Fiendish Codex III: Yugoloths poll

[Shade]

You simply CAN'T make a book on yugoloths and other fiends in a 160 PAGE BOOK!

It HAS to be an all yugoloth book. Or you're stuck with, what, 40 pages per fiend? :\

Not necessarily. Keep in mind that with the 'loths, you'll have a lot less planar layers and unique entitites to detail than with demons and devils. Those extra spaces could easily be devoted to gehreleths, night hags, etc.

As much as I love FC1, I think a FCIII book would work best in more of Lords of Madness format.

Things it absolutely, positively must include (IMHO):

• Ultroloths refitted to CR 20
• Gacholoths, dergholoths, hydroloths updated to 3E
• Baernaloths (preferably without stats)
• All the altraloths from "A Pox on the Planes" and hopefully a few "new" ones to round out the Diseased Eight

I'd also really like to see Mydianchlarus ousted and replaced by one of the Diseased Eight (I never liked him).

 

[Razz]

Fiendish Codex I didn't focus solely on tanar'ri. There's no need for FCIII to focus solely on 'loths. And 40 pages per fiend would be plenty.

Smoke anything intoxicating lately? j/k

Seriously, though, 40 pages for yugoloths? For any of them? Do you think FCI and FCII would be good books if only 40 pages were devoted to them?

What can 40 pages get you? 40 pages would take up the crunch material alone what with the 3-4 page PrC, the spells, feats, and extras that are yugoloth-themed. Then the converted/new yugoloth monsters would be about (and with the new format) what? That alone is 40 pages! Then the fluff of it...wait, is there room? Ok, let's turn it around then. 40 pages fluff and no crunch...but what can 40 pages of that do for you that past editions haven't already covered on yugoloths?

nah, again, I see no one giving a solid and valid reason to give yugoloths 40 pages of material. It just won't work.

 

[Razz]

Not necessarily. Keep in mind that with the 'loths, you'll have a lot less planar layers and unique entitites to detail than with demons and devils. Those extra spaces could easily be devoted to gehreleths, night hags, etc.

As much as I love FC1, I think a FCIII book would work best in more of Lords of Madness format.

Things it absolutely, positively must include (IMHO):

• Ultroloths refitted to CR 20
• Gacholoths, dergholoths, hydroloths updated to 3E
• Baernaloths (preferably without stats)
• All the altraloths from "A Pox on the Planes" and hopefully a few "new" ones to round out the Diseased Eight

I'd also really like to see Mydianchlarus ousted and replaced by one of the Diseased Eight (I never liked him).

That 40 pages would not make! Or maybe so, but what about the history, plans, and other fluff for yugoloths? Feats, spells, PrC? What about extra stuff to enhance the yugoloth fiends more than they've been done before?

40 pages alone would be monsters stats...or crunch material...or background....but not all 3

 

[Shade]

That 40 pages would not make! Or maybe so, but what about the history, plans, and other fluff for yugoloths? Feats, spells, PrC? What about extra stuff to enhance the yugoloth fiends more than they've been done before?

40 pages alone would be monsters stats...or crunch material...or background....but not all 3

I never said 40 pages.

Pesonally, I could do without the prestige classes, feats (if they continue to be little more than ways for PCs to link to fiends), and spells (which are mostly rehashes from other books or replacements for polymorph). I found these areas the least interesting part of FC1 (and it sounds like the same goes for FCII based on the previews). Give me feats that improve the fiends, then we'll talk.

The sheer lack of volume of yugoloths will save alot of space (the FF yugos are fine, I doubt the MMIV fiends would get an update so soon, and I doubt the battleloths would get in).

I don't doubt that a book could be filled with 'loth goodness, but I fear that what would be added would be less interesting to me than more info on the other fiends.

 

[Sammael]

I personally think the 160 page format is idiotic, but, unfortunately, we're not the ones making WotC business decisions. Given 160 pages, I would rather not spend all 160 (or 145, when we remove the ToC and pointless ads in the back) pages on 'loths and then never have any books on the other aforementioned races of fiends. I think 40-50 pages of material on the 'loths can be put to good use if they don't stat the Altraloths and don't use the ultra-expanded creature format.

 

[Anthraxus]

Yes, please! Count me in! Go Anthraxus!

Richard

Hmm? What? Go where?

I am all in favor of a FCIII, mainly devoted to Yugoloths, but I wouldn't mind seeing a small section on Hags.

 

[Razz]

There're a lot of fiends out there. WotC can't cover them all, and the next best race of fiends to produce would be yugoloths and yugoloths only.

