So In the lore of dnd most gods have a mass following this gives them there power as stated in the dm’s guide
so from what I understand you can become a quansai a deity or a god if you have a big enough religious following but what powers would you think the Player would have as a quansai, deity or god in each domain?
In general, becoming a god means you become an NPC, I'll give you a good example. One of my characters, Zenlos Barbaros, was a notable artificer, who was well versed in the formation of the planes. When the dm gave a two-use plane shift magic item, I used it to travel to the temporal plane (homebrew plane, though there is an FR equivalent), and travel back in time to when they get the jar. This ultimately resulted in a surplus of time-travel jars, after which we ultimately made the whole group into gods (though not after a grueling trek through time-itself, and fighting a minor god). Then we simply became gods, the campaign ended, and we use the characters as campaign patrons and villains to this day.
Theres also the time we turned our pet dragon into a demi-god. Which since they were already an npc, was basically just a solid power up.
Stat wise, I would think they would have a high perception stat, bolstered by wisdom. That way you could have that omnipresent God-like feeling to the character without actually knowing everything about the campaign ahead of time.
Why not? The PC goes on an epic quest and to gain a divine portfolio/spark then they just continue the story. As long as the DM allows it anything should be possible. The only problem I'd see is meta gaming, but if you and the DM have an understanding that your divinity would not break the story, then I don't see this as being a problem.
You become an NPC BECAUSE being a deity PC IS breaking the game. Think about it, epic (L20+) characters are not allowed in 5e scepter as NPCs. if you look back at earlier editions gods typically had 30-100 levels so in 5e becoming a god is the end of the line and the character becomes an NPC - if your lucky the DM will consult with you on what the deity will do.
You do not have to make a PC an NPC if they obtain godhood--in fact, I would argue that doing so would be bad and/or lazy DMing. Presumably your PC is new to godhood and thus has not unlocked the full power of their divine mantle. Think Auril, who is a god... but also a fairly weak NPC with a middling CR. In the story of the campaign, she does not presently have access to her full mantle because she is using a large bit of her power to freeze Icewind Dale. A PC could be in a similar predicament--perhaps they simply do not know how to use their divinity, or perhaps they do not have the devotion to fully excel as a god, or perhaps any number of other reasons. Regardless, they could be a "god" throughout the entire campaign, while still being relatively commensurate with non-divine PCs in terms of power.
As for how to actually portray their divinity? Artifacts are good guidance. You could repurpose the powers of a relevant artifact and give them to the PC. Sticking with Winter Domain example, you might give the PC the powers of a Ring of Winter--not aging, reducing the temperature around you, some relevant spells, etc.
After the campaign is over, perhaps they'll unlock a lot more power and could show up as an NPC in future campaigns. But taking away a player's character mid-game because they succeeded on an objective? That seems a tad rude.
Becoming a god is/should be an end of campaign objective - unless you are playing an all gods campaign. As is often the case what you see with April in Icewind dale is an avatar note the full deity. Can you play further with a deity level character? Yes, but turns out to be fairly hard to find challenges that are not interactions with other deities. If you are somehow taking over an established deity ( as happened in the FRs with Bane, Cyric, Kelemvor and Mystra it’s one thing - your stepping into an established base of faith and gain powers based on the established powers but you also become too powerful and act as an NPC under the DM’s guidance not as a character. When they stepped into the roles they were all way less than L20, probably under L10 and gained powers equal or superior to a L 50+ character. The other route is to sit with the DM and determine what the new deity is going to be deity of then play out their gaining converts and establishing a new fath. We saw that in FR with finder. But again what we saw was Finder acting as a mentoring NPC supporting his first cleric and new faith not him out really adventuring with a normal party - pretty much the same kind of role as we saw Mystra doing in the elminster stories where she was clearly an NPC. That guy in my sig is my PC turned deity and he followed several different paths at the same time with over 20 years of functioning basically as an NPC in my campaign because there was no where else he could play reasonably.
