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

[WmRAllen67]

If a concept can reach out and personally try to kill me, I reserve the right to kill it right back.

... but the snarky (and therefore correct) answer is: you put out low-quality sequal that ride on the coat tails of the original until you've exhausted your fan base. Then the concept is dead.

-- N

The "Matrix- movie theory" of fighting fiends?

I could work with that, actually-- every time someone defeat the cultists, dismisses the avatar, and generally waekens the fiend's power on the material plane, the CR of the avatars which can appear get lower and harder to summon...

For many spiritual entities IMC I use variable manifestations-- if an spirit is just out to cause trouble, it's generally fairly weak (having effects about the same as a bless/ curse or hallow/ unhallow spell, in general), but if the cultists are calling something up to send after an enemy, then you get something fairly buff...

 

[Pants]

If a concept can reach out and personally try to kill me, I reserve the right to kill it right back.

No doubt.

I've always been of the opinion that the Archfiends *should* be killable. They aren't gods (no matter what PS made some of them), they may be powers, but they aren't gods. But then again, I realise that my opinion is not in the majority.

I was really hoping that FCI wouldn't even have any Archfiend stats as no matter how they were statted out, controversy would result.

So far, if I were to use a Demon Prince in my game *as an enemy, to be battled and possibly slain* I know that I'd probably use various combinations of published stats. The FCI stats sound perfect for avatar stats. Sepulchrave's methods for buffing Archfiends on their home layers would be used in conjunction with greatly modified BoVD stats. The Tome of Horrors stats are really... not weak, per say, but just boring. The Dicefreaks are so high powered as to be completely useless to me.

Now, that having been said, I'd prefer to have a set of guidelines for buffing Archfiends so that DM's can work with an established baseline (maybe the FCI stats?) and make them as powerful as they want. Now, some may cry 'Boo hoo, that creates a lot of work for me the DM!' but considering that you're thinking of using the stats already, you've already invested lots of time into running these guys. No one is going to agree on how powerful they should be, hell, some don't even WANT stats for them, but for them, it's just easy enough to ignore them, well.... maybe it's not.

Apparently, FCI has some guidelines for buffing the Archfiends, but since I don't have the book, I'm not sure how extensive they are and can't really comment on them now.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Flavor has to come first, I agree. And that how I run things I'm just saying that at a cosmological level there has to be consistency between flavor and stats. If the flavor says it's a timeless primordial evil older than the gods and is so much a part of its layer that it essentially is the layer that's precisely how it should be said, not throwing out a flavor that speaks of timeless primordial POWER then act like 17-20th level PCs should be able to defeat it. The entire cosmology should be built to work with each of its parts and not self-contradict.

I find myself more on the statless side than anything else. But figure that since some people are going to want to run campaigns with characters like unto gods or gods themselves it's only fair to give them a ruleset and stats that adequately handles the whole "battle of eternity" thing. Dicefreaks are the closest I've seen to that, I probably should get the immortals bestiary just to check it out but maybe later.

 

[Kunimatyu]

This is an aside, but since leveling tends to get exponentially more powerful in D&D, and since WotC has learned how to properly buff up high-level creatures since MM3, it's entirely likely that a "CR 23" monster in this book resembles a CR 25-27 monster from the BoVD, and is in fact quite capable of beating a renegade Balor or two to a pulp.

 

[Imruphel]

I'd want my Demon Lords to be able to take out 4 Balors without breaking a sweat. A second lot of 4 straight after the first battle to be not quite so one sided, but still a win for the Demon Lord. (snip)

Well, as the tanar'ri lords aren't immune to fire or to the explosive blast of the dying balor, I suspect it will take more than a bump in CR for a tanar'ri lord to be able to beat the balor quartet.

So, can anyone tell me why tanar'ri are immune to electricity?

 

[DragonLancer]

This is irrelevant. I haven't played in an epic game yet and I don't think demon lords should be killable at level 20.

Thats my view as well. Entities like Demon Princes and Devil Lords, the big bads, shouldn't be easy to defeat not even at 20th level. These creatures should be in the CR25+. They don't need to only be Epic villains if they are statted out properly.

