Revisiting old AD&D - deities and demigods

[mr friendly guy]

I am sure most of us has seen the 3 E version of deities and demigods (is there a 4E version?), but I remembered an AD&D version of it one of my friends in primary school had. So doing a bit of research I find that TSR did indeed publish this in the 80s with 12 pantheons including pantheons of gods from myth and folklore, plus gods for various nonhumans (eg Corellon of the Elves), and four fictional groups: the Arthurian heroes, Fritz Leiber's "Newhon Mythos", Michael Moorcock's "Melnibonean Mythos", and H.P. Lovecraft's "Cthulhu Mythos. The latter two were later removed from various printings due to TSR not wanting to advertise their competitors products (since Moorcock Melnibonean mythos and the Cthulhu mythos as an RPG product were produced by other companies).

Note if you search hard enough you can find these in pdf format. I found Legends and Lore, and someone had uploaded on Scrib the excised Moorcock works and Cthulhu pantheons. Since Hasbro / Wizards of the Coast no longer will publish works supporting a rule format they no longer use, hence no longer make money from it, I see no pirating involve in acquiring an electronic copy. I believe the unaltered deities and demigods with the Cthulhu and Moorcock mythos is now a collector's item.

As well as later editions of deities and demigods, TSR would rename the book "Legends and Lore", essentially deities and demigods mark II. Included in the book are

1. American Indian Mythos
2. Arthurian Heroes
3. Babylonian mythos
4. Celtic mythos
5. Central American mythos
6. Chinese mythos
7. Egyptian mythos
8. Finnish mythos
9. Greek mythos
10. Indian mythos
11. Japanese Mythos
12. Nehwon mythos
13. non human deities
14. Norse mythos
15. Sumerian mythos

So it seems TSR later added 5 new pantheons to the mix. So if we add in the Moorcock works and the Cthulhu pantheons, there would be 17 pantheons altogether. Note that in the 3 E edition, Wizards covered Greek, Norse, Egyptian and classic D & D pantheon (which includes the non human deities). Their FR products of course had statistics for the gods of the Forgotten Realms.

One thing I notice, was that while the Skyfathers have less HP compared to modern renditions, they have many more levels. Under 3 E rules (presumably 4 E as well) they would be wanktastic purely by the number of levels, even if we disregard the all deities get 20 levels as an outsider. For example Odin in 3 E is Fighter 20/ Wizard 20/ Outsider 20 is 60 levels. In AD&D he is Cleric 30/Druid 14/Fighter 18/Magic user 30/Bard 15 ie 107 levels. His stats however appear weaker. For the purposes 3 E stats would be provided in (brackets).

Odin's stats are str 25 (32 in 3 E) dex 25 (28) con 25 (29) int 25(44) wis 25 (30) cha 25 (29). For the extra 4 constitution points in the 3 E stats, Odin presumably gets 2 HP per level, so 120 HP extra. However old AD&D Odin would have 47 levels, even at a lowest hit die of 1d4 per level, as a god he gets the maximum number, so that would more than offset it. Not counting his own constitutional bonuses for the extra 47 levels. Yikes. I guess they don't make sky fathers like they use to.

Note this extra levels don't always appear for lesser gods, although at a quick glance Freya has 59 levels, Hel has 97 levels. By contrast Thor has a mere 33 levels but more HP than Hel, so the levels obviously didn't count as much in AD&D vs 3 E. At a quick glance, one of the Chinese pantheon greater gods is given 119 profession levels.

So anyone else seen this product before. It does bring back some memories where D&D was popular among the kids I hung out with, and its interesting to see how much the game has changed.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm actually in a perverse situation: I've read the AD&D Deities and Demigods book cover to cover, and I'm not sure I've ever even seen the 3E version.

Three issues.

As to ability scores: ability scores are subject to inflation in 3rd edition and on. In 1st and 2nd edition it was hard to raise ability scores significantly without stumbling on a small pile of wishing rings or the like. Racial bonuses to ability scores were generally +1/-1, not +2/-2. Ability scores of 25 were 'godlike:' the strongest giants and the smartest godlike entities had scores that capped out at 25. Going from the maximum 18 ability score (or 18/00 percentile strength) to 19 required something really extraordinary. Doing it another six times would be practically impossible over the course of a campaign.

