How Would You Rebuild/Redesign the Deities (and Surrounding Rules)?

[SneeR]

Alright, I guess I would concede that gods do not necessarily need to be like God of judeochristianity. I just hink it's cooler for epic characters to take on a god.

So here is what I would say. Give every god casting as either a sorcerer, druid, cleric, or favored soul, whichever is more apprpriate according to spell lists as a caster of their HD. (I would prefer favored soul or sorcerer since that give them sort of a host of powers rather than "casting;" otherwise have a preferred preparation list of spells that they think always works) Then I would say every god has between 15 and 25 HD of whatever class is most appropriate. They get the cleric, druid, sorcerer, or favored soul casting in addition to whatever class features they have, just as many monsters have. They are considered to have a Wisdom and Charism of 20 or their actual score, whichever is higher, for all purposes related to this auxillary casting. They may also spontaneously cast any spell from any of their domains.
Maybe also give them that feat allowing them to sacrifice lower-level spells for higher level spells as a bonus.

If they have an off-the-wall ability, make it a 1/day special power.
There you go; almost every ability demonstrated by every god can be likened to some spell. Now they can use them to ascend to godhood.


Also, "god" refers to any entity that one would equate with godhood. Meanwhile, "God" is a particular god's name, the judeochristian one.

[veekie]

That only really works if you have so many gods that you can't really call them gods anymore. Why? Because if your gods are weaklings that get mugged by street bandits in a regular basis (like in Exalted), then the only reason there's such gods anymore it's that there's a lot more gods than street bandits. Otherwise if a god can't defend its portfolio (or even itself), then it will be simply be replaced by someone more competent.

In the case that you have gods to be more abundant than mortals, you may as well replace "god" with "monster" and call it a day.

A good deal of them are incorporeal and immaterial until they choose to manifest, or can hunker around their divine realm, doing portfolio related things(or turning the portfolio against people who annoyed them). Most gods don't differ in the degree of things they can do compared to a D&D mage, pre epic, only in the range(they can work miracles provided they are in range of the portfolio) and scale(same effects, only Mass). The no-save thing is a false argument given that most effects aren't resisted, much like mythical mages,
They are however, limited to a fraction of their power while acting remotely, and worse than a hero when outside their portfolio. So if it comes to a throwdown, they have to manifest an avatar(and set their formerly invulnerable ass up to being kicked), 'ride' a mortal or appoint a champion to play. It helps if the champion is part god, but not necessary.

Now, divine vulnerability in grecoroman myth aside, theres also other mythologies.
Chinese myth:
Main pantheon is a celestial bureaucracy, contains the Emperor, Empress, departments and officials for everything. Also fairy babes and a standing military, living above the clouds. Rules over the terrestrial gods, deals with things like collection of worship, and has dominion over 'higher concepts'(with heavy bleedover). A number of them were formerly mortal heroes, kings, generals and other such notables, some of these only did so well after their death, while others do so in life. A number of them were formerly mortals who were reincarnated gods, on the rebound after breaching various celestial laws. Others are elevated monsters who refined themselves enough to ascend.
Under this is the terrestrial gods, who have dominion over things like land, significant objects etc. They don't do much, but do have significant power at their disposal over their portfolios. Pretty much useless outside of their power area, though the gods of land, great cities, and mountains aren't exactly harmless. Plus, given their distance from the celestials(as most of these live on earth, in their own dominions), they have much greater freedom to act and generally screw with mortals.

Parallel to the main hierarchy is the Dragon Kings(think allied warlords), they also have their own standing armies, their own palaces(way underwater) and deal with the weather, water, wind and earth. Rivers fall under their dominion, as well as the oceans. Generally don't get much direct worship, but they're basically a nobility comprised of dragons, with the spirits of water creatures(fish, crab, turtle youkai basically) and stuff acting as their court.

Standing at another side is the Taoist pantheon. They live with the central pantheon, in their own wing, and generally are 100% wizards. Practically all of them ascended to divinity and immortality under their own power, they deal with knowledge, astrology, foretelling the future, alchemy and magic mostly, A couple of them like to walk the earth like an ancient chinese justice league, kicking monster ass. They don't do much celestial politics, since they mostly just engage in research, but the other pantheon can call on their help when a problem needs some MAGIC applied. The monkey king supposedly studied under one of them before he did the Great Sage Equal to Heaven thing.

