Fiendish Codex II Web Enhancement
- Thread starter Shade
- Start date
Upper_Krust
Legend
Hey Rip! 
It didn't so much 'kill it dead' as try to sweep it under the carpet.
Even if we assume the stats are for mere aspects, the entirety of the lords realm is set up to accomodate the notion that the CR 20 (or whatever) Prince is the defacto ruler.
So FCII's babbling is akin to a Balor using nothing but Dretches and Rutterkin to defend its fortress. Theres no middle ground/ranks.
Ripzerai said:
It didn't so much 'kill it dead' as try to sweep it under the carpet.
Even if we assume the stats are for mere aspects, the entirety of the lords realm is set up to accomodate the notion that the CR 20 (or whatever) Prince is the defacto ruler.
So FCII's babbling is akin to a Balor using nothing but Dretches and Rutterkin to defend its fortress. Theres no middle ground/ranks.
rjs
First Post
BOZ said:
Yep. I can't say more, yet. NDA's and all.
Upper_Krust said:
Being a fan of your Immortals Handbook stuff, I know you come here with very specific (and very high-powered) ideas about high level gaming - but I have to wonder exactly what your Fiendish Codexes would look like, and how much use they would be to the average gamer.
I'm not saying Asmodeus has to be defeatab le by ECL 20 PCs, but I think that they've clearly offered up the "stats not full power if you don't want them to be" concession for you and you're complaining because it still isn't quite what you want.
Upper_Krust
Legend
Hey GQuail matey!
Well that depends on who you are marketing the book towards. If we are targeting the lowest common denominator then I think you have an absolute ceiling of about 5% epic content. Therefore in a book of 160 pages. I'd probably change 8 pages or less.
But the devil would be in the details.
- I'd firstly have at least 1-2 properly statted demon princes with guidelines explicitly showing how you can create and reverse engineer the aspect/avatar/manifestation stats.
While there are 'advancement' rules in FCI, there are a totally blank slate with no actual guidelines to aim for. Simply saying Asmodeus is as powerful as you want to make him is all well and good, but it totally derails any sense of individuality.
- Secondly I would have the layers (or in some cases fortresses) designed around a sort of hub system with the Princes main residence at the centre. This way, invading armies can't just waltz in and find themselves on the Princes doorstep, but would need to fight their way past outposts controlled by lesser nobles in service to the prince.
This way you can still have adventures within a Demon Prince's layer with relatively lower level characters, but at the same time you can't have a party of 20th-level characters swan in and 'topple the apple cart'.
- I would also divide the encounter table into two. The first would be the standard 'random' encounters. The second would be a 'notoriety' table with ever escalating encounters depending upon how much trouble the PCs start to cause*.
*I should state this idea was used in Carl Sargent's excellent City of Skulls 2E adventure.
- Lastly, I would also have a rough appraisal of the featured Demon Princes/Archdukes armies and what forces they can mobilise, perhaps picking out some key elite units for special mention.
I'm only complaining that it doesn't make sense. Placating any single individual is not the issue, but I think you can better cater to all tastes (as I think my above idea does).
GQuail said:
Well that depends on who you are marketing the book towards. If we are targeting the lowest common denominator then I think you have an absolute ceiling of about 5% epic content. Therefore in a book of 160 pages. I'd probably change 8 pages or less.
But the devil would be in the details.
- I'd firstly have at least 1-2 properly statted demon princes with guidelines explicitly showing how you can create and reverse engineer the aspect/avatar/manifestation stats.
While there are 'advancement' rules in FCI, there are a totally blank slate with no actual guidelines to aim for. Simply saying Asmodeus is as powerful as you want to make him is all well and good, but it totally derails any sense of individuality.
- Secondly I would have the layers (or in some cases fortresses) designed around a sort of hub system with the Princes main residence at the centre. This way, invading armies can't just waltz in and find themselves on the Princes doorstep, but would need to fight their way past outposts controlled by lesser nobles in service to the prince.
This way you can still have adventures within a Demon Prince's layer with relatively lower level characters, but at the same time you can't have a party of 20th-level characters swan in and 'topple the apple cart'.
- I would also divide the encounter table into two. The first would be the standard 'random' encounters. The second would be a 'notoriety' table with ever escalating encounters depending upon how much trouble the PCs start to cause*.
*I should state this idea was used in Carl Sargent's excellent City of Skulls 2E adventure.
- Lastly, I would also have a rough appraisal of the featured Demon Princes/Archdukes armies and what forces they can mobilise, perhaps picking out some key elite units for special mention.
GQuail said:
I'm only complaining that it doesn't make sense. Placating any single individual is not the issue, but I think you can better cater to all tastes (as I think my above idea does).
Upper_Krust said:
To be fair, if Wizards had released the book with your modifications, I wouldn't be crying into my pillow. (Though I do think talking about the "lowest common denominator" is a little terse language-wise, I think your general point stans.)
The problem is book size, at the end of the day - you got to make what space you have rock the most for the most people. Stat blocks in the same style as the rest of the book for advanced Demon Princes would chew up quite a lot of text - and are arguably only worth it if they're going to be truly huge (as the Demonomicon articles already cover slightly more powerful figures) at which point we get back to the "who is it for?" question. The amount of players who who use a CR 45 Juiblex is pretty slim, whereas that page space could be used for rules or fluff that more people will get mileage out of. The same goes for army sizes, extra encounter tables etc - it's all a big footprint when you don't necesarilly get as much as other stuff that could go on that space.
Overall, I think the Fiendish Codex books make a good balance. You may want to do things another way, of course, but the books at least offer some support for that. With class levels, HD advancing and templates, there's no reason why you can't have as many badical Demon Princes, Balors and what-not to torment your ECL 40 PCs who are finally braving the inner depths of the Abyss. ;-)
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I think the very fact that there can be (and are) multiple aspects of varying Challenge Ratings for various planar lords should make it less of an issue to print "uber-epic" stats for them, and then say that those are the "real" creatures.
Given, that'd be less useful for the majority of the people, but utilitarianism can't be the only baseline that these things are decided on. Moreover, that's the reason why web enhancements exist. I'd much rather that this enhancement had the ridiculously high stats for the real creatures, rather than mid-level stats for weaker aspects.
If they're going to make mechanics that let everyone have their cake and eat it too, there shouldn't be a problem with catering to the epic crowd as well.
Given, that'd be less useful for the majority of the people, but utilitarianism can't be the only baseline that these things are decided on. Moreover, that's the reason why web enhancements exist. I'd much rather that this enhancement had the ridiculously high stats for the real creatures, rather than mid-level stats for weaker aspects.
If they're going to make mechanics that let everyone have their cake and eat it too, there shouldn't be a problem with catering to the epic crowd as well.
Aus_Snow
First Post
Seen the Dicefreaks' take on stuff like this yet?Aaron L said:
As far as their free digital publications go, I believe they've still only completed the one detailing the Nine Hells (with the Abyss then the Heavens to follow, so they say).
But yep, those devils sure are epic. Er. Well, the ones that are. I seem to recall Asmodeus being somewhere over CR 60, maybe even over CR 70. . .
