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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ripzerai" data-source="post: 2703459" data-attributes="member: 38324">No, you have to play fair here. Because 1st edition was "perfect" as it was, you can't add rules, and I can't find anything that says diabolic nobles get the powers of quasi-deities (not that quasi-deites had any specific powers other than immortality and the ability to ignore class restrictions). So a greater god and five lesser gods against nine lesser gods - and the orcs are much more unified, used to fighting as a team and lacking the extreme rivalries of the devils. The diabolic legions have pit fiends, but the orcs have countless orcish souls, hardened veterans of a nigh-endless war with the goblins, who automatically regenerate every day. The orcish troops literally can't die until their masters do, and Gruumsh can't die at all. The most that can happen is that he is banished to his realm (his troops with him).You're neutering him. Demogorgon can't upset a greater deity? He can't pick on the Norse for fear of Odin, he can't pick on the people of Oerth for fear of Pelor and Rao, he can't pick on the Finnish for fear of Ukko - exactly where does he acquire his reputation as a force of evil? He must do something other than quarreling with other Abyssal lords, or demons aren't as frightening as they say.I was browsing through that the other day. Not that this has anything to do with anything, but it looks like they were trying really hard to upset Hindus with their Mecha-Shiva and so on. They really should have thrown in a Jesus with laser eye beams just to stay consistent. It's a very creative book, though it used Lovecraft as a bit of a crutch.The General of Gehenna is the ultimate master of the yugoloth race (if you don't count his baernaloth "advisors"). They're a neutral race, so their hierarchy isn't perfectly orderly - Mydianchlarus and Bubonix have quite a bit of autonomy - but neither are they unruled as a race as the tanar'ri are. They do have a single greatest member who is the ultimate mastermind (baernaloths again excluded) behind all their plots, and that is the General of Gehenna. He is, in that sense, equivalent to Gygax's Infestix (Tharizdun - who is much the equivalent of the baernaloths - excluded).There's something to that, but I think it's more that they saw Tharizdun's release as inevitable and wanted to make sure they had a place in the new order.He's very much a dictator - in many ways he's the dictator, the one all others model themselves on. His expert manipulation of the other factions is what keeps him that way. His power may not be absolute, but as long as the other two factions are kept concentrating on one another he is absolutely the one in charge. It's not like anyone else gets a vote in his decisions - there's no parliament in Nessus (although there may be in Dis, seeing as Dispater has a Prime Minister). The level of autocracy in planar races ought to be consonant with their alignment - that is, very high in the lawful races (a single unquestioned ruler), mid-range in the neutral races (a ruler who permits a great deal of freedom), while the chaotic races are able to muster no autocrats at all, instead having several feuding powers (as with the tanar'ri and slaadi) or a purely symbolic head (as with the eladrins).Angels (or aasimon) are servitors of the deities, rather than planeborne. They're equivalent to the servitors of the evil deities - Minions of Set, Helkyries of Hel, Visages of Orcus, and so on.  They don't personify alignments; instead, they seek only to enact their masters' will.Baatezu, tanar'ri, yugoloths, guardinals, archons, eladrins, slaadi, modrons, and rilmani personify the nine alignments. They have little to do with the gods, as the gods have little to do with their planes. The exception is Mount Celestia, where archons and aasimon share the same hierarchy, archons seemlessly promoted into agathions and devas.Baernaloths are the primal manifestations of and progenitors of evil. If you want to compare them to something Gygaxian, they're most similar to Tharizdun himself. They have counterparts among the other manifestations - progenitors of law, chaos, and good, and probably balance as well. The other progenitors have not been detailed, unless the kamarel are the elder beings of Balance. My problem is that the Spiritual Hierarchies are so weak compared to deities of other origin. It ought to be something like:Monarch of Demonium (one of the six-or-so greatest rulers): Greater PowerPrince (rules one layer or more): Demigod-Intermediate Power (highly variable, as befits the Abyss, and not necessarily correlative to number of layers ruled)Lord (rules less than one layer): Quasi-deity (at best)Archdemon (unique, powerful tanar'ri, like the nalfeshnee Lords of Woe or Red Shroud): Powerful, but not a god.On the diabolic side, only Asmodeus is a greater power (perhaps Levistus too if he were freed), his closest rivals (Mephistopheles and Baalzebul) would be Intermediate, Mammon, Belial, the Hag Countess, and Dispater lesser powers, and Bel