Looking back on it, what I suggested a moment ago absolutely isn't what OP was getting at. (Also, that was nearly 2 years ago?) That said, I don't think there's really a lot to say for OP's initial question -- restriction breeds creativity, after all --, so we might as well shift the topic. Well, we've already shifted it, but we could do so with more intentionality.
too few restrictions leads to anything and everything being possible (and that's often a boring nonsense story to try and tell), too many restrictions and you end up in railroad country, where the only answer is the one that the DM pre-thought of; and any attempt to deviate ends in punishment and wasted time. I'm striving for the middle ground, where I (as the DM) don't know "the answer", but i do know "an answer" as well as "the wrong answers".
There was a meme this reminded me of. Player runs into a Sphinx. Sphinx asks it's most well known question (what walks on 4 legs, then 2 legs, and finally 3). player responds "i mean probably one of them Pokemon. i mean there's like 900 of them by now, one of those evolution lines got to mess with total number of legs". And the sphinx lets him pass because "damn you're probably right. and it would be unreasonable of me to expect you to know all those things names".
Alternatively, the DM might decide on the method from the outset. Honestly, I'd be judicious on players looking to describe that much of the arc for something this big; those kind of asks tend to mean that player is looking to showboat. Besides, from a player perspective, I think it's more fun when you don't know how the whole arc is going to play out already.
to each their own. But honestly that sounds more like "i want to be told a story" then " i want to play a game. and have agency within it". At least to me.
Though also to be fair we are dealing with such vague wording here, that I'm not sure if we are talking more "i want my DM to have some idea of where the story is going, and how we are going to reach the big events"; or "I tell my DM i cast a spell at an enemy, and the DM then decides, for me, what spell i'm casting and what enemy i'm targeting". When talking about DM's deciding how thing will work.
I don't think there's really a lot to say for OP's initial question -- restriction breeds creativity, after all
too few restrictions leads to anything and everything being possible (and that's often a boring nonsense story to try and tell), too many restrictions and you end up in railroad country, where the only answer is the one that the DM pre-thought of; and any attempt to deviate ends in punishment and wasted time. I'm striving for the middle ground, where I (as the DM) don't know "the answer", but i do know "an answer" as well as "the wrong answers".
Okay, well, keep striving, because right now you don't even have a solid answer for what a god IS.
Like, I could tell you some things about how to take on a giant, a dragon, or a lich. They have stats, for one thing, and lore about their behaviors, biology, the places they live... A dragon lives in a cave. A god lives... Somewhere... On an entire plane of existence. Do you see the problem here?
It's like asking how someone would defeat a glorbax. "What's a glorbax?" Oh, you know, a glorbax. "Is that like a goblin?" No, not really. "Okay, well, most things will die to a magic sword, so I'd use a magic sword." Ugh, that's so boring, and besides, it wouldn't work on a glorbax.
I don't think there's really a lot to say for OP's initial question -- restriction breeds creativity, after all
too few restrictions leads to anything and everything being possible (and that's often a boring nonsense story to try and tell), too many restrictions and you end up in railroad country, where the only answer is the one that the DM pre-thought of; and any attempt to deviate ends in punishment and wasted time. I'm striving for the middle ground, where I (as the DM) don't know "the answer", but i do know "an answer" as well as "the wrong answers".
Okay, well, keep striving, because right now you don't even have a solid answer for what a god IS.
Like, I could tell you some things about how to take on a giant, a dragon, or a lich. They have stats, for one thing, and lore about their behaviors, biology, the places they live... A dragon lives in a cave. A god lives... Somewhere... On an entire plane of existence. Do you see the problem here?
It's like asking how someone would defeat a glorbax. "What's a glorbax?" Oh, you know, a glorbax. "Is that like a goblin?" No, not really. "Okay, well, most things will die to a magic sword, so I'd use a magic sword." Ugh, that's so boring, and besides, it wouldn't work on a glorbax.
oh.... you wanted the definition of what a god is in my world? I've been dodging that because i don't want people to answer based on my personal take/world, i wanted them to answer based on their own take/world (with the cavate that Gods COULD be killed in that world). Let's using cooking as a parallel; Two people can be asked to make the same thing, and they will go about doing so in different ways. Even if that change is just the number of times they rolled the dough, or the pounds per square inch of pressure they applied during each kneading of that dough. Neither is making the food "wrong"; but each person would be baffled as to why the other did X, when clearly the "correct" thing to do was Y.
