Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss

[ruleslawyer]

Class levels are far more flavorful and interesting than "monster levels." I'd much rather read about a fiend with blackguard and warlock levels than a fiend who simply advances in hit dice.

Eeh. I don't agree, simply because it's too easy to take the "well, this guy has been around so long that he simply SHOULD have 40 levels" approach. Couple of reasons:

1) My this line of logic, a world in which a human PC can hit 20th level in his lifespan is going to result in a dragon, archfiend, or other beast having too many levels to count;

2) It takes away the "human-like" quality of many of these feats and class abilities. A blackguard is supposed to be a mortal that executes a pact with an evil outsider or deity. Can an evil outsider execute such a pact? What about the Evil Brand, Disciple of Darkness, etc. feats?

3) Fiends already have a source of natural advancement via HD.

As to your issue regarding interest, it seems to me that the key is to develop fiend-only prestige classes (which can reflect a particular fiend-unique type of advancement not available to mortals) or to develop more flavorful methods of advancing fiends via Hit Dice (as, say, the Dicefreaks folks have done). Templates do nicely here too.

Of course they are. How else do angels fall, modrons go rogue, or demons ascend?

Urk. I'm absolutely not getting in the middle of this, but I will point out that the default rules for outsiders assume an inherent alignment (that is, an alignment subtype, not a mere alignment). Also, they assume an "always [x alignment]." That to me indicates a lack of free will. Maybe not a 100% inability to exercise free will, but a, shall we say, constrained will, which is why even in the more relativistic-alignment days of Planescape, these beings were one-in-a-million exceptions. Also, there is no reference in any 3e WotC material to fallen angels, risen fiends, or rogue modrons.

 

[Shade]

I much prefer outsiders advanced by HD than class levels. For flavor reasons, it makes them less like humanoids and giants, and adds to their mystique. For game mechanic reasons, every time they take a class level they lose the equivalent of 2 HD that affects the DCs of all their special abilities. I think the class level advancement is better used on their mortal lackeys.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Erik!

Appreciate the reply.

The designers designed the book that they were asked to design. Basically, we wrote to a detailed outline provided by Wizards of the Coast. We were able to make plenty of suggestions, and all of the actual design was ours. For instance, they may have said "design four temples for this section," but the decision of what temples to include and how to detail them was up to us.

Well if thats the case then the problem seems to have been seeded with the creative direction undertaken by WotC bigwigs rather than those designers who wrote the material.

Eric and I both pushed for disinclusion of the deity stats in favor of more information about myths, relationships, vestments, etc., but this idea was nixed.

Ironically if you had statted AO I would have bought it.

At the time we started F&P, Deities & Demigods was in the final stages of development and the prevailing opinion at WotC R&D was that gods should be something you could stat up and kill. It became very clear early on that this was not negotiable. If Deities & Demigods had killable gods, by gum so would Faiths & Pantheons.

Well gods should be something you can stat up and kill, but thats not the issue. The issue is whether or not that book was the right place for that particular material. The answer is probably not, at least not with regards Faiths & Pantheons.

Although I think it would be a lot trickier to sell a book based on real world mythologies without stats given that the material is likely to be much more derivative.

So we shrugged and gave the publisher what it wanted. As it happens, the rules for statting up gods changed while Deities & Demigods was in editing, so the WotC editors had to rebuild all of our F&P stat blocks anyway. It was not a positive experience, although I am very proud of the writing I did on that book and I feel I was able to bring a fresh approach to some pretty picked-over material.

I don't own Faiths & Pantheons but it would be interesting to see exactly how different it was from Faiths & Avatars. I mean I don't want to do you a disservice, but I would imagine its a lot of the same material? Although I remember thinking the inclusion of sample temples was a good touch.

As I recall, the Epic Level handbook had not been written, or was being written, at the same time we put together F&P, so including a ton of material from that source was never an option.

