Celestial Paragons from BoED seem kinda wimpy.

[Otterscrubber]

Even a Ghaele DR is vs evil and cold iron while all the celestial paragons DR is x/evil. Why would their defenses be inferior to a more common type of celestial? The average solar seems to be on par with most of the rulers of celestia. Why the demons and devils haven't won the war is beyond me

 

[Eldren]

This is one of the flaws of statting out beings that probably shouldn't have been statted in the first place. Planescape, back in 2nd Edition, was really good about this, indicating that the Powers, and even the Lords of the Nine or the demon princes (the Celestial Hebdomad didn't come into existence until the Book of Exalted Deeds, in an attempt to give an Upper Planar equivalent to the Lords of the Nine; the same goes with the other celestial paragons, like Morwel, logically concluding that if there were demon princes in the Abyss, there would be Upper Planar equivalents) weren't statted out, with the exception of Graz'zt and Pazuzu.

This being said, one major difference exists between the Book of Vile Darkness and the Book of Exalted Deeds: The former assumes the combative prowess of the entities contained within, violence being an assumed function of Evil, while the latter assumes that while they're capable of combat, martial pursuits aren't the primary focus of the Upper Planar rulers. Chances are that if, for some reason, Zaphkiel and Asmodeus met in combat, they'd be pretty evenly-matched, but that isn't really the point. Zaphkiel isn't likely to leave Chronias to get in a fight with Asmodeus in the first place, and most of the time, players are playing non-Evil characters, which means they have little reason to attempt to invade Chronias (or any of the other six layers of Celestia), which means they have little reason to bring the fight to Zaphkiel in the first place.

Don't look at the celestial paragons as things to be fought, unless you're playing an Epic evil campaign (and of course, those are out there...). Most of the time, the PCs ought not to even encounter one of the celestial paragons. They're too busy ruling Upper Planes, and the races native to them. What, do you want your Charisma 38 Paladin to pull out rules from the "Book of Erotic Fantasy" and attempt to make a play for Morwel? Then you might have a fight on your hands, as she has two consorts who are likely quite happy to have her as their partner, but even then... Chances are, you'd just be ejected from the plane.

In other words, there isn't much reason for the celestial paragons to be huge combat tanks. In about 80% of the campaigns out there, they aren't going to be fought in the first place.

But the Lords of the Nine or the demon princes? That's another barrel of fish entirely...

 

[Kyamsil]

I have also seen a problem with statting suppsedly ultra-powerful beings.

It seems that WotC politic is "use only core rules + the rules we present in this supplement" most of the time. That means that the gods of Deities & Demigods are not as powerful as they could be if given access to Exalted Deeds,Vile Darkness, and of course Epic Levels material. The same happens to the demon princes, dukes of hell, celestial paragons and other powerful beings. When you see their stats you can't help but say: "damn, they should be better!".

I know that it is unlikely that non-epic characters want to mess with such powerful things, but say you get to play a campaign until PCs get to really-high epic levels. Perhaps they will like to have a chance of dealing with that evil overlord from hell they have been facing minions since years of game-time ago. Now they have the powers to try to do that... they will be disappointed if they get to all-mighty Orcus and they manage to deal with it without breaking a sweat. They would surely have faced tougher CR28 monsters on their epic careers. And they were facing a quasi-god of sorts...

I know that IMC I will boost avatars/demon princes/celestial paragons if I needed their stats a lot. As they are, they won't stand a chance... If I guess correctly the powerful the characters (currently on level 9-10) will be when reaching around 25th level (frightening to say the least) they would probably give Orcus a run for his money if given the chance (the party is really numerous and it is a high-powered campaign).

I would like WotC to release "full" stats of that sort of beings if they are going to release them at all, using all the rules available and not just the book they are in, as that limits them a lot and forces the DM to rework their stats properly.

My 0.02€

 

[Alzrius]

It seems that WotC politic is "use only core rules + the rules we present in this supplement" most of the time. That means that the gods of Deities & Demigods are not as powerful as they could be if given access to Exalted Deeds,Vile Darkness, and of course Epic Levels material. The same happens to the demon princes, dukes of hell, celestial paragons and other powerful beings. When you see their stats you can't help but say: "damn, they should be better!".

The joy of "options, not restrictions".

I would like WotC to release "full" stats of that sort of beings if they are going to release them at all, using all the rules available and not just the book they are in, as that limits them a lot and forces the DM to rework their stats properly.

While this will almost certainly never happen, there is reason not to lose hope completely. The more they release into the SRD, the more that third-party publishers have to work with all at once. Given, for example, that the Epic and Divine rules are in the SRD, said publishers can start making gods that actually have access to the Epic Spellcasting feat, for example.