 

[Kain Darkwind]

I'm sort of in Shemeska's camp, although I do believe such things as 'concepts' can be killed. I believe gods can die, and mythology agrees with me. I believe cosmic entities such as demon princes can die, and Orcus agrees with me.

To me, Shem summed it up perfectly when she was irked about bobby and suzy killing Asmodeus at 20th level and taking their stuff. What kind of half arsed crap is that?

If "lower level CRs are needed because they are more useful to the general population of DnD", then why isn't Elminster a 20th level wizard? Or better still, a 10th level wizard, after all, 15th level parties shouldn't feel bad because he can beat them. If Demogorgon can't tame one lousy great wyrm, how does he keep hordes of 60HD balors from destroying him? Or, after FC1 revises his 39HD to 27, how does he keep a couple of angry regular balors from pounding him into paste?

Now, I can see making a non-unique creature at a variable level. I can see why CR 70 standard demons aren't going to be very useful, and it would be better to offer ways to advance a CR 20 to that level of power. I can see that, and accept it.

A unique creature on the other hand, should not be subject to those whims. If you want CR 20 demons, then you should have AT LEAST CR 30 demon lords. These are unique creatures. Singular. Not monsters, characters. Elminster and Szass Tam don't have to put up with this rape of their stats, why are planar monsters always subject to it? And for that matter, why shouldn't 20th level characters be capable of killing Grummsh, Heronious and Mystra? After all, the 60HD stats they give in DDg and F&P are going to be very little use to most players.

In short, it is foolish.



Now, I work with Dicefreaks (I'm the mod who showed Kurtlemak giving his spear to a 1st level kobold to wack Asmodeus with) and I agree with a high level of power for demon princes and lords. I also have my own personal thread there where I've done my images of their stats....Demogorgon is 70HD, Asmodeus is 54HD, and you can work your way down from there. I believe the gods are killable, I believe the cosmic entities are killable, but I sure as hell don't think it should be simple. Not 20th level simple, and not 30th level simple. I wish to G-D that the designers of WotC's works could get that through their heads. But of course they don't need to, when they can just keep pushing the crack and we keep buying it.

 

[Kunimatyu]

It'll be interesting to see how the Nine Hells book handles this, since Asmodeus is a tad bit more powerful than Bel, and Bel is just an advanced Pit Fiend.

 

[Starman]

I wish to G-D that the designers of WotC's works could get that through their heads. But of course they don't need to, when they can just keep pushing the crack and we keep buying it.

Well, they probably would get it through their heads if everyone's opinion was just like yours. As it is, they are trying to make the product useful to as many people as possible. As much as you or others on this thread dislike the thought of Bobby and Susie killing some Demon Lord and taking it's stuff at 20th level, other people do play like that. And who are you to judge how they have their fun?

For my games, I intend to make the Demon Lords significantly stronger than they are in HotA. But if the stats that they have now make the book appeal to a larger group and they sell more copies, I won't begrudge them that and I will happily look forward to more books that money allows them to put out.

 

[Pants]

I'm sort of in Shemeska's camp, although I do believe such things as 'concepts' can be killed. I believe gods can die, and mythology agrees with me. I believe cosmic entities such as demon princes can die, and Orcus agrees with me.

Obviously, not everyone does, hence this whole argument.

If "lower level CRs are needed because they are more useful to the general population of DnD", then why isn't Elminster a 20th level wizard?

Because Elminster is from FR and the FC book is a generic book. Entirely different worlds there.

Now, I work with Dicefreaks (I'm the mod who showed Kurtlemak giving his spear to a 1st level kobold to wack Asmodeus with) and I agree with a high level of power for demon princes and lords. I also have my own personal thread there where I've done my images of their stats....Demogorgon is 70HD, Asmodeus is 54HD, and you can work your way down from there. I believe the gods are killable, I believe the cosmic entities are killable, but I sure as hell don't think it should be simple.

Now see, I'd be even more disappointed if we got DC style stats for these guys, because they'd be absolutely useless to me. I'm not going to run a long Epic level game because, as written, the Epic Level rules just don't work for me. Give me a sliding scale on making these guys as powerful as I want them to be, don't give me massively powerful stats that I'm never going to use.