I suppose we have fundamentally different DMing perspectives--personally, I do not think there is any "should be" in D&D--the joy of D&D is that it is a true sandbox, where you can do pretty much anything, provided you accept whatever consequences the DM gives in-game for your actions. I personally believe that DMs who insist on doing things the way they "should be" done are relatively bad at their job--they tend to force their own viewpoints on what the game should be on their players, making for a relatively miserable experience for all involved.
Your entire post is predicated on the idea that a player would be playing a full-powered god, on par with one of the bigger gods in the game. Frankly, your examples of how it could be a problem sound more like examples of bad DMing, rather than actual problems. In fact, you seemed to have ignored my entire post, which stated you can easily make a player character hold divinity while still placing in-game limits on their exercise of godhood so they remain commensurate with the rest of their party's level. As you yourself point out (inexplicably restating one of my points as if agreeing with me was a counterargument), something can be a god but not a full-powered god at the same time.
It really is not that hard to do--in fact, the central focus of one of the current campaigns I am DMing requires the party to fill a power-void left by a god who is long gone, as the god's power is the only thing that can stop a great evil. The party decided the best way to do this was kill lesser gods to claim those gods' mantles, so the combined strength of the four lesser mantles could emulate the power of the greater god's lost strength. Balance or finding difficult challenges has never been a problem--no more than balance ever is when dealing with level 18 characters. After the campaign is done, I expect all the characters will show up in future campaigns as powerful entities in their own right. But for now? They're having fun playing at learning their own godhood. Why on earth would I take their entertainment away and turn them into an NPC when I can just as easily find ways to balance their characters and design encounters to match their newfound divinity?
3e Had a sourcebook Deities and Demigods, that had rules for runing a god's campaign. I'd agree it should be done with all players as a god rather than just the odd one out and should probably be done as part of an epic campaign, a post L20 sequal to an innitial campaign.
I once participated in an Ashardalon campaign, a series of modules in Greyhawk setting, that ended with us restoring the Titan guy's full godhood back to him and releasing him and his rainbow serpent folk from that prison cave; afterwhich he imparted 'spark' to the rest of the party. The campaign then ended. I would've liked to play on a bit and do a few things.
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Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
I suppose we have fundamentally different DMing perspectives--personally, I do not think there is any "should be" in D&D--the joy of D&D is that it is a true sandbox, where you can do pretty much anything, provided you accept whatever consequences the DM gives in-game for your actions. I personally believe that DMs who insist on doing things the way they "should be" done are relatively bad at their job--they tend to force their own viewpoints on what the game should be on their players, making for a relatively miserable experience for all involved.
Your entire post is predicated on the idea that a player would be playing a full-powered god, on par with one of the bigger gods in the game. Frankly, your examples of how it could be a problem sound more like examples of bad DMing, rather than actual problems. In fact, you seemed to have ignored my entire post, which stated you can easily make a player character hold divinity while still placing in-game limits on their exercise of godhood so they remain commensurate with the rest of their party's level. As you yourself point out (inexplicably restating one of my points as if agreeing with me was a counterargument), something can be a god but not a full-powered god at the same time.
It really is not that hard to do--in fact, the central focus of one of the current campaigns I am DMing requires the party to fill a power-void left by a god who is long gone, as the god's power is the only thing that can stop a great evil. The party decided the best way to do this was kill lesser gods to claim those gods' mantles, so the combined strength of the four lesser mantles could emulate the power of the greater god's lost strength. Balance or finding difficult challenges has never been a problem--no more than balance ever is when dealing with level 18 characters. After the campaign is done, I expect all the characters will show up in future campaigns as powerful entities in their own right. But for now? They're having fun playing at learning their own godhood. Why on earth would I take their entertainment away and turn them into an NPC when I can just as easily find ways to balance their characters and design encounters to match their newfound divinity?