Yes but you can see the flaw in the thinking. Having stats for deities is irrelevant unless you either allow for mortal/immortal interaction (which without the epic rules you cannot do) or show how characters become deities in the first place (which Deities & Demigods didn't do).

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Grover!

Class levels are far more flavorful and interesting than "monster levels." I'd much rather read about a fiend with blackguard and warlock levels than a fiend who simply advances in hit dice.

I'm not saying they couldn't incorporate such class features (dragons incorporate sorceror class features for instance) I'm just saying they shouldn't have the luxury of choice.

Of course they are. How else do angels fall, modrons go rogue, or demons ascend?

Well for the most part they don't, thats why all angels are always Good aligned, demons are always Chaotic Evil and modrons are always Lawful Neutral.

However, as you rightly attest there are some who inevitably break the mould, but these are the exception, not the norm.

 

[demiurge1138]

Also, there is no reference in any 3e WotC material to fallen angels, risen fiends, or rogue modrons.

Actually, several of the Lords of Hell (Baalzebuul especially) are still referred to as fallen angels, although that's in more of a transformed-into-another-being-entirely sense. And when was the last time you saw a reference to modrons at all in 3e?

Demiurge out.

 

[Shemeska]

Actually, several of the Lords of Hell (Baalzebuul especially) are still referred to as fallen angels, although that's in more of a transformed-into-another-being-entirely sense. And when was the last time you saw a reference to modrons at all in 3e?

Demiurge out.

Manual of the Planes and its web enhancement.

One adventure by Mark Jindra released on the WotC site had Modrons

And they've shown up in 'Downer' which I've been liking more and more

 

[BOZ]

And when was the last time you saw a reference to modrons at all in 3e?

a web enhancement. by Scott Greene nonetheless!

 

[Grover Cleaveland]

Well for the most part they don't, thats why all angels are always Good aligned, demons are always Chaotic Evil and modrons are always Lawful Neutral.

However, as you rightly attest there are some who inevitably break the mould, but these are the exception, not the norm.

Naturally it's an exception when beings who are made of pure good, evil, law, balance, and/or chaos change their alignments - it's an event of similar magnitude to a water elemental becoming a pyromancer. This doesn't mean they have no free will (to the extent of not even being able to have class levels!), only that they behave according to their natures unless given a profound reason not to. Certainly, there's nothing inherit in the nature of evil that would prevent a arcanaloth from learning more about sorcery or a demon from becoming a cultist of Demogorgon - in fact, their natures demand it. I think the option of giving class levels to all sentient creatures is one of the best features of 3rd edition.

A being of utter chaos who succumbs to the temptations of law (for example) is going to be one in a million, but the fact that it's possible at all indicates that they have the freedom of choice, even if it is normally incomprehensible for them to exercise it in such a way. If not, they'd be incorruptible, and that's clearly not the case. Baalzebul was a fallen archon before he was transformed into a baatezu.

The rules clearly state that creatures with the "always" designator may change alignment, although this is unique or rare. There are also plenty of examples of fiends and celestials with class levels in the books, so your position is really indefensible except as a quirky personal variant.

 

[JustaPlayer]

Page 26 of DDG talks about the epic Level Handbook in a sidebar. So yes, the books were being worked on at the same time. I also seem to remember someone saying the reason the epic rules weren't included in DDG was that they didn't want people to "need" ELHB to play with the Gods. To me, that was the bad decision. As soon as Epic Level came out, DDG was worthless. There are things in ELHB that can destroy gods as stated in DDG with ease. The real kicker with the apporach? Wizards has started to put Epic Level stuff in most books now.

I would like to see updated stats for demon lords, and would love to see some of the princes since they haven’t be stated in 3e, unless I count TOH by Necromancer.

 

[BOZ]

there's slim pickins once you get past Baphomet and Kostchtchie... but there are more demon lords than you can shake a stick at, all the same.

why, Zuggtmoy's new article mentioned at least two that i had never heard of before...