What CR should a god be?

[Thanee]

So what CR should a god be?

CR 8, I mean... drop that, 90°.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Of course, not technically unlimited, just for game purposes.

Bye
Thanee

 

[S'mon]

I find it odd how most people seem to apply JudaeoChristian assumptions about godly omnipotence to D&D's polytheistic setup. In many, even most, polytheistic mythologies, gods can be battled and defeated by powerful mortals - Achilles vs Aphrodite at Troy wasn't even close, a goddess of love has no business being on a battlefield. Diomedes vs Ares was tougher, but the mortal Diomedes, backed up by buffs from Athena, 'killed' (dispelled to Olympus) Ares, the _god of war_ - and that's just two examples from the Iliad. That's the approach I take - of course 3e DDG is worthless for this approach since it stats the gods but makes them unbeatable by anyone except other gods or Waldorf, thus achieving IMO the worst of both worlds.

 

[Thanee]

Well, I can see battling a god's avatar, but not the deity itself.

To me a god is not totally omnipotent, they surely have their limits, especially when there is a whole pantheon intriguing against each other, but they are just so far removed and different, that it cannot be compared to mere mortals, even epic ones. They have powers and restraints that go beyond what is comprehensible for a mortal.

Bye
Thanee

 

[S'mon]

Well, I can see battling a god's avatar, but not the deity itself.

Greek mythology doesn't have any concept of avatars that I'm aware of, so if you want to run a Greek mythos campaign you'd need to have gods beatable (but not killable, Greek deities are truly 'immortal') by mortal heroes. Norse mythology does have some idea of avatars used by Odin at least (The High, Most High & The Third), OTOH Norse gods are not immortal (they even age, unless they eat Idun's apples) and can certainly be truly killed.

 

[Thanee]

Greek mythology doesn't have any concept of avatars that I'm aware of...

Well, D&D has such a concept.

I'm mostly speaking about standard campaign settings like the FR, tho.

A campaign based on greek mythology or anything like that, might be different.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Bagpuss]

First off D&D deities arn't omnipresent, omnipotent or omniscient. Otherwise surely if one was omnipotent he would have got rid of all the other Gods by now, or if one was omnipresent or omniscient he would have seen and been able to stop the plans of enemy gods. And in the FR campaign setting gods have been killed before.

Also why is everyone assuming the Player Characters are mortal? At the very high levels PC's can become effectively immortal, or even hero-deities.

Sure in your standard game of D&D players arn't likely to be knocking of gods here and there, and I certainly don't think it is something that could be handled by the CR mechanic. But by Epic levels banishing or detroying an evil god could well be the climax of a campaign, and even elevate the characters to godhood. Where the campaign could finishs or with the right DM continue as these young godlings try and obtain more power without being picked off by stronger gods, or upstart Epic mortals.

 

[Li Shenron]

Your Epic level characters will be so powerful one day that they're gonna want to bash a god and steal its loot. So what CR should a god be?

I think they're around CR 40 in Deities & Demigods. That is: 20 HD of Outsider and 20 character levels. (I notice that some mortals that have attained godhood don't get the 20HD of Outsider. That would suck.)

But once your PCs have clobbered all the gods, then they'll wanna keep going. What's the CR of the Overgod?

To answer your questions, as soon as you and your players feel like the campaign is at a point where the PC would challenge deities, the DM should design their stats with an appropriate CR for the characters.

I don't remember if Deities & Demigods provide any CR, if it doesn't you are probably going to have a hard time evaluating it yourself in case you want to use the stats from that book. Even if it does, I wonder how effective it is... the deities abilities (such as for example taking always max result from die rolls) quite defy some basic rules in a way that it becomes more difficult to predict what challenge the deity is.

If I had to come up with a divine encounter for the party, I would seriously consider rewriting the deity in a format which is more comparable with "normal" monsters, even if that would mean to strip it of some divine abilities from D&Dg, and even if epic creatures are already quite troublesome to evaluate without divine abilities . Somehow I feel like that I probably will never have to do this however...

 

[wedgeski]

A mortal going against, Ao for example, would be like a dust mite going up against a gigantic super-enormous deadly thing of death + a billion.

Consider yourself sig'd, my pointy-eared friend.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Last night the PCs in my evil campaign performed their SECOND deicide, when they killed Vecna...

Admittedly, they didn't do it entirely without help. They had assistance from the only person who knew where Vecna's stronghold was; the newly ressurrected Kas, and they persuaded Nerull himself to open a gate directly into Vecna's study. Nerull insisted that his interferance was kept secret however, and he is now expecting that quite a lot of Vecna's old worshippers will turn to him for their spiritual needs.

As for deity CR, the DDG gives no help whatsoever, so I've come up with a system of my own (seems to be working all right so far):

Start with the standard CR for the deity's class levels and add +1 for every 2 outsider HD. (Standard CR rules...)

Then add +4 for divine rank 0 (Thats when they become immune to just about everything, gain DR and SR)

Add a further +1 for each divine rank

Finally, add +2 for demigods, +4 for minor deities, +6 for intermediate deities and +8 for greater deities.

This system has worked out fine so far, but it's only been playtested on demigods and minor deities yet...