Yes we probably have very different takes on DMing. If nothing else your “pure sandbox” leaves me shaking my head - there are things that don’t work - that’s why there rules to the game. Also keep in mind that the DM should be enjoying the game too not just the players. If my Dm style and pleasures don’t suit you you are free to play elsewhere. I was trying to make the following points: 1) when low level characters suddenly become gods, especially powerful gods, the jump in level of play effectively takes them out of the campaign they were in. They may become a part of a gods campaign but that is a completely different campaign that touches the original only with acting as NPCs even if they are playing their roles. 2) high level characters, tier 4 & epic, as a group can grow into good hood as a campaign just as the characters in your game are doing. Even then what happens when the current campaign ends? The players may still play the new powers but they will be essentially NPCs in a lower level game or at best it will be a dual game with you playing the opposed deities as DM while they play their deities with characters that are probably allied to the new deities. 3) All the examples I was using are part of the FR’s lore, they are from stories (books) rather than adventures I’ll grant but they illustrate how WOtC sees the transitions working and playing out. 4) My own character was turned into an NPC in the original campaign both because of the deification transition and because I moved out of the area. Because the character literally is me I was unwilling to abandon it so I placed it in its own world to play out of but had difficulty finding campaigns it could go into so it eventually just became an NPC In my world where I could play out my own fantasies. But it was an epic level world/campaign to a large extent from the get go. Now I use all my original characters as NPCs in that world and run tier 1-3 campaigns with them in something like the Elminster role and WildBill up with the gods basically out of play like all the other gods.
I suppose we have fundamentally different DMing perspectives--personally, I do not think there is any "should be" in D&D--the joy of D&D is that it is a true sandbox, where you can do pretty much anything, provided you accept whatever consequences the DM gives in-game for your actions. I personally believe that DMs who insist on doing things the way they "should be" done are relatively bad at their job--they tend to force their own viewpoints on what the game should be on their players, making for a relatively miserable experience for all involved.
Your entire post is predicated on the idea that a player would be playing a full-powered god, on par with one of the bigger gods in the game. Frankly, your examples of how it could be a problem sound more like examples of bad DMing, rather than actual problems. In fact, you seemed to have ignored my entire post, which stated you can easily make a player character hold divinity while still placing in-game limits on their exercise of godhood so they remain commensurate with the rest of their party's level. As you yourself point out (inexplicably restating one of my points as if agreeing with me was a counterargument), something can be a god but not a full-powered god at the same time.
It really is not that hard to do--in fact, the central focus of one of the current campaigns I am DMing requires the party to fill a power-void left by a god who is long gone, as the god's power is the only thing that can stop a great evil. The party decided the best way to do this was kill lesser gods to claim those gods' mantles, so the combined strength of the four lesser mantles could emulate the power of the greater god's lost strength. Balance or finding difficult challenges has never been a problem--no more than balance ever is when dealing with level 18 characters. After the campaign is done, I expect all the characters will show up in future campaigns as powerful entities in their own right. But for now? They're having fun playing at learning their own godhood. Why on earth would I take their entertainment away and turn them into an NPC when I can just as easily find ways to balance their characters and design encounters to match their newfound divinity?