Night hags, hordlings, etc., since when did these become highly significant fiends that warrant them a whole chapter? Just because they received attention in Faces of Evil doesn't mean they deserve a place in an FCIII, which concentrates only on one fiendish species. (even still, they collectively dropped all those other very minor fiends into one chapter anyway)

Let's have a chapter on the terlen, why don't we? That's a fiend! Oh wait, how about another chapter on fiendish goblins in Avernus and then one on nightmares? Yeah, that'll sell a lot better than yugoloths... :\

 

[Shade]

Night hags, hordlings, etc., since when did these become highly significant fiends that warrant them a whole chapter? Just because they received attention in Faces of Evil doesn't mean they deserve a place in an FCIII, which concentrates only on one fiendish species. (even still, they collectively dropped all those other very minor fiends into one chapter anyway)

Since 1E. Night hags created Anthraxus and the other altraloths, so they definitely warrant some limelight. Demodands have been around as long as yugoloths. They've featured in notable adventures and in novels.

Note that I'm speaking as a diehard yugoloth fan here. I'd love a FCIII that's all yugoloths, and an FCIV that's all demondand, and keep going, but let's be realistic...these things have to sell. Plus, I'm afraid that extra space devoted to yugoloths alone won't result in more cool yugoloth lore or new creatures, but rather a bunch of feats and spells for PCs to fight them, planar touchstones, or other such filler.

(And if you want to split hairs, terlens, as magical beasts, aren't fiends.)

 

[BOZ]

I would be satisfied with Sammael's proposed compromise: a "Lords of Madness" book for fiends. First a chapter exploring the Lower Planes in detail. One chapter on 'loths, one on rakshasas, one on night hags, maybe even one on quori (bring the Eberron fans in, and integrate quori with the Great Wheel as an option). Then a monster section updating creatures like hordlings and diakka. Maybe prestige classes built on those twisted by nocturnal night hag corruption or interacting in symbiosis with nightmares.

Fiendish Codex I didn't focus solely on tanar'ri. There's no need for FCIII to focus solely on 'loths. And 40 pages per fiend would be plenty.

i would be perfectly fine with having more than just the yugoloths, so long as the yugos got a decent share of the pagecount. assuming that more than a few pages would be for planar geography, PrCs, feats, etc, give the yugos at least 30-40% of the text, and talk about the others as much as you like, and i'd be happy.

 

[Ripzerai]

Seriously, though, 40 pages for yugoloths?

That's plenty! They only have 16 pages in Faces of Evil, and a number of those pages are dedicated to locations which would be covered in the locations chapter.

40 pages would be tremendous.

Do you think FCI and FCII would be good books if only 40 pages were devoted to them?

Demons only get 25 pages in the Demonic Lore chapter, plus 22 pages statting their lords. And that's all the demonic races, not just tanar'ri. If you divide those 47 spaces among tanar'ri, obyriths, and loumaras the count is much tinier. There aren't as many important yugoloth lords, so yes - 40 pages is plenty. It's staggeringly huge.

40 pages would take up the crunch material alone what with the 3-4 page PrC, the spells, feats, and extras that are yugoloth-themed.

This book, like the FC1, should have no prestige classes. The spells and feats get their own chapter; some of them are yugoloth-themed and some aren't. The spells and feats get their own chapter and aren't part of the 40 page total.

Then the converted/new yugoloth monsters

Monsters get their own chapter.

Look, 160 pages:

First 40 pages: The Lower Planes (including descriptions of Khin-Oin, the Walking City, the Tower of Incarnate Pain, and the Tower Arcane), but also detailing the other layers of the Planes of Conflict, also detailing the lands of barghests, gautieres, and gehreleths.

Next 29 pages: Yugoloth Lore. This chapter is pure fluff.

Next 11 pages: Yugoloth lords. Anthraxus, Mydianchlarus (who is awesome), Bubonix, Charon, Taba, Typhus, Xenghara. That's only half as many as there are detailed demon lords in FC1, so they get half as many pages.

Next 16 pages: Night hag lore, including detail on Cegilune and the late Hag Countess of Malbolge.

Next 4 pages: Feats

Next 20 pages: Spells and cults

Final 40 pages: New monsters (including hordlings, gautiere, diakka, updated yugoloths and gehreleths, utukku, avari, guardian yugoloths and yugoloth "imps")

That is plenty. 40 pages for just 'loths is probably too much. Remember, the demonic lore chapter in FC1 applied to more than just tanar'ri, so a similar book would have a "fiendish lore" chapter that applied to more than just 'loths. Maybe give some of the extra 'loth pages to barghests or gautiere, or spend them making hordlings more interesting.

Edit: Unless the book is written by Shemeska, in which case you need at least 20 pages to detail the Baernaloths of the Demented. That changes the calculus considerably. But otherwise, I am right.