Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss

arntof · Dec 20, 2005

Nice to see you again, UK.

Been a while, now.

Your IH:Bestiary was very very nice, after a closer scrutiny. I am still a bit perplexed over the sudden flux of new epic magical items, though.

Shemeska · Dec 21, 2005

BOZ said:
however, Erik dropped a nicely vague hint in the direction that there will be clarification on the power levels themselves of the archdemons.

Which will be good, given the unfortunate precidence of archfiends of CR 20ish range the BoVD gave us, pandering to the 'kill em and take their stuff' crowd, combined with the really awful dichotomy between archfiends and true deities that D&DG gave us.

We really got hamstrung in 3e with that early precident given to us by giving us not just stats to projections or avatars, but to the archfiends themselves, and really anemic stats at that. I'm holding out hope that Erik and company will do something to rectify the situation a bit.

Of course, I prefer my archfiends like I prefer my deities: without statblocks for the full being on their home plane.

BOZ · Dec 21, 2005

i think we can expect something. exactly what... well, can you wait 6 more months?

Upper_Krust · Dec 21, 2005

Hey guys!

BOZ said:
more than likely, it would seem. there is no guarantee (in fact, id' say it's not particularly likely) that there will be archfiend stat blocks in FC1 since they are elsewhere already, though there could be an update (in the form of, extra skill point here, fixed DC here), or there could be stats for lords not already detailed elsewhere.

however, Erik dropped a nicely vague hint in the direction that there will be clarification on the power levels themselves of the archdemons.

Glad to hear it. As Shemmy pointed out, 3rd Edition is somewhat confusing in that regard.

arntof said:
Nice to see you again, UK.

Been a while, now.

I've always been around.

arntof said:
Your IH:Bestiary was very very nice, after a closer scrutiny. I am still a bit perplexed over the sudden flux of new epic magical items, though.

Glad you liked it!

I don't want to hijack this thread, but I reasoned that NPC deities (and I include demon lords in that) must have PC equivalent wealth, otherwise you would have PCs running around with weapons far more powerful than those of the gods, even if the PCs were much lower powered. I didn't like the idea of 30th-level PC demigods running around with weapons eclipsing the likes of Thor's hammer Mjolnir. Also the Bestiary goes up to CR 9721 (as you know), and I prefer to have immortals with a few very powerful artifacts/epic items/weapon abilities etc. rather than a laundry list of relatively weaker objects. So that necessitated the creation of many new artifacts and weapon abilities that were much more powerful than those in the ELH for example, which tops out at roughly CR 66.

Shemeska said:
Of course, I prefer my archfiends like I prefer my deities: without statblocks for the full being on their home plane.

Help! I'm being repressed!

Only messing with you Shemmy mate!

James Jacobs · Dec 21, 2005

Shemeska said:
Which will be good, given the unfortunate precidence of archfiends of CR 20ish range the BoVD gave us, pandering to the 'kill em and take their stuff' crowd, combined with the really awful dichotomy between archfiends and true deities that D&DG gave us.

We really got hamstrung in 3e with that early precident given to us by giving us not just stats to projections or avatars, but to the archfiends themselves, and really anemic stats at that. I'm holding out hope that Erik and company will do something to rectify the situation a bit.

Of course, I prefer my archfiends like I prefer my deities: without statblocks for the full being on their home plane.

Statblocks for demon lords is hardly a 3E innovation, but I see your point. The problem with handling the demon lords and other archfiends is the fact that everyone's game is different. Some folk want to run a campaign where the final encounter is a throw-down fight with Demogorgon, but since they don't use the Epic rules, a CR 50 Demogorgon is useless to them. Others don't want/need stats for the demon lords since they aren't combat targets in their campaigns.

My philosophy is this: it's best to design stat blocks for demon lords in the mid 20s, since the majority of D&D games don't progress past level 20. That way, the stats are there for DMs to use as the main villains for the end of a standard D&D campaign. If you need more powerful demon lords, it's simple enough to go to page 294 of the Monster Manual and advance the demon lord's Hit Dice to whatever level you need it to be at; the increases in base attack, saves, skills, feats, and other things should cover you. Of course, some aspects (damage from special attacks, spell resistance, DR, etc.) aren't accounted for in these rules, but they're easy enoguh to adjust as well. And if your campaign doesn't use demon lords as combat encounters, no amount of stats are going to matter.

Personally, I don't agree with all of the design choices that were made as regards the archfiends in 3rd Edition, but I'm happy with most of them, and Erik and I are doing the best we can to do right by the book while not causing too many ripples by messing with established continuity. Will it make everyone happy? Of course not. In fact, I'm really nervous about how the book'll be recieved, since with the possible exception of Lords of Madness, it's the book I'm the most proud of to have been a part of. At the same point, it's probably been the hardest WotC book I've worked on, since there's so much history to preserve and honor. Of course, I can't say what will and won't make the final edit, but a good way to get a preview of the book's tone is to check out the Demonomicon articles in Dragon or Erik's awesome Armies of the Abyss book published by Green Ronin. In any case, it's gonna be a gutwrenching wait till the book's out!