Yes we probably have very different takes on DMing. If nothing else your “pure sandbox” leaves me shaking my head - there are things that don’t work - that’s why there rules to the game. Also keep in mind that the DM should be enjoying the game too not just the players. If my Dm style and pleasures don’t suit you you are free to play elsewhere. I was trying to make the following points: 1) when low level characters suddenly become gods, especially powerful gods, the jump in level of play effectively takes them out of the campaign they were in. They may become a part of a gods campaign but that is a completely different campaign that touches the original only with acting as NPCs even if they are playing their roles. 2) high level characters, tier 4 & epic, as a group can grow into good hood as a campaign just as the characters in your game are doing. Even then what happens when the current campaign ends? The players may still play the new powers but they will be essentially NPCs in a lower level game or at best it will be a dual game with you playing the opposed deities as DM while they play their deities with characters that are probably allied to the new deities. 3) All the examples I was using are part of the FR’s lore, they are from stories (books) rather than adventures I’ll grant but they illustrate how WOtC sees the transitions working and playing out. 4) My own character was turned into an NPC in the original campaign both because of the deification transition and because I moved out of the area. Because the character literally is me I was unwilling to abandon it so I placed it in its own world to play out of but had difficulty finding campaigns it could go into so it eventually just became an NPC In my world where I could play out my own fantasies. But it was an epic level world/campaign to a large extent from the get go. Now I use all my original characters as NPCs in that world and run tier 1-3 campaigns with them in something like the Elminster role and WildBill up with the gods basically out of play like all the other gods.
We will just have to disagree,, and that is fine. There are two general groups of people who play D&D--those who question what a snozzberry is, and those who just roll with it and accept the world. Neither is correct, but they do not tend to mesh well with one another when it comes to playing. Just as you might cringe at my DMing, I would cringe at yours.
As for the rest of your post, I think I see what your fundamental issue with the sandbox style of D&D might be--you do not seem to know how DMing a sandbox works. Only the most incompetent of DMs allows a "pure sandbox"--a real sandbox is an extremely curated affair that controls the party without the party realizing they are being controlled. Let's keep running with the example of becoming a god.
Specifically, let us address your first point--the issue of a low-level character becoming a god. A competent sandbox DM solves that problem by never having it be a feasible option. Say you tell your players "there is a god who lives up in that mountain" and your low-level players decide "let's go kill that god to take its mantle." You have NPCs who can warn them of the dangers; you have environmental hazards and the like that can make the journey to the god's abode near-impossible. And if they somehow reach the abode? Sometimes rumors are not all they seem to be, and perhaps instead of a God it is a Storm Giant or a hermit or something else whose legend might have grown way beyond the reality. Or, if your campaign calls for a god actually living in that area down the road and the party has sufficient corroboration to know a god must live there... Well, the god has no duty to engage with such lowly creatures and can just leave while they ineffectively lob attacks at him or her... or, if it is an evil god.... a group of level 4 players is not going to fare well against a fight designed for a party of level 18 adventurers.
Those are only just some examples of how you can limit your party. A sandbox might give players an infinite number of options.... but it also gives DMs an infinite number of options to keep the party members contained. So long as you do not lose control of the sandbox, it remains just as much on rails as a more straightforward campaign--just rails with different junctions that all lead to more or less the same place.
I am not sure your other points really support your position--you acknowledge that high-level characters can grow into gods, then try to suggest that after the player leaves the campaign (either by the game ending or by real-world factors such as leaving) that creates problems. That is beyond the point I am making--which is merely players should be able to finish out the campaign if they become a god with their now-divine character. As I already stated, once the player has finished the campaign, then I will make their character an NPC--but not while that character is still in use.
As for your point about the stories, I think that flies in the face of Tasha's and the general trend in errata and recent rulebooks. Those more clearly illustrate that WotC wants to encourage players to play however they want--the actual rules are becoming more flexible, no reason to think a bunch of older stories should provide some sort of limitation.
Anyway, I will leave it at that. I think you might be more in agreement with me than you seem to think--seeing as we both acknowledge that it would be fine at high levels for players to become gods but would be a disaster at low-levels. It would appear the main crux of your "head-shaking" comes more from a belief that a "pure sandbox" is a "sandbox without consequences or danger"--confusing freedom of choice for freedom to do whatever, whenever.
And, with that, happy rolling, and may your parties always enjoy the campaigns you run.
