I'm late to the party time for a catch up post..

Quote from: RPGPundit;965451Do you want, even in high-level play, for D&D deities to have stats? Or do you think that this just reduces them to the level of monsters?

By default I say it depends A lot on the game but personally I say yes depending on the culture (and game) in question gods may very well not be all powerful. Actually I think the success of the 3 major religions blinds people to the potential of having minor gods in there fantasy. For example I have A setting where I have A godess of healing and kindness that runs her own temple and as such she runs her temple her self she has stats. In her own ways she shows godly powers healing wounds with herbs that could never be used that way by mortal man makes poultices that draw the worst infections and poison out of the blood. But if she had to fight A dragon she would be in a bad place even though she could put up A fight shes no 8 or 12 man adventuring party.
The big question for you pundits is do you have these gods running around interacting in the world like normal people the more of that they do the more you need stats at some point.

Quote from: jeff37923;965552This^^

For 3.x/Pathfinder, FFG came out with a short set of rules for Small Gods having a limited number of followers and granted abilities that has worked out pretty good for my own games.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;965547I would have said "NO" a few years ago but I thought Petty Gods handled it very well and made the idea cool.

Thanks for bringing this up I'd been using bedrock's sertorius and hacking it in to 3.x I'll need to check this out.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;965579Heh.  The original intent of "Gods, Demigods, and Heroes" was to (theoretically) show the "absurdity of a 45th level wizard, if Odin Allfather only has 300 hit points."
What's funny is that he
This promptly blew up in TSR's face; instead of "oooh, we should scale our campaign down," the vast majority of players treated the book as yet another monster manual.

GDG&H was the book that proved conclusively that Gygax had lost control of the game he published.

What's funny is that people think He had control over the game in the first place. What you need to remember as A creator of content especially gaming content is that after it is out in public it's not fully yours any more.
Because the community will make changes to it and adjust it to suit there needs and groups along with there own personal taste even though they may never publish A supplement for the game.

Quote from: JeremyR;965922Yes. I think people are too blinded by monotheism, of an all powerful god. and then just sort of retroactively apply that to the polytheistic gods they've heard of.

But in most cases gods were just powerful beings, not really any different than elves or giants or dragons, save that they resembled men and men worshiped them. If you read an encyclopedia of mythology, you'll see just how many gods there were. Most of them were local ones, gods of various places, ranging from rivers to forests to even streams and ponds. Strictly speaking, things like nymphs in Greek mythology were minor goddesses.

Reminds me of one of the Native American story's on how they got corn where the chiefs son went in to the forest and stayed there for several days with out eating and each day a warrior with long golden stalks came and wrestled with him every day and be for there last match the warrior told him that he was going to be killed in the match and to plant his body in a clearing and to tend to the grave like a field and there grew corn.

Quote from: S'mon;965965Diomedes beat Ares, Aeneas beat Aphrodite, both in the Iliad. As two of us mentioned upthread.

In the Old Testament, Jehovah wrestles Jacob on the road and has to use a dirty trick to win.

Interestingly I don't think the Norse myths have any legends of humans defeating gods, though gods are definitely threatened by mortals.

Well yes and no while I cant think of and specific examples of A god's life being in danger by A mortal man Odin's spear was split in two by A warrior in one of the longer tails. In another A boy Fathly (I hope I'm spelling that right) could run fast enough for Thor to take him as A friend and companion. And of coarse Balder was slain by an arrow made from plain old mistletoe though I will admit that arrow was fired by another god Loki had tricked.

Quote from: kosmos1214;966360Thanks for bringing this up I'd been using bedrock's sertorius and hacking it in to 3.x I'll need to check this out.

You can find an inexpensive version with the article Small Gods in it on Amazon.com at the following link.

https://www.amazon.com/Legends-Lairs-Mastercraft-Anthology-Various/dp/1589941225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496623122&sr=8-1&keywords=Legends+%26+Lairs+Mastercraft+anthology

Quote from: jeff37923;966363You can find an inexpensive version with the article Small Gods in it on Amazon.com at the following link.

https://www.amazon.com/Legends-Lairs-Mastercraft-Anthology-Various/dp/1589941225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496623122&sr=8-1&keywords=Legends+%26+Lairs+Mastercraft+anthology

thank you.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;965970Did anyone mention Primal Order yet?

I did. No one cares.

I think that if it's just some extraplanar-being pretending to be a god, then yes, you should stat them (because presumably you should be able to kill them like anything else).

On the other hand, actual Deities should not be statted, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't kill them. You just can't kill them the way you'd kill an orc.

Quote from: RPGPundit;966854I think that if it's just some extraplanar-being pretending to be a god, then yes, you should stat them (because presumably you should be able to kill them like anything else).

On the other hand, actual Deities should not be statted, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't kill them. You just can't kill them the way you'd kill an orc.

I agree. What are your thoughts on PC's achieving godhood? Should the opposition of other divine powers require stats? This might be beyond the scope of most D&D systems outside of OSR. Or do you allow such progression but handwave the conflict? (that's pretty much what I do - the gods work through minions because of mutually assured destruction. Or worse - loss of stature)

Quote from: tenbones;966938I agree. What are your thoughts on PC's achieving godhood? Should the opposition of other divine powers require stats? This might be beyond the scope of most D&D systems outside of OSR. Or do you allow such progression but handwave the conflict? (that's pretty much what I do - the gods work through minions because of mutually assured destruction. Or worse - loss of stature)

I think achieving godhood could be a quest for the top-level mortal PCs.  Even there, though, opposing gods shouldn't be statted, since they're gods and the PCs are still mortals.

As for when they actually become gods, I'd say that at that point you either stop the campaign, or quit playing D&D and switch over to a Lords of Olympus campaign.

Gods with stats are not exactly gods, they look more like avatars to me or high level monsters (especially if we are talking about D&D). The moment you give them stats you are undermining their importance.

Maybe, but it is about the last thing you should stat for them.

Sure, it's possible that for the right set of assumptions about PC/Divine power, clashing with the gods is a perfectly appropriate thing to do.

But it's far less useful to running a typical campaign than details like what the gods' follower are, their history, powers and prayers, etc.