A God (for me) can be a lot of different things. There are Gods who are incarnations of ideas (Death/ Love/ Balance/ etc...) There are Gods who, through means lost to the sands of time, raised themselves up from being mortals into being immortal. With this rise to immortality, they also gained access to power that far transcended the limits of what mere mortals could hope to achieve. Some of the Gods existed before time itself, be that Gods who came from other universes or Gods who took form as the embodiment of this universe's primal spark. The Gods who directly interact with my world, do so by infusing the world with magic, through physical manifestations of their being upon the plane. This is not to say that there aren't other Gods, but the limitation i put in requires that the God remain physically "touching" the plane, in order for their magic to work upon it. Also as a means form which they are able to draw upon the power of their followers.
On the flip side I do not know of anything in 5e Raw that is immune to all damage types. While that doesn't prevent a creature from being immune to all damage types, it does set a precedent for how one would kill a god.
As others have mentioned travel to the home plane of the god with enough magic and allies and kill the target god. Simple in theory, much more difficult to accomplish in practice.
IF people REALLY need more detail. I guess i can set you all up with 4 Gods, and maybe that will get people to actually come up with ideas.
Zeus: The Greek God of lightning, king of that pantheon
Death: The literal embodiment of the Death
Lolth: The patron deity of the Drow race:
Qul'Gallia: A Goddess of Apathy, and Entropy. Due to some time travel shenanigans, you know that she is actually the amalgamation of a bunch of constructs that were all created by a very powerful mage, LONG LONG ago. You also know that she has already wiped out several other planes of existence, and every plane destroyed has only made her stronger
It seems like we’re talking about defeating an Idea rather than changing or obstructing an event (control weather, earthquake, whatever) or defeating a creature. To defeat a god, it would have to have stats. Now I personally support this, although I obviously feel it should be more complicated than just hammering down the HP pool. But it’s fair to say that the general presumption in 5e is that gods have Avatars, but that they themselves are basically manifestations of an Idea.
So, if an adventurer was going to kill Zeus, I expect it would have to come as a result of Zeus's many, many crimes finally catching up to him. Everyone knows Zeus is terrible. In most stories he isn't even likeable (TV Tropes calls this the "Magnificent Bastard," and Zeus isn't one. He's just this awful guy who never loses.) Defeating Zeus would basically be proving that justice can prevail.
As such, in the shoes of that adventurer, I would retrace Zeus's footsteps. I would visit the various people he has wronged, living and dead, mortal and immortal. I would listen to their stories and I would promise them justice. I'd inspire them to believe Zeus can be defeated. Some of them would join me. Others would provide me things to aid in my quest. Some would send me along with merely a memento. A few would be too afraid to meet me, afraid of Zeus's wrath.
Along the way, I would encounter those who see Zeus as an ally, who might think to defend him. I'd convert those who I could, and I'd defeat those whom I couldn't convert, and I'd escape those whom I couldn't defeat. In the end, Zeus would be alone, against everyone. He would still hold that he's the king of the gods, that no one can stop him. He would be wrong.
I don't know much about Lolth and Death has been interpreted too many ways for me to have a clue what you mean, so let's skip to Qul'Gallia. This fits the idea I was talking about before, too. This god represents futility. Defeating this god means you matter, your life isn't meaningless garbage. So let's start there.
I'd need to go on a journey that shows me the nature of the multiverse by degrees, so I can experience character growth and whatnot. I'd probably begin in a state of believing I'm fully in control of my own destiny, or never having considered it. Then I'd have an experience which calls this into question. Let's say I meet a construct that doesn't have free will. This is connected to the god because the god is also a construct, so this would be what sets me towards interacting with this god. I see aspects of myself in the machine and then I realize it lacks free will and that makes me wonder if I also lack free will. Spooky.
