What CR should a god be?

[Jolly Giant]

Realistically players should only be confronting demi-gods or avatars, but that is just my personal opinion.

Realistically?!? With characters using magic, traveling other planes, battling fiends and wrestling dragons, I really can't see the big difference in realism between fighting a God and fighting an avatar...

Fighting an avatar is obviously easier, but if you allow for the possibility that PCs can become powerful enough to defeat Hextors avatar then why shouldn't they one day become powerful enough to beat Hextor himself?

Historically the idea of Gods being omnipotent springs from monotheistic religions, where by definition you don't have "Gods"; only "God". In a monotheistic campaign world I might be inclined to agree that the one supreme being (possibly the creator of the world) is more powerful than any mortal could ever be. In a typical fantasy pantheon world, it goes against all mythological and genre traditions, not to mention logic. By the very definition of the world omnipotent (or any other deific description starting with "omni"! ), there can only be ONE such being!

IMC, there is no "cap" to how powerful a character can one day become, so there's no being so powerful that a PC couldn't one day beat it up with one hand on his back. Theoretically speaking, of course... I can always come up with something even more powerful for next session!

Just my 2 cents...

 

[dead]

Examples, please. Only those from actual mythology, none from modern novelizations, none that involve a character who is not truly mortal. Hercules was not truly mortal. His father was Zeus--and even then it was made plain that his mortal part had to go to Hades.

Yeah, I'd like to see such examples, too. At the moment I can only think of Raistlin kicking Takhisis's butt -- but that's a modern example!

As for Hercules, well you might argue that he was just a half-celestial.

 

[Umbran]

How many gods outside Skyfather level or above have you ever read achieving such a feat?

I didn't say, "all gods have created worlds". Merely that that's the general type of being and power level involved. The fact that many haven't take then "Create Wondrous Planet" item creation feat doesn't mean they aren't of the same general power level, at least as far as humans are concerned.

Why not run the battle properly, in which case use stats, and, by association CRs. I mean the players may really enjoy it and not want you to pull the plug "just because".

What the players want is important, but so is what I want. I don't want to run a campaign with large tracts of it are anticlimatic afterthoughts. It offends my sense of story structure.

I think too many people get drawn to the idea that they have to continually top the last event, leading to adventures spiralling out of control.

It is not having to always top - it is ending the story while it is still good, rather than "jumping the shark". For a story to remaing truly living, you must be able to reach new heights of drama and tension. After you've hit the top, there's nowhere else to go. All other dramatic elements in that character's story will either pale by comparison, or be repetetive. So, why bother?

But its (immortal gaming) a lot more like a chess match than a boxing match.

If I want to do immortal gaming, I won't use D&D (or likely even d20), as the system for it. There are far better tools out there for such jobs.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Examples, please. Only those from actual mythology, none from modern novelizations, none that involve a character who is not truly mortal. Hercules was not truly mortal. His father was Zeus--and even then it was made plain that his mortal part had to go to Hades.

I can't remember the exact names, but there is a story about a normal mortal who went up against one of the goddesses in a contest of weaving, and won. The goddess was so pissed off, she turned the weaver into a spider.

I've a vague feeling it was either a hawaiian goddess or a greek goddess, but I'm not entirely sure.

 

[Impeesa]

Heh. Having followed Krusty's progress on the IH for years (only partly kidding ), I had to giggle a bit at the title. My first thought was "I dunno, what CR should a mortal be?"

--Impeesa--

 

[Thotas]

Quoting S'Mon here ...

"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 ... 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."

Absolutely! All the people who complain that there are all those stats in the book should take time to look at how dumb the mechanics are, so they can complain about something that isn't just a matter of one's taste in campaigns. Specificly, the "Always maximize roll" rule ... so if a Greater God attacks, or makes a saving throw, it always suceeds; isn't that what the "gods don't have stats" people say without using all that paper?

And the weaver in the example above was Arachne, whom all arachnids are scientificlly named after. 'Twas Athena did the cursing.

Another mortal who contested with a deity and won: Jacob. Won a wrestling match with the omnipotent Yahweh.

 

[Dogbrain]

I can't remember the exact names, but there is a story about a normal mortal who went up against one of the goddesses in a contest of weaving, and won. The goddess was so pissed off, she turned the weaver into a spider.

Arachne did win the contest, but she obviously lost the battle. Likewise, did Arachne kill the goddess in that contest?

 

[Dogbrain]

As for Hercules, well you might argue that he was just a half-celestial.

To make that claim, one would have to say that Zeus was just a celestial.

 

[dead]

To make that claim, one would have to say that Zeus was just a celestial.

Celestials can have CR 40+ so they might as well be gods.

OK, maybe Hercules has the "Divinely Infused" template out of Requiem for a God. That's +2 to CR.

 

[FireLance]

Examples, please. Only those from actual mythology, none from modern novelizations, none that involve a character who is not truly mortal. Hercules was not truly mortal. His father was Zeus--and even then it was made plain that his mortal part had to go to Hades.

Depends on what you mean by "truly mortal". Many Chinese deities were originally folk heroes who were subsequently canonized as gods, but at the same time they were also believed to be earthly incarnations of heavenly spirits (see the chinese classic "Creation of the Gods" and the legend of Nezha).

It could be argued that even in Chinese mythology, you had to become a god before you can beat up on gods, but the fact remains that beating up on gods is possible even if you start out as a mortal.

Also, and I'm treading on less familiar ground here, so I may be wrong, the Finnish epic Kalevela may also have some examples of Finnish mortal heroes contending with the gods themselves. Would anyone who knows it better be willing to comment?