Whereas in 3rd edition, it is assumed as a matter of routine that all characters will have access to magic items that boost their primary stats, and that by the mid-levels their stats will have been boosted into the mid-twenties. A wizard capable of casting 9th level spells in 3rd Edition will probably have an intelligence in the 25-30 range, which would be totally unthinkable in the context of AD&D.


As to HP... In the old editions, leveled characters stopped gaining new hit dice at some point (tenth level? not sure) and started gaining HP at a flat rate. This helped balance out the fact that there were pretty sharp limits on the amount of weapon damage you could do as a fighter, among other things- there was no equivalent of stacking Flaming Burst This That The Other Thing enchantments on a magic weapon to do 30 points of damage on a regular basis, and no way to increase character strength past the low twenties.

So a tenth level fighter against a fifteenth level fighter would have almost the same number of hit points; he'd just be hitting a lot less often, assuming equal armor classes.

As a result, you didn't need to pile 500 hit points onto a melee-oriented being in order to make it nigh-unstoppable in combat, because there weren't a lot of ways to do anywhere near that much damage in the first place- though a party containing two or three people casting off the wizard list could do things like shoot down an incoming dragon in one round, so there were drawbacks.


And as to levels... the point was that nearly all the gods were mighty in combat- which is appropriate. With a handful of exceptions like love-goddesses, nearly all deities in the handbook could easily overpower any normal human warrior, or even a heroic warrior, should they be so rash as to engage the god in physical combat (unlikely). And yet at the same time, the gods generally had potent abilities to make magical events occur at will- not just their spell-like abilities, but more normal things like being able to cast clerical spells.

So the deities were arbitrarily handed (for instance) the combat prowess of a 15th level fighter and the spellcasting abilities of a 12th level cleric. That doesn't mean that they roll 15d10+12d8 dice for hit points; it just means they have both those sets of abilities. Which is not unreasonable, on account of them being, well, gods. Being a god is something very different from being a very powerful mortal in the AD&D context, and describing Odin as having levels is very much an attempt to translate his divine powers into human terms, not an attempt to describe a path by which a human being might become as powerful as Odin through gaining levels.

[mr friendly guy]

Good insight, but there a few points I like to raise.



The 3E version exists alright. I have both a hardcopy and a PDF back up of it.

Another thing with the 3 E comparison, even if a mortal has the same levels as a god, there is no way they will match the deity under 3 E rules. These rules are stated in the 3E deities and demigods, but essentially the gods still have numerous advantages, namely

1. Divine Rank - which gives them divine powers such as divine aura, changing the gravity within their realms etc

2. Lesser, intermediate, greater diety type - basically allows them to maximise their rolls on the die, so they always roll the highest number

3. Hit points - a deity like Odin will always have the highest number possible on rolls, so unless a mortal also always rolls the highest die for 60 levels as well, they won't have the same number of hit points.

4. Salient divine abilities - each Deity has one per divine rank (maximum divine rank in the book of up to 20) plus any special salient abilities, usually related to their portfolio. For example Mystra had a deny weave salient ability.

5. Automatic 20 ranks as an outsider - so even if a mortal is level 40, ie 20 wizard and 20 fighter, Odin still gets an extra 20 outsider levels as a deity.

Of course somewhere, someone's character will have killed a deity, because some DM is going to allow it. Like Pun Pun

[Serafina]

Deities do get a lot of advantages, but most deities are also horribly under-optimized characters - heck, there is at least one deity with 20 levels of Expert (an NPC-class!). They very rarely have prestige classes, they often combine classes that don't complement each other (a Rogue 20/Sorcerer 20 is a Sorcerer 20 with a better BAB, saves and HP, but without anything to improve his spells), their feat-selection is generally mediocre and so on.

An equal-level mortal of Tier 1 or 2 classes can easily kick the ass of most deities.

Let's look at a couple of deities:

Moradin: Fighter 20/Expert 14/Cleric 15. He has awesome saves (+70/64/64, always take 20), lot's of HP (1461), a very high attack bonus (+82) and an extremely high armor class (91). But he only has spellcasting like a 15th-level cleric, and most of his levels are in low-powered classes that don't give him any useful class abilities! Also, Expert-levels - which he uses to gain craft- and profession skills, which are on most skill-lists anyway.

