protecting deities from Soul Drinkers : some ideas

[Axelmania]

One major danger to me of a soul drinker is you could have these arrogant "I have so much MDC and I regen so fast I will just forgo armor and battle naked" warrior gods jumping onto vibro-knives and other MDC-inflicting weapons without a care in the world...

They could have decent +vs magic, but unless you have +13 (to tie the 14+ vs souldrinkers) eventually via brute-forcing they're inevitably going to fail a save.

If they KNOW they're facing a soul drinking they might be smart enough to run away, parry instead of simultaneous-attack, put on some armor, disarm the attacker, etc.

But that's the problem: do you necessarily know? Passing a save means taking some extra damage but I don't know if there's necessarily a way to detect that you came however-close to getting soul-drank.

This isn't so much a problem for the smart "remain in disguise, always have protective spells up, act through my worshippers" gods, just the "I want to jump in the fray myself and rely on natural abilities" ones.

The best way I can see is this: for those with less than +13 vs magic (most of them) is reliance upon protection via a magically skilled member of their pantheon.

Combining the 8th level spell Soul in a Bottle (from Nightbane: +5 to save vs magic) and 12th level Ensorcel (from Rifts Federation of Magic: +4 to save vs magic) can give a total of +9 to save, meaning complete protection for any god who already had +4 to save or more.

If we assume all the gods with "all spells levels 1 to X" include this pair, it could be very popular for allfathers/allmothers to cast these on the lesser deities who don't know them. This would protect the vulnerable youthful gods from souldrinking attacks if they get their blood drawn, and also help in controlling them since both those spells make it much easier to cast magic on and otherwise dominate the target. It would help in keeping your pantheon under control.

Obviously for a god who wants to rebel, they'd be willing to lose the +vs magic bonuses by removing the effects of these two spells, thinking they can rely on their own wits/armor/force fields to avoid souldrinking bloodlets.

Another thing that occurs to me... is there actually anything preventing a character from just casting Ensorcel on themself to get the bonus?

The "forever lost" description of Greater Rune Weapons which happen to be Soul Drinkers also seems to have been dialed back a bit... Dyval 213 for example mentions how soul drinking magic weapons can draw souls out of a Soul Poul where they're "trapped in the weapon until a NEW replacement body can be found". Maybe that's just a unique factor of drawing a soul out of a pool rather than killing it, but maybe it implies that perhaps rune weapons just store souls indefinitely until they choose to release them (perhaps they could be convinced or mind controlled into doing so) or they get destroyed somehow?

Armageddon Unlimited has such a variant of the 'Soul Drinker' described in classic PRPG/CB1/Atlantis/PF2 except pg 57 (also applies to 66 talks about the temporary storage/release somewhat along the lines of the Soul Collector introduced in Hades. I don't know if that's meant to retroactively apply to be the new description of generically designed rune weapons or particular examples like the Sword of Atlantis or Necronstaff... thoughts?

Pg 69's "Soul Saver" weapon's "Retrieve Souls" ability might also be of interest in odd situations where a careless god w/ low magic saves gets pricked by a soul-drinker. It describes retrieving from "any magic weapon" (presumably including Rune) and there's no rolling involved so it seems like an automatic win, though I presume it would at least have to make contact with the rune weapon to do this since no range is listed.

[Shark_Force]

you may be over-complicating things. the standard invocation spell "invulnerability" (level 7) gives a bonus of +10 to save vs magic. being a much less obscure spell, I suspect most gods will know it.

combined with a PE of 20 or more (which I suspect your average I'm-So-Tough--That-I-Don't-Need-Armour warrior god has), they would have +13 to their saves without using any obscure magic whatsoever.

[Glistam]

Just declare that soul drinkers won't work on gods. I personally prefer the idea that if the god fails their save vs soul drinking, it's one of their random worshipper's souls the weapon steals, instead.

[Prysus]

Greetings and Salutations. Prior to RUE, I'd have considered this a bigger issue. But now ...

Per Atlantis and PF2 descriptions of Soul Drinkers, the victim's blood must be drawn.

Whether or not gods actually have blood could be a queetion regardless. In RUE, page 277, they talk about how inhuman and they have to take physical form to be at their most powerful in our reality. For "demons, Dyvalians and other similar supernatural beings," they create "their bodies from ectoplasm and insects, vermin, dead bodies or a living human host." We aren't provided the details of a god's body, but by the examples provided in the section including gods, even if gods do have blood, unless you're in the god's home plane, you're probably no fighting the god's true form. So it could be just an ectoplasm shell housing the gods essence (but no blood to ectoplasm), or any blood is probably just the "living human host." So the soul drinker would consume the host's soul, not the God's soul.

That seems the simplest solution, and supported by what's in the books. Farewell and safe journeys.

[Axelmania]

Per Atlantis and PF2 descriptions of Soul Drinkers, the victim's blood must be drawn.

Whether or not gods actually have blood could be a queetion regardless. In RUE, page 277, they talk about how inhuman and they have to take physical form to be at their most powerful in our reality. For "demons, Dyvalians and other similar supernatural beings," they create "their bodies from ectoplasm and insects, vermin, dead bodies or a living human host." We aren't provided the details of a god's body, but by the examples provided in the section including gods, even if gods do have blood, unless you're in the god's home plane, you're probably no fighting the god's true form. So it could be just an ectoplasm shell housing the gods essence (but no blood to ectoplasm), or any blood is probably just the "living human host." So the soul drinker would consume the host's soul, not the God's soul.

That could certainly apply in many cases (depends on if gods are "similar" to demons/Dyvalians) though I do get the sense that some demons or gods can bleed...

I'll have to dig around for some particular examples as non immediately come to mind.

There's a deific power to create a lower-powered clone plus spells like doppleganger which gods could use to send to other dimensions in lieu of themselves to avoid the risk of souldrinkers, true. I expect those who aren't permanently protected with +13 vs magic would especially want to use that stuff, though it's a good idea in general because it's bad to get your primary form slain even if it doesn't get souldrank.

When gods capable of sending out avatars/clones personally intervene should probably moreso be in situations where their clone/avatar first failed to do the job so they know it's actually warranted.

I guess I think more in terms of the Pantheons gods because unlike the D+G ones it's not entirely clear whether they have access to all the deific powers or not.

This whole thing about demons creating their bodies from insects/vermin/corpses sounds cool but really makes me want to re-analyze exactly how summoners/shifters work because from them I really get more of a "I'm opening a portal and they're stepping through" sense moreso than a "constructing a body to house an essence" sense...

The latter sounds more like how Elementals work TBH