Who would've thought Pantheons o the Megaverse was so good?!

[cyberdon]

I reeeally like it.

Mhmm

[Tor]

It really is. Especially the more you read. There's so many hidden intrigues and connections in there that you simply will not notice at first. I must've periodically skimmed through the things dozens of times and still manage to find stuff.

This things gets referenced in Nightbane, Rifts Mercenaries, and there are eery implications when one compares it to Rifts Africa and Dragons and Gods, particularly with the Northern Gods and the Norse Gods.

[cyberdon]

Nice!

[Zamion138]

I personally find the pantheons to be sorely under powered, by that's just me.

I get what you mean, as in you can kill a god with out needing a friggen armada, but you have to think most of them have massive armies and minnions and planet holdings and such. I dont see gods doing much of their own fighting. If thats what you mean by underpowered, if not please elaborate

[Zamion138]

Well the more defic powers were not added to the gods till dragons and gods, it sounds like a cope out but pantheons was written i want to say right after afrika so pretty early in the running.

One would assume the church of zues has astral watchers, tech survialence and magic hidden defenses as well. Ifyou did that im sure he has a large number megaversal trackers running arournd as well. But omnipotent creatures are no fun and the gods of old before the gods of Abraham (jewish christian muslim) were not omnipotent they could be tricked and were even by mortals.

[Jay05]

Well the more defic powers were not added to the gods till dragons and gods, it sounds like a cope out but pantheons was written i want to say right after afrika so pretty early in the running.

One would assume the church of zues has astral watchers, tech survialence and magic hidden defenses as well. Ifyou did that im sure he has a large number megaversal trackers running arournd as well. But omnipotent creatures are no fun and the gods of old before the gods of Abraham (jewish christian muslim) were not omnipotent they could be tricked and were even by mortals.

I believe Zamion138 is right. You could easily add the more deific powers from Dragons&gods to the deities in Pantheons. It is also mentioned in D&G iirc that if you were to kill the manifestation of a god on Earth or anywhere else outside a Deific level realm say Olympus, Asgard, Dyval, or Hades for example, that the lower MDC manifestation does not actually kill the god in question, it merely sends them back to their home dimension weakened. If however they are killed in a Deific level realm (see above) where they have their full MDC well over 100,000 for say Zeus they can actually be killed.

[Talavar]

If you retro-actively apply the deific powers from Dragons & Gods to the Pantheons of the Megaverse gods, things get a little more intimidating. Gods can see through the eyes of their priesthood and committed followers, use powers through their priesthood & committed followers; killed gods can be resurrected by their pantheons without a lot of difficulty, and grants them a lot of powers beyond the scope of even high level magic users or dragons. I would highly recommend it for any sort of deific dealings in a campaign.

[Akashic Soldier]

Dragons & Gods has all the "generic" deity powers written in it.
For instance, "deific" attributes, dimensional powers, size and weight augmentation (unlimited), those are all just some of the generic powers all gods get. We're not even including the things like "Gain access to the spell, skill, ability, or power of anyone who worships me" and the other crazy stuff like that.

[Jay05]

I don't have Dragons & Gods so I can't really base an analysis off it.

However, I maintain that I don't like the pantheons as they are presented in Pantheons of the Megaverse

Oh well that's too bad for you. seems like many of us do.

[Zamion138]

I don't have Dragons & Gods so I can't really base an analysis off it.

However, I maintain that I don't like the pantheons as they are presented in Pantheons of the Megaverse

With out going out and buying dragons and gods ( wich i do suggest as its got a crap ton of good stuff mind you) id say if you want to add something to pantheons to make them more godly simply envision the power you want a god to have that fits the gods personality and make it cost alot of ppe as well as a % of the gods mdc/sdc/hp thats how they do it in D&G's its called a body investment.
Or look at it as you would atlantis. If you drop some icbm's on splynn's place he will find you. He has trackers, minnons and people that owe him a great deal of favors. Hes not omnipotent either but he will find who hurt him.
I dont see zues having few rescources than splyncryth, one of the weaker splugorth as they come.

[flatline]

If you retro-actively apply the deific powers from Dragons & Gods to the Pantheons of the Megaverse gods, things get a little more intimidating. Gods can see through the eyes of their priesthood and committed followers, use powers through their priesthood & committed followers; killed gods can be resurrected by their pantheons without a lot of difficulty, and grants them a lot of powers beyond the scope of even high level magic users or dragons. I would highly recommend it for any sort of deific dealings in a campaign.

That sounds totally awesome! Apparently I need to pick up Dragons and Gods in my next batch...which is fine, I was thinking of restarting my fantasy collection anyways (currently only have fantasy 1st ed).

--flatline

[Zamion138]

I don't have Dragons & Gods so I can't really base an analysis off it.

However, I maintain that I don't like the pantheons as they are presented in Pantheons of the Megaverse

With out going out and buying dragons and gods ( wich i do suggest as its got a crap ton of good stuff mind you) id say if you want to add something to pantheons to make them more godly simply envision the power you want a god to have that fits the gods personality and make it cost alot of ppe as well as a % of the gods mdc/sdc/hp thats how they do it in D&G's its called a body investment.
Or look at it as you would atlantis. If you drop some icbm's on splynn's place he will find you. He has trackers, minnons and people that owe him a great deal of favors. Hes not omnipotent either but he will find who hurt him.
I dont see zues having few rescources than splyncryth, one of the weaker splugorth as they come.