Zeus: Barbarian 20/Fighter 20/Cleric 10. Again an extremely poor class combination. Fighter and Barbarian at least complement each other, but that doesn't change the fact that they grant few useful class abilities and are generally weaker classes. And again, just 10th-level spellcasting.

Boccob: Wizard 20/Cleric 20. Okay, so we have 9th-level spells, and from two of the best spellcaster-classes. That's pretty good. But even a little bit of optimization can trump that - pure Wizard-levels are pretty bad, adding almost any prestige-class will improve that. And Mystic Theurge is almost mandatory for this combination. A Wizard 5/Cleric 15/Mystic Theurge 10/Wizard PrC 10 will easily be better.

Odin: Fighter 20/Wizard 20. Same problem as usual: The classes barely complement each other, and PrCs would just be better. And why not drop a few Fighter and Wizard levels an take levels in Eldritch Knight, or a similiar "i am a wizard who wades into melee"-class?

Thor: Barbarian 20/Ranger 20. Ah, a class combination that complements each other. But he utterly wastes his 20 ranger levels - he isn't doing any ranged combat, he isn't dual-wielding either and he's not using an animal companion.


Bottom line: Most deities are horribly under-optimized, and would only be a threat to equal-level characters due to their maximized rolls and some of their divine abilities. Many of them focus on melee instead of spellcasting, and that's fine due to their backgrounds - but they do that in a pretty bad way, and generally don't take classes that suit their theme. The spellcasters stop progressing at 20th-level and never have any prestige class, instead preferring empty base class levels.

Note: This is not a critique of how this book was written, as most of this is likely due to a lack of better base classes, not using epic rules and wanting to keep it simple. I'm just pointing out that Deities are badly built.

[Solauren]

I once considered reclassing out the deities for lack of anything better to do.
I'm considering doing it again now......

i.e Thor: Fighter 12, Barbarian 20, Frenzied Berserker 10
i.e Odin: Fighter 12, Wizard 6, Eldritch Knight 10, Spellsword 10, Archmage 5

And maybe with the options of:
All Deities have the powers of a Cleric equal to their total class levels, with all the domains they grant.
(No need for cleric levels)

All Skills are Class Skills for Deities
Deities get +10 skill points per level/HD
(No need for expert)

[Spoonist]

Umm, why go into nerdvana for this? If the players are munchkins and the DM let them you are screwed anyway. If your DM isn't creative enough for GODS he doesn't want killed to be an impossible nut to crack then you are screwed in a different way.
Both the old and the new rules are open to abuse, neither make any much sense when it comes to roleplaying gods.

The stats are just in there because a book without stats wouldn't sell. (and because GG had spectrum issues including his "Gandalf is a 5th level wizard" article...)

[Simon_Jester]

When it comes to optimization using prestige classes and such- flavorwise, you've got to bear in mind that the prestige classes are supposed to be exotic variants on the basic archetypal character classes. It is not the point of the exercise to 'win' D&D by coming up with theoretically optimum character builds, and the D&D god statistics aren't really based on trying to do that.

[Solauren]

Umm, why go into nerdvana for this? If the players are munchkins and the DM let them you are screwed anyway. If your DM isn't creative enough for GODS he doesn't want killed to be an impossible nut to crack then you are screwed in a different way.
Both the old and the new rules are open to abuse, neither make any much sense when it comes to roleplaying gods.

The stats are just in there because a book without stats wouldn't sell. (and because GG had spectrum issues including his "Gandalf is a 5th level wizard" article...)

I was thinking more like the stats in Deities and Demigods are for aspects/avatars.

[Agent Sorchus]

Interestingly enough I am in the starting stages of a campaign wherein the Gods are the major antagonists. The premise is that the players are discarded tools of creation that rebelled in the earliest days were contained and now will escape into an unknowing world.

I'm interested in knowing how you all would work with this concept.

Also this web page is a little basic, but has a lot of different pantheons partially represented. http://community.wizards.com/wiki/Dnd:D ... d_Demigods

[Solauren]

Interestingly enough I am in the starting stages of a campaign wherein the Gods are the major antagonists. The premise is that the players are discarded tools of creation that rebelled in the earliest days were contained and now will escape into an unknowing world.

