Lago PARANOIA wrote:
If you have VAHs fighting gods then it implies that five peasants with knives can fight a god, too.
Well, not necessarily, no. Just because Rambo can fuck up an army, doesn't mean five random soldiers can. VAHs aren't normal people exactly. They're highly skilled, very accurate and good at what they do. Legolas for instance is a VAH.
Just because Conan takes out a god doesn't mean any warrior could. He is Conan, he's a rather awesome fighter. He may not throw mountains or fire lightning out of his ass, but in a sword fight, this guy is a badass.
But in most systems, even D&D, fighting a god is still way beyond the ken of VAHs.
In 4E D&D you can take out Orcus and you're basically a VAH through the whole game. In Eberron (regardless of edition), you can fuck up the warforged lord of blades, who happens to be considered a god. Most other systems don't even bother to stat out gods.
If you're limiting the power level to medium-low superheroics, you're also saying that you're never going to fight mind flayers or beholders without changing the scope of what mind flayers and beholders do. Considering how much of a mess 4E made of the whole ting I doubt that this is a fruitful enterprise.
Skyscraper sized dragons you'd probably have to eliminate, but beholders and mind flayers, I don't see why. I can see Conan or Legolas fighting either of those. The only deal with a mindflayer is that you happen to be arbitrarily mentally tough enough to shrug off their psionic attack. And with a beholder, you're just dodging lasers. VAHs have done that stuff all the time.