When I bring actual gods to bear in my games, I'm probably smiting characters left and right with little regard for logic and reason.

Then why do you care about how the books written?
If you want to run gods as ultra unbeatable and unable to be stoped by anything short of a cadre of AI's or other gods then the books are pretty moot anyhow.

[Akashic Soldier]

However, I maintain that I don't like the pantheons as they are presented in Pantheons of the Megaverse

Is there anything you DO like?

[The Beast]

I personally find the pantheons to be sorely under powered, by that's just me.

I get what you mean, as in you can kill a god with out needing a friggen armada, but you have to think most of them have massive armies and minnions and planet holdings and such. I dont see gods doing much of their own fighting. If thats what you mean by underpowered, if not please elaborate

Well I get that they are super-powerful mega creatures, but I don't get a "deific" sense from them.

Like let's say that I find a church of Zues and burn the entire thing to the ground, killing everyone. I've probably thoroughly pissed him off right? But how would he know it was me, he lacks the omnipotence normally attributed to a god. Sure he has sensitive psychic powers and spells, but he suffers the normal mortal limitations when using them. Let's say that he knew it was me, what's he going to do? He still doesn't know where I am, and even if he did he couldn't pop in and lighting bolt me to death, since none of his powers allow him to instantly travel dimensions to an area that he doesn't even know.

It may sound like I'm nitpciking, but not only are the gods in pantheons gods by the technical definition, they don't even live up to their flavor text. I mean look at madhaven, some random guy decided to lift up the island and slam it into the continent because he was bored. Where's that power in the pantheons book? Why do deities lack the ability to alter the entire face of reality at will? But like I said earlier it's just personal taste.

The book is fairly old, so it missed out on the power-creep that took place once WB6 was printed. If a revision ever gets released I'm sure you'll see the NPCs, godlings, and demi-gods get the same sort of power bump that the vampire intelligences did in WB1r.

[Ectoplasmic Bidet]

Some of the few generic powers available to all deities unless otherwise stated, as per Dragons & Gods, include, but are not limited to:

Deific Curse: God Blind: Permanent blindness with only a Natural 20 preventing it.
Control Tectonics: This one takes control of an entire continental plate and allows the god to create earthquakes, raise volcanoes, etc. at will.
Banish: Say goodbye, because you just got kicked out of whatever dimension you were in for 1d6x100 years. Irresistible, unless a god is targeted.

All of these are powers that can be used through a follower, minion, or avatar. The god need never leave their realm.

Even in direct combat, gods can suffer catastrophic damage - all SDC/HP or MDC reliminated - and by expending 1200 PPE return to perfect health in an instant. All but the puniest gods can do this multiple times without even needing to siphon PPE from their worshipers and any sacrifices they make, which is a definite option.

[say652]

a single splugorth should not be able to pimpslap most of the greater gods so easily but other than that great book.

[cornholioprime]

a single splugorth should not be able to pimpslap most of the greater gods so easily but other than that great book.

The Alien Intelligences are and have always been at the top of the food chain in the Palladium Setting.

[Ectoplasmic Bidet]

a single splugorth should not be able to pimpslap most of the greater gods so easily but other than that great book.

The Alien Intelligences are and have always been at the top of the food chain in the Palladium Setting.

Yep. There aren't many gods that can match blows with an alien intelligence that isn't an unusually puny specimen, and most of those were once AIs themselves.

Balancing the disparity in power somewhat is the fact that AIs don't normally ally with one another, with rare quasi-exceptions like the Old Ones, while you can hardly find a god who isn't a member of a pantheon of like minded deities. Having fellow gods around to resurrect you makes the Godblaze power a viable tactic against tough opponents, such as AIs.

[glitterboy2098]

I personally find the pantheons to be sorely under powered, by that's just me.

I get what you mean, as in you can kill a god with out needing a friggen armada, but you have to think most of them have massive armies and minnions and planet holdings and such. I dont see gods doing much of their own fighting. If thats what you mean by underpowered, if not please elaborate

Well I get that they are super-powerful mega creatures, but I don't get a "deific" sense from them.

Like let's say that I find a church of Zues and burn the entire thing to the ground, killing everyone. I've probably thoroughly pissed him off right? But how would he know it was me, he lacks the omnipotence normally attributed to a god. Sure he has sensitive psychic powers and spells, but he suffers the normal mortal limitations when using them. Let's say that he knew it was me, what's he going to do? He still doesn't know where I am, and even if he did he couldn't pop in and lighting bolt me to death, since none of his powers allow him to instantly travel dimensions to an area that he doesn't even know.

It may sound like I'm nitpciking, but not only are the gods in pantheons gods by the technical definition, they don't even live up to their flavor text. I mean look at madhaven, some random guy decided to lift up the island and slam it into the continent because he was bored. Where's that power in the pantheons book? Why do deities lack the ability to alter the entire face of reality at will? But like I said earlier it's just personal taste.

actually, the greek pantheons was never described in the myths as omnipotent.. really powerful yes, but not all powerful.
ditto for pretty much all the pantheons in that book. in the original myths their power is high, but limited.