I then have a revelation that "proves" that I do have free will, and this gives me the energy to keep moving forward. Let's say I have a near-death experience and glimpse something weird like my own soul. Now "knowing" I'm real, I endeavor to follow my heart and my heart says I should get closer to the scary god stuff. Maybe it's got an evil cult or a buried history I can uncover. Along the way I develop a lot of deep personal connections and make some mistake that costs me dearly, which can come up later.
Now we're in the home stretch. I've become very powerful by fighting cultists or underground ghosts or whatever. The god knows my name and I'm pretty sure it's a threat to the world. But I know its secret: it's got a real physical form, and if it blew up, it would die. So I start trying to get to it with my god-killing bomb. And it tries to stop me. But I'm too strong now to be stopped by monsters and traps. So it has to target my emotions. This is when it reveals to me that the thing that I thought proved I was real, actually proves nothing. Let's say this god can control or eat souls or something. Souls are meaningless. I'm meaningless. Oh no! All is lost! And what's more, it tells me that my whole journey up to this point has been by its own design. I had no agency in this. And I want to believe it because I'm haunted by that mistake I made before. I want to believe that wasn't my fault. But then I remember all my close personal connections. And the god tells me that I've already lost, that it knows exactly how this will play out, that I'm going to lose. But it also knows that I'm not going to give up, and it's right about that part. Only that part. We have a big drag-out battle across a dark void, and it sends me into hallucinatory realms or parallel dimensions in order to really drive home the vastness and how tiny I am by comparison. The killing blow is visualized as something other than a violent act, maybe it's my best friend or lover waking me up from a dream, maybe it's me finally putting down some kind of symbol of my guilt. Then the god vanishes like it was never there to begin with, and the story crucially ends before we can find out what exactly I'm going to do with my free will.
Considering Athena literally took Zeus’ head off at birth, I kinda feel killing a god is beyond even the Epic Heroes’ ability. Personally I prefer the idea that a heel like Kratos could kill one, but obviously this thread suggests no one else does.
It seems like we’re talking about defeating an Idea rather than changing or obstructing an event (control weather, earthquake, whatever) or defeating a creature. To defeat a god, it would have to have stats. Now I personally support this, although I obviously feel it should be more complicated than just hammering down the HP pool. But it’s fair to say that the general presumption in 5e is that gods have Avatars, but that they themselves are basically manifestations of an Idea.
is that really all you want/need? A stat block? Literally ANY stat block, and then (and only THEN) could you come up with a way to fight?
I'm mostly trying to avoid that thing where a person simply builds a character for the sole purpose of answering the question. Like if you make a God that is well known for using long range AOE spells, it might stand to reason to play a hyper specific Rouge or Monk (since they get access to the Evasion skill). Sure you normally wouldn't don't WANT to play either of those classes, but darn it if the ability to negate huge swaths of the God's offensive power isn't too tempting a thing to pass up. Or perhaps you build a warlock that is specialized into super artillery range fighting. Sure neither character makes any sense to play like that from a low level, up till you would fight a God. You just built a one shot character specifically designed to counter this specific situation.
Yeah, Fighting an IDEA is kind of how i would define the fight against Death. Sure this IDEA/God has a physical form that it can throw against you, but in the end it's less about a body you have to put into the ground, and more a concept you have to defeat/do away with. My personal take on this would be to make everything immortal. If nothing can die, then the concept of death loses all meaning. Once the last being forgets what death is, then death loses form and substance... thus death ceases to exist, because it's very concept (the source of it's power, the thing that gave it substance) no longer exists.
So, if an adventurer was going to kill Zeus, I expect it would have to come as a result of Zeus's many, many crimes finally catching up to him. Everyone knows Zeus is terrible. In most stories he isn't even likeable (TV Tropes calls this the "Magnificent Bastard," and Zeus isn't one. He's just this awful guy who never loses.) Defeating Zeus would basically be proving that justice can prevail.