Yes we will have to agree to disagree, but we are pretty much on the same page as you said - low level characters should not be becoming gods no matter how much they want to and if by some strange chance they do then they become NPCs even if the DM allows the player to speak for the new deity. At the highest levels then yes it’s remotely possible to become a deity and it can be an interesting campaign to have a party actively trying. But again at the end if they succeed then they characters become effective NPCs in the regular campaign. As for sandboxing, I’ve been doing it for years but, like poetry, I find a few more formal rules can make for a more interesting final result (compare free verse to haiku or sonnets) but it does take a lot more work to make it happen. Anyway, enjoy your games
Going back to the original question of what powers might a PC becoming a deity get, legendary actions almost certainly. Possibly epic boons, beyond that it gets really iffy. 5e doesn’t have anything like the earlier editions Faiths and Pantheons or Deities and Demigods books so it’s fairly hard to say what would happen. One thing that might be interesting to play would be the PC’s starting to hear folks prayers to them and trying to grant some semblance of answer. The earlier edition books are somewhat helpful in this as they provide guidance in what different levels of deity could do. Other things the PC might gain would be clerical spells from their associated areas of interest. At least initially these might function as 1/LR castings. Basically becoming a deity is uncharted territory in 5e with no written rules so it’s up to the DM to establish what is happening and on what timeline. The other thing to consider is what the other deities are doing and thinking about this upstart/replacement in their midst and how they are interacting with it. Some will be helpful while others may be out to kill it and take the power for themselves. In addition the new deity should be starting to actively try to gain/keep followers to gather/maintain its own power.
Why not? The PC goes on an epic quest and to gain a divine portfolio/spark then they just continue the story. As long as the DM allows it anything should be possible. The only problem I'd see is meta gaming, but if you and the DM have an understanding that your divinity would not break the story, then I don't see this as being a problem.
exactly because of your 'so long as'. imo few DMs who've actually been a DM for any period of time are going to say 'hey, let me spend hours prepping for a game with a bunch of god PC's...I'm sure it'll play out like i'm planning and won't be a complete waste of everyone's time...especially mine. the only way for a 'story' to work with god PC's (imo) is to completely railroad it. Unless maybe you have ONE god PC and then everyone else is a lowly lvl 20 scrub...which would be fun for the scrubs.
As they have become a deity, they would have powers up from a quasideity up to a full blooded god. As you are the DM, you can determine what kind of power limits he has imposed on him.
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So In the lore of dnd most gods have a mass following this gives them there power as stated in the dm’s guide
so from what I understand you can become a quansai a deity or a god if you have a big enough religious following but what powers would you think the Player would have as a quansai, deity or god in each domain?
Personally I think the domain spells would be the spells the gods get, just on a mass scale
They get NPC magic, however they also become NPCs
Mostly nocturnal
help build a world here
In general, becoming a god means you become an NPC, I'll give you a good example. One of my characters, Zenlos Barbaros, was a notable artificer, who was well versed in the formation of the planes. When the dm gave a two-use plane shift magic item, I used it to travel to the temporal plane (homebrew plane, though there is an FR equivalent), and travel back in time to when they get the jar. This ultimately resulted in a surplus of time-travel jars, after which we ultimately made the whole group into gods (though not after a grueling trek through time-itself, and fighting a minor god). Then we simply became gods, the campaign ended, and we use the characters as campaign patrons and villains to this day.
Theres also the time we turned our pet dragon into a demi-god. Which since they were already an npc, was basically just a solid power up.
My homebrew content: Monsters, subclasses, Magic items, Feats, spells, races, backgrounds
I guess you should get some legendary actions, such as Autosave against anything three times a day, or auto counterspell three times a day.
Maybe a thematic spirit guardian weapon that would automatically engage hostile creatures within 20 feet of you.
An auto astral projection of yourself.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Stat wise, I would think they would have a high perception stat, bolstered by wisdom. That way you could have that omnipresent God-like feeling to the character without actually knowing everything about the campaign ahead of time.
The power to convince people falsely that they exist.
Yeah you can't really play a god... they just become an NPC like a couple other people here said.