[Nightmask]

A very detailed and well-thought out post there Gryphon. In perspective those who spoke the tales of the gods would see them as all-powerful (or close to it) back then compared to today. Pantheons does a good job of reflecting that while in their day they were unstoppable save by other gods they have not grown in all that time whereas their playthings (i.e. mortals) have striven hard to improve themselves in thousands of different ways, narrowing the gap while the gods remain static (save for a few that continue to strive to grow in power, like Hela and her efforts to craft that scarily powerful new body that she hopes to gain favor with the Mechanoids through).

[kaid]

If you retro-actively apply the deific powers from Dragons & Gods to the Pantheons of the Megaverse gods, things get a little more intimidating. Gods can see through the eyes of their priesthood and committed followers, use powers through their priesthood & committed followers; killed gods can be resurrected by their pantheons without a lot of difficulty, and grants them a lot of powers beyond the scope of even high level magic users or dragons. I would highly recommend it for any sort of deific dealings in a campaign.

That sounds totally awesome! Apparently I need to pick up Dragons and Gods in my next batch...which is fine, I was thinking of restarting my fantasy collection anyways (currently only have fantasy 1st ed).

--flatline

Yes if you want to play with gods I strongly recommend both pantheons of the mega verse and dragons and gods both. Given that the demon lords and devil lords and the yama kings from china I believe list deific powers it makes sense to give the other pantheons them as well.

[Jay05]

If you retro-actively apply the deific powers from Dragons & Gods to the Pantheons of the Megaverse gods, things get a little more intimidating. Gods can see through the eyes of their priesthood and committed followers, use powers through their priesthood & committed followers; killed gods can be resurrected by their pantheons without a lot of difficulty, and grants them a lot of powers beyond the scope of even high level magic users or dragons. I would highly recommend it for any sort of deific dealings in a campaign.

That sounds totally awesome! Apparently I need to pick up Dragons and Gods in my next batch...which is fine, I was thinking of restarting my fantasy collection anyways (currently only have fantasy 1st ed).

--flatline

Yes if you want to play with gods I strongly recommend both pantheons of the mega verse and dragons and gods both. Given that the demon lords and devil lords and the yama kings from china I believe list deific powers it makes sense to give the other pantheons them as well.

Indeed it does.

[Razzinold]

And it SHOULD be limited too. Back in "the day", they were deities and unstoppable because they were MDC creatures with supernatural strength, many had really, really powerful weapons, and quite a few had unusual power, access to magic or psionics, or automatically were granted powerful minions.

In Rifts Earth, a lot of that is mitigated because mankind has finally managed to develop technology to a point where it can cope with that sort of power, and in some very few cases that tech is unto magic itself. (Force Fields, Teleportation, Contra Gravitic Fight, Magnetic or Force Manipulation at range, etc.)

The thing is, back in multiple centuries B.C., the people on Earth were not supernaturally strong in most cases (demi-gods exempt), were certainly not MDC creatures (including most demi-gods, they could be hurt and bleed, even if they were very, very hard to kill), did n[t cast magic (except for the rare, generally feared spell caster who rarely busted out with Tim the Powerful's displays of pyrotechnic death), rarely if ever had more psionics than Minors (save for perhaps oracles), did not have unusual powers save for by gift, curse, accident of birth or descent form the gods, and rarely had uber powerful minions, except for demi-gods within limits, those spell caster guys, powerful minion henchmen of gods, or the rare individual that managed to work magic to their own means.

Against a being with supernatural strength (Hercules/Herakles, Samson, etc), what could even an army really do? They can barely harm him, they can't overbear him, and any hit he lands more or less smashes their best armor and shatters their bodies underneath. Now make that powerful individual a real god, say Thor or Ares, and have him get a mad on and wander around a human battlefield. What are they going to do? That being is unstoppable in the extreme, there is literally not a damn thing they can hope to do to slow him down. They can only wait until he grows bored (nit tired, supernatural endurance, remember?) or perhaps appease them in some manner.

Fast forward 2,500-3,000 years, and the playing field is a lot more level. Area and Thor are still a hideous threat, but its entirely possible to send their current form packing back to their home field with the right application of firepower. Not at all likely, but possible, and they know it too. That's why so many of them avoid wandering around Rifts Earth looking for trouble.

And I agree that an Alien Intelligence is typically more powerful than a real god, with one proviso: It's very likely the progenitor of a given pantheon is either a freakishly powerful "regular" god, or is instead an A.I. themselves. Zeus, Odin, Quetzacoatl, and similar, and likely several others too (Basically the core gods, 3-6 of them typically, are a very significant step up from the others in their own pantheon, including any dark mirrors of the leaders of the pantheon.)

With their "limitations" on Earth, Palladium almost hits the mark here too. Zeus for example has 20,000 MDC. That's a whole lot, but it isn't immunity to death on the mortal plane. A powerful enough attack, several strategic nukes or an army of modern weapons, could take such a being out and send them to their home plane to recover. Putting that in perspective though, Zeus on Earth was 2 MILLION SDC and likely had some A.R. level further reducing the likely hood of damaging him. Before MDC technology, he was effectively untouchable up until 1945! And even then, a single nuke wouldn't have taken him out. The early ones wouldn't even have been that crippling really, taking double digit numbers to seriously weaken him. (Hiroshima? Right around 2D4x100 MDC, or x10,000 SDC...congratulations, you have seriously horked the big guy off!)