As such, in the shoes of that adventurer, I would retrace Zeus's footsteps. I would visit the various people he has wronged, living and dead, mortal and immortal. I would listen to their stories and I would promise them justice. I'd inspire them to believe Zeus can be defeated. Some of them would join me. Others would provide me things to aid in my quest. Some would send me along with merely a memento. A few would be too afraid to meet me, afraid of Zeus's wrath.
Along the way, I would encounter those who see Zeus as an ally, who might think to defend him. I'd convert those who I could, and I'd defeat those whom I couldn't convert, and I'd escape those whom I couldn't defeat. In the end, Zeus would be alone, against everyone. He would still hold that he's the king of the gods, that no one can stop him. He would be wrong.
... So what exactly gives you the ability to kill Zeus in this situation? Did you pick up an item from one of the people? Do you followers have a means of harming him? Or is it just the plain point of "Well now (enough) people think it's possible, so it becomes possible"/ "There are no longer enough people who think him unbeatable, so he can now be beaten"?
No shade, I'm just legit unsure what exactly makes his belief that no one can stop him wrong.
So, if an adventurer was going to kill Zeus, I expect it would have to come as a result of Zeus's many, many crimes finally catching up to him. Everyone knows Zeus is terrible. In most stories he isn't even likeable (TV Tropes calls this the "Magnificent Bastard," and Zeus isn't one. He's just this awful guy who never loses.) Defeating Zeus would basically be proving that justice can prevail.
As such, in the shoes of that adventurer, I would retrace Zeus's footsteps. I would visit the various people he has wronged, living and dead, mortal and immortal. I would listen to their stories and I would promise them justice. I'd inspire them to believe Zeus can be defeated. Some of them would join me. Others would provide me things to aid in my quest. Some would send me along with merely a memento. A few would be too afraid to meet me, afraid of Zeus's wrath.
Along the way, I would encounter those who see Zeus as an ally, who might think to defend him. I'd convert those who I could, and I'd defeat those whom I couldn't convert, and I'd escape those whom I couldn't defeat. In the end, Zeus would be alone, against everyone. He would still hold that he's the king of the gods, that no one can stop him. He would be wrong.
... So what exactly gives you the ability to kill Zeus in this situation? Did you pick up an item from one of the people? Do you followers have a means of harming him? Or is it just the plain point of "Well now (enough) people think it's possible, so it becomes possible"/ "There are no longer enough people who think him unbeatable, so he can now be beaten"?
No shade, I'm just legit unsure what exactly makes his belief that no one can stop him wrong.
I'm not sure it's helpful to answer that in the story. The adventurer is going to take every possible advantage they can get, whether they actually need a magic sword or not. You can't just roll up to Zeus and punch him allegedly. And demonstrably the guy can throw lighting bolts so it's not like his reputation is baseless. But ultimately, in my version of this, it isn't about recognizing the value of dwarves because of their role in forging the god slaying sword. It's not about the power of faith, or the power of collective action. It's really just about undermining the power of fear.
You can kill Zeus because you've decided to challenge the narrative that you CAN'T kill Zeus. If that seems shallow, it's because this is the Cliff's Notes.
Killing Lolth is surprisingly easy. The Rod of Law was specifically designed to kill entities like Lolth, and has been used to kill more powerful things.
The Rod of Law was broken into seven parts and scattered around the multiverse. Sounds impossible to find, but the parts want to be reunited and put back together. Once you find one piece it becomes much easier to find the rest.
it will take a tremendous amount of research, divination magic, and effort to find that first piece. And it is probably located somewhere difficult to uncover like a huge dungeon. Or maybe the PC that wants to kill Lolth gets lucky and finds it in the dungeon they ended up exploring with a group of other adventurers seeking wealth, fame, and fortune. Sometimes destiny works in mysterious ways.
With part one in hand and a bunch of powerful friends its time to use that first part to seek out the next. Seven grand adventures, each more difficult than the last, and each also providing access to various powerful magical items.
Next up is to get to the Demon Web pits. Not as difficult as it might sound. The plane is named thus in part because it has a "WEB" of connections to other planes and places.
Once there, you just need to find the right time to strike at Lolth. The Rod of Law can easily kill her, but actually getting close enough to strike her down isn't easy.
