Demon Lords and Princes: How *Bad* Should They Be?

[The Serge]

From Phantom Lama of Dicefreaks. He figured that it would be best to revamp Mystra to make her more appealing to standard games since so many people don't play beyond 20th level and may want to fight her.

Mystra
Wizard 20
Medium Outsider (Extraplanar)
Hit Dice: 20d4 + 40 (90 hp)
Initiative: +1 (+1 Dex)
Speed: 30ft. (squares)
AC: 21 (+5 armour, +5 deflection, +1 Dex), touch 16, flat-footed 20
Base Attack/Grapple: +10/+10
Attacks: Staff of the Magi +10 melee (1d6/x2)
Full Attack: Staff of the Magi +10/+5 melee (1d6/x2)
Space/Reach: 5ft/5ft
Special Abilities: Spells
Special Qualities: Weave Incarnate, Spell Resistance 23, energy resistance (all) 10.
Saves: Fort +12, Ref +11, Will +16
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 20, Wis 10, Cha 21
Skills: Craft (Alchemy) +28, Craft (The Very Fabric of Magic Itself) +30, Concentration +28, Knowledge (Arcana) +28, Knowledge (Religion) +28, Knowledge (The Planes) +28, Profession (Deity) +28, Spellcraft +30,
Feats: Combat Casting, Empower Spell, Enlarge Spell, Eschew Materials, Extend Spell, Heighten Spell, Maximise Spell, Quicken Spell, (Greater) Spell Penetration, Skill Focus (Spellcraft), Widen Spell
Environment: Dweomerheart
Organization: Solitary (Unique)
Challenge Rating: 21
Treasure: Triple standard
Alignment: Neutral Good
Advancement: If your game requires a more powerful Mystra, you could consider adding wizard or sorcerer levels, and possibly divine rank.

Wizard Spells Per Day: 4/6/5/5/5/5/4/4/4/4. Caster level 20th (26th to penetrate spell resistance). DC 15+ spell level.

Spells Known: All Wizard spells.

Possessions: Mystra typically wears a White Robe of the Archmagi, a Ring of Protection +5, a Ring of Universal Energy Resistance (Minor) and wields a Staff of the Magi. Given time, she can gain access to almost any nonepic magic item.

Weave Incarnate (Ex): Mystra may cast her wizard spells spontaneously, as a sorcerer. She does not need to extend casting time to spontaneously apply metamagic feats.

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I know some of her fluff suggests divine powers and the ability to deny the use of the weave, but I felt those abilities would have been excessive for a standard game.


What do you think guys? Is she a little too powerful? After all, many DMs don't like to run games past level 5 or so, and these stats won't be very useful to them. Maybe I should drop the spellcasting...

Another 'freak felt that this was a poor decision as she is a goddess, but Phaedros set him straight...

Mystra is a DEITY. She's supposed to be powerful. Deities are not used in lower than lvl 40-50 campaigns at all (except as cameos).

Demogorgon is a DEMON PRINCE. He's supposed to be powerful. Demon princes are not used in lower than level 40-50 campaigns at all (except as cameos).

Yet WotC has thrown us a CR 23 Demogorgon! With that in mind, this Mystra fits into the cosmology perfectly.

Nevermind that she's now less powerful than many of her mortal servitors. Nevermind that she's now weaker than a pit fiend, despite taking on hundreds of devils at once before. Internal consistency is secondary to 20th level PCs being able to kill them and take their stuff.

Now maybe we can get a version of Mask that will actually be scared of Kezef again!

We are doing all we can at Dicefreaks to support the anemi--- err --- more standard demon prince and lord builds. We hope this helps.

 

[Ripzerai]

However, it was never clearly said that Asmodeus did anything, but that perhaps one of the Lords.

Probably not Asmodeus. It was most likely Bel, the least of the Nine, who drove both the orcish and goblin pantheons out of his layer single-handedly.

He doesn't need high combat statistics to do this, though, just the power to eject divine realms out of his layer.

 

[ruleslawyer]

And I agree that such rulers could work in Baator. But never in the Abyss.

Of course, there's lots of room in the Abyss, which makes it a different kind of situation. The situation sketched out in 1e implied a confused collection of greater demons (nalfeshnee to balor), unique demons (lords and princes), and powers, all making bits and pieces of the Infinite Layers their own according to a mix of personal power, rivals' interests, and circumstance.

Not sure about Planes of Law, bur Dragon 223 didn't sound as if Set were denfensive, neither did On Hallowed Grounds.

Darnit, still can't find a reference to this in PoL!

This is essentiallly the position that DF takes ratcheted up a few levels.

And a fine job indeed you've done with it!

To come back to the OT: It seems to me that the designers of HotA really had one major goal in mind: Give the archfiends a set of base stats that makes them usable as end bosses for a campaign that does not require use of epic-level rules. A number of other posters have suggested an approach for the archfiends that is *not* geared toward this goal, but instead toward internal campaign consistency vis-a-vis interaction with other fiends and deities. It seems that on that basis, you could really have anything from low-epic to unstattable.

 

[Kain Darkwind]

Probably not Asmodeus. It was most likely Bel, the least of the Nine, who drove both the orcish and goblin pantheons out of his layer single-handedly.

He doesn't need high combat statistics to do this, though, just the power to eject divine realms out of his layer.

Except that the Orcs and Goblins were already gone before Bel took over from Zariel, if I remember my history right. Maybe even before Tiamat stepped down.

 

[Gold Roger]

From Phantom Lama of Dicefreaks. He figured that it would be best to revamp Mystra to make her more appealing to standard games since so many people don't play beyond 20th level and may want to fight her.

