Forums of the Megaverse®

Johnnycat93 wrote:I personally find the pantheons to be sorely under powered, by that's just me.

Zamion138 wrote: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.

Johnnycat93 wrote: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

Johnnycat93 wrote: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

Talavar wrote: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.

Johnnycat93 wrote:

Zamion138 wrote:

Johnnycat93 wrote: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.

Johnnycat93 wrote:However, I maintain that I don't like the pantheons as they are presented in Pantheons of the Megaverse

Johnnycat93 wrote:

Zamion138 wrote:

Johnnycat93 wrote: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.

say652 wrote:a single splugorth should not be able to pimpslap most of the greater gods so easily but other than that great book.

cornholioprime wrote:

say652 wrote: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.

Johnnycat93 wrote:

Zamion138 wrote:

Johnnycat93 wrote: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.

flatline wrote:

Talavar wrote: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

kaid wrote:

flatline wrote:

Talavar wrote: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.

Gryphon wrote: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.
.

Zamion138 wrote:you can kill a god with out needing a friggen armada

Jay05 wrote: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 wrote: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 wrote: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.

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

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

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

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

Ectoplasmic Bidet wrote: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.

Gryphon wrote: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!)

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

Akashic Soldier wrote:It specifically says that each God has a power that is kinda their thing

Akashic Soldier wrote:each God is bound to have their own little trick or abilities that is truly their own.

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

Akashic Soldier wrote: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.

Tor wrote: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.

Zamion138 wrote:Krishna 14k mdc 2800 on earth

Zamion138 wrote:Triton 14k 2800 mdc on earth

Zamion138 wrote:Tlazolteol 8.5k or 1700 on rifts earth actualy most of the Aztec gods are pretty low mdc wise.

Zamion138 wrote: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.

Eclipse wrote:Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, the Traveller has come!

say652 wrote:a single splugorth should not be able to pimpslap most of the greater gods so easily but other than that great book.

Tor wrote:

Zamion138 wrote:Krishna 14k mdc 2800 on earth

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

Zamion138 wrote:Triton 14k 2800 mdc on earth

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

Zamion138 wrote: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.

Zamion138 wrote: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?

Eclipse wrote: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?

Tor wrote:

Eclipse wrote: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 wrote: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 wrote: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.

SittingBull wrote:Level 6 ley line walker with anti-magic cloud. -.-

SAMASzero wrote: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.

Zamion138 wrote: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......

Zamion138 wrote: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.

Zamion138 wrote:So lets fight Zurvan....wait no no thats not what i ment ....Ok

Zamion138 wrote:were going to fight Haurvatat pg185

Zamion138 wrote: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

Zamion138 wrote: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

Zamion138 wrote: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.

Ectoplasmic Bidet wrote: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.

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

SAMASzero wrote: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 wrote: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.