AND another angle away, is the Buddhist pantheon, which are all ascended buddhas, arhats and bodhisattvas. These are mainly mortals, and monsters that have attained enlightenment. They got their own place in their own heaven. They visit, though its a fair distance away(all the way in Tibet in fact).

Below all of that is the afterlife, Hell itself. This is staffed by members of all the other pantheons, ghosts and also some monsters, most of which get to be minor gods in their own right as part of their duties. Not many permanent residents here other than the staff, most of the ghosts are just here to be purged of their mortal sins through punishment and then wiped clean to be reincarnated(the particularly sinful may take a while).

So...all of them have divine powers, but many of them are decidedly weak in combat power, if you could hit them to begin with(being mostly soul for the most part, you can touch them as much as you can touch a hologram, if you could see them to start with). They can influence their portfolios directly in a number of ways, and to a large scale. Maybe you can call them fairies or demons, but remember, the sidhe too were gods at one point, and so were a number of demons.

So again, what a god really needs, is just portfolio powers, the ability to use varied effects, but ONLY within their area of concern, though with effectively infinite range and number of targets. Stronger effects require that the god be avatarized and physically present, or possessing a suitable host and being spiritually present.

[Prime32]

Stuff

I like the idea of there being two distinct "levels" of gods storywise. The PCs can grow strong enough to fight the gods, then team up with them to fight the gods' gods.

[oslecamo]

So again, what a god really needs, is just portfolio powers, the ability to use varied effects, but ONLY within their area of concern, though with effectively infinite range and number of targets. Stronger effects require that the god be avatarized and physically present, or possessing a suitable host and being spiritually present.

I strongly disagree. You've just described around one third of the monsters out there, that are in one way or the other limited to one kind of enviroment. All outsiders are bound to a plane. Dryads need trees. The other oracle thingies are bound to a location. And they're simply monsters, not gods.

But with all your talk about asian myths, I can't stop remembering Byakuren's words:

Gods and monsters youkai are the same, yet gods are worshiped while monsters youkai are hated.

And when you look at D&D, gods are indeed worshiped, and answer prayers by granting their followers spellcasting and other ocasional boons. In my opinion that's what makes a god instead of just another monster. Several D&D sources point out that gods that stop being worshiped wither and die.

Ascending to godhood on the other hand demands a LOT more than simply being good at a martial art. Kyaransalee killed every last living thing on her planet. Vecna had a Balor vampire as cohort just before ascending. D&D gods are very serious business.

[bkdubs123]

And when you look at D&D, gods are indeed worshiped, and answer prayers by granting their followers spellcasting and other ocasional boons. In my opinion that's what makes a god instead of just another monster. Several D&D sources point out that gods that stop being worshiped wither and die.

Ascending to godhood on the other hand demands a LOT more than simply being good at a martial art. Kyaransalee killed every last living thing on her planet. Vecna had a Balor vampire as cohort just before ascending. D&D gods are very serious business.

And yet the thread is about rebuilding and/or redesigning the D&D gods, so the fact that they are gods because they gain power through worship and because they grant spellcasting doesn't have to be set in stone. Neither the fact that D&D gods are "serious business" in power level (though I subjectively believe that part should stay true).

[PhaedrusXY]

Gods and monsters youkai are the same, yet gods are worshiped while monsters youkai are hated.

Dicefreaks actually does that fairly well. Some of the more powerful cosmic entities could easily go toe-to-toe with gods, especially in their own domains.

[veekie]

However, note that combat power is easy to gain in a d20 system. You just give them HD and SAs appropriate to their station or you give them class levels appropriate to their station. What a god DOES is not easy to gain.

Think of divinity as basically a lordship.
A lord may be only level 1-2, he has right of authority over soldiers and peasants who can probably kick his ass if they meet him in a dark alley, but this does not reduce his authority to manage his lands and military. As far as his commoners are concerned he has as much influence as any god over their lives.
A king rules a kingdom. He has army and economy enough to ruin even the lives of adventurers. He is even less likely to present a credible direct threat to anyone who can challenge his dominion.