I don't buy into the idea that gods snapped their fingers and the universe changed for them. I figure Zeus' writeup would seem well nigh omnipotent to the poor bastards that had to deal with back when he still wandered around on Earth from time to time, and seeing an Olympian take on a major threat like a Titan, 100 handed, or similar would have seemed like the end of the world to those humans, so their belief the gods could do anything would seem well founded. Heck, look at his spell list and the 15,000 P.P.E. he has to feed that list! In an age where weather isn't even understood, this really is the essence of omnipotent.
.

Very well thought out post, lots of good points, really puts things into perspective. You also get bonus points for the slightly veiled Monty Python reference. Nice job using it in context without drawing a lot of notice to it.


King Arthur: Who are you who can summon fire without flint or tinder?
Tim: There are some who call me... Tim.

[Tor]

you can kill a god with out needing a friggen armada

Can you? Tell me which god you think you would be able to defeat with which non-armada. I'm interested in seeing how that would go.

It is also mentioned in D&G iirc that if you were to kill the manifestation of a god on Earth or anywhere else outside a Deific level realm say Olympus, Asgard, Dyval, or Hades for example, that the lower MDC manifestation does not actually kill the god in question, it merely sends them back to their home dimension weakened. If however they are killed in a Deific level realm (see above) where they have their full MDC well over 100,000 for say Zeus they can actually be killed.

Not entirely clear on that part, can we get some page numbers? This is also muddied by the issue of 'Manifestation' also being a deific power.

If you retro-actively apply the deific powers from Dragons & Gods to the Pantheons of the Megaverse gods, things get a little more intimidating. Gods can see through the eyes of their priesthood and committed followers, use powers through their priesthood & committed followers; killed gods can be resurrected by their pantheons without a lot of difficulty, and grants them a lot of powers beyond the scope of even high level magic users or dragons. I would highly recommend it for any sort of deific dealings in a campaign.

People often focus on the raw power, but to me this is one of the fridge horrors that sets in about Dragons and Gods. If you think about it: a god can attack you without even BEING there. They just need a worshipper as a range-booster. They can give any follower, even a child or a vagabond, an Orb of Annihilation, if they like. Heck, they could create an Orb of Destruction and the SDC sacrifice won't mean that much if they do so safely from their home dimensions.

Dragons & Gods has all the "generic" deity powers written in it.
For instance, "deific" attributes, dimensional powers, size and weight augmentation (unlimited), those are all just some of the generic powers all gods get. We're not even including the things like "Gain access to the spell, skill, ability, or power of anyone who worships me" and the other crazy stuff like that.

That's a Thoth-exclusive thing, and why he needs to die. It's too dangerous.

Deific Curse: God Blind: Permanent blindness with only a Natural 20 preventing it.

At least that usually requires a Token body investment. Go check out Lista pg 119. FEAR.

Control Tectonics: This one takes control of an entire continental plate and allows the god to create earthquakes, raise volcanoes, etc. at will.

Again though: body investments are serious weakening counter-factors, and this one usually has a Severe cost. But then, check out Zandragal on pg 225. FEAR.

Banish: Say goodbye, because you just got kicked out of whatever dimension you were in for 1d6x100 years. Irresistible, unless a god is targeted.

True, though if you have a god of your own to help you out via prayer, Dispel Deific Power on pg 94 might be able to cancel that out.

I'm not entirely clear on how DDP works though (no, not the wrestling yogi) because it does have this 'if the power is still being actively being manipulated by the other god' statement in it. I find that very vague and I'm not entirely sure what it means, TBH. It says 'including curses and pestilence'. That tells us little (pestilence is already classed as a curse, after all) because there are actively manipulatable curses (like if a deity chooses to alter the nature of a disease) but then there are also ones which are throw-away. A curse can be put on someone and then neglected. So what qualifies as 'actively manipulated' is up in the air.

I'd prefer to expand what DDP does by having it mean 'any ongoing powers'. So DDP could not cancel out a resurrection since it happened, or cancel destruction caused by hellfire, but it could cancel the hellfire power from doing additional damage, or cancel any ongoing curse still influencing someone, etc.

The only problem with this though is that the "Close Deific Portal" power has a very high cost (more severe than Create Deific Portal) so presumably DDP would not work to cancel out a portal already created by CDP.

All of these are powers that can be used through a follower, minion, or avatar. The god need never leave their realm.

Made even worse by how gods can create strong loyal super-powered minions from the safety of their home dimensions too.

gods can suffer catastrophic damage - all SDC/HP or MDC reliminated - and by expending 1200 PPE return to perfect health in an instant. All but the puniest gods can do this multiple times without even needing to siphon PPE from their worshipers and any sacrifices they make, which is a definite option.

Well that's why you attack their PPE base first God's bio-regeneration rates are horrible enough to begin with without having to worry about this stuff. Clearly when attacking a god one should bring a psi-stalker to lasso and vibro-knife the god to sap their PPE prior to trying to inflict any serious damage to them. While that's happening you can focus on distracting them, casting compromising magic on them (like carpet of adhesion), taking their weapons and armor away, killing off their minions, etc.

