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

Uder said:
Nothing wrong with that at all. I've been DMing enough to wear out several armchairs. I was referring to those that never ever play, just read, and yet still insist on dictating how the stats should be presented, if at all.

Back to the basic topic... presenting baseline monsters is good for the game, since the rules make it easy to advance them to fit your campaign. The sadist in me also likes it because it stirs up people who play the message-board game, yet never sit on either side of a game screen.

People such as whom? This seems like an attack, but I'm not quite sure who it's directed at. Just 'people who disagree with me' in general?
 

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Uder said:
Planescape fluff is where this idea arose, and outside of Planescape (or any other campaign setting where it's necessary to define the status quo) I'd rather see this idea stepped on and removed from the game.

Not even. The idea that deities and powerful extra planar entities are not just jumped up monsters has been around, in one guise or another, since practically the beginning. It has been a consistent source of debate. It is not just a function of Planescape.

Planescape did not originate the mythology of the Great Wheel. That has been around practically forever. You give Planescape too much credit if you demonize it for inventing the idea that gods and powerful extra planar entities are not just jumped up monsters.

The cliche of the munchkin PC slaying gods and wondering how much he can get for Thor's hammer etc. has been around and decried for ages. Some aspects of 2E were seemingly in direct response to such, and while there may have been a move too far in some directions, the overall theory was sound - PCs don't just walk up to Thor and demand his hammer, nor Orcus and his wand, "or else." Not even 20th level PCs.
 

Ripzerai said:
But they'd be wrong. I say that not out of arrogance, but this argument has gone on for quite some time now and no one's managed to say why it isn't nonsensical as it is.

Contrariwise, you have not offered anything that demonstrates it to be nonsensical in anything but a subjective way.

Cutting to the chase here: your view is subjective.

You've said a lot of stuff, but you haven't offered any reason for making them less or equal in power to balors other than "It can be rationalized, it can be scaled, I don't see what the big deal is."

Well, you put it rather mockingly, but that is really the sum of it. That you don't find it compelling does not make it "not a reason."

I'll add (again) that I don't necessarily think that it's desirable that they be less powerful than Balors. I think it's desirable as a starting point they should be in striking distance of a 20th level party.

I would not have made the choice myself to put any of them on lesser footing than a balor. But I think that on the scale we have here, it's not anything to get upset about. It would take minimal tweaking to put them over a balor, and even if you don't, I see it as perfectly within reason that a being that is only 1 CR less than his mightiest servant could rule that servant through guile and treachery, or other more exotic means. I would not find the same scenario plausible if the demon lord was 5, 10, or more CR less than the balor.

It's not a big deal, it can be scaled, and it can possibly even be rationalized (anything's possible). That doesn't mean it's a good idea, or that it's something that's necessary to serve the broadest possible audience. It actually unnecessarily narrows the audience.

If you are just quibbling over 2 CR, I think you are make a moutain out of a molehill. At any rate, as I already pointed out, I could see that raising their CR by 2 across the board would probably be a good thing.

Setting aside that last 2 CR, I must renew my insistence that putting them within striking distance of a level 20 party makes it usable by the broadest audience possible. Epic level is only played by a small subset of the D&D audience, and the higher the CR expectation you have for demon lords, the more likely that you fall into the "mortals should never be able to challenge demon lords" camp, making their combat statistics, again, useless for anything other than armchair musings.
 

Gold Roger said:
"Demon lords can control their own layer at will. This sets their power even over that of a god(who is limited to his divine realm) while on a layer they control."

I would be fine with that, actually, but those who actually want to fight them there might not be.
 

I might feel somewhat differently if there were better guidelines to do this but 8 bullet points? I am dubious. As a DM I like less work, not more, when dealing with stats. Which gets us back to a point I think you may be tacitly conceding here - demon princes, however you get them there, should be the biggest and baddest, fitting their historic role in the mythology and their status as the physical embodiment of the pinnacle of evil.
It's easier to take something and make it tougher than it is to scale it down, under the current rules. Here's a secret for those that enjoy the DM's side of things: it's also pretty fun.

...and I'm not conceding anything. First off, that would be bad message-board form, and second, I think their place in the scheme of things should be decided by the DM.

