Fiendish Codex III: Yugoloths poll

[Nightfall]

Crys,

Agreed.

Pants,

Meh. It's your opinion but the demons and devils in the book were very good I thought.

 

[Pants]

Overrated, no.

Overrated, yes. Bad, no.

Let me count the ways...
- The Thaumaturge - Waste of space. Really, some people complain about classes with utterly narrow focuses and I think this class fits that to a T. The real problem that I have with this class is it fills a niche that can already be filled without multiclassing. Need a cultist? You have several options: the adept, cleric, or even the sorcerer. The corruption mechanic would've worked better as something independent of the class.

- Not really a 3.5 Update - What bugs me most about the book was that it really didn't update a lot of the fiends to 3.5. Sure the skills and stuff got switched, but in the change to 3.5 many fiends got physical boosts in power which the BoF ones did NOT get. This is especially bad in Devil section where there are several 'dukes' of Hell with very, very pitiful HD amounts and ability scores, in comparison with pit fiends.

While the same argument can (and is frequently) leveled at the Demon Lords and the Arch Devils in Fiendish Codex series, at the very least those stat blocks are tougher than the average pit fiend and balor plus they also mention ways to advance them, admitting that such low powered fiend lords will not be to everyone's taste.

- The Vile Darkness Angle - It's not much more vile or mature than the relatively tame BoVD. This wouldn't be much of a problem, IMO, if they hadn't taken the potshot on the book's back cover. The spells, actually, are on the same angle of silly-stupid evil that is pretty present in the BoVD.

Not to say that it isn't a good book, but I see it get lauded all the time and I just don't understand why. No one ever criticizes it. For anything. Not that it's a bad book, but it's not perfect.

Crys,

Agreed.

Pants,

Meh. It's your opinion but the demons and devils in the book were very good I thought.

Everyone seems to automatically read 'overrated' as 'steaming pile of donkey dung' when I never said anything like that.

 

[Desdichado]

Overrated, yes. Bad, no.

I guess I'm guilty of over-rating it. Along with The Monsternomicon it's my favorite d20 book. But I think you make some good points. Let's see:

- The Thaumaturge - Waste of space. Really, some people complain about classes with utterly narrow focuses and I think this class fits that to a T. The real problem that I have with this class is it fills a niche that can already be filled without multiclassing. Need a cultist? You have several options: the adept, cleric, or even the sorcerer. The corruption mechanic would've worked better as something independent of the class.

I've thought about doing that exact same thing before. The thaumaturge isn't a complete waste of space, but it's not something I'd ever use. I can appreciate the flavor of it, but I agree that other solutions would be more up my alley, including the same ones you offer, actually.

- Not really a 3.5 Update - What bugs me most about the book was that it really didn't update a lot of the fiends to 3.5. Sure the skills and stuff got switched, but in the change to 3.5 many fiends got physical boosts in power which the BoF ones did NOT get. This is especially bad in Devil section where there are several 'dukes' of Hell with very, very pitiful HD amounts and ability scores, in comparison with pit fiends.

Well, there's two competing goals here, and one makes the other impossible to achieve. When the fiends got boosted in the change from 3e to 3.5, the logical thing to do, given fiendish hierarchies, would have been to boost the Dukes of Hell and whatnot. However, doing so makes the statblocks considerably less useful to DMs because the CRs are now out of range of most campaign arcs, whereas keeping them at about the same power level means that they're usable. So, while I see you're point, I think Green Ronin was kinda stuck between two undesirable alternatives and picked the best one. There's always advancement rules for monster entries to get the fiendish "lords" up to where they need to be, after all.

While the same argument can (and is frequently) leveled at the Demon Lords and the Arch Devils in Fiendish Codex series, at the very least those stat blocks are tougher than the average pit fiend and balor plus they also mention ways to advance them, admitting that such low powered fiend lords will not be to everyone's taste.

True. I like the Demonomicon practice of offering up even more advanced versions when they do the demon lords myself. Dagon, for example, is what--CR 21 or so in FC:I (going by memory; could be off by a few) while his recent dragon article pumped him up to CR 33. I think that makes a lot more sense for a demon lord, personally.

- The Vile Darkness Angle - It's not much more vile or mature than the relatively tame BoVD. This wouldn't be much of a problem, IMO, if they hadn't taken the potshot on the book's back cover. The spells, actually, are on the same angle of silly-stupid evil that is pretty present in the BoVD.