I know this is suposed to be an angry joke and stuff, but: In the unlikely case that I ever DMed a non-homebrew setting and in the even more unlikely case that setting would be the FR, I'd reduce all those epic honchos to sub epic levels (really, there isn't anything about them that would demand of them to have more ability than the ability to cast 9th level) and that Mystra would make a decent avatar (maybe some extras to ramp her CR up to 23) in the even far more unlikely case I had her as opponent for my PC's. Of course, all that not to kill her and take her stuff, but with a good plot reason and implementation.

Really, some people have to get rid of that anger. It's sad that 3.5 stats are inconsistent as they are, but it's not the end of good gaming. (especially all those people that already have their own stats, prooving that they don't need official stats one way or the other).

 

[Ripzerai]

Except that the Orcs and Goblins were already gone before Bel took over from Zariel, if I remember my history right. Maybe even before Tiamat stepped down.

I'm not sure. Bel took over "thousands of years ago," according to Dragon #223. The orcish exodus feels contemporaneous, if not more recent, especially since they were in Hell as recently as Monster Mythology (they seem to have gone back and forth in official products before Planescape stabilized them in Acheron).

Deities & Demigods put them in the Hells, I presume Avernus because that's the nearest one to Gehenna and Acheron.

Gygax and Greenwood retconned them out of the Hells.

Manual of the Planes put them in Acheron. This is 1st edition, and thus before the "Reckoning" in-game. Eons ago.

Monster Mythology put them back in the Hells. This was after the Outer Planes Appendix, and thus post-Reckoning. The Dark Eight, in this era, were in charge.

Planescape put them back in Acheron. Planescape was hazy about who ruled Avernus, for a time claiming Bel was only a warlord working for the unnamed Lord of the First, but later revealed that Bel had his master imprisoned and had been running the show himself for millennia.

So, assuming publishing date affects the way the planes work in-game, the orcish exodus might have been slightly before, slightly after, contemporaneous or quite a bit after Bel's ascension. Or Monster Mythology could just be written off as a mistake, but I'd rather rationalize it.

Tiamat's reign was retconned out of existence. The idea of a dragon in a baatezu's position bothers me, anyway. I don't always support retcons, but this one feels like they fixed a problem.

Dragon #75 said that Tiamat only ruled as far as she could reach, anyway, saying that Avernus was mostly wilderness outside Tiamat's control. This fits the idea that the true ruler of the layer was someone else.

 

[Kain Darkwind]

I know this is suposed to be an angry joke and stuff, but: In the unlikely case that I ever DMed a non-homebrew setting and in the even more unlikely case that setting would be the FR, I'd reduce all those epic honchos to sub epic levels (really, there isn't anything about them that would demand of them to have more ability than the ability to cast 9th level) and that Mystra would make a decent avatar (maybe some extras to ramp her CR up to 23) in the even far more unlikely case I had her as opponent for my PC's. Of course, all that not to kill her and take her stuff, but with a good plot reason and implementation.

Really, some people have to get rid of that anger. It's sad that 3.5 stats are inconsistent as they are, but it's not the end of good gaming. (especially all those people that already have their own stats, prooving that they don't need official stats one way or the other).

I'm not feeling the anger here, and I read the guy's original post.

See, people have a right to be irked at a lack of internal consistancy, if that is one of the things that is important to them about the game. I don't think he's going to go climb a water tower over the crap-stats, he's making a point. If all powerful creatures in the game need to be no more than 20th level challenges, gods, dragons and everything else needs to come sliding down the totem pole.

 

[Sammael]

Eh, that Mystra is nowhere near CR 21. She's about CR 16, and that's being generous.

Of course, I am basing this off the redspawn arcaniss precedent in MM4 and the subsequent WotC R&D comments which finally officially confirmed that NPC level should not, in fact, be equal to their CR. I am not sure what the xact formula is, but I'm pretty sure a party of 4 16th level characters could take her down in a couple of rounds. Heck, a 16th level rogue alone with appropriate feats and magical protections could probably kill her in the surprise round.

But that's how it should be, right? I mean, we don't want to disappoint our players who want to kill Mystra and take her stuff when we arbitrarily decide to end the campaign around level 12 or so because we're scared of running higher-level games. We'll just let them give it a shot and them mumble how the game "falls apart after level 10."

 

[Kain Darkwind]

I'm not sure. Bel took over "thousands of years ago," according to Dragon #223. The orcish exodus feels contemporaneous, if not more recent, especially since they were in Hell as recently as Monster Mythology (they seem to have gone back and forth in official products before Planescape stabilized them in Acheron).

Tiamat's reign was retconned out of existence. The idea of a dragon in a baatezu's position bothers me, anyway. I don't always support retcons, but this one feels like they fixed a problem.

Dragon #75 said that Tiamat only ruled as far as she could reach, anyway, saying that Avernus was mostly wilderness outside Tiamat's control. This fits the idea that the true ruler of the layer was someone else.

Where was it retconned, Rip? And do you support hags in a baatezu's position?

 

[Ripzerai]

Where was it retconned, Rip? And do you support hags in a baatezu's position?

Dragon #223 said something along the lines of "The Lord of the First, contrary to popular belief, was not Tiamat." You could read that as, "Tiamat gave her post to Zariel," but it makes me uneasy to put a dragon in a job so integral to the baatezu hierarchy. Tiamat does as she's always done, breeding with her consorts, ruling evil dragonkind, plotting to increase her influence over the Material Plane, and guarding the portal to Dis. She has as many abishai and other troops as she needs to fulfill the last duty, but she never ruled the entire layer (and 1e never really claimed she did).

And no, I don't. The Hag-Countess was explicitly a baatezu as recently as Guide to Hell, and I prefer her that way. Baalzebul, though a former archon, is also a baatezu by now.