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2016-02-11, 01:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2015
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Help Understanding Deity Creation
Hello. Lately I've been fascinated by the Deities and Demigods book and the d20srd sections about gods. I've been looking at it for a while now and I've been trying to make a deity of my own. However, there are a few things I am very confused about when seeing how they determined certain features on these beings. Here is a list of questions.
1. How are the stats for each deity determined? I recall on a forum somewhere that there is a Deity Ability Array, but there is no mention of this in the rulebooks, and the math doesn't seem to add up for me.
2. Do deities get a bonus to ability scores form their Divine Rank?
3. How is it decided that a deity gets Outsider Hit Dice? I read somewhere that only natural born deities get it, so ascended mortals don't get them. However, St. Cuthbert gets 20 Outsider HD despite his backstory saying he was an ascended mortal. Additionally, the dragon deities only have Dragon Hit Dice.
4. Do only the humanoid/outsider deities get class levels? Because none of the dragon deities seem to have them.
5. Speaking of class level, is there any relation between a deities class level and/or hit dice and their divine rank?
6. How are the stats determined for the Dragon Deities? Did they just take a dragon and give it the benefits of divinity? Because I've looked at Bahamut's stats and it doesn't seem to add up that he is any of the given Metallic Dragons.
7. How are the non outsider/ascended human hit dice determined?
I'm not sure if I missed something in the book or website, but if someone could clarify these things for me that would be great. Thank you!
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2016-02-11, 02:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
Re: Help Understanding Deity Creation
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2016-02-11, 02:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
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Re: Help Understanding Deity Creation
Deity stats are basically determined the same way that an untemplated orc's stats are determined. They picked some numbers that looked good and went with that. If you think of "orc" as a template that fits onto a basic "humanoid" chassis, then "Gruumsh" is a template that fits onto a basic "deity" chassis. Every deity gets their own unique template, which was created in the exact way the orc template was created. Fiat.
Basically, that book is a load of thumb-rules masquerading as a construction kit.Last edited by Ashtagon; 2016-02-11 at 02:50 PM.
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2016-02-11, 07:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2015
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- 41°6'53N, 73°24'21W
Re: Help Understanding Deity Creation
Deities and Demigods FAQ
(includes questions for Deities and Demigods and Faiths and Pantheons)
…with that out of the way I think the only thing (that I can recall) that Deities and Demigods, the FAQ, and the SRD don't cover are the class skills for those Outsider HD; so I effectively house-ruled that all skills are considered class skills with regards to the Outsider HD—class skills pertaining to regular classes otherwise work the same way.
I'm also pretty sure that the idea that St. Cuthbert once walked the world as a man is a nod to the real St. Cuthbert of Northumbria, but at least with regards to WORLD OF GREYHAWK® it isn't necessarily fact (as opposed to Heracles or Imhotep).3e │ 5e : Quintessa's Dweomerdrain (Drain power from a magic item to fuel your spells)
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2016-02-11, 08:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2015
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Re: Help Understanding Deity Creation
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2016-02-11, 09:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2010
Re: Help Understanding Deity Creation
Also, it's worth noting that there's a lot of story-first, rules-second behind how the individual deities are crafted. If I had to give a reason for, say, Cuthbert's outsider hit-dice, I'd say that he may have been human once but he has since fully embraced his deific status to become an all new being, or something like that. As opposed to, say, Imhotep who's pretty much just a level 20 Expert on steroids.
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2016-02-12, 08:14 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2014
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Re: Help Understanding Deity Creation
1: see the answer from the FAQ:
Originally Posted by FAQ
3: I think St. Cuthbert having outsider HD may be a mistake.
4: I think it is just that the dragon deities don't have any class levels, not that they can't gain.
5: I am not sure.
6:
Bahamut is a unique creature, he is the only platinum dragon.
Also see question 1.
7:
I think think it is arbitrarily determined.
According to "Deities and Demigods" most have 30-50 character levels.Bane of disrudisplorkians, and loremaster.