A god can be the same way. What they need is influence over their domains, either by direct command, or having access to legions of lesser spirits who can perform this influence.  They can ruin your lives by turning their portfolio against you, just look at Odysseus, by pissing off both the sun and sea god while on an ocean voyage. They do not manifest avatars to lay the smack down on him because thats not how a king/god works. They send troops or the weather against you.

In a game sense, you have this breakdown:
Gods purely comprised of personal power - A god is powerful because they can do powerful things. Aeolus can command the wind from across a continent, therefore he must be epic because only epic people can control the wind to that scale.
Mechanically speaking, this limits games, you have to have powerful gods, and making them do anything, much less overthrowing them, is well beyond the scope of the typical game. This probably fits the Titans of Greek myth and the Hindu pantheon. Also fits most monotheistic systems better.

Gods commanding legions of lesser spirits - A god is powerful because he commands lesser spirits that does his thing for him. So Aeolus commands thousands of wind spirits of varying strengths, which he deploys en-masse when he needs range of influence. He knows everything the wind hears because his minions report back to him. This means he only needs to be in the teen levels, sufficient to pull off Control Weather and Tornado in his own right. He can be even weaker, but this would imply some of his minions would outrank him. It also means that a spawn of Uranus could probably be stronger than him at weatherworking, but he has greater influence because he has more minions.
This is broad, but it does produce gods who are easier to undermine and work against. This fits things like the Chinese, Shinto and some interpretations of the Greek pantheons.(why else do they have minions?). Unfortunately mechanically speaking this means a lot of stats are needed for each god, you have Aeolus, King of Winds at maybe CR 20, hurricane and tornado spirits at CR 16-18, storm and gale spirits at CR 10-15, and breeze zephyrs at CRs 1-10. You still need divine powers to perform these duties(assuming you want ascension to be possible), though I suppose at this point they can just be special abilities of the creature types. This is not exclusive though, it simply implies Divine Leadership.

Gods with only power over their portfolios - A god has power over his portfolio and only his portfolio. The rest derives from personal stats.  Such a god might command plant growth, but if you throw down with him, he might also be a powerful mage...or he might be essentially an especially buff farmer. This is handy in a template application format of divine power, since it goes on basically any creature. Such a (tiered) template would grant 1) Portfolio Senses(sensing prayers and/or their portfolio) 2) Portfolio Influence(the ability to affect their portfolio at great range and areas) 3) Portfolio Defense(resistance to effects of their portfolio as an extension of their influence). They may or may not be personally powerful, but contesting them at their portfolio is unwise.
Such a system also fits the eastern mythologies(chinese and shinto alike), the native american and aborigine totems, the pre-islamic middle eastern spirits, some of the greek divinities(the lesser ones especially) as well as the Norse gods(who are more along the lines of Also A Badass than badass from divinity).
Mechanically speaking, it's the most flexible and can accommodate the other myths, just make a powerful creature and apply this template on top. Avoid tossing in massive stat boosts and resistances across the board, or at least limit that to the higher tiers of divinity.

[Prime32]

I'd say a "god template" lets you pick a cleric domain. You can use the powers of that domain, get an "Aura of Awe" (immunity-piercing Frightful Presence + move attitudes one level towards helpful) which only affects creatures associated with that domain (including your clerics), and Leadership that applies only to those creatures. The template can be applied multiple times, increasing your aura DC and Leadership score, while also widening your abilities' scope.

This means that a sufficiently powerful god will awe just about everyone (racial domains like Elf are a good route to this), but if you're not a farmer you can laugh at the god of corn.

[veekie]

So tier up domain abilities as you go up?
Probably fits better if you tie it to portfolio(a list of sample Influence X abilities tiered by Divine Rank). Maybe.

[Prime32]

So tier up domain abilities as you go up?

Nah, base them on character level.

[veekie]

Divine Tier is rather distinct from character level though. Theres a lot of narrow and short sighted gods out there. You could get one to change the weather over a province, but it might not be much use when it takes 10+ minutes to do anything at all.

[oslecamo]

So tier up domain abilities as you go up?

Nah, base them on character level.