Now, there you go again. Unless you are peeking in windows, you have no way to know who actually plays or DMs and who just reads. And you are discounting readers out of hand. See my first comment immediately above. You are implying that anyone who is concerned is not a "real" player or DM, yet there is no possible way you can substantiate this. It is then a slur on those who take issue with the approach, more generally. Name calling by subtler means.
Well, yeah, I'm not a mind-reader. I do conce... I do agr... err, I do think it's unfair to paint a large group with a single brush, just because I don't like how they affect the game. I don't think readers-who-don't-play should be catered to though, since I don't believe they bring new gamers into the hobby.
 

Ripzerai said:
I would be fine with that, actually, but those who actually want to fight them there might not be.

Yes and people that would actually demand their right to kill demon princes on their own layer would find little purchase in either of our games and be send to greener pastures.

By the way, Eric just confirmed in the q&a thread that the book mentions multiple times that demon lords have godlike control over their layer (as do various other official sources anyway, as far as I remember).
 

Coriat said:
People such as whom? This seems like an attack, but I'm not quite sure who it's directed at. Just 'people who disagree with me' in general?
If they weren't so cowardly, they'd step forward and defend themselves. :p

J/K.

I'm not singling anyone out. I'm assuming that such people exist, because I've talked to them both IRL and online. It seems like they had someone on the inside for most of the life of 2e.
 

Psion said:
I don't necessarily think that it's desirable that they be less powerful than Balors. I think it's desirable as a starting point they should be in striking distance of a 20th level party.

Right. So we don't disagree. Nobody disagrees, which is what makes this whole debate so preposterous. That is, nobody who's posted here thinks they should be less powerful than balors. Yet you - and a number of other people - act very critical and slighted when I point out that that's the case. I'm trying to inflict my subjective viewpoint on other gamers.

But nobody disagrees with me. The best I've heard is maybe the Abyssal lords have all sorts of magical powers the books don't mention. That's fine - maybe they also have all sorts of hit dice the books don't mention. But I'm not talking about all the wonderful changes you can make. I'm talking about the books, as they are. I'm saying they're illogical. Because they are, objectively.

And you don't actually disagree. So why do you keep disagreeing?

I would not have made the choice myself

Of course you wouldn't. None of us would have.

it's not anything to get upset about.

That's beside the point. So many people keep retreating to that. Who cares if it's worth getting upset about or not? My emotions, which you aren't privy to, aren't germane to the subject at all. Does it make sense?

Maybe we'll worry about whether I'm upset or not later.

I think you are make a moutain out of a molehill.

Perhaps so. Not the point.

I must renew my insistence...

If you want. I'm happy to keep the argument tightly focused on one issue at a time.
 

Apologies, because I haven't read all five pages of arguing.

I've only popped in to state that I would love the chance, at the end of a 20th-level campaign, to travel down to the bottom of the Abyss and put a hurt on Orcus. In fact, I was part of a year-long campaign that presumably would end with just that and was excited as heck, but we wound up not finishing.

Taking a game from 1 to 20 is a long road, even with 3.x levels of experience awarded. You're looking at a couple years, most likely. At that point, I'd love a final battle with Demogorgon, Dispater, or Azmodeus, before ending the campaign and moving on to something else. And that's assuming I'm fortunate enough to participate in such a long-lasting campaign.
 

Ripzerai said:
Nobody disagrees, which is what makes this whole debate so preposterous. That is, nobody who's posted here thinks they should be less powerful than balors. Yet you - and a number of other people - act very critical and slighted when I point out that that's the case.

I'll post on my own account only. I guess the debate got so long winded that I just threw all people on one side into the same camp altogether. I appologize for that, though I guess it really is hard to avoid in a debate like this.

Demon princes should be, in some way, higher powered than other demonst, but still in striking distance of a demon prince of layer. That's my personal position and I guess I'm not alone with it.

But many people claim a demon prince shouldn't be killable at 20th level, either because "he's not just another monster" (neither is any 20th level NPC, but those are still killable.) or because they want to defend epic level play.

Why do I keep defending an approach where some demon lords are lower than a balor? Well, for one there's the whole godpower on layer story, that renders much of the discussion moot to me.

Then, only Jubilex is really lower than a balor, and I don't care for the slimebag, he's just a bunch of demonic goo that controls half a layer filled with only minor demons.

For the others, the lowered CR may have been an overkill. A CR 25 Demon lord is still killable, so the lowest could well have been 22 or somesuch.
 

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