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
Why not? The PC goes on an epic quest and to gain a divine portfolio/spark then they just continue the story. As long as the DM allows it anything should be possible. The only problem I'd see is meta gaming, but if you and the DM have an understanding that your divinity would not break the story, then I don't see this as being a problem.
You become an NPC BECAUSE being a deity PC IS breaking the game. Think about it, epic (L20+) characters are not allowed in 5e scepter as NPCs. if you look back at earlier editions gods typically had 30-100 levels so in 5e becoming a god is the end of the line and the character becomes an NPC - if your lucky the DM will consult with you on what the deity will do.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
A god's power is whatever the DM wants it to be.
You do not have to make a PC an NPC if they obtain godhood--in fact, I would argue that doing so would be bad and/or lazy DMing. Presumably your PC is new to godhood and thus has not unlocked the full power of their divine mantle. Think Auril, who is a god... but also a fairly weak NPC with a middling CR. In the story of the campaign, she does not presently have access to her full mantle because she is using a large bit of her power to freeze Icewind Dale. A PC could be in a similar predicament--perhaps they simply do not know how to use their divinity, or perhaps they do not have the devotion to fully excel as a god, or perhaps any number of other reasons. Regardless, they could be a "god" throughout the entire campaign, while still being relatively commensurate with non-divine PCs in terms of power.
As for how to actually portray their divinity? Artifacts are good guidance. You could repurpose the powers of a relevant artifact and give them to the PC. Sticking with Winter Domain example, you might give the PC the powers of a Ring of Winter--not aging, reducing the temperature around you, some relevant spells, etc.
After the campaign is over, perhaps they'll unlock a lot more power and could show up as an NPC in future campaigns. But taking away a player's character mid-game because they succeeded on an objective? That seems a tad rude.
Becoming a god is/should be an end of campaign objective - unless you are playing an all gods campaign. As is often the case what you see with April in Icewind dale is an avatar note the full deity. Can you play further with a deity level character? Yes, but turns out to be fairly hard to find challenges that are not interactions with other deities. If you are somehow taking over an established deity ( as happened in the FRs with Bane, Cyric, Kelemvor and Mystra it’s one thing - your stepping into an established base of faith and gain powers based on the established powers but you also become too powerful and act as an NPC under the DM’s guidance not as a character. When they stepped into the roles they were all way less than L20, probably under L10 and gained powers equal or superior to a L 50+ character. The other route is to sit with the DM and determine what the new deity is going to be deity of then play out their gaining converts and establishing a new fath. We saw that in FR with finder. But again what we saw was Finder acting as a mentoring NPC supporting his first cleric and new faith not him out really adventuring with a normal party - pretty much the same kind of role as we saw Mystra doing in the elminster stories where she was clearly an NPC. That guy in my sig is my PC turned deity and he followed several different paths at the same time with over 20 years of functioning basically as an NPC in my campaign because there was no where else he could play reasonably.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I suppose we have fundamentally different DMing perspectives--personally, I do not think there is any "should be" in D&D--the joy of D&D is that it is a true sandbox, where you can do pretty much anything, provided you accept whatever consequences the DM gives in-game for your actions. I personally believe that DMs who insist on doing things the way they "should be" done are relatively bad at their job--they tend to force their own viewpoints on what the game should be on their players, making for a relatively miserable experience for all involved.
Your entire post is predicated on the idea that a player would be playing a full-powered god, on par with one of the bigger gods in the game. Frankly, your examples of how it could be a problem sound more like examples of bad DMing, rather than actual problems. In fact, you seemed to have ignored my entire post, which stated you can easily make a player character hold divinity while still placing in-game limits on their exercise of godhood so they remain commensurate with the rest of their party's level. As you yourself point out (inexplicably restating one of my points as if agreeing with me was a counterargument), something can be a god but not a full-powered god at the same time.
