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<blockquote data-quote="Runestar" data-source="post: 4609658" data-attributes="member: 72317">Dicefreaks' &quot;The Gates of Hell&quot; publication, an article put up for free download on their forum some time back (not sure if it is available now though), which details (really an understatement here) the 9 layers of hell (heck, they statted out paragon pit fiend advanced to 54HD, and even had their own custom ability progression). Their emphasis has mainly been on epic (as in really epic) gameplay. You really have to see it to believe it - words cannot do it justice, IMO.I will try to rapidshare it in a while.Bingo. If you had pitted your party against a balor or pit fiend in 3e, that is exactly the impression your players will likely acquire - powerful spellcasters with more hp than the norm. There was nothing about pelting the PCs with high lv spells such as meteor swarm, power word stun, mass hold monster or implosion that sufficiently differentiates a powerful denizon of the abyss from say, a lv17 wizard or cleric. Sure, the balor came equipped with a vorpal longsword and a flaming whip, but it was severely underpowered in melee, and so to make it worth anywhere near the cr20 its stat block lists it as, you are forced to shun melee altogether and assume the role of artillery - hit and run using its high fly speed and myriad of SLAs. In 4e, the balor returns to its LoTR roots by whacking the PCs with its lightning sword and flaming whip. Now that is memorable, simple because no other monster even comes close to replicating its capabilities in this aspect.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Runestar, post: 4609658, member: 72317"] Dicefreaks' "The Gates of Hell" publication, an article put up for free download on their forum some time back (not sure if it is available now though), which details (really an understatement here) the 9 layers of hell (heck, they statted out paragon pit fiend advanced to 54HD, and even had their own custom ability progression). Their emphasis has mainly been on epic (as in really epic) gameplay. You really have to see it to believe it - words cannot do it justice, IMO. I will try to rapidshare it in a while. Bingo. If you had pitted your party against a balor or pit fiend in 3e, that is exactly the impression your players will likely acquire - powerful spellcasters with more hp than the norm. There was nothing about pelting the PCs with high lv spells such as meteor swarm, power word stun, mass hold monster or implosion that sufficiently differentiates a powerful denizon of the abyss from say, a lv17 wizard or cleric. Sure, the balor came equipped with a vorpal longsword and a flaming whip, but it was severely underpowered in melee, and so to make it worth anywhere near the cr20 its stat block lists it as, you are forced to shun melee altogether and assume the role of artillery - hit and run using its high fly speed and myriad of SLAs. In 4e, the balor returns to its LoTR roots by whacking the PCs with its lightning sword and flaming whip. Now that is memorable, simple because no other monster even comes close to replicating its capabilities in this aspect.:) [/QUOTE]

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