It is almost like the Rod of Seven parts was designed to be a D&D adventure that includes the death of a Chaotic Evil deity.
I have to say, I feel the thread has reached the conclusive answer that there is no way to defeat a god in 5e, outside of killing all it’s worshippers (and even that made by assumption a god needs faith at all). If a god is an Idea, there is no way to kill an idea, and so you’d have to be as powerful or even more powerful than a god.
I'm confused by your statement. The Rod of Law is a real magical item in D&D that is specifically designed to kill chaotic evil gods. The book Rod of Seven Parts is a decent read, and provides some nice inspiration for a potential D&D adventure.
I have made other posts referring the RAW that allows for killing gods in the Forgotten Realms, which is the core D&D 5e campaign setting.
The Rod of Law doesn't have an item listing in 5e; I checked. That drops it under the heading of MacGuffin/Plot Device, not RAW. Nor is there any other relevant material in 5e for killing a deity that I've seen. It's entirely possible for the DM to set up a story where a deity is slain, but there's no mechanisms the players can point to to allow it to happen on their own initiative, the way that it's theoretically possible for them to just up and pick a fight with some of the Demon Princes or Dukes of Hell and win in normal combat.
It will be an interesting time when someone in this thread figures out that the point of the question was to brain storm cool ideas on how to do very difficult/ "impossible" things. Not to point to a couple pages in the DMG/PHB/any of the source books, that specifically state "This is how you go about killing a God". Nor was the point for you all to kill MY gods (i can do that perfectly fine myself, thank you very much). But to in fact make your own Gods and have ways to go about killing them.
I honestly wonder if i had put an equally "impossible" task in front of you all, but used things that exist within the 5e source books, if things would have degraded this far. Like heck, let's say something basic like "Kill the Tarrasque, with a party entirely made of level 1 characters, non of whom have access to magic items above common level"
Like for pete's sake it's a fantasy game where basically the entire game is played in your head. So why are people so terrified of using their imaginations. Have none of you dealt with a locked door by simply breaking the wall next to it? Used a Clone to fake death, in order to collect the insurance money/ Bounty? Done some stupid shit that allowed you to cheese a roll (EX: This check SHOULD be an Intimidation, but you convince the DM to let you roll Religion instead.)
too few restrictions leads to anything and everything being possible (and that's often a boring nonsense story to try and tell), too many restrictions and you end up in railroad country, where the only answer is the one that the DM pre-thought of; and any attempt to deviate ends in punishment and wasted time. I'm striving for the middle ground, where I (as the DM) don't know "the answer", but i do know "an answer" as well as "the wrong answers".
There was a meme this reminded me of. Player runs into a Sphinx. Sphinx asks it's most well known question (what walks on 4 legs, then 2 legs, and finally 3). player responds "i mean probably one of them Pokemon. i mean there's like 900 of them by now, one of those evolution lines got to mess with total number of legs". And the sphinx lets him pass because "damn you're probably right. and it would be unreasonable of me to expect you to know all those things names".
to each their own. But honestly that sounds more like "i want to be told a story" then " i want to play a game. and have agency within it". At least to me.
Though also to be fair we are dealing with such vague wording here, that I'm not sure if we are talking more "i want my DM to have some idea of where the story is going, and how we are going to reach the big events"; or "I tell my DM i cast a spell at an enemy, and the DM then decides, for me, what spell i'm casting and what enemy i'm targeting". When talking about DM's deciding how thing will work.
Okay, well, keep striving, because right now you don't even have a solid answer for what a god IS.
Like, I could tell you some things about how to take on a giant, a dragon, or a lich. They have stats, for one thing, and lore about their behaviors, biology, the places they live... A dragon lives in a cave. A god lives... Somewhere... On an entire plane of existence. Do you see the problem here?
