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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8416303" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Or, instead of assuming, you could ask. Because I'm not just thinking of "gives other people powers". Gods can see within X miles of their worshipers and sacred sites. Archfiends can do the same thing. Gods can create things. Archfiends can do the same. Gods can give birth to powerful children. Archfiends can do the same (and one of those children seems to have become a god). Gods are immune to non-magical weapons. So are Archfiends. Gods can cure diseases and ailments and can revive the dead. So can Archfiends (how else are they capable of fulfilling warlock pacts that require saving the life or restoring to life a loved one). This goes beyond what you assumed, I have literally never heard of a power a god has that an Archfiend has not also demonstrated in the canon.Corrupting a church =/= stealing faith energy.Okay, there are a few things going on here. First, DnD rarely if ever shows prayers going to intermediaries, but lets say that Gloopy does make up some Angel. Heck, Gloopy literally creates an angel, he is a god, he can do that. the prayers are going to that angel... not Gloopy. Now, it is possible that the angel could funnel that power to Gloopy, but that is still creating an intermediary. It is certainly possible, but it is quite different from what you originally proposed. To the other point though, again, I find myself confused. "Phrases" shouldn't be enough to redirect any amount of prayer energy. Because I can easily imagine a prayer sent to "protect me from the devil's and their hellfire" and the majority of that is about devils and hellfire, but I wouldn't imagine that prayer granting any power to devils. If it did, then praying for protection or deliverance empowers your enemy. Which is bizarre to say the least. I'm not saying I disagree that he can warp the faith, I'm just disagreeing that he is getting a direct funnel of energy from doing so. That doesn't seem to be how prayers work. Now, maybe there is something else going on here that I'm not getting, maybe your examples make more sense in a fuller context, but from what you have given me so far, it doesn't support your claim.Yes, I know gods have some specific rituals. But, how much difference does it make if you worship at noon with your right hand, compared to evening with your left? To me it always seemed much more about intent. That's why laypeople who aren't trained priest who have been taught the specific words and rituals can still pray to the gods and be answered, because it isn't about getting the rituals exactly right, which seems to be your interpretation. Case in point, yes, many of these splinter groups are sects, who are worshiping the same god in a different manner. But, according to your example, this should have killed that god and spawned multiple different beings. That hasn't actually happened though. Which is why I've brought the concerns I've brought about your example, it seems that Gloopy would have created a sect, maybe shifted Pistil's being, but not done what you said.Nothing you wrote implied that? How about Thorny becoming Gloopy's boyfriend as Gloopy takes over Pistil's domain. That certainly implies it. And considering the fact that Thorny would have hated Gloopy, that implies it even more heavily. So, I'd say this is clearly a murky area. If the people directly involved have had their relationships fundamentally changedHow was Mask punished for killing Bhaal and Leira? Cyric also snapped Mask's sword form, stealing a portfolio from him, was he punished for that act? Multiple evil gods went to try and kill Corellon under the scheme of Lolth, including Gruumsh, Malar (who she sent after seeing Malar kill an Orc God named Herne), Ghaundar and several others. Hextor and Heironous try and kill each other all the time.So, again, no, there is no reason that DnD gives us to assume that attacking and killing another god is some taboo that that would get them punished by the other gods. That simply isn't how it works in most settings.No, most of the post you were responding to was "wait, why are you making these assumptions? Where are these rules coming from?" I'm not saying you are doing it wrong, if that's how you want to do it for your own games, then that's fine. However, without some basis for where these assumptions are coming from, you can't assume other people are following the same ideas. And, if your entire point is "this is how I would do it", well, if I do it differently, then we are going to get different results, right?Prove that juggling five balls is harder than juggling three. It is the exact same thing. Do you actually believe there is someone who would say that five is easier than three and ten is easier than five? I didn't realize it was so controversial to say "doing more things is harder than doing fewer things" that I would need to draft a scientific proof of the matter. As for "write well", I'm going to go forward under the assumption that you've never taken a writing class. A few universal things about writing well. Don't make spelling mistakes or grammatical mistakes. This doesn't mean you can't misspell words or use poor grammar, they just shouldn't be mistakes. Write coherent characters. Write coherent plots. I have, in many years of studying the art of writing, never seen someone compliment the fact that they had no idea what was going on and couldn't follow the plot, that is generally and I'd dare say universally seen as a sign of poor writing. Now, if you want to say that actually you love it when you can't follow a story because it is written incoherently, then I'm happy for you, I'm sure those authors appreciate having an audience that likes their