Really? I think it's got a lot of things in it that are more "vile" than the BOVD. Not that the Book of Fiends is just unremitting nastiness or anything, but I didn't really see it as silly-stupid evil, and I thought the "vile" angle was definately a cut above Vile Darkness.

To add one critique of my own--I know Loeb and Schwalb put a fair bit of effort in the daemons section to offer play hooks for each creature type; a reason to have it involved in the campaign, so to speak. However, I think the play hooks are pretty repetitive. They almost all boil down to either a PC or an NPC commit some sin and a daemon comes a-calling in payment.

 

[Shade]

Everyone seems to automatically read 'overrated' as 'steaming pile of donkey dung' when I never said anything like that.

And now everyone is going to think you called it an 'overheated pile of donkey dung'. You really can't win.

 

[Pants]

Well, there's two competing goals here, and one makes the other impossible to achieve. When the fiends got boosted in the change from 3e to 3.5, the logical thing to do, given fiendish hierarchies, would have been to boost the Dukes of Hell and whatnot. However, doing so makes the statblocks considerably less useful to DMs because the CRs are now out of range of most campaign arcs, whereas keeping them at about the same power level means that they're usable. So, while I see you're point, I think Green Ronin was kinda stuck between two undesirable alternatives and picked the best one. There's always advancement rules for monster entries to get the fiendish "lords" up to where they need to be, after all.

Not being a big proponent of the CR 58 (dicefreaks) style archfiends, I would've been happy if these 'unique dukes' had been merely at a pit fiend's level or above. I'm not talking uber-high CR's here, but in the 20-24 range. Definitely still usable and logical within the D&D framework. Hell, they already have, what, a CR 30+ creature in the book (some fallen celestial).

And now everyone is going to think you called it an 'overheated pile of donkey dung'. You really can't win.

Alas, the internet-whiner can never win

 

[Nightfall]

Pants,

Not sure I'd call you a whiner so much as a "sad sack."

But I see your point about "over-rated" being some how equated to badness. But people that think something is good when people say "over-rated" make the assumption you mean "bad." It's just a natural response to something they like, such as Book of Fiends.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Any news on a Fiendish Codex III?

Given recent developments (loss of Dragon/Dungeon magazines, WotC's dearth of crunch books for 2008, the alignment of the seven moons of Zalzuza, etc.) I thought it might be a good time to ask.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Not being a big proponent of the CR 58 (dicefreaks) style archfiends, I would've been happy if these 'unique dukes' had been merely at a pit fiend's level or above. I'm not talking uber-high CR's here, but in the 20-24 range. Definitely still usable and logical within the D&D framework. Hell, they already have, what, a CR 30+ creature in the book (some fallen celestial).

Very true, and the biggest gripe I have with FC1, the LAME demon "lords/princes". I don't see why a 14th level party should be expected to wipe the floor with the big shots of Hell or the Abyss.

 

[Shemeska]

Very true, and the biggest gripe I have with FC1, the LAME demon "lords/princes". I don't see why a 14th level party should be expected to wipe the floor with the big shots of Hell or the Abyss.

It's not a problem if you assume that the stats provided are only those of aspects/avatars for the actual archfiends, whose actual level of power isn't given an upper limit, mechanically speaking. It's not perfect (some people like me don't want stats at all, other people want hard stats topping out at CR20ish, some people want them with overt DR, some people want them given nine pages of stats at CR4569000 and pet triple-neutronium golems, etc), but I find it a pretty elegant solution to the problem. The key part about FC:I's stats is the author intent for the stats, which was a victim of an unfortunate editorial removal of an explanatory line or two.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It would be like a book devoted to flinds. I can't see anything conceptually interesting about yugoloths that separates them from other fiends. Nycaloths are just another demon. Mezzoloths are another weird fiend, visually similiar to ice devils. And ultroloths are anodyne supervillains, inappropriate in a fantasy game and lacking any kind of interesting schtick. In terms of concept, they're at best rehashes.

Rounding out the alignments was a reasonable idea, but the execution was totally bereft of originality. If you want a neutral evil force of Blood War mercs and power brokers you'd be better off taking some of the interesting demons/devils and making them neutral evil.

Fey, savage humanoids, githyanki, angels, slaad, modrons, elementals, lycanthropes, constructs and oozes should get books before yugoloths do.