AD&D1 "CRs" for AD&D1 demons and devils

[Ripzerai]

2) The "why don't the gods just kill the archfiends and take over?" argument that's advanced as a metasetting problem. This, incidentally, was constantly raised in Dragon magazine as early as I can remember. Gygax's solution was to just move all the deities out of the Nine Hells; the Abyss is plenty big enough for gods and demon princes alike.

Yet he gave Hextor the power to enter the Nine Hells at will. All deities could do so, actually, so that was really no solution. Unless the archdevils had the ability to deport troublesome deities under their own power (as Planescape implied they did) or unless an overdeity existed to prevent archfiends and deities from fighting, there was really nothing preventing deities from taking over the Hells other than DM fiat.

Gygax moved all the deities out of the Abyss as well. Note that none of the gods of the Greyhawk pantheon live there.

 

[Ripzerai]

Gygax moved all the deities out of the Abyss as well. Note that none of the gods of the Greyhawk pantheon live there.

As a matter of fact, the one who used to live there - Raxivort - was forced to leave by a demon prince (some say Graz'zt). So apparently archfiends have some ability to force deities out of their planes, even in the Gygaxverse.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Quoting yourself, eh Rip?

Well, Raxivort was a very weak god, IIRC.

 

[arntof]

- The statements in Module H4 should be rejected, because they're at odds with the core rules. The core PHB was silent on the issue of spells or attacks after level 30 or so -- it did NOT say that they stopped one way or the other (admittedly that's academic to this thread, the CR's aren't going to be 30+ in any case).

In earlier editions there was no real "core" to speak of compared to the present situation, that is, later supplements expanded and even changed the rules both in 1e and 2e. These changes were generally not seen as optional.

Still, H4 is a bit unique this way, I`ll have to admit, besides, the rules introduced there were changed later.

 

[SWBaxter]

If we were to translate the Challenge Rating concept to AD&D1, what CR would the AD&D1 MM demons and devils be?

It's not a direct translation, but the monster level system in 1E was an ancestor of the CR system. IIRC, a monster's level was its hit dice modified by special abilities, which then gave you the base XP calculation. There was even a default method of adjusting XP to party level that was a little on the strange side, IME that was a common subject for house rules. Similarly, wealth by level could be calculated using the treasure types if somebody really wanted to do a complete translation.

Neither of these are new concepts in 3E, they're just executed differently (IMHO 3E's version is better, YMMV).

 

[Fieari]

Upper Krust did a little analysis on this a bit back, and came up with this table: divine rank by hd/levels

You can probably extrapolate CR more or less from there.

 

[the Jester]

In 1e monsters were rated by "level" (from I to X). This is roughly analoguous to the CR system of today. Basically, the xp value of the creature determined the monster level of the creature.

Demon princes and arch-devils were 10th-level monsters, meaning a party of 10th level pcs had a chance- not a great one, but a chance- against them.

Edit: as 10th-level pcs then were about the equivalent to 16th or 18th level characters now (in terms of campaign structure/lifetime), that makes them around CR 20 imho.

 

[Hussar]

Something to remember also is that most of the creatures were far weaker as well. An ancient Huge Red Dragon had what, 96 hp? IIRC. By 10th-12th level, fighters never missed, and were dealing massive (relative to the hp of the target) damage / attack.

 

[Melan]

My reason for asking this question comes from seeing all the complaints about how the current-edition demon lords are too low CR. In AD&D1, the demon lords were not "godly" in power -- not even close. I could see Demigorgon or Orcus being killed by ~15th-level PCs.

You are right and the complainers are wrong.

So I'm just wondering when did the attitude come about that demon lords and arch devils are supposed to be epic* level challenges?

Quasqueton

* I'm using the current concept of epic = level 21+

Post-Gygax TSR, and especially 2nd edition AD&D. Especially the move from "gods and demi-gods are just very powerful physical beings" to "gods and demi-gods are embodiments of ideals or other abstract concepts".

 

[Melan]

So would you say that a 10th level 1e character was, in that sense, equivalent to a 20th level 3.5e character?

In the sense of being close to the limits of mortal ability and being able to defeat just about any "normal" challenge in the assumed campaign world, yes. In the sense of literally being as powerful as a 20th level 3.5 character - hell no!