+1000 to that. The stronger the god, the bigger portfolio abilities it has acess to. It's a mythology staple no matter where you look at.

Gods and monsters youkai are the same, yet gods are worshiped while monsters youkai are hated.

Dicefreaks actually does that fairly well. Some of the more powerful cosmic entities could easily go toe-to-toe with gods, especially in their own domains.

No, it does not. For the very simple reason it states no cosmic entities, and just the gods of the 9 Hells, which is shamefully limited.

[PhaedrusXY]

So tier up domain abilities as you go up?

Nah, base them on character level.

+1000 to that. The stronger the god, the bigger portfolio abilities it has acess to. It's a mythology staple no matter where you look at.

Gods and monsters youkai are the same, yet gods are worshiped while monsters youkai are hated.

Dicefreaks actually does that fairly well. Some of the more powerful cosmic entities could easily go toe-to-toe with gods, especially in their own domains.

No, it does not. For the very simple reason it states no cosmic entities, and just the gods of the 9 Hells, which is shamefully limited.

The actual pdfs are of course a WIP, and who knows if they will ever be finished... but look around on their message boards. They've statted out quite a few things, actually, including lots of deities and cosmic entities not native to the 9 hells. I remember specifically that they have a Mystra on there, for example, and Demogorgon.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

I'd say a "god template" lets you pick a cleric domain. You can use the powers of that domain, get an "Aura of Awe" (immunity-piercing Frightful Presence + move attitudes one level towards helpful) which only affects creatures associated with that domain (including your clerics), and Leadership that applies only to those creatures. The template can be applied multiple times, increasing your aura DC and Leadership score, while also widening your abilities' scope.

This means that a sufficiently powerful god will awe just about everyone (racial domains like Elf are a good route to this), but if you're not a farmer you can laugh at the god of corn.

You might also want to look at Kalamar's Divine Right of Kings rules.

[bkdubs123]

I'd say a "god template" lets you pick a cleric domain. You can use the powers of that domain, get an "Aura of Awe" (immunity-piercing Frightful Presence + move attitudes one level towards helpful) which only affects creatures associated with that domain (including your clerics), and Leadership that applies only to those creatures. The template can be applied multiple times, increasing your aura DC and Leadership score, while also widening your abilities' scope.

This means that a sufficiently powerful god will awe just about everyone (racial domains like Elf are a good route to this), but if you're not a farmer you can laugh at the god of corn.

You might also want to look at Kalamar's Divine Right of Kings rules.

This sounds interesting... let me see if I still have any Kalamar books. Which one is this in?

[veekie]

So tier up domain abilities as you go up?

Nah, base them on character level.

+1000 to that. The stronger the god, the bigger portfolio abilities it has acess to. It's a mythology staple no matter where you look at.

Gods and monsters youkai are the same, yet gods are worshiped while monsters youkai are hated.

Dicefreaks actually does that fairly well. Some of the more powerful cosmic entities could easily go toe-to-toe with gods, especially in their own domains.

No, it does not. For the very simple reason it states no cosmic entities, and just the gods of the 9 Hells, which is shamefully limited.

The actual pdfs are of course a WIP, and who knows if they will ever be finished... but look around on their message boards. They've statted out quite a few things, actually, including lots of deities and cosmic entities not native to the 9 hells. I remember specifically that they have a Mystra on there, for example, and Demogorgon.

Theres also Orcus, Apollyon, some Sidhe, and more, but some of them are using the prior version of the rules.

The stronger the god, the bigger portfolio abilities it has acess to. It's a mythology staple no matter where you look at.

Well, there are some exceptions in mythology(Strength relates to portfolio dominion, but the level of dominion varies from pantheon to pantheon. Odin is powerful in a personal sense, but he can't quite change fate, only watch it unfold, though he can make small changes in luck across large areas or use seidr or rune magic to do it(Also A Wizard)), but its common enough, and more importantly, player appropriate enough, to make it part of a template.