It's like asking how someone would defeat a glorbax. "What's a glorbax?" Oh, you know, a glorbax. "Is that like a goblin?" No, not really. "Okay, well, most things will die to a magic sword, so I'd use a magic sword." Ugh, that's so boring, and besides, it wouldn't work on a glorbax.
oh.... you wanted the definition of what a god is in my world? I've been dodging that because i don't want people to answer based on my personal take/world, i wanted them to answer based on their own take/world (with the cavate that Gods COULD be killed in that world). Let's using cooking as a parallel; Two people can be asked to make the same thing, and they will go about doing so in different ways. Even if that change is just the number of times they rolled the dough, or the pounds per square inch of pressure they applied during each kneading of that dough. Neither is making the food "wrong"; but each person would be baffled as to why the other did X, when clearly the "correct" thing to do was Y.
A God (for me) can be a lot of different things. There are Gods who are incarnations of ideas (Death/ Love/ Balance/ etc...) There are Gods who, through means lost to the sands of time, raised themselves up from being mortals into being immortal. With this rise to immortality, they also gained access to power that far transcended the limits of what mere mortals could hope to achieve. Some of the Gods existed before time itself, be that Gods who came from other universes or Gods who took form as the embodiment of this universe's primal spark. The Gods who directly interact with my world, do so by infusing the world with magic, through physical manifestations of their being upon the plane. This is not to say that there aren't other Gods, but the limitation i put in requires that the God remain physically "touching" the plane, in order for their magic to work upon it. Also as a means form which they are able to draw upon the power of their followers.
On the flip side I do not know of anything in 5e Raw that is immune to all damage types. While that doesn't prevent a creature from being immune to all damage types, it does set a precedent for how one would kill a god.
As others have mentioned travel to the home plane of the god with enough magic and allies and kill the target god. Simple in theory, much more difficult to accomplish in practice.
IF people REALLY need more detail. I guess i can set you all up with 4 Gods, and maybe that will get people to actually come up with ideas.
Zeus: The Greek God of lightning, king of that pantheon
Death: The literal embodiment of the Death
Lolth: The patron deity of the Drow race:
Qul'Gallia: A Goddess of Apathy, and Entropy. Due to some time travel shenanigans, you know that she is actually the amalgamation of a bunch of constructs that were all created by a very powerful mage, LONG LONG ago. You also know that she has already wiped out several other planes of existence, and every plane destroyed has only made her stronger
Have fun.
It seems like we’re talking about defeating an Idea rather than changing or obstructing an event (control weather, earthquake, whatever) or defeating a creature. To defeat a god, it would have to have stats. Now I personally support this, although I obviously feel it should be more complicated than just hammering down the HP pool. But it’s fair to say that the general presumption in 5e is that gods have Avatars, but that they themselves are basically manifestations of an Idea.
So, if an adventurer was going to kill Zeus, I expect it would have to come as a result of Zeus's many, many crimes finally catching up to him. Everyone knows Zeus is terrible. In most stories he isn't even likeable (TV Tropes calls this the "Magnificent Bastard," and Zeus isn't one. He's just this awful guy who never loses.) Defeating Zeus would basically be proving that justice can prevail.
As such, in the shoes of that adventurer, I would retrace Zeus's footsteps. I would visit the various people he has wronged, living and dead, mortal and immortal. I would listen to their stories and I would promise them justice. I'd inspire them to believe Zeus can be defeated. Some of them would join me. Others would provide me things to aid in my quest. Some would send me along with merely a memento. A few would be too afraid to meet me, afraid of Zeus's wrath.
Along the way, I would encounter those who see Zeus as an ally, who might think to defend him. I'd convert those who I could, and I'd defeat those whom I couldn't convert, and I'd escape those whom I couldn't defeat. In the end, Zeus would be alone, against everyone. He would still hold that he's the king of the gods, that no one can stop him. He would be wrong.
I don't know much about Lolth and Death has been interpreted too many ways for me to have a clue what you mean, so let's skip to Qul'Gallia. This fits the idea I was talking about before, too. This god represents futility. Defeating this god means you matter, your life isn't meaningless garbage. So let's start there.
I'd need to go on a journey that shows me the nature of the multiverse by degrees, so I can experience character growth and whatnot. I'd probably begin in a state of believing I'm fully in control of my own destiny, or never having considered it. Then I'd have an experience which calls this into question. Let's say I meet a construct that doesn't have free will. This is connected to the god because the god is also a construct, so this would be what sets me towards interacting with this god. I see aspects of myself in the machine and then I realize it lacks free will and that makes me wonder if I also lack free will. Spooky.