and Fierana both demigods. Their advantage is their relative unity and organization. Among the yugoloths, the General of Gehenna should be treated as a greater god, and perhaps the Oinoloth to a lesser extent.But I'm just musing aloud here. I don't like to define them that closely. For the reasons I already enumerated, which you responded to with "absolutely." There are fewer planar lords than there are greater gods, yet the planeborne are more fundamental to the (standard) cosmology. The respective power levels should reflect that - if Set is picking a fight with Levistus, he's picking a fight with the layer of Stygia itself. His own realm isn't really part of Stygia in a real sense - he destroyed the layer's sentience within his domain, making it an extension of his own mind. But outside, he shouldn't have the advantages that greater gods normally have over lesser gods, even considering the (sensible) advantages Levistus has in his home realm - particularly considering Levistus is something of a sitting duck."Few" means "Being more than one but indefinitely small in number." Nothing else modifies that. The first part of the sentence establishes that there is more than one greater god in the Abyss, while the second explains why there are not many greater gods in the Abyss.That's why the Lords of the Nine ultimately drove them into Acheron.Lesser deities only have 80 spell levels to assign to magic modifications, so they have to be somewhat choosy. Remember how <a href="http://www.yamara.com/yamara/index.php?date=2005-08-15" target="_blank">Fea defeated the goddess Yamara</a>?Immortals have nothing but time. It explains exactly how they're weakened - they lose the ability to move anything outside their plane or grant spells. It doesn't say they're weakened in any other way. It says that planar travel is, for deities, like astral projection, so it's logical to assume they have a true form in their realm waiting for their spirit to rejoin it, as in the astral projection spell. This form, as described in the MotP, has twice the hit points of and many more spell-like abilities than the "avatar" they use outside their realm. Your assertion that a recently slain deity is helpless on his home plane contradicts Deities & Demigods' premise that it should be next to impossible for mortals to slay them there. From the context, the book is saying that if mortals manage to destroy a manifestation of a deity and follow them back to their home realms, they "should be dealt with severely, the god bringing to bear all the powers that the being has."That's extremely debatable. Heironeous will arrive in his realm before Demogorgon does, and the moment he steps back on his home plane his silver cord disappears. Wait, what? I thought you said that Demogorgon instantly arrived at Heironeous' hideout - why don't Rao, Vishnu, and Tyr do the same? You have to play fair. Either both groups instantly find their helpless enemies or neither of them do.1st edition was "perfect," though, so for the sake of defending that point we have to play by the rules. And yeah, it changed and evolved over time - it's not a monolith. Tiamat as she was introduced in oD&D isn't the same as Tiamat post-D&Dg isn't the same as Tiamat in the MotP. The rules do contradict each other. But if you want to take advantage of, for rhetorical purposes, all the cool realm-altering abilities the MotP gifted us with, then - as far as this entirely hypothetical debate goes - it's only fair to include the other parts as well.Perhaps not to avenge him, but remember that Demogorgon is, in your example, invading their territory. This can't be allowed. If you think that the hosts of Demonkind will be avenging an intervention into their territory, won't the hosts of Heaven do the same? Besides, they don't like Demogorgon. Ravana's son Indrajit defeated Indra, who is an intermediate deity, by himself.  Well, that's what I've been saying. Hextor, the Herald of Hell, knows the area, and many of his divine powers will work adequately to confuse and befuddle the Dark Lord's lesser minions. Plus, it's just a basic trope of the game that dungeons are solvable. I mean, if we're talking "powers far beyond mortal comprehension" I agree that nobody's getting into Malsheem without the Overlord's consent, but if we're talking "let's let gods be PCs" then a party of well-equipped, experienced divine adventurers ought to have a chance at winning. I was assuming that Asmodeus' monster stats described how his particular summoning abilities worked, but fair enough - we'll give him that, too. He rolls randomly, attempting for his mightiest minions, and gets one or two extra pit fiends (likely two, but it depends on his roll) or one diabolic noble (maybe Phongor). With whatever's left over maybe he can get an erinyes or two if he rolls high enough. I'm not exactly certain how to convert hit points into hit dice - do I assume they had average rolls (in which case, Phongor is too powerful for Asmodeus to summon) or that they rolled high? Do 1st edition monsters get constitution bonuses?</blockquote>

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