[Green Ronin] Announcing the Book of Fiends

[Cergorach]

Um, why exactly would you need stats for archfiends if you weren't in an epic level campaign?

As for lesser epic creatures, I begtadiffer. I used some low-end epic creatures in a non-epic game as tough challenges. The creatures were the most interesting part of the book.

I think it's about how you devide the power levels in your campaign. For most people it's from lvl. 1-20 with 20 being the most powerful character alive. Epic Levels just makes this scope wider, but if you don't use the Epic scope, anything that falls within the Epic realm becomes pretty much useless. With creatures that go up to around CR 23-24 (Great Wyrm Red Dragon), IMHO those are not really Epic creatures, but rather creatures that can still be defeated by a party of 20th lvl characters. With Epic i mean anything that falls under the Epic rules, as far as i know Great Wyrm Red Dragons do not fall under the Epic rules (atleast that was the case under D&D v.3.0), they don't have Epic Feats, Epic Powers, or Spells...

It's like you want rules for Golems, but you get rules for robots, sure you can alter them to use as Golems, but that wasn't really what you where looking for.

Epic isn't something that's as widely accepted as for example, Fiends. Thus is someone who doesn't want to play with Epic rules or doesn't like Epic rules is confronted with Epic monsters (as a complete entry), those monsters become unusable, the result is a customer that is less happy. On the other hand a couple of pages that gives guidelines/statblocks for a selected number of Fiends would be a lot more acceptable to people who don't use Epic rules...

 

[Psion]

I would agree the epic holes have some rules in them. However:

With Epic i mean anything that falls under the Epic rules, as far as i know Great Wyrm Red Dragons do not fall under the Epic rules (atleast that was the case under D&D v.3.0), they don't have Epic Feats, Epic Powers, or Spells...

It's like you want rules for Golems, but you get rules for robots, sure you can alter them to use as Golems, but that wasn't really what you where looking for.

No, it's not really like that at all. Epic monsters take advantage of the higher end rules, spells, and feats, but it's not (or at least, shouldn't be) a dichotomous situation. 3.5 monsters help pull the epic and non epic creatures a bit closer at the "edge."

At any rate, I have tossed in lava wights and paragon creatures in a game and they played out just as well as great wyrms would have. (And a good deal better than the Tarrasque.)

Epic isn't something that's as widely accepted as for example, Fiends. Thus is someone who doesn't want to play with Epic rules or doesn't like Epic rules is confronted with Epic monsters (as a complete entry), those monsters become unusable, the result is a customer that is less happy.

This is a bizarre assertion; it seems to me that this is a bit like some people I know who tell me, for example, that everyone out there is dying to toss the spell slot system just because they are personally dissatisfied with the system. This is, in fact, projecting.

There are people out there who don't like psionics, or plane travelling, or what have you. But they aren't exactly in the majority and you can't suspend publishing just because you have a few people who really are in a nit about a particular rules element. The fact is, the epic level rules are the de facto rules to be used for high level challenges. I don't think that Green Ronin (or any other publisher) necessarily needs to even really use those rules directly, but at least now that the epic rules exist, they have a reference point that they can use to create those creatures and have them be usable by a vast majority of d20 players who are playing in that range.

The biggest problem with the ELH, IMHO, is not the rules so much as the blandness of it all. What the epic level rules need is to be addressed by imaginiative companies. Like Green Ronin.

 

[Cergorach]

I would agree the epic holes have some rules in them. However:

No, it's not really like that at all. Epic monsters take advantage of the higher end rules, spells, and feats, but it's not (or at least, shouldn't be) a dichotomous situation. 3.5 monsters help pull the epic and non epic creatures a bit closer at the "edge."

At any rate, I have tossed in lava wights and paragon creatures in a game and they played out just as well as great wyrms would have. (And a good deal better than the Tarrasque.)

