Hordes of the Abyss.

[ColonelHardisson]

Actually, my main problem with the weak archfiend stats is that someday, a young player will come to me and ask me: "Hey, can we go kill this guy? He must have some phat l00t, being a demon prince and all! Just like in Diablo III!"

Such a player would justify using HackMaster's Smartass Smackdown Table. Then I'd ask him if he'd like to read up on any more monster stats. Then I'd advise him to make sure to have a large stack of blank character sheets and a box of sharp pencils.

 

[jasamcarl]

There is such a thing as the RPGA, where you MUST run games as written by WotC. There is no room for interpretation there. No "it doesn't work that way in my world." Now, I certainly wouldn't run that kind of game. But there are a lot of people here who play at conventions and similar events where such games are run.


Let me remind you that you are posting on a message board about D&D, a game of "play pretend" for adults. And you have a higher postcount than me. Do we want to talk about your weird attachments?

That is an even lamer excuse. So you might have players who positivily expect to face a certain monster as written in game? And they couldn't be deterred by a simple qualifying line?

And, no, I put this game in context. I post a lot on this board, but that is as much a result of the pleasures that come with the forum itself as the game. I certainly never stated that I had to stay my hand from hitting a kid because his perception of a fake world was different than mine.

 

[Sammael]

I can see that figures of speech such as hyperbole are lost on you, so I won't waste any more.

 

[Psion]

I can just imagine that:

A mighty balor stands before the howling horde of demons.
Balor: "Now surge forth! Destroy and devour all in your path! We are HATRED! WE-"
A ringing noise comes from nowhere. All the demons are silent.
Marilith to the Balor: "I think that's you."
Balor: "I know that's me." He pulls out a fiery cell phone and looks at the number. "Oh great, its Klurichir again."
Marilith: "Klurichir? Isn't he a CR 17?"
Balor: (sighs). "Yea, I don't know what I was thinking when I gave that guy my phone number." He pushes the message box.
Klurichir: "Dude! Where are you!? Listen, it's been sooooo long since we've hung out and I have these adventurers that I'd like you to meet. I think it would be really COOL if you could drop by-." CLICK! The Balor puts his phone away in disgust.
Marilith: "Hmm...are you going to call him back?"
Balor: "@#$! no!"

 

[jasamcarl]

I can see that figures of speech such as hyperbole are lost on you, so I won't waste any more.

'hyperbole' is all you had, because the underlying argument was nonsense.

 

[Sammael]

That's a pretty nonstandard way of using fiends in a campaign, though, don't you think?

It's pretty standard for early Planescape books. The later books, such as Planes of Chaos, certainly did change the stance a bit. On the other hand, there is a handful of modules which don't support the changed stance.

They certainly were fightable in 1e.

Yes, as were the gods. This changed in 2e significantly (to the point of gods becoming statless), and I've played a lot more 2e than 1e.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with using archfiends this way, but it is perhaps unreasonable to assume that a rulebook from the game's publisher would go with this variant interpretation.

Which is why I didn't ask for statless archfiends. I wanted demon princes with stats that reasonably support their ability to rule their respective layers of Abyss. CR 20 demon princes do not fit their roles very well, because - let's face it - "might makes right" is the philosophy of the Abyss.

A kid could kill Demogorgon for his phat lewt back in the 70s. He would have called it something else, but the fact remains.

I think the game has moved on quite a bit since that time.

 

[Psion]

Actually, I agree that this is a problem. At the advent of 3E, the designers were talking about "game mastery"; common knowledge among players about what made D&D what it was. The "toolbox" approach breaks that down, and it ghetto-izes different playgroups into not being able to communicate with each other.

Let me say as someone who has not been on board with this notion of that extreme of player empowerment, I am not bothered by this. You might say I am anti-bothered by this.

I make up stuff and pull stuff in from more sources than the players could possibly keep up with. This is really no different, or at least is shouldn't be. I have no sympathy for players who see the books as sort of "cheat codes" for the game.

When I get a game system, I assume it paints an entire milieu for me to dive into. If it's a toolbox approach for the DM to build what they want (like, say, d20 Modern), I personally have to throw up my hands and say, "geez, I don't have the time for that".

So, homebrew worlds and creatures must kill you? And third party books?

 

[jasamcarl]

It's pretty standard for early Planescape books. The later books, such as Planes of Chaos, certainly did change the stance a bit. On the other hand, there is a handful of modules which don't support this stance.


Yes, as were the gods. This changed in 2e significantly (to the point of gods becoming statless), and I've played a lot more 2e than 1e.


Which is why I didn't ask for statless archfiends. I wanted demon princes with stats that reasonably support their ability to rule their respective layers of Abyss. CR 20 demon princes do not fit their roles very well, because - let's face it - "might makes right" is the philosphy of the Abyss.


I think the game has moved on quite a bit since that time.

So that kid would just want to role up some epic characters and kill the higher level fiend, right? No contradiction there..

And if you are going to havee mechanics, they might as well be playable mechanics. The game begins to break around level 15 as is. By level 25+, that problem is even greater, not to mention most classes fail to improve their abilities significantly,and the game is already broken. The stats are there for the players beneifit, not to for some hypothetical grudge match playing out in your head between a pitfiend and archfiend.

 

[Psion]

In my games, archfiends are not "end bosses." They are not entitites you just walk up to and roll initiative. If you assault an archfiend (or paragon celestial), you die, just as if you had assaulted a deity (and no, I didn't even buy D&DG... because deities should not have stats).

Then I'm not seeing that you need archfiend stats at all.

 

[Sammael]

No. But what I'm saying is this (perhaps I'm not articulating this point well enough): even though I don't need stats, if you're going to do stats, do them right. Have them make sense in the context of the game.

As a reminder, even H4 (Throne of Bloodstone) assumed the characters would be 100th level before duking it out with Orcus. Now, 100th level characters from that time certainly wouldn't convert to 3.x 100th level characters - but they wouldn't be level 20 either, for sure.