It really is not that hard to do--in fact, the central focus of one of the current campaigns I am DMing requires the party to fill a power-void left by a god who is long gone, as the god's power is the only thing that can stop a great evil. The party decided the best way to do this was kill lesser gods to claim those gods' mantles, so the combined strength of the four lesser mantles could emulate the power of the greater god's lost strength. Balance or finding difficult challenges has never been a problem--no more than balance ever is when dealing with level 18 characters. After the campaign is done, I expect all the characters will show up in future campaigns as powerful entities in their own right. But for now? They're having fun playing at learning their own godhood. Why on earth would I take their entertainment away and turn them into an NPC when I can just as easily find ways to balance their characters and design encounters to match their newfound divinity?
3e Had a sourcebook Deities and Demigods, that had rules for runing a god's campaign. I'd agree it should be done with all players as a god rather than just the odd one out and should probably be done as part of an epic campaign, a post L20 sequal to an innitial campaign.
I once participated in an Ashardalon campaign, a series of modules in Greyhawk setting, that ended with us restoring the Titan guy's full godhood back to him and releasing him and his rainbow serpent folk from that prison cave; afterwhich he imparted 'spark' to the rest of the party. The campaign then ended. I would've liked to play on a bit and do a few things.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Yes we probably have very different takes on DMing. If nothing else your “pure sandbox” leaves me shaking my head - there are things that don’t work - that’s why there rules to the game. Also keep in mind that the DM should be enjoying the game too not just the players. If my Dm style and pleasures don’t suit you you are free to play elsewhere. I was trying to make the following points:
1) when low level characters suddenly become gods, especially powerful gods, the jump in level of play effectively takes them out of the campaign they were in. They may become a part of a gods campaign but that is a completely different campaign that touches the original only with acting as NPCs even if they are playing their roles.
2) high level characters, tier 4 & epic, as a group can grow into good hood as a campaign just as the characters in your game are doing. Even then what happens when the current campaign ends? The players may still play the new powers but they will be essentially NPCs in a lower level game or at best it will be a dual game with you playing the opposed deities as DM while they play their deities with characters that are probably allied to the new deities.
3) All the examples I was using are part of the FR’s lore, they are from stories (books) rather than adventures I’ll grant but they illustrate how WOtC sees the transitions working and playing out.
4) My own character was turned into an NPC in the original campaign both because of the deification transition and because I moved out of the area. Because the character literally is me I was unwilling to abandon it so I placed it in its own world to play out of but had difficulty finding campaigns it could go into so it eventually just became an NPC In my world where I could play out my own fantasies. But it was an epic level world/campaign to a large extent from the get go. Now I use all my original characters as NPCs in that world and run tier 1-3 campaigns with them in something like the Elminster role and WildBill up with the gods basically out of play like all the other gods.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
We will just have to disagree,, and that is fine. There are two general groups of people who play D&D--those who question what a snozzberry is, and those who just roll with it and accept the world. Neither is correct, but they do not tend to mesh well with one another when it comes to playing. Just as you might cringe at my DMing, I would cringe at yours.
As for the rest of your post, I think I see what your fundamental issue with the sandbox style of D&D might be--you do not seem to know how DMing a sandbox works. Only the most incompetent of DMs allows a "pure sandbox"--a real sandbox is an extremely curated affair that controls the party without the party realizing they are being controlled. Let's keep running with the example of becoming a god.
Specifically, let us address your first point--the issue of a low-level character becoming a god. A competent sandbox DM solves that problem by never having it be a feasible option. Say you tell your players "there is a god who lives up in that mountain" and your low-level players decide "let's go kill that god to take its mantle." You have NPCs who can warn them of the dangers; you have environmental hazards and the like that can make the journey to the god's abode near-impossible. And if they somehow reach the abode? Sometimes rumors are not all they seem to be, and perhaps instead of a God it is a Storm Giant or a hermit or something else whose legend might have grown way beyond the reality. Or, if your campaign calls for a god actually living in that area down the road and the party has sufficient corroboration to know a god must live there... Well, the god has no duty to engage with such lowly creatures and can just leave while they ineffectively lob attacks at him or her... or, if it is an evil god.... a group of level 4 players is not going to fare well against a fight designed for a party of level 18 adventurers.