'sides Stalkers anyone know any other good means of PPE-sapping? The PPE vampire version of the Channeler from Through the Glass Darkly comes to mind. Unlike most mages who can't steal PPE from other mages, pretty sure these guys can.

Back in "the day", they were deities and unstoppable because they were MDC creatures with supernatural strength

back in multiple centuries B.C., the people on Earth were not supernaturally strong in most cases (demi-gods exempt), were certainly not MDC creatures (including most demi-gods, they could be hurt and bleed, even if they were very, very hard to kill)

Against a being with supernatural strength (Hercules/Herakles, Samson, etc), what could even an army really do? They can barely harm him, they can't overbear him, and any hit he lands more or less smashes their best armor and shatters their bodies underneath. Now make that powerful individual a real god, say Thor or Ares, and have him get a mad on and wander around a human battlefield. What are they going to do? That being is unstoppable in the extreme, there is literally not a damn thing they can hope to do to slow him down.

Zeus on Earth was 2 MILLION SDC and likely had some A.R. level further reducing the likely hood of damaging him. Before MDC technology, he was effectively untouchable up until 1945! And even then, a single nuke wouldn't have taken him out. The early ones wouldn't even have been that crippling really, taking double digit numbers to seriously weaken him. (Hiroshima? Right around 2D4x100 MDC, or x10,000 SDC...congratulations, you have seriously horked the big guy off!)

I'm not really sure why you think the gods would have the same number of life points in the pre-rifts setting.

Arguably tech was the only MDC-possessing and MD-inflicting thing prior to the Coming of the Rifts. There's no indication that supernatural strength or supernatural beings were MDC or inflicted MD in the pre-Rifts times, was there?

The SDC of gods in pre-Rifts times was probably similar to the SDC of gods in Dragons and Gods on the PF world, if not less.

[Akashic Soldier]

Thats a Thoth-exclusive thing, and why he needs to die. It's too dangerous.

It specifically says that each God has a power that is kinda their thing, that is Thoth's thing, so whereas you are right my point was just listing an example divine power. As each God is bound to have their own little trick or abilities that is truly their own. As for killing Thoth, no way! You'll have to go through every single one of my PCs to do that.

I have nightmares thinking about the Ghost of Xy or whatever hellish creature might hatch from the corpse of Thoth should he ever be destroyed. Killing him is just inviting cosmic disaster of a scale the likes of which we do not need.

[drewkitty ~..~]

It was a yawn.
I don't use it too much.

[Tor]

It specifically says that each God has a power that is kinda their thing

Some gods yes, each/every god, no. Some gods just have the generic abilities and nothing unique at all about their deific powers or any modifications to prototypical deific powers, cept maybe HIGHER costs.

each God is bound to have their own little trick or abilities that is truly their own.

Not really, a lot of them don't. Generally the powerful or specialized/obsessed ones do.

As for killing Thoth, no way! You'll have to go through every single one of my PCs to do that.

I'll let you protect your dimension's Thoth, but I'mma kill all the alternate dimensional Thoths.

I have nightmares thinking about the Ghost of Xy or whatever hellish creature might hatch from the corpse of Thoth should he ever be destroyed. Killing him is just inviting cosmic disaster of a scale the likes of which we do not need.

Psh, Xy isn't trapped inside Thoth, he became Thoth, he'll die with him. His mind is tied to Thoth's soul. Even if he were freed or awakened, he can't be much harder to keep asleep than the rest. Just feed him to Cronus.

[Zamion138]

Zamion138 wrote:
you can kill a god with out needing a friggen armadaCan you? Tell me which god you think you would be able to defeat with which non-armada. I'm interested in seeing how that would go.

Krishna 14k mdc 2800 on earth
maybe Ratri
Triton 14k 2800 mdc on earth
Tlazolteol 8.5k or 1700 on rifts earth
actualy most of the Aztec gods are pretty low mdc wise.
I dont think it would be easy to kill them and you would have to prevent them from D.portaling away and such but alot of the younger and lesser gods are not so heavy on the mdc that you would need an armada.

its do able, the gods from dragons and gods. No they are all alot tougher espicaly with the defic powers wich, personaly I would give to the pantheons gods but are not specificly listed.

[Eclipse]

Yeah I like the 'incredibly tough but beatable under the right circumstances' Rifts-only version of gods without Deific Powers. I do like Dragons and Gods (the only PFRPG book I ever purchased), but prefer these upgraded deities limited to PFRPG only. A god should have to be subtle most of the time on Rifts Earth and unable to enter places like the Coalition cities without consequences and be killable. They're still effing awesome if they utilise their advantages fully and don't underestimate their opponents. Teleport and/or dimensional teleport at will (can't remember if this is common for deities - if not, AIs have the advantage), lots of minions, a great spread of spells with the PPE to fully use them, often as not a decent amount of psionics, great MDC. What are you going to do if you're trapped in a small room with one? They're usually not stupid enough to grow to giant size and fight you at a safe distance.

