Champions of Ruin; Expectations vs. Reality

[Shemeska]

Let me ask you this, are you saying you wanted us to present stats for the EEE at CR 70 or 80 or so? Or are you saying they should not have had stats at all?

I'm happy you liked the flavor text and background material for them D), which, really, is all that's necessary for a game in which they are meant to be the most powerful beings in the universe. But for games in which characters might want to encounter these monstrosities, it's necessary to have stats that allow that sort of interaction. Thus they are "only" CR 21-28 (which apparently every peasant could destroy with a hoe and some gumption ).

What possible reason is there for statting out CR 80 creatures?

Well they set themselves up for this when they gave deities full out stat blocks, not avatars but the deities themselves, but then also try to claim that those beings are afraid of a CR 21 Kezef (whose watered down stats would make Mask be able to kill him in a heartbeat) etc. At that point if you want to stay true to the flavor, you've got to make him comperable to them, at which point PCs are effectively doggie treats for him. It's not that I want a CR 80 Kezef, it's that I want EEEs that live up to their history and flavor, and by giving deity stat blocks in 3e, they've raised the bar on those beings to the point that it isn't in the realm of possibility for PCs.

But no, they didn't rationalize with the flavor text, they just watered the EEEs down.

I don't think that they (the deities) should have stat blocks beyond divine rank and portfolio unless it's avatar stats. Likewise something similar for the EEEs, because by their history and flavor these beings are at that same scale. God forbid there's something out there that PCs can't beat up and kill, archfiends and elder eternal evils have just been sitting on their inferal butts doing nothing, waiting for PCs to come and kill them. If you dilute them for the purpose of letting PCs kill them for kewl treasure and XP than why haven't the deities themselves done this already? It makes no sense. No longer are they Elder Eternal Evils, they're mediocre evils with good PR people that the gods and any of a few hundred wizards just haven't gotten the time yet to take care of.

I'd have been satisfied with no stats for the EEEs, or stats for avatars/manifestations them, with the explicit note that killing those forms wouldn't actually kill them. Might banish them from Toril for a short period of time, but they couldn't be killed by mortals. Heck, maybe give them something that was detrimental to deities, perhaps they ignored deific granted abilities entirely, that would have been rather cool.

But no, what we have is a CR 21 Chaos Hound that any of a hundred mortals in FR could kill by themselves, let alone any of the dieties that are supposed to be afraid of him. As I said before, that's terrible.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Well they set themselves up for this when they gave deities full out stat blocks, not avatars but the deities themselves, but then also try to claim that those beings are afraid of a CR 21 Kezef (whose watered down stats would make Mask be able to kill him in a heartbeat) etc. At that point if you want to stay true to the flavor, you've got to make him comperable to them, at which point PCs are effectively doggie treats for him. It's not that I want a CR 80 Kezef, it's that I want EEEs that live up to their history and flavor, and by giving deity stat blocks in 3e, they've raised the bar on those beings to the point that it isn't in the realm of possibility for PCs.

But no, they didn't rationalize with the flavor text, they just watered the EEEs down.

I don't think that they (the deities) should have stat blocks beyond divine rank and portfolio unless it's avatar stats. Likewise something similar for the EEEs, because by their history and flavor these beings are at that same scale. God forbid there's something out there that PCs can't beat up and kill, archfiends and elder eternal evils have just been sitting on their inferal butts doing nothing, waiting for PCs to come and kill them. If you dilute them for the purpose of letting PCs kill them for kewl treasure and XP than why haven't the deities themselves done this already? It makes no sense. No longer are they Elder Eternal Evils, they're mediocre evils with good PR people that the gods and any of a few hundred wizards just haven't gotten the time yet to take care of.

I'd have been satisfied with no stats for the EEEs, or stats for avatars/manifestations them, with the explicit note that killing those forms wouldn't actually kill them. Might banish them from Toril for a short period of time, but they couldn't be killed by mortals. Heck, maybe give them something that was detrimental to deities, perhaps they ignored deific granted abilities entirely, that would have been rather cool.

But no, what we have is a CR 21 Chaos Hound that any of a hundred mortals in FR could kill by themselves, let alone any of the dieties that are supposed to be afraid of him. As I said before, that's terrible.