I think that's a difference oppinion then, when i look at ELH i see most of that volume spent on rules and working with those rules to make EL pretty different from normal games. EL presents a 'huge' leap from non-EL to EL, the power difference between the two is pretty big. How the EL rules are presented in v.3.5 is a bit different, and might make the move from non-EL to EL a bit less severe...

This is a bizarre assertion; it seems to me that this is a bit like some people I know who tell me, for example, that everyone out there is dying to toss the spell slot system just because they are personally dissatisfied with the system. This is, in fact, projecting.

There are people out there who don't like psionics, or plane travelling, or what have you. But they aren't exactly in the majority and you can't suspend publishing just because you have a few people who really are in a nit about a particular rules element. The fact is, the epic level rules are the de facto rules to be used for high level challenges. I don't think that Green Ronin (or any other publisher) necessarily needs to even really use those rules directly, but at least now that the epic rules exist, they have a reference point that they can use to create those creatures and have them be usable by a vast majority of d20 players who are playing in that range.

I understand what your getting at, but please don't demean me to another "Those rules suck!" critter. I appreciate the EL rules, i appreciate the Psi rules, and also appriciate the Plane rules, but it's a fact that even the Psionic Handbook isn't accepted as a Core Rulebook (even though it is an official Core Rulebook as far as i remember). Why? Sales and use! Although ELH did sell pretty well (i think better then the PsiHB), and people where very excited with the book, the novelness did die down pretty quickly. How many people will actually use EL? I think i can make a pretty educated guess that it's far less than the people that play in a lvl. 15-20 campaign. Lvl 1-20 is where, what 95%, of the players/GMs play their campaigns at.

I'm not saying deny the excistence of EL, just don't use it in the default material. Make it optional, just as the EL are optional.

The biggest problem with the ELH, IMHO, is not the rules so much as the blandness of it all. What the epic level rules need is to be addressed by imaginiative companies. Like Green Ronin.

I think that's a pretty accurate estimate on what's 'wrong' with the EL rules and i do think that GRR can do a pretty good job on making it far more interesting, but what i'm really doubting is, should the BoF be that jump board for EL?

 

[Psion]

but what i'm really doubting is, should the BoF be that jump board for EL?

Which is a question fairly rephrased as "should BoF include statistics for archfiends?" Many people obviously want them, because they complained about not having them last time. But it seems apparent to me that if they do include archfiend stats, they should have capabilities and scaling similar to the EL rules, because that is what most people actually playing at that level will, in fact, be using.

Now if Green Ronin says "nah, we don't have room or development time for that", that I could understand (and, in fact, expect. But I just thought I would ask the question since it came up in the original discussions about the book.)

 

[tburdett]

I have not heard much about this product lately and was just wondering if it is still going to be released in November? I have so little to look forward to these days, please do not let me down!

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

what tburdett said ( without quite as much desperation, but just as much anticipation )

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

bump

Pramas? - Niki? Where are you?

Should I be thinking X-Mas present for this one still ?

 

[JoeGKushner]

There was recently an ad in dragon for this and the new race book of asimars and tieflings.

Now all we need is something about cambions and half-angels... oh wait, those are templates now... Curse you templates! You've killed the cambion!

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

We've just announced the Book of Fiends for a November release. This is going to be a fun one!

Awesome, I love all of your books and I have more Green Ronin books than any other publisher minus WotC. This one will quickly be mine after it comes out.

 

[Pramas]

Update

Here's where the Book of Fiends is at. I have all the pieces from the assorted authors and editors and I'm assembling and proofing them this week. The book will go into layout next week, as soon as Hal finishes Black Sails Over Freeport and we get that off to print. Book of Fiends ought to come out towards the end of December, possibly by Christmas (that'll depend on the printer and how the holiday affects their schedule).

Book of Fiends does not includes stats for archfiends but we do have a product in the works that should make folks who like that sort of thing happy.

Joe will be happy to hear that Aasimar & Tiefling also includes info on other planetouched races, plus half-fiends and half-celestials.