I'm interested in knowing how you all would work with this concept.

First, choose a Challenge Rating
Build them up as that CR, using class levels, but give them max HD.
Toss on some other stuff that makes them 'deities'.

You're done building them, and they are ready for combat.


I'd also look into the Immortals Handbook from Mongoose Publishing. There is also another immortals handbook out there (by someone else) that has CR1000+ creatures in it and the like, but that book is a little 'over the top'.
(Okay, the guys armor class is 1345, and you have a 1334 to your attacks. You hit on a 11)

[Agent Sorchus]

See that is kinda shallow thinking, but I was mostly just seeing what others would think to do. The premise is only half that the gods are the opponents. The rest is the supernatural nature of the players.

What I am doing is giving the players a simple power for possession since they will start with no physical form. From there the gods are not fight able simply because a mortal, even one possessed stands no chance. A major goal is going to be gaining enough power from all the mortal souls taken or from other sources of power to craft bodies to house the players so that they can fight the gods.

Just saying go make CR X creature does the story no favors since they are just a set of numbers that you can eventually grind to equal.

[Simon_Jester]

So... how do you model the idea of ultimately fighting the gods, if not using the D&D combat system? Or do you not bother to model that at all, and effectively end the campaign with the construction of divine bodies?

[Formless]

He means that he doesn't want the players to fight the gods directly in one on one combat (at least, not until the end). "Roll X to hit AC" should never be how you take down a deity; that makes them feel like glorified hobgoblins, and that's boring. What he's after in this campaign, so far as I have come to understand *, is undermining the gods, their worshipers and churches, and their domains/creations until it becomes possible for the players to finally construct the divine bodies so that they can finally fight them head on. That's why he chose possession as the key ability the players get.

He's worked a little too hard on the campaign mythology and world building for "First, choose a Challenge Rating" to be a useful answer.

* I only know a little, as I am part of his gaming group and he doesn't want me to know too much more than the rest of his players.

[Simon_Jester]

If the fight with the gods is part of the campaign, and you intend to run the fight using D&D combat rules, then while creating CR'ed creatures to give the gods stats is necessary- though obviously far from sufficient. You'll have to do plenty of other things, clearly.

If there isn't going to be a fight with the gods using the D&D combat rules, then yes, no stats are necessary. I assume that's the plan, judging by your reactions.

[mr friendly guy]

I'd also look into the Immortals Handbook from Mongoose Publishing. There is also another immortals handbook out there (by someone else) that has CR1000+ creatures in it and the like, but that book is a little 'over the top'.
(Okay, the guys armor class is 1345, and you have a 1334 to your attacks. You hit on a 11)

You mean this. Which gives you this.


This seems like glorified fan wank to me with divine ranks in the hundreds. Might be worth looking at a later time.

[Solauren]

Yeah, that Immorta Handbook is just nuts.

The one I was thinking of is a system for advancing to deityhood, not fan-wank that wanked to more fan wank.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I beg to differ, Thor is using his devine foe giant bonus, and using animal companions as a ranger, he's got a pair of regenerating goats that like to pull his chariot, go toe to hoof with trolls and gaints of Jontheim, and provide food when rations run low, just to do it all over again the next day....

[Sriad]

Although I'd never run FROM it (the build/math complexity in there in there is only surpassed by the extremes of outrageous Char-op) the Immortals Handbook is an interesting source of ideas for epic campaigns. I particularly like the "there's always a bigger fish out there, and a bigger pond" mentality. Once look at Divine Rank 24 the bigger fish IS a bigger pond.

What should it be like to fight a law of reality? How do you replace the Negative Energy plane with something a bit less... negative? Doesn't an infinite multiverse DEMAND the existence of beings who could end the Blood War with a fart? I like thinking about that sort of thing, even though it might never translate to anything "more" than a volcano golem.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

God damn it if I can find a group who plays D&D near me! Seriously wtf?!

But to contribute, have you gotten to look at the Elder Evile book? There's also a bunch of stuff on D&Dwiki.

Now to the point. I think the big issue is that though it's intended to be story driven you need some type of rules that are quantifiable with the players. If a lot of stuff is "just because" it's kind of frustrating for us number crunchers (who while we like some randomness, like it to come from a dice roll, not what's in the DM's head all).