I'm not a fan of giving deities stats, myself, outside of perhaps avatars. It seems to be causing you undue stress, so I'll offer a suggestion: take the stats as presented and use them as avatars of the EEEs. You could do the same with deities. A second suggestion might be to just ignore the stats completely and use them as story elements. That is a legal move.

I agree that it would have been neat to give them an ability that let them ignore divine abilities, but I haven't researched to see if that ability is possible, or if it would have created further inconsistencies in the game. Something, even a background element, to indicate why Mask fears Kezef and why the gods don't strike Dendar down to prevent the prophecies would have definitely been a good thing to add.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Let me ask you this, are you saying you wanted us to present stats for the EEE at CR 70 or 80 or so? Or are you saying they should not have had stats at all?

I'm happy you liked the flavor text and background material for them D), which, really, is all that's necessary for a game in which they are meant to be the most powerful beings in the universe. But for games in which characters might want to encounter these monstrosities, it's necessary to have stats that allow that sort of interaction. Thus they are "only" CR 21-28 (which apparently every peasant could destroy with a hoe and some gumption ).

What possible reason is there for statting out CR 80 creatures?

I would have liked to see them be, at least, the highest CR creatures in the book in which they appeared.

Champions of Ruin itself contains higher-CR opponents, to say nothing of other Realms products.

By giving the EEEs stats and slotting them in the 21-28 range, they are officially weaker than many mortals in the Realms.

I could care less about gods, who aren't even compatible with the Epic rules in 3e. However, having allegedly ultimate destructive forces be weaker than many, many NPCs, good and evil, including some in the same book - yeah, that's a problem for me.

I've known campaigns to go to level 50+, by the way. It's hard to have any approximation of 'balance' beyond 30th, though, and 30th is the highest I've ever played.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Let me ask you this, are you saying you wanted us to present stats for the EEE at CR 70 or 80 or so?

No. But they should have more than mere archfiends, and more than that lich they presented at the beginning of the chapter.

The stats should at least begin to reflect the facts: That gods are afraid of the buggers. I'm not saying that you should be able to run the fight Mask vs. Kezef with the stats presented and use this instead of planning a story, it should be something resembling credible: No god would run away from a creature that needs a natural 20 to even hit him.

Look at another "Celebrity Deathmatch" in the Realms: Orcus (from BoVD) against Kiaransalee (from the CotSQ web enhancement). You can see that these are more or less evenly matched, and that one could not just walk right over the other.

But considering the threat they represent to the whole Creation (Kezef eats the souls of the Faithful, which means they go into oblivion, beyond the help of the gods, the Elf-Eater is out to eradicate all elven-kind, and Dendar is destined to destroy the world), while being as weak as CoR made them, it does make absolutely no sense that they still exist. FR has had (and still has) its share of really powerful individuals that have every interest of not letting the world end. We're not talking about some evil-doer where you can rationalize why Elminster/Whoever hasn't got around to killing him/her/it yet. This isn't something they could say "It's not really my problem, if you think of it", since it threatens not only their existence, but the existance of their deities, and everything else they hold dear as well.

 

[Arnwyn]

What possible reason is there for statting out CR 80 creatures?

See almost everyone else's post for "possible reasons" (though no one said CR 80 - where did you get that from?). As Shemeska said... they set themselves up for problems when they thought that giving deity stats was a "good idea". :\ Other reasons:
- the game is supported into very high levels,
- higher CRs are appropriate as to what they were originally (and always have been) presented as.

I'm sure there's a million ways to change them into something more suitable. Doesn't change how they were presented in CoR, though... nor does it help much with dumping yet more work onto an already overworked DM.

In any case, there was a thread about this book already. And, as I said there, I found this book relatively valueless (except for the NPC chapters).

 

[Snotlord]

Lords of Darkness is significantly better, but I still enjoyed CoR. Despite its "flaws" is offers lots of good realmslore on the Elder Evils, Eltab, Malkizid and the featured evil organizations. I will get more milage from this one than BoVD.

The character material is somewhat dull, and is IMO a more serious flaw than the low CR on the Elder Evils. The evil shrines and nodes are interesting.

A fine book, but not great.