perhaps, the only way that they could conceptualize them within the world of D&D at the time.

They also kept having you level after the point where (supposedly) it was expected that your character would retire or be the leader in wargames or other places where your individual character stats would not be relevant. So I think there is some precedence for entities getting game stats even if they aren't expected to be used.

However, I think it likely that there was some intent that the gods would indeed get on the battlefield. Supplement IV certainly devoted enough precious page space to combat stats. I just think the underlying notion was that those stats were supposed to represent 'someone who would likely come in and kick your tail (maybe unless you brought an army).' The preface admonition was (IMO) about power creep, not playstyle. Mix it up with Zeus and the Monkey King on the battlefield? Sure, why not (the game already had artifacts and other stuff that clearly was 'take the game off the rails' level disruptive). However, you were supposed to best them by bringing the above army, and the rod of 7 parts, and plant traps ahead of time, and be very very clever. Not by being level 403rd after 2 years of play (when people who played at Gary's sand table 4 nights a week had characters of level 13) and out-stating them.

 

[pemerton]

For most of my D&D career it's seemed obvious to me that deities are necessarily beyond stats. But when I've played true epic levels, where the PCs are capable of miracles (like in 4E, for example), fighting archdemons like Orcus and deities like Vecna has been a logical and even obvious endgame.

This was the case in my 4e game.

At upper paragon the PCs defeated an Aspect of Orcus.

At mid-epic they destroyed Torog's Soul Abattoir and then killed Torog.

They then went on to defeat an Aspect of Vecna, kill Lolth, push Pazuzu into an Abyssal rift and seal the Abyss so that he (and other demons) can't escape, and kill Orcus.

As you say, this seems to be the natural trajectory of the classic D&D "storyline" - start with Kobolds, finish with Demogorgon.

 

[Lanefan]

To be clear, I don't think assigning stats to a god implies the players will fight them.

It might not imply that the PCs will fight the gods but it very strongly implies that they can fight them, or at least try to.

And that's not something I want. Try to fight a deity in my setting and your lifespan becomes measured in seconds, if that, no matter what level you are.

Even fighting a divine minion (e.g. a Valkyrie or an angel or similar) is a quick way to die unless you're high enough level to probably be ruling the world already; and most of the time minions are to deities as people are to minions.

And I think real deities can work as well (I've seen tons of movies where you have characters fighting deities from real world religions and it adds an interesting element to them)

Agreed.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Depending on metaphysics, scope of the campaign, and mythological inspirations, PCs fighting and killing gods might be completely appropriate. If gods are basically just really powerful people that hang out in some celestial palaces, then they in principle seem pretty killable.

Now personally I am not a huge fan of such concept of gods, I like them to be more transcendent and more fundamental. The Great Gods of Artra are not just people with powers, they are cosmic forces. Killing Belet Ummur, the Shepherd of of the Dead, would result fundamental changes to the structure of reality, as death itself would cease to be. Even killing gods whose domain is less abstract, would cause unravelling of the reality as we know it. Killing Ator, the Yellow Sun or her consort Rana the Red Sun, would cause these celestial objects being destroyed, which even aside the role of these deities as masters of creation and destruction, would probably lead to extinction of all life on Artra. Killing a god would be less like killing a person, and more like killing, say, the strong nuclear force.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I think the biggest flaw (or missed opportunity) with having Deity stats in D&D is that, with the exception of the Gold Box & Wrath of the Immortals, for the past 5 Editions D&D never had rules for PCs ascending to divinity.

So the problem with 1e AD&D and 3rd Edition was that your had rules for unlimited character levels but no rules for PCs to ascend and become Immortals.

As mentioned BECMI tackled this by having Immortality be the additional 36 levels after the finite 36 PC Levels.

1st and 3rd Editions had unlimited Leveling and the rules for PCs did not mesh with the stats for Immortals.

Both 4th and 5th have Level caps which means both could easily add rules for Deities.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think the biggest flaw (or missed opportunity) with having Deity stats in D&D is that, with the exception of the Gold Box & Wrath of the Immortals, for the past 5 Editions D&D never had rules for PCs ascending to divinity.

So the problem with 1e AD&D and 3rd Edition was that your had rules for unlimited character levels but no rules for PCs to ascend and become Immortals.

As mentioned BECMI tackled this by having Immortality be the additional 36 levels after the finite 36 PC Levels.

1st and 3rd Editions had unlimited Leveling and the rules for PCs did not mesh with the stats for Immortals.

Both 4th and 5th have Level caps which means both could easily add rules for Deities.

1e's Deities and Demigods did have a section about divine ascension. And there are other D&D-style 3pp games out there that address this area as well.

I'd love to see a swing at it using 5e as a base. It would be a fascinating supplement for Level Up!

 

[Voadam]

1e Deities & Demigods had some ascension rules but they were not really practicable the way the immortals set fully integrated it into the BECMI system end game.

Ascension was certainly implied with stuff like Xagyg in Greyhawk and Bane and Cyric and Mystra in the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Micah Sweet]

1e Deities & Demigods had some ascension rules but they were not really practicable the way the immortals set fully integrated it into the BECMI system end game.

Ascension was certainly implied with stuff like Xagyg in Greyhawk and Bane and Cyric and Mystra in the Forgotten Realms.

The "I" in BECMI was definitely a better take on the concept IMO. I would like to use it as a guide for any ruleset nowadays addressing the subject.