work. And, combining the two things, the more plots and characters you add, the harder it gets to keep things coherent. Just like juggling balls and not dropping them. Now, if you are claiming that you can easily do this and keep the same high standard that you would have with fewer plots and characters, CONGRATULATIONS, I am truly happy for you. You have done a thing that is difficult so easily that you didn't even realize that it is hard for some people to do the same thing.I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the lack of stories about dwarves where they do the same things as elves, and are portrayed in a nearly identical manner, that I'm not the only one who finds that concept difficult.It adds some context, especially about the fact that she is imprisoned by BEL of all beings.Wouldn't celestial make more sense? I mean, by this we can't look at the statblocks of the Demon Lords and Archdevils and say they aren't gods, because they could be and just labeled as Fiends because we don't have "god" as a monster-type. But again, I've heard repeatedly from multiple different people that you fought an avatar. And frankly, if those are the stats of a god, I'm disappointed. Nothing there raises her above the level of Archfiend.And if you were only making a claim about your game, then I wouldn't be asking for evidence, now would I? Fine, you don't want to defend the fact that he isn't a god in your game? Don't. But then don't expect me to say that he isn't a god, because all the evidence I provided in the next part points to the fact that he is a god. You really have a bad habit of switching without warning from talking about the game in general, to your game in specific. Then yelling at me for responding to the game in general with strident demands to know where I get off telling you how to run your game. Do me a favor? Just start prefacing all the parts of your post that are specific to your game only, with "In my game". I will then respond with "well, that isn't true in my game, nor does it seem to be true in the game as a whole" and we can stop with this endless cycle of you yelling at me for trying to discuss THE game instead of YOUR game.How is answering prayers not evidence that he is a god? The  DMG lists that as a thing only lesser and greater gods can do. Do you have all beings regardless of status able to answer prayers?You can run your game anyway you please, but if you have zero interest in discussing things beyond your table, stop responding. Seriously, just stop. I'm getting sick and tired of trying to discuss with you the game in general and you screaming me down about how I'm trying to control how you run your game. I run Yeenoghu as he is presented in the core books. He can answer prayers, he can make clerics, he can grant powers. All of this is 100% supported by the core books, I have homebrewed and made up nothing. According to the Core Books, only gods can answer prayers. So, Yeenoghu is a god. This is fairly iron-clad per the RAW of the core books. No homebrewing on my part. If you want to say "but you are homebrewing him to be a god, and I don't do that" and your defense of that claim is just... saying he isn't a god because he isn't a god, then you have said nothing to dispute any of the evidence that he is a god. And me pointing that out isn't me telling you you are running him wrong and should run him "my way". I'm just pointing out you have provided no evidence that would make me consider I'm wrong or that I'm homebrewing anything. Now, if you want to point to "but the books don't call him a god", then sure, that is true. But then they give him the abilities of a god. So, is God just a title, divorced from any actual abilities? Is Yeenoghu somehow special in that he has abilities beyond what he should? I don't think it is the second, because other Demon Lords and Archdevils can, according to the Core Books, do many of the same things. Levistus for example is being punished by being forced to answer prayers. Again, according to the DMG, only Gods can answer prayers. And again, according to the MM the Cult Fanatic has clerical abilities granted by these beings. Are there other abilities that they are supposed to have, according to the books, that makes this difference? I don't know. You don't seem to know either, because whenever the question comes up, you just blatantly make up things. Which, while you can do that for your game, doesn't prove me wrong in my reading of the books because, shockingly, things you make up don't appear in the books. And no, I'm not "that guy" I homebrew and encourage others to homebrew. But, when discussing "this is what the books say" The books do not include your homebrew. Which seems obvious, but somehow I seem to need to keep repeating it.People have posted false things. People have posted things they make up. People have posted things that were at one point true but that are counter-acted by things that were also true at a different point in time. And, if that was a purely linear process, then that would be fine "this was true, but then later this new thing was true" but as we have shown, it isn't linear, it is a more like a wave form. They have been true and not true in the same edition for multiple editions. So, yes, I'm continual unimpressed with false facts, wrong facts, made-up facts, and things with multiple interpretations. Does this mean you can't run your home game like you want, which you are going to accuse me of saying YET AGAIN? No. No. No no no no no nononononononono. I can keep saying no as many times as you like, but I am beginning to suspect it is meaningless, because you want to feel attacked by me, so no matter how many times I say that isn't what I am doing, you are going to keep accusing me of it.</blockquote>

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