So lets see...
A Power template, covering cosmic and divine entities would have:
-Ranks.
1-3 are the minor elementals, messenger angels and spirits that govern day to day things, as well as demigods and part-god.
3-6 would represent the bottom rung of deities, where they actually get worshipped at all(or used to be worshipped), the catholic saints, most of the norse gods, most of the aborigine totem spirits, the chinese land/mountain gods, whats left of the daoine sidhe, the fallen sumerian gods etc.
7-9 would be archangel class entities, pantheon heads of those pantheons who are mostly 3-6, Athena, Mars, Apollo, the upper ends of the celestial bureaucracy(heads of department, if you will).
10-12 would be pantheon heads for the more muscular pantheons. Creator gods tend to fall into this for the most part.
13-16 would be Titans, Oreanus, Gaia, and other beings who embody their element in totality.
17-20 would be where monotheistic gods, or Primal Ones go. Not a lot of these around though.

-Portfolio, pick one portfolio. For more portfolios, apply the template again(its all powers only anyway, and most things overlap). The Power's own priests count as part of their portfolio.
-Portfolio Senses. Sense the status of their portfolio within their sensory range. Just the portfolio alone
For rank 3+, they expand their portfolio senses to miles and suffer no range penalties for sensing said portfolio.
For rank 7+, they add a scrying ability that lets them scry on aspects of their portfolio, as well as expanding the base Status range greater.
For rank 10+, their Status effect covers all of their portfolio within a plane, and they can scry upon multiple locations at once.
For rank 13+, this expands again to full sensory awareness of everything within their portfolio within a plane.
For rank 17+, it expands to multi-planar senses, excepting specifically occluded areas.

-Portfolio Influence. Powers they can work through their portfolio sense/scry.
Need to come up with some guidelines, but I figure approximately one broad Influence ability per 4 ranks or so would be appropriate. Start with modifying d20s associated with the portfolio, go on to <X>Kinesis(that is, move their portfolio thingy around, for material things) then move up to broad alterations(like Limited Wish, only even more limited)

-Portfolio Embodiment. Powers they have built in and can use when there in person. Start with domain-powers and domain spells as SLAs and go up from there.

-Portfolio Command. An awe/rebuke abilities for things inside their portfolio. Other spirits which have the same portfolio fall under the list of targets, but get to resist with their rank(and equal or higher ranked spirits are immune). Also gets divine leadership.

All abilities use the character HD+Rank as the 'CL' and DC setters.
Avatars go 4 ranks and 4 CR down.

Probably throw in etherealness as part of the base critter for 'pure' spirits, and a special ability for most gods.

[RobbyPants]

I'd say that anybody level 16+ is considered to be a god, and have most NPC characters experience level caps around level 4-8. 

I kind of like this idea. If you're playing a caster, you can feel pretty powerful by that point, and with a handful of Divinations, Teleport, and Plane shift, you can be pretty near deity-like.

I'm a bit biased because I was considering running my next game semi-agnostic with the "deities" just being really powerful people with a vested interest in certain things, and their powerful "worshipers" are just people working on their behalf for some form of payment, but not divine magic.

[Prime32]

So there should probably be a PrC which turns you into a god-like being (along the lines of the Taoists and Buddhists in the Chinese model), or that could be folded into monk, or just a function of being high-level (possibly done Epic Destiny style, with multiple routes to godhood). Presumably mortals who ascend just by being really good at stuff are better at fighting than most gods but don't have as much reality-warping stuff outside their normal powers.

Also, gods should have the ability to bestow minor divine powers on a large number of servants. Maybe you can give them one of your domain spells as an SLA (capped by their level? maybe you can't use the SLA while someone else has it). In any case they count as gods for barriers which only permit gods to pass, etc.

[veekie]

The Buddhist way would be the monk-class way I think. You live your life all the way so. EDIT: So each level you gain more divine attributes.
The Taoist way is more of....inventing a spell or elixer, unique to you, to one by one, remove the limitations of mortality. EDIT: So each spell level you have to find a new personal spell to remove a limitation of mortality

As for bestowing powers, I figure you could grant Divine Ranks to your servants? Just limit it to 6 ranks lower than you, or limit the numbers as per Divine Leadership.

[Prime32]

As for bestowing powers, I figure you could grant Divine Ranks to your servants? Just limit it to 6 ranks lower than you, or limit the numbers as per Divine Leadership.

I was thinking of things like a god of death giving their psychopomps plane shift and trap the soul abilities.