They're often near equals to AIs, just with a few less powers and a lot less physical toughness. Many gods can be just as physically strong or stronger than most AIs. AIs tend to beat them on MDC, not levels, OCCs or powers, although the average AI has a nice spread of abilities. The russian gods got a bit of an upgrade over most deities I thought, in terms of speed - Mach 1+ is not unusual..

[Eclipse]

Still, I can imagine a pretty cool Rifts game with something like this:

Sub-creatures! Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, the Traveller has come! Choose and perish!

A few deific powers and an AI or deity and you're good to go.

I like it when deific level beings spew out a list of titles.. or their representative do it for them. It's like being at a human court. A quick summation of their major acts of terror or goodness.

[Tor]

Krishna 14k mdc 2800 on earth

Psh, he's the avatar of a god, do we even consider him a god?

Triton 14k 2800 mdc on earth

Psh, barely beyond a demigod, ampitrite wasn't even a goddess, it's just Ariel's dad.

Tlazolteol 8.5k or 1700 on rifts earth actualy most of the Aztec gods are pretty low mdc wise.

Fair enough. Of course let's not forget Asmodeus and Mictla the devourer in CB1.

I dont think it would be easy to kill them and you would have to prevent them from D.portaling away and such but alot of the younger and lesser gods are not so heavy on the mdc that you would need an armada.

I guess maybe I'm not sure how big an armada would need to be. Do you have a term for the size of group you would think would be adequate for beating them?

Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, the Traveller has come!

Always wondered why it wasn't just "Gozer the travelling and destroying Gozerian." Also it sounds like Gozerians were named after Gozer, so isn't that kind of like calling yourself Buddha the Buddhist?

[Balabanto]

a single splugorth should not be able to pimpslap most of the greater gods so easily but other than that great book.

It can't. Spells of legend, deific autostrikes, and access to every spell in the game make gods scary. The only reason the gods don't blow up Splynncryth is that then MORE splugorth will come. They need to encourage mortal actors to get rid of him.

[Zamion138]

Krishna 14k mdc 2800 on earth

Psh, he's the avatar of a god, do we even consider him a god?

Triton 14k 2800 mdc on earth

Psh, barely beyond a demigod, ampitrite wasn't even a goddess, it's just Ariel's dad.

Tlazolteol 8.5k or 1700 on rifts earth actualy most of the Aztec gods are pretty low mdc wise.

Fair enough. Of course let's not forget Asmodeus and Mictla the devourer in CB1.

I dont think it would be easy to kill them and you would have to prevent them from D.portaling away and such but alot of the younger and lesser gods are not so heavy on the mdc that you would need an armada.

I guess maybe I'm not sure how big an armada would need to be. Do you have a term for the size of group you would think would be adequate for beating them?

Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, the Traveller has come!

Always wondered why it wasn't just "Gozer the travelling and destroying Gozerian." Also it sounds like Gozerians were named after Gozer, so isn't that kind of like calling yourself Buddha the Buddhist?

Probaly a six plus man squad, at least upper mid caster who can do anti magic cloud or counterspelling, maybe two pa pilots with alot of attacks per round, a juicer to stay in their face and use auto dodge. A heavy combat borg or anouther pa, maybe a mindbleeder or psinulifier, the quicker you can deal lots of damedge and shut the first few attempts breaking contact or counter attacking and you can take the lesser gods and aspects.

[Eclipse]

Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, the Traveller has come!

Always wondered why it wasn't just "Gozer the travelling and destroying Gozerian." Also it sounds like Gozerians were named after Gozer, so isn't that kind of like calling yourself Buddha the Buddhist?

Gods don't care about your insightful criticisms puny mortal

[Tor]

The only reason the gods don't blow up Splynncryth is that then MORE splugorth will come. They need to encourage mortal actors to get rid of him.

That and Splynncryth is actually best friends with lots of gods and goddesses who would be pissed. Not to mention the army of highly trained high lords who could probably dominate whatever minion race you sent to help you out.

Gods would have a tough time doing something like just blowing him up. Splynn would not be that easy.

Probaly a six plus man squad, at least upper mid caster who can do anti magic cloud or counterspelling, maybe two pa pilots with alot of attacks per round, a juicer to stay in their face and use auto dodge. A heavy combat borg or anouther pa, maybe a mindbleeder or psinulifier, the quicker you can deal lots of damedge and shut the first few attempts breaking contact or counter attacking and you can take the lesser gods and aspects.

Autododge isn't going to do much if the god ignores you and goes directly for your mage and psychics first. Autododge also won't do much (though paired WP might help) if the god simply waits for the Juicer to come at him and simultaneous attacks.

Your PA pilots and borg could be a threat with ranged weapons the god may lack. Missles would be useful save that they'd probably hit a juicer in melee range of the god.

The generative abilities of a god, and the limited ammunition of a lot of non-energy weapons, are going to make this pretty tough though.

I'm interested in the specifics here. Which god are you choosing to attempt to kill (outside home dimension, we'll say, to lower the MDC), what are the 2 power armors, what kind of juicer, what kind of mage, choose bleeder or nullifier (I don't mind which), and what kind of borg? That's six.