Those are only just some examples of how you can limit your party. A sandbox might give players an infinite number of options.... but it also gives DMs an infinite number of options to keep the party members contained. So long as you do not lose control of the sandbox, it remains just as much on rails as a more straightforward campaign--just rails with different junctions that all lead to more or less the same place.
I am not sure your other points really support your position--you acknowledge that high-level characters can grow into gods, then try to suggest that after the player leaves the campaign (either by the game ending or by real-world factors such as leaving) that creates problems. That is beyond the point I am making--which is merely players should be able to finish out the campaign if they become a god with their now-divine character. As I already stated, once the player has finished the campaign, then I will make their character an NPC--but not while that character is still in use.
As for your point about the stories, I think that flies in the face of Tasha's and the general trend in errata and recent rulebooks. Those more clearly illustrate that WotC wants to encourage players to play however they want--the actual rules are becoming more flexible, no reason to think a bunch of older stories should provide some sort of limitation.
Anyway, I will leave it at that. I think you might be more in agreement with me than you seem to think--seeing as we both acknowledge that it would be fine at high levels for players to become gods but would be a disaster at low-levels. It would appear the main crux of your "head-shaking" comes more from a belief that a "pure sandbox" is a "sandbox without consequences or danger"--confusing freedom of choice for freedom to do whatever, whenever.
And, with that, happy rolling, and may your parties always enjoy the campaigns you run.
Yes we will have to agree to disagree, but we are pretty much on the same page as you said - low level characters should not be becoming gods no matter how much they want to and if by some strange chance they do then they become NPCs even if the DM allows the player to speak for the new deity. At the highest levels then yes it’s remotely possible to become a deity and it can be an interesting campaign to have a party actively trying. But again at the end if they succeed then they characters become effective NPCs in the regular campaign. As for sandboxing, I’ve been doing it for years but, like poetry, I find a few more formal rules can make for a more interesting final result (compare free verse to haiku or sonnets) but it does take a lot more work to make it happen. Anyway, enjoy your games
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Going back to the original question of what powers might a PC becoming a deity get, legendary actions almost certainly. Possibly epic boons, beyond that it gets really iffy. 5e doesn’t have anything like the earlier editions Faiths and Pantheons or Deities and Demigods books so it’s fairly hard to say what would happen. One thing that might be interesting to play would be the PC’s starting to hear folks prayers to them and trying to grant some semblance of answer. The earlier edition books are somewhat helpful in this as they provide guidance in what different levels of deity could do. Other things the PC might gain would be clerical spells from their associated areas of interest. At least initially these might function as 1/LR castings. Basically becoming a deity is uncharted territory in 5e with no written rules so it’s up to the DM to establish what is happening and on what timeline. The other thing to consider is what the other deities are doing and thinking about this upstart/replacement in their midst and how they are interacting with it. Some will be helpful while others may be out to kill it and take the power for themselves. In addition the new deity should be starting to actively try to gain/keep followers to gather/maintain its own power.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
exactly because of your 'so long as'. imo few DMs who've actually been a DM for any period of time are going to say 'hey, let me spend hours prepping for a game with a bunch of god PC's...I'm sure it'll play out like i'm planning and won't be a complete waste of everyone's time...especially mine. the only way for a 'story' to work with god PC's (imo) is to completely railroad it. Unless maybe you have ONE god PC and then everyone else is a lowly lvl 20 scrub...which would be fun for the scrubs.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
As they have become a deity, they would have powers up from a quasideity up to a full blooded god. As you are the DM, you can determine what kind of power limits he has imposed on him.
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