85 replies to this topic

[Feanor]

NiGHTMARE, on Sep 29 2004, 08:40 PM, said:

There's no way even Elminster could go head-to-head with a god on it's home plane and hope to survive.

Demipowers' avatars are usually somewhere between level 40 (the weakest I could find was Gwearon Windstrom, who's "only" level 39) and level 70. Greater Powers' avatars are usually around level 80 (and mega powerful ones like Bane and Shar are 110!), plus they can have 10 of the things running around at once.

Also, don't forget that they're more than likely to have their most powerful minions helping them out (and even if they don't at first, they're bound to summon them if it looks like the battle's going poorly) as well.

To put it in perspective, imagine pitting CHARNAME at the start of BG1 against Mellisan and her allies from Ascension...

Well, at least theoretically, the Toril history says that it's possible, though : Karsus caused the downfall of a god, Mystryl, with his spell.

BTW, in general, mortals don't stand a chance against a god. But what about very powerful creatures (not gods though) like Demon Lords of the Abyss, the Archdevils or very powerful solars ? Could they defeat a god ?

[NiGHTMARE]

As I said in the other thread, Karsus' spell did not harm Mystryl in anyway. Mystryl died because she sacrificed herself to save the Weave.

[Stone Wolf]

Feanor, on Oct 1 2004, 10:20 AM, said:

NiGHTMARE, on Sep 29 2004, 08:40 PM, said:

There's no way even Elminster could go head-to-head with a god on it's home plane and hope to survive.

Demipowers' avatars are usually somewhere between level 40 (the weakest I could find was Gwearon Windstrom, who's "only" level 39) and level 70.  Greater Powers' avatars are usually around level 80 (and mega powerful ones like Bane and Shar are 110!), plus they can have 10 of the things running around at once.

Also, don't forget that they're more than likely to have their most powerful minions helping them out (and even if they don't at first, they're bound to summon them if it looks like the battle's going poorly) as well.

To put it in perspective, imagine pitting CHARNAME at the start of BG1 against Mellisan and her allies from Ascension...

Well, at least theoretically, the Toril history says that it's possible, though : Karsus caused the downfall of a god, Mystryl, with his spell.

BTW, in general, mortals don't stand a chance against a god. But what about very powerful creatures (not gods though) like Demon Lords of the Abyss, the Archdevils or very powerful solars ? Could they defeat a god ?

Solars are beatable, though I'd watch out for a perfectly worded Wish headed your way. They also have that bow that kills anything they hit with it. They can only be permanently killed on their home plane though.

The most powerful Demon Lords can grant spells to priests, so they kinda blur the line a little. I think it would be possible, but you'd have to have a lot of juice on your side to stand a chance, and you'd need to be able to block their Gates somehow.

[Xander77]

Arrows of slaying +5 actually. Not auto-kill bow, per-se, but still nasty.

[Stone Wolf]

Nasty enough, since the arrows may or may not allow a save.

[fallen_demon]

NiGHTMARE, on Sep 30 2004, 11:34 AM, said:

Well, he will have 10 avatars who're Thief 35 / Mage 21 / Cleric 20 / Fighter 8...

hmm...my tob party could stand a chance.

[Stone Wolf]

Powers can kill with a thought! No save, no resist, no protections unless another Power protects you.

[Archmage Silver]

Mystra, protect your faithful!
Archmage Silver tries to save vs. death: *succesful*
Huh, that was close!

[Archmage Silver]

Hehehee. Just slay all that follow a god and its over pretty soon... and slaying a bunch of weakling mortals wouldn't be so hard.

[Stone Wolf]

Archmage Silver, on Oct 4 2004, 04:19 AM, said:

Hehehee. Just slay all that follow a god and its over pretty soon... and slaying a bunch of weakling mortals wouldn't be so hard.

Okay, you've got to track down all the different worlds on which the Power has worshippers, and then kill them. You have to do this before the Power notices and kills you. On your marks...get set....GO!

[LordKableNikon]

Stone Wolf, on Oct 4 2004, 09:12 PM, said:

Archmage Silver, on Oct 4 2004, 04:19 AM, said:

Hehehee.  Just slay all that follow a god and its over pretty soon... and slaying a bunch of weakling mortals wouldn't be so hard.

Okay, you've got to track down all the different worlds on which the Power has worshippers, and then kill them. You have to do this before the Power notices and kills you. On your marks...get set....GO!