I then have a revelation that "proves" that I do have free will, and this gives me the energy to keep moving forward. Let's say I have a near-death experience and glimpse something weird like my own soul. Now "knowing" I'm real, I endeavor to follow my heart and my heart says I should get closer to the scary god stuff. Maybe it's got an evil cult or a buried history I can uncover. Along the way I develop a lot of deep personal connections and make some mistake that costs me dearly, which can come up later.
Now we're in the home stretch. I've become very powerful by fighting cultists or underground ghosts or whatever. The god knows my name and I'm pretty sure it's a threat to the world. But I know its secret: it's got a real physical form, and if it blew up, it would die. So I start trying to get to it with my god-killing bomb. And it tries to stop me. But I'm too strong now to be stopped by monsters and traps. So it has to target my emotions. This is when it reveals to me that the thing that I thought proved I was real, actually proves nothing. Let's say this god can control or eat souls or something. Souls are meaningless. I'm meaningless. Oh no! All is lost! And what's more, it tells me that my whole journey up to this point has been by its own design. I had no agency in this. And I want to believe it because I'm haunted by that mistake I made before. I want to believe that wasn't my fault. But then I remember all my close personal connections. And the god tells me that I've already lost, that it knows exactly how this will play out, that I'm going to lose. But it also knows that I'm not going to give up, and it's right about that part. Only that part. We have a big drag-out battle across a dark void, and it sends me into hallucinatory realms or parallel dimensions in order to really drive home the vastness and how tiny I am by comparison. The killing blow is visualized as something other than a violent act, maybe it's my best friend or lover waking me up from a dream, maybe it's me finally putting down some kind of symbol of my guilt. Then the god vanishes like it was never there to begin with, and the story crucially ends before we can find out what exactly I'm going to do with my free will.
I think that the Greek/Roman gods were a family and actually killed their parents, the titans.
So if they could kill each other then in some way they too could be killed.
The viking pantheon is pretty much the same. In Star Trek the Klingons killed their gods in their mythology.
But the question is not if a god could kill a god but if a mere mortal could ever do such a thing.
Considering Athena literally took Zeus’ head off at birth, I kinda feel killing a god is beyond even the Epic Heroes’ ability. Personally I prefer the idea that a heel like Kratos could kill one, but obviously this thread suggests no one else does.
is that really all you want/need? A stat block? Literally ANY stat block, and then (and only THEN) could you come up with a way to fight?
I'm mostly trying to avoid that thing where a person simply builds a character for the sole purpose of answering the question. Like if you make a God that is well known for using long range AOE spells, it might stand to reason to play a hyper specific Rouge or Monk (since they get access to the Evasion skill). Sure you normally wouldn't don't WANT to play either of those classes, but darn it if the ability to negate huge swaths of the God's offensive power isn't too tempting a thing to pass up. Or perhaps you build a warlock that is specialized into super artillery range fighting. Sure neither character makes any sense to play like that from a low level, up till you would fight a God. You just built a one shot character specifically designed to counter this specific situation.
Yeah, Fighting an IDEA is kind of how i would define the fight against Death. Sure this IDEA/God has a physical form that it can throw against you, but in the end it's less about a body you have to put into the ground, and more a concept you have to defeat/do away with. My personal take on this would be to make everything immortal. If nothing can die, then the concept of death loses all meaning. Once the last being forgets what death is, then death loses form and substance... thus death ceases to exist, because it's very concept (the source of it's power, the thing that gave it substance) no longer exists.
I fully understand the player wanting to make their character an epic hero. We all want to do that.
But there are limits.
If people thought the martial/caster divide was huge the mortal/god divide is far far greater.
... So what exactly gives you the ability to kill Zeus in this situation? Did you pick up an item from one of the people? Do you followers have a means of harming him? Or is it just the plain point of "Well now (enough) people think it's possible, so it becomes possible"/ "There are no longer enough people who think him unbeatable, so he can now be beaten"?
