(snip)
But, with only the Old Testament covered, it leaves us with a burning question - what are Jesus' stats? Could Jesus take on a mature adult red dragon single-handedly, or would he need the apostles to back him up with some buffing, healing and ranged attacks? How much is Judas' backstab bonus? What level campaign are the Gospels? Naturally, I've thought about this quite a bit.
The first conclusion many people will jump to is that Jesus was a high-level character. But this conclusion doesn't stick with me. While healing the sick and creating food are excellent abilities, they're not that high in spell level. Remove disease and create food and water are 3rd level cleric spells. Sure, raise dead is a 5th level spell, but Jesus only raised the dead once or twice, leading me to believe he cast the spell from a scroll. Let's face it, Jesus was all about talk and not about casting high-level spells or winning folks over with combat. His specialty was actually the Diplomacy ability. As a half-celestial, Jesus had a +4 Charisma, and I'll bet he maxed that stat, meaning he ended up with a 22 Charisma at 1st level. (In my divine order, God uses the point-by system, meaning Jesus can min-max his stats.) This alone gives Jesus a +6 bonus to Diplomacy. Now, on a good day, Jesus could sway an "Unfriendly" NPC to "Friendly", which is a DC 25 Diplomacy check. Now, we'll define a "good day" as a roll of 15 on the old twenty-sided die. That roll, plus his +6 bonus from Charisma gives him a total of 21. He only needs 4 ranks of Diplomacy to make that up. If we consider Jesus a 5th level cleric, he could have 8 ranks of Diplomacy, giving him a +14 to his roll for Diplomacy checks.
Now, I bet you're asking why I peg Jesus so low on the level chart. "Surely, Chuck must have something against Jesus." I promise you, it's nothing like that. But God gifted Jesus with some powers, and I think Jesus tried to use them as best he could to help save the world. But you'll note that Jesus never used flame strike or greater planar ally in the New Testament. Imagine, if you will, Jesus confronting King Herod with a well-placed pillar of holy flame, damage being half-fire, half-divine. Being a King, Herod was obviously a high-level fighter who had retired, so he would have survived, but it would have given him something to think about. The New Testament is a low-magic world - that kind of magical effect, you can really impress a simple fighter. Besides, with his half-celestial template and 5 levels of cleric, Jesus is an ECL 9 character - not too shabby, overall. If it makes you feel more comfortable for the son of God to be a higher-level character, give him a few levels of bard or rogue, to buff up the Diplomacy and other Charisma skills. I'm convinced that when Jesus said, "God, why have you forsaken me?" he was really implying, "DM, why can't I have some more levels, dude?"
In my opinion, the New Testament is a low-level campaign designed for those who are strongly interested in roleplaying and character development. The adventure has a very tragic ending that could be very exciting for folks who are interested in that kind of thing, but hack-and-slash players will find the Old Testament to be a lot more interesting.
http://www.masterninja.com/smartass/?remark=jesussaves
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