Ok yes Killing all the mortal followers will work since mortals are the source behind gods, now about the remote sensing I remember something about dieties of higher rank can block the sensing of another, so if you say are going up a weak diety (the level 39 one) and cyric is like "I can use a pawn" and blocks the dieties allies sensing power, so a God I will admit can be killable, but chances are very slim, and yes Karsus avatar spell never hurt mystra, but take a portfolio from a different god, say shadow adepts get ahold of that spell, well now shar is going to have followers with portfolio's . An entire campaign setting could be around that, Gods start losing portfolio's and Shar will keep having more and more followers with the gods portfolio's... all bad for the good guys. If needed Shar makes a divine proxy out of them and starts to steal more and more followers because her proxies has the portfolios of other gods. (thus increasing her divine rank even more) So if Shar got a hold of that spell and had competant intelligent followers there wouldn't be a contest.

[NiGHTMARE]

They would also have to be incredibly loyal, and it's not as though evil deities are very trusting when it comes to their followers' loyalty...

[Stone Wolf]

Plus I think the other Powers would kinda object to one Power stealing portfolios from other Powers like that. Shar is tough, but not tough enough to take on every other Power in the Forgotten Realms mythology at the same time.

[Archmage Silver]

Hehehee. Taking on all the deities... let 'em come! LOL my existence would end all too soon, but consider this: if a god has a smaller amount of followers and all in a one world, it is possible to kill them and win that god. This though, can happen only IF you were sneaky enough to do it without alerting the gods allies... all the better if the god had none.

[NiGHTMARE]

A deity's power depending on the number of worshippers is merely something Ao introduced for the gods of Aber-Toril after the Time of Troubles. It may not neccessarily be the case in other prime worlds.

Some worlds' deities may, for example, get their power from the number of people who make use of aspects of their portfolio (i.e. the number of farmers, scholars, assassins, etc), so the larger and more flexible their portfolio, the more powerful they are. Other gods could get their power from the number of petitioners (worshippers who've died) currently residing in their plane. Still others could depend entirely on the amount of "divine essence" they possesss.

[Archmage Silver]

Ahh, its better if I quit this debate from my part, since its getting quite tiring... and I'm just telling my opinion in different form again and again.

[LordKableNikon]

Necrontyr, on Oct 5 2004, 01:33 PM, said:

You probably could take out a demigod like Finder simply by killing all his followers as he doesn't actually have that many at all. However, having so few followers he takes a very close interest in them and hence would notice if you killed even a few. Even if you could deal with Finder, then he has a sledload of greater power allies like Chauntea, Oghma etc.

The other weaker demigods are mainly ascended mortals closely allied with good powers. They wouldn't have survived homicidial gods like Shar and Talos (both fond of subsuming lesser powers) or Cyric without powerful allies.

Even a almost universilly disliked demigods like Velsharoon still has Mystra as a protector.

All this talk of portfolio stealing is redundant really, seeing as Ao has to approve a god and his portfolio upon his/her/it's ascension. If the ascended mortal's alignment and general worldview doesn't fit both their portfolio and Ao's Balance, then they'll simply be hurled back to earth (if they're lucky) or simply obliterated completely.

And Shar is a selfish bitch, she wouldn't be letting her followers keep the portfolios they stole, she'd eat them and steal the portfolios for herself. In fact, an ultimate victory for Shar is bad for everyone, be they mortal or deity. Shar doesn't want world domination, she wants world destruction. She wants to destroy absolutely everything so she can go back to sleep.

You have cyric block the remote sensing of finder so finder won't know if his followers are being slaughtered by his chosen of cyric. And the Chosen are not just loyal they are blind fanatics... you can't reason with them they are there to only serve cyric's will and there own, but cyrics will always comes first.
Now as your stated the shar. Shar is Neutral Evil not Neutral Stupid, she knows her power comes from followers, killing your followers is like chopping off your ball-sack, you just don't do it...
and Ao didn't have to approve the potential stealing of Mystra's portfolio from Karsus' Avatar spell?
(lets find an anology here)
To find balance on Toril is like finding life in a sealed vaccum (space)

And yes you said UPON Ascension, but using that magic doesn't make them ascend it just makes it so they are mortal with that portfolio stolen from a god.

[Stone Wolf]

NiGHTMARE, on Oct 5 2004, 08:27 AM, said:

A deity's power depending on the number of worshippers is merely something Ao introduced for the gods of Aber-Toril after the Time of Troubles. It may not neccessarily be the case in other prime worlds.

Some worlds' deities may, for example, get their power from the number of people who make use of aspects of their portfolio (i.e. the number of farmers, scholars, assassins, etc), so the larger and more flexible their portfolio, the more powerful they are. Other gods could get their power from the number of petitioners (worshippers who've died) currently residing in their plane. Still others could depend entirely on the amount of "divine essence" they possesss.

Any Power will die if it doesn't even have worshippers though. Even the Guardian of Dead Gods has worshippers, and he isn't even technically a Power anymore.