Hordes of the Abyss.

[James Jacobs]

And if we were talking about Tome of Horrors I'd agree as that's an unofficial awesome book.

But what we're talking about here are two very different approaches to statting out and detailing high powered entitites by 'official' sources and the customers are being double dipped for it and told "well it's for lower powered campaigns" when it comes to the book and "hey, this is how it should be" by the exact same authors in the Dragon mag.

Yeah. People wonder why I'm cynical. [Looks at title.]

Dragon is about options as much as it is about anything else. If there's room for variant character classes, alternate magic systems, and so on, there's certainly room for demon lords at different power levels.

And in any event, "Hordes of the Abyss" DOES support higher CR demon lords; that's what the advancing demon lord section is all about. I guess I'm not seeing the problem here with providing different options for using iconic D&D monsters, so individual DMs can pick and choose what versions work best for their campaigns. In any event, there may be a certain level of "double dipping" between the Demonomicon articles and Hordes of the Abyss, but no more so than when a WotC book picks up any other monster or feat or magic item or whatever from the magazines. In any case, the information in these two sources augments each other far more than it duplicates efforts; designing "Hordes of the Abyss" to support the Demonomicon articles (and vice versa) was one of our goals from the start.

(And no... the orlath didn't make the cut. He was actually never even in the running, truth be told. Poor little guy!)

 

[Razz]

Did James's very own orlath from Dungeon #95 make the cut?

That is one cool demon.

Yeah, it definitely was, and I believe the attack entry on that one needed work too, like the klurichir.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Y'know, Joe, seriously, while I understand your point, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Paizo may be able to label stuff as "official," but it's still a separate entity from WotC. If Dragon and Dungeon were still House Organs, then I'd say they should keep in lockstep with what the big guy is doing. But they're not. So while they presumably can't alter the game beyond recognition, they can present their own take on certain things, like monsters.

Well, it's my molehill to make into a mountain.

I just hate being told one thing in one source and from another source by the same people being told something else.

Don't *iss on me and tell me it's raining.

It's a double dip for the same material that doesn't even match up and it's deliberate and being defended from both ends by the same people. It makes no sense.

As G. W. B. would say, "either ya with me or again me." You can't have it both ways and not, to me at least, look like anything other than hypocrisy. If the authors said, "We don't feel that those CR's are appropriate" then I'd go, "Cool." or if they said, "We've already got our format in place and it's working well. The fact that our monsters are stronger than those in the official book is a nice incentive for people to BUY our magagazine as well." But it's "Well, for certain campaigns..." Yeah, okay, that's why we need three versions of the same beastie when people didn't think the FIRST version was tough enough.

And I'll keep subscribing to Dragon and Dungeon because the articles are good. I just don't want to hear that, "Well for X, we were going for that tender spot and for Y, well, that's another keetle of fish entirely."

 

[DaveMage]

And in any event, "Hordes of the Abyss" DOES support higher CR demon lords; that's what the advancing demon lord section is all about. I guess I'm not seeing the problem here with providing different options for using iconic D&D monsters, so individual DMs can pick and choose what versions work best for their campaigns.

I think you've presented the reasoning and circumstances behind the lower CRs pretty well.

I'm on board.

It's not my *preference*, but it make sense (greater number of people happy and all that).

(Although it really does increase the value of the Demonomicon articles in Dragon for me.)

Thanks, James!

 

[JoeGKushner]

Dragon is about options as much as it is about anything else.

Uh... why weren't there any spells in the Best of Dragon compendium again? Oh right, didn't want to run against the Spell Compendium from WoTC.

[
In any event, there may be a certain level of "double dipping" between the Demonomicon articles and Hordes of the Abyss, but no more so than when a WotC book picks up any other monster or feat or magic item or whatever from the magazines.

Yes, that's true. But now you're going ahead and going to cover monsters that are already in the Book of Vile Darkness AND this book. It's not longer unintential double dipping. You cannot claim that, "Well, we didn't know X was going to be reused for Y." You are now the ones doing the reusing.

In any case, the information in these two sources augments each other far more than it duplicates efforts; designing "Hordes of the Abyss" to support the Demonomicon articles (and vice versa) was one of our goals from the start.

And to a point, they do indeed do this well. For the record, I'm not saying that the whole of the book is bad at all. I just don't like the direction it's going. It's easily one of the better books for my needs at least.

[
(And no... the orlath didn't make the cut. He was actually never even in the running, truth be told. Poor little guy!)

Indeed. Poor little guy.

 

[Shade]

(And no... the orlath didn't make the cut. He was actually never even in the running, truth be told. Poor little guy!)

I bet he's turning his hateful gaze your way, creator or not. And don't try to pull the wool over his eyes...he's got x-ray vision.

 

[Psion]

As G. W. B. would say, "either ya with me or again me."

Somebody else said "you can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time...".

I personally think it is, quite simply put, very good design. Are they dipping back into the demon pool? Yes. Did people want them to? I think news of the book was greeted pretty enthusiatically. That considered, consciously taking into account things like levels people normally play at and better yet, that it varies, is an design philosphy head-and-shoulders over that under which DDG was born.

 

[Mercule]

Speaking from personal experience, applying the paragon template to them works very well.

Yoink!

Do you know what that means then!?

Web Enhancement!

This would make me happy.

 

[Ripzerai]

Can't list anything till I get home. Don't have the book with me.

One of my biggest problems with nerfing the demon lords isn't necessarily the demon lords. It's what happens to the devils.

The devils have a lot more unique ranks and heirarchy in their field than the demons do. For demons, it's pretty much iether you're named, standard, or lunch. For devils, we have all sorts of unique individuals that fall into different camps.

I suspect you already know the answer: WotC feels no obligation to be consistent. Not that I mind that much.

I'll be very surprised if Tyrants of the Nine Hells doesn't put lesser diabolic nobles at about the same challenge level as major Abyssal lords are in Hordes of the Abyss.

It's actually a good reason if we assume that any game that gets to near epic STOPs at near epic despite the epic rules you know, actually being in the DMG this time around (3.5).

I don't get that people who don't want to advance the game to epic level nonetheless think their PCs should be able to off epic level threats - who think the whole campaign setting should be tailored to fit their own lack of ambition. When you set a maximum power level in the game, it seems like you should accept that there's a limit to how much the PCs are going to reasonably accomplish. If the game ends at 3rd level, probably no one's going to kill a fire giant. If it ends at 20th level, probably no one's going to be destroying the eons-old rulers of the planes.

It seems like a good end-boss for a 20th level game would be a powerful balor with a few class levels. I thought that was what balors were for in 3.5 - to provide appropriate threats to 20th level characters.

Makes sense to me.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

if they said, "We've already got our format in place and it's working well. The fact that our monsters are stronger than those in the official book is a nice incentive for people to BUY our magagazine as well."

Cripes, they can't win. If they'd said something like that, you know as well as I do that there would be a chorus of "OOOHHHH NNNOOOOSS!!! They are admitting to a naked grab for money! How dare they!" Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

I'm just not seeing the problem here. James Jacobs has explained the rationale, and given that the magazines are, again, separate entities from WotC, I don't think much more explanation is needed. Do you expect Kenzer's Kalamar stuff to stay in lockstep with WotC? It's got the official D&D logo, too, right? Just because some of the same guys doing this book are also overseeing the Dragon articles doesn't mean there has to be cross-referencing. Would it be nice? Yeah, I guess. But I think it kinda indicates that what WotC wants and what Paizo wants may not be entirely the same thing.