No shade, I'm just legit unsure what exactly makes his belief that no one can stop him wrong.
I'm not sure it's helpful to answer that in the story. The adventurer is going to take every possible advantage they can get, whether they actually need a magic sword or not. You can't just roll up to Zeus and punch him allegedly. And demonstrably the guy can throw lighting bolts so it's not like his reputation is baseless. But ultimately, in my version of this, it isn't about recognizing the value of dwarves because of their role in forging the god slaying sword. It's not about the power of faith, or the power of collective action. It's really just about undermining the power of fear.
You can kill Zeus because you've decided to challenge the narrative that you CAN'T kill Zeus. If that seems shallow, it's because this is the Cliff's Notes.
Killing Lolth is surprisingly easy. The Rod of Law was specifically designed to kill entities like Lolth, and has been used to kill more powerful things.
The Rod of Law was broken into seven parts and scattered around the multiverse. Sounds impossible to find, but the parts want to be reunited and put back together. Once you find one piece it becomes much easier to find the rest.
it will take a tremendous amount of research, divination magic, and effort to find that first piece. And it is probably located somewhere difficult to uncover like a huge dungeon. Or maybe the PC that wants to kill Lolth gets lucky and finds it in the dungeon they ended up exploring with a group of other adventurers seeking wealth, fame, and fortune. Sometimes destiny works in mysterious ways.
With part one in hand and a bunch of powerful friends its time to use that first part to seek out the next. Seven grand adventures, each more difficult than the last, and each also providing access to various powerful magical items.
Next up is to get to the Demon Web pits. Not as difficult as it might sound. The plane is named thus in part because it has a "WEB" of connections to other planes and places.
Once there, you just need to find the right time to strike at Lolth. The Rod of Law can easily kill her, but actually getting close enough to strike her down isn't easy.
It is almost like the Rod of Seven parts was designed to be a D&D adventure that includes the death of a Chaotic Evil deity.
I have to say, I feel the thread has reached the conclusive answer that there is no way to defeat a god in 5e, outside of killing all it’s worshippers (and even that made by assumption a god needs faith at all). If a god is an Idea, there is no way to kill an idea, and so you’d have to be as powerful or even more powerful than a god.
I'm confused by your statement. The Rod of Law is a real magical item in D&D that is specifically designed to kill chaotic evil gods. The book Rod of Seven Parts is a decent read, and provides some nice inspiration for a potential D&D adventure.
I have made other posts referring the RAW that allows for killing gods in the Forgotten Realms, which is the core D&D 5e campaign setting.
The Rod of Law doesn't have an item listing in 5e; I checked. That drops it under the heading of MacGuffin/Plot Device, not RAW. Nor is there any other relevant material in 5e for killing a deity that I've seen. It's entirely possible for the DM to set up a story where a deity is slain, but there's no mechanisms the players can point to to allow it to happen on their own initiative, the way that it's theoretically possible for them to just up and pick a fight with some of the Demon Princes or Dukes of Hell and win in normal combat.
It will be an interesting time when someone in this thread figures out that the point of the question was to brain storm cool ideas on how to do very difficult/ "impossible" things. Not to point to a couple pages in the DMG/PHB/any of the source books, that specifically state "This is how you go about killing a God". Nor was the point for you all to kill MY gods (i can do that perfectly fine myself, thank you very much). But to in fact make your own Gods and have ways to go about killing them.
I honestly wonder if i had put an equally "impossible" task in front of you all, but used things that exist within the 5e source books, if things would have degraded this far. Like heck, let's say something basic like "Kill the Tarrasque, with a party entirely made of level 1 characters, non of whom have access to magic items above common level"
Like for pete's sake it's a fantasy game where basically the entire game is played in your head. So why are people so terrified of using their imaginations. Have none of you dealt with a locked door by simply breaking the wall next to it? Used a Clone to fake death, in order to collect the insurance money/ Bounty? Done some stupid shit that allowed you to cheese a roll (EX: This check SHOULD be an Intimidation, but you convince the DM to let you roll Religion instead.)