Talk:Quasideity (3.5e Prestige Class)

Behind the Scenes

So this begins the long deity project for Complete Epic. I've come to provide a basic explanation of what I'm doing. First off, I'm making deityhood into a template/class. The template is mostly for DMs to slap on creatures, but PCs (who probably won't jump up X many CR when they become gods right away) can take the class to gain the power over the course of the adventurer. They will be identical... the template is actually LA 0 with 5 RHD, which this class effectively is.

This also means that a CR 30 Demigod will actually be equal in power to a CR 30 mortal. The reasoning behind this is that even in canon, there are many powerful non-gods: The Lady of Pain, Elder Evils, Archfiends, and the like. Each of these could go toe to toe with many gods, and possibly win too, yet they lack divine rank. Thus it occurs to me that "godhood" is a status, like "Dragon Type". Those of the "God Type" have some similar powers; divine realms, being hard to kill, buttloads of immunities, portfolios, etc., but this is no indication of their actual power.

I face the following problems to come. For one, Complete Epic is rogue level, which is madness given this is epic and I have to deal with wizards and psions flying around farting thunder. The other is that very few people have a good eye on what rogue balance is once you get high level. They do alright up to about 25, then it gets murky. Uncharted territory if one will, I'll just have to do my best. I do have my chart on my side. I'll be using it often.

Now I have to determine if what I have now is "rogue". I started with gods, as I find it mentally easier to make gods first, and match the epic classes to that rather than the other way around. The boatload of immunities will mean slightly less than normal, as one part of epic levels I'm doing is many feats and classes designed specifically to breach immunities or leave them half effective. You can see such a design philosophy in the Searing Spell metamagic feat, and others.

I do appreciate help in balancing these things for rogue, if you have an idea. As of the moment I'm debating LD over the strength of this class, which I am told is currently too WEAK.

Finally, there's one thing I do need aid on, concerning the clarity of how I am managing divine ranks. What I figure I'd do is that you have a potential to gain unlimited Effective Divine Ranks. Whenever you gain divine rank from any source, it adds to your effective divine rank pool. However your divine title (quasi, demi, lesser, immediate, greater) depends on your actual ranks.

Which is to say you can have 15 effective divine ranks, which means you can choose to take enough templates/levels to be a intermediate deity, but you don't have to. You can remain, say, a demigod, with your ranks capped at 5 even though you have 15. You can use the spare divine ranks for stuff (the only example of using them right now is giving them away, but I plan more). It's a resource, and you need to maintain a minimum for whatever level of god you are.

If you have a good way of wording this, I appreciate. -- Eiji-kun 03:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

The ability to pass around divine ranks is potentially troubling, depending on what you can do when you stockpile them up. It could work as long as the benefits are more linear than the normal progression system, such that having a bunch of rank 1 piles is about as good as having a single rank 15 pile. That said, I'm not sure what you even gain by keeping them. If you're rewriting a bunch of high level rules anyway, why not scrap divine ranks and just give out the deity bits as LA 0 stuff, where each subsequent deific status replaces the previous one? - Tarkisflux ^Talk 06:42, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Noted, I'll keep a watch on how I use those divine ranks then. At the moment the purpose of stockpiling them is safety. It's not much use here to the quasideity, but to demigod and above, one of the things I was rolling around my head was the ability to self respawn by sacrificing divine ranks (becoming weaker). Besides that, I'm encouraging the acquisition of ranks in general if they want to go up (typically by amassing followers since the other ways usually bring trouble from someone), effectively making the class pre-requisites "must have XXXX followers", or ranks obtained by other ways.

Scrapping divine ranks. Hmmm.... I'm fond of the idea of it being some special "spark", but I'll consider altering or removing ranks. I'll need to think on it. However... I'm not very good at making LA 0 templates (as it implies an even trade, you don't get something for free). Plus, I do have in my head that the ranks of gods have this logical progression... Quasideities are +5 CR, Demigods +10 CR, Lesser +15, Intermediate +20, Greater +25. Thus I have worked towards building the deities to match their CR rather than match the CR to a pre-existing deity setup, which might end up arbitrary. It also ensures, for example, that Greater Deities are going to be CR 45 minimum, which seems suitably epic when you're considering facing off against a Zeus or a Odin while the quasideities like Heracles would be a "mere" CR 25.

I'll sit on it for a bit, thanks for the input. This class may be "workable" but I'm sure it'll mutate a dozen times more before I'm satisfied. -- Eiji-kun 06:52, 19 August 2012 (UTC)