Things that just bother me when it comes to D&D.

[nijineko]

depends on the campaign setting specifics. greyhawk has the pact primeval as the major historical universe shaping event defining how things work; forgotten realms, dark sun, eberron, planescape, spelljammer, and so on each have their own subset or variant or departure from the greyhawk concept(s). in most cases, they are too busy playing lobster tank, excepting the occasional foray into the prime to impinge, upon mortals.

for example, there are only a handful of beings in the greyhawk setting that are defined as super ancient and as predating the current setup. the rest are more recent ascensions. power levels are not static (iuz and zagyg, cases in point) and fluctuate both up and down over time.

the books in question even state that they were made without other sourcebooks (eg: deities and demigods not using epic rules) and suggest modifying the listed stats to take advantage of other appropriate sourcebooks.

so to recap and answer the post above mine, and the op; no - it didn't take eons to come into power (in most cases) the stats listed don't reflect what they really should be (that's another issue entirely, but even the designers said as much *rolls eyes* ), and power levels are not static, going both up and down over time.

which also directly implies that the pcs have a shot at "phenomenal cosmic power", if they could figure out how to pull it off. (there are more examples than just iuz and zagyg... zuoken, cuthbert, vecna, acererak, and many more.) it's up to the dm to make it tough on the pcs. after all, no one is a slave to the books, the books are suggested guidelines, alteration and creation is encouraged, etc.. just notify your players in a general non-plot revealing way what you are changing, ahead of time, so they don't have legitimate blind-siding complaints.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Now in all fairness you would fight Primordials in 4th edition and they "were" the ones who created the multiverse.

 

[S'mon]

Now in all fairness you would fight Primordials in 4th edition and they "were" the ones who created the multiverse.

The 4e Primordials do seem a bit weak; in the mythology it was supposed to take adventurer parties of gods to defeat them, but most of them are statted no stronger than a god, and weaker than the most powerful gods. For a party of five 35th level gods to have a 'hard' encounter, the Primordial ought to be 38th level.

 

[DM Howard]

It would be an interesting story arc where a "good" lesser god or greater god suddenly says "Stuff this! I want to be an overgod!" So the PCs are helping this divine being until they learn of his nefarious plans to somehow dominate most of the other gods becoming the Super Overgod of all Power and Awesomeness!

 

[Sunseeker]

I suppose it depends on how you frame your game, really. Not to mention, a great many of the "primordial creatures" of the universe which possess such massive power came into existence when the universe was young and there was relatively little competition for the vast power therein.

I know some games like to tell their "zero to hero" stories in months or a few years. Others take decades(and the players naturally all play elves!), sometimes centuries, all depending on how you structure your campaign. How a character goes from zero to deity in a few years vs how they go from zero to deity in a century or two just depending on your chosen form of storytelling. When evil is present in great numbers and a pressing force that must be dealt with NOW, it's reasonable to RP away the hows and whys of your character gaining great power in a short time-span. When evil is a slow, evasive force that seeps into the world over a long time, it's reasonable that your characters gain power over a long time.

Perhaps XP would seem more reasonable if we thought of it as the relative life-energy of those foes you defeat(this would of course, mean skill challenges and RP social stuff would give no XP), therefore, the more you kill, the greater your own power becomes...like Highlander. If that's too morose, there are certainly other ways to frame it.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Now in all fairness you would fight Primordials in 4th edition and they "were" the ones who created the multiverse.

Well, yes and mostly no. They are the ones that are left over from the dawn war of the legions of primordials who did create the cosmos.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Now in all fairness you would fight Primordials in 4th edition and they "were" the ones who created the multiverse.

Well, yes and mostly no. They are the ones that are left over from the dawn war of the legions of primordials who did create the cosmos.

 

[timASW]

I've always been bothered by the divide between arcane and divine magic. Its really got no base in mythology and doesnt make a whole lot of sense.

If it was all the same spells and just different casting mechanics I could buy it. But having completely different spells that one side or the other simply cannot duplicate always seemed stupid to me.

 

[billd91]

I've always been bothered by the divide between arcane and divine magic. Its really got no base in mythology and doesnt make a whole lot of sense.

Unfortunately, I think it resonates pretty well with certain modern people - the types who look at any reference to magic or witchcraft as being contrary to god. For them, it seems there is a divide between divinely sourced miracles and other forms of magic - and that the latter is inherently tainted because it isn't of god and thus must be against god. I won't veer any further into religion and politics other than to bring that up.

I understand some concern that even that divide offers no particular reason that the two magical sources can't duplicate certain subsets of each other's effects. But, ultimately, with many different influences to draw from - none of which are definitive within mythology or fantasy literature - D&D was free to arbitrarily set up its own structure. That's a great cover for building class niche protection into metagame structures without it requiring too much metagaming at the in-game player level.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Then there are always Hit Points, but that's an ongoing complaint for a lot of people.