[Zamion138]

Ill do a bare bones write up in a few not near my books

[Zamion138]

ok so god wise.....if we wznt to make this easy we use the goddess Xochiquetzal pg 26......she does not have teleport and only regens 1d6x10 mdc a minute. she has 1200 mdc on earth and only does 2d6 mdc on a power punch......honestly I think she would surrender after a full round of combat......
but lets assume a slightly tougher god thats not basicly a pretty face ....tough she was a lv10 leyline walker she only had spells up to lv4 so she sucks.

So lets fight Zurvan....wait no no thats not what i ment ....Ok were going to fight Haurvatat pg185, why becuase she cant diminsionaly teleport and i cant think of a good way to stop that as a natrual ability. So she hsd 1800 mdc bio-regans at a huge 1d4x100 a minute, anyhow
lv 6 mage ley line walker, with anti magic cloud
psi nulifier lv 5+
rpa pilot lv 6+ with boxing and mecha knight medium power armors, they fly and do 2d4x10 with a range shot that has unlimited ammo and a decent melle weapon,
Titan juicer lv6+
for a borg the mauler from ngr will work, good missel spread to start the fight

heres where its going to get a tad cheasy and meta gammy, so everyone will have an ATL-7 to start with a magazine in it and a ja12 on their back if they are not in power armor,
juicer should be in hiding with chemleon and shadow meld 3 to 4 melle actions away from the target , cyborg and PA's flying in fast and mage about 400 feet away, luanch all missels at a range that it will take that action and one more to reach target, fire them, then everyone shoots the god with the atl7's all but the mage drops theirs , and switches to anouther gun. cast anti magic cloud on god by action 3, titan auto pary's any phsyical close attacks, and power punches he with supernatrual str. cyborg keeps shooting one way, power armor stay just in on board weapons range and fire as well while the titan tanks her cast spells as needed including magic carpet,
Honestly wouldnt be to hard with that set up, now most other gods have D-port so it becomes much much harder.

[Nekira Sudacne]

The Dimensional barrier spell stops all teleporting, weather spell or natural ability.

[SittingBull]

Level 6 ley line walker with anti-magic cloud. -.-

[Nekira Sudacne]

Level 6 ley line walker with anti-magic cloud. -.-

I'm not entirely sure what your trying to say. this will do...what, exactly?

[Ectoplasmic Bidet]

Anti-Magic Cloud isn't going to do jack squat to a god's ability to use its natural or deific powers and since most of them have exceptionally high P.E., they'll be considerably more resistant to its effects than most mortal spellcasters in case they are inclined to use magic.

A point that should be reiterated is that there really isn't any reasonable chance of permanently defeating a god who belongs to a pantheon, even when members of that pantheon do not get along or actively hate one another. Maintaining the status quo and balance of power is too important to allow a member to be permanently discorporated. It requires only a trivial expenditure of deific power to resurrect your victim and then you have well and truly screwed yourself over and possibly your descendents, friends & family, and any pets back at the homestead.

The only way you could be certain to dispose of a god would be to work hand in hand with the Splugorth or one of the other rare groups within the Megaverse who have access to rune magic; capture rather than kill your target and use it to empower a rune weapon. There isn't any coming back from that. Doesn't do much to protect you from the remaining pantheon, though. Might as well bend over and lube up.

[Zamion138]

As written though the god doesnt have defic powers, the anti magic clouds to stop the level elemental magic she has.

It is doable but not easy, and youd pretty much have to set up a kill zone, and no you cant do it with out cherry picking the god like i did for being weak.

[SAMASzero]

Honestly, the only thing I would do for Gods on the Power scale would be to give them the same energy-manipulation ability as the Nightlords in Nightbane and Dark Conversions. It always seemed wrong to me that they were the only ones on that end of the Supernatural scale to have that ability.

[Ectoplasmic Bidet]

Honestly, the only thing I would do for Gods on the Power scale would be to give them the same energy-manipulation ability as the Nightlords in Nightbane and Dark Conversions. It always seemed wrong to me that they were the only ones on that end of the Supernatural scale to have that ability.

The Nightlords do have a greater overall range of control over Energy/Matter, but the ability of gods to transmute matter is vastly more powerful. Though it costs more for a god to perform the transmutation and they can't use the ability in small increments - it's all or nothing[500 PPE and 10% of their SDC & HP regardless of what's being altered] - there are virtually no limits to the size, weight, or more importantly, the composition of their target. If a god was so inclined, they could turn a Nightlord into a cheese sculpture.

[Tor]

ok so god wise.....if we wznt to make this easy we use the goddess Xochiquetzal pg 26......she does not have teleport and only regens 1d6x10 mdc a minute. she has 1200 mdc on earth and only does 2d6 mdc on a power punch......honestly I think she would surrender after a full round of combat......

Xochi can turn invisible at will, and there's also no description of her even visiting earth. She clearly spends her time in the Aztec gods' home dimension flitting back and forth between Tezcat and Tlaloc while pining for that sweet feathery dragon beak.

lets assume a slightly tougher god thats not basicly a pretty face ....tough she was a lv10 leyline walker she only had spells up to lv4 so she sucks.

Nothing wrong with ley line walkers picking lower level spells than their level allows.

So lets fight Zurvan....wait no no thats not what i ment ....Ok

I thought not.

were going to fight Haurvatat pg185

Man, picking on Hordad... your group is really evil eh? Goddess of wholeness and purity and everything...

why becuase she cant diminsionaly teleport and i cant think of a good way to stop that as a natrual ability. So she hsd 1800 mdc bio-regans at a huge 1d4x100 a minute, anyhow

Those Indian gods do have some randomly huge regen rates don't they?

lv 6 mage ley line walker, with anti magic cloud, psi nulifier lv 5+ rpa pilot lv 6+ with boxing and mecha knight medium power armors, they fly and do 2d4x10 with a range shot that has unlimited ammo and a decent melle weapon, Titan juicer lv6+ for a borg the mauler from ngr will work, good missel spread to start the fight

You haven't clarified, when this fight starts, what is the setting? Are you just in some kinda gladiatorial arena? Keep in mind that since she can sense bad intentions, she can pretty easily avoid ANY violence directed towards her.

If you want a straight-out fight, I can buy that with a warrior god, since those types actually go looking for fights and would make it fair and sporting. But you're picking lovey-dovey goddesses who would be masters of avoiding you, doing hit and run attacks, probably hiding in cities, getting champions to help, etc.

I guess I'm wondering what random context would just allow you to missle them out of the blue like this.

heres where its going to get a tad cheasy and meta gammy, so everyone will have an ATL-7 to start with a magazine in it and a ja12 on their back if they are not in power armor, juicer should be in hiding with chemleon and shadow meld 3 to 4 melle actions away from the target , cyborg and PA's flying in fast and mage about 400 feet away, luanch all missels at a range that it will take that action and one more to reach target, fire them, then everyone shoots the god with the atl7's all but the mage drops theirs , and switches to anouther gun. cast anti magic cloud on god by action 3, titan auto pary's any phsyical close attacks, and power punches he with supernatrual str. cyborg keeps shooting one way, power armor stay just in on board weapons range and fire as well while the titan tanks her cast spells as needed including magic carpet, Honestly wouldnt be to hard with that set up, now most other gods have D-port so it becomes much much harder.

This seems to be going a little fast to follow here.

Keep in mind she can astrally project and summon water elementals to track down your party and assault it very easily. She seems to be treated like a sitting duck, but her description is actually rather frightening when you understand her ability to predict and outsmart others.

there really isn't any reasonable chance of permanently defeating a god who belongs to a pantheon, even when members of that pantheon do not get along or actively hate one another. Maintaining the status quo and balance of power is too important to allow a member to be permanently discorporated. It requires only a trivial expenditure of deific power to resurrect your victim and then you have well and truly screwed yourself over and possibly your descendents, friends & family, and any pets back at the homestead.

That's why we're discussing the CB2 gods rather than the DaG gods since it's not clear on whether or not the Pantheons folk have all of those deific powers or not.

The only way you could be certain to dispose of a god would be to work hand in hand with the Splugorth or one of the other rare groups within the Megaverse who have access to rune magic; capture rather than kill your target and use it to empower a rune weapon. There isn't any coming back from that. Doesn't do much to protect you from the remaining pantheon, though. Might as well bend over and lube up.

The problem with that is that the soul drinking can be resisted with a save versus magic, which most gods have a pretty decent chance of doing. Also it needs to draw blood, and I'm not certain all gods bleed (we know some do...). The FAQ also made a note that gods are more resistant to soul-drinking, sadly they didn't clarify the meaning of that stat-wise.

As written though the god doesnt have defic powers, the anti magic clouds to stop the level elemental magic she has.

Cool. But Haurvatat has a Spd of 50, so how long will it take her to jog outside of that fog? Or have one of her water elementals carry her outside of it?

Keep in mind she does have clairvoyance and WILL know you guys are coming, and be 6th sensing all attacks.

Honestly, the only thing I would do for Gods on the Power scale would be to give them the same energy-manipulation ability as the Nightlords in Nightbane and Dark Conversions. It always seemed wrong to me that they were the only ones on that end of the Supernatural scale to have that ability.

I'm not averse to giving some gods the same powers as Night Princes or Night Lords, but we should pick and choose selectively who would get them. Like those involved in deception could get illusion, all-fathers or creator-types could get the matter alteration, etc. You could pick and choose which as appropriate.

there are virtually no limits to the size, weight, or more importantly, the composition of their target. If a god was so inclined, they could turn a Nightlord into a cheese sculpture.

True, although living beings do get a 'standard' savings throw.

Although I feel like Dragons and Gods did not clarify what that means, at all. The only other use of 'Standard' as a savings throw for a Deific Power is the throw Gods get to resist the Banish power (non-gods get no save).

All other cases of savings throw give specific numbers, but what is standards? Deific powers aren't spells, after all... it says that right from the outset.

That said, the save for "Greater Metamorphosis: Demonic" (pg 94) says "16 or higher if this magic is unwanted"

So we could assume that deific powers are a kind of magic, but not a spell (and presumably also not a ritual).

So if a deific power is another kind of magic... what exactly would be the 'standard' savings throw for it?

Probably lower than 16 or 20, presumably these are higher savings throws given for stronger abilities. But what should it be? 12?

Now I'm also wondering if Nega-Psychics, Psi-Nullifiers, Phase Mystics, Guardians or Sea Inquisitors could negate PPE to interfere with Deific powers too.