Hordes of the Abyss.

[Ripzerai]

Late joining the thread and catching up but I think something is being grotesquely missed here.

I am disappointed to hear that the demon princes are being powered down because it effects the MYTHOLOGY of the game. Say it with me - the MYTHOLOGY of the game.

I agree with you, but most people here won't, so I've been arguing primarily in their terms. The new power levels fail under strictly utilitarian grounds as much as they fail as story elements.

Baphomet as no more powerful than a balor is as anticlimatic as it is improbable. And yes, it contradicts the mythology the game has had from day one, but I think it's more important for a lot of people that it makes for a poorer RPG experience.

 

[Shade]

What if a group of four 19th-level characters can defeat a Bbn20, but can't defeat a Wiz17, then the Wiz17 must be more powerful?

Yes, by the only measurement we have available.

I'm not defending the CR system as always on target, and I've seen plenty of support that single races with class levels don't present a reliable challenge, but we're talking about monsters. I think it is safe to say that a balor is always a greater threat than a cornugon.

And I think that the authors of this book have a pretty good grasp on monster design and assigning appropriate CRs, so if they say one creature is CR 19 an another is CR 20, I'm confident that the CR 20 monster is more powerful.

 

[luke_twigger]

Yes, as far as the PCs know. And they're the ones for whom "anti-climatic" is an issue.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here?

If the PCs beat a minion and then lose to the BBEG how is that anti-climatic?

Anti-climatic would be barely ekeing out a victory over the minion and then stomping all over the BBEG.

 

[Ripzerai]

If the PCs beat a minion and then lose to the BBEG how is that anti-climatic?

It isn't. But if that happens, it means the CR is wrong, because - from the PCs point of view - the wizard is stronger.

Assuming the CRs are right, Baphomet isn't going to be much stronger than his minion, so the PCs could have a great deal of trouble fighting his minion yet defeat Baphomet rather easily, depending on how the dice go and depending on what they've saved up for the final fight.

Anti-climatic.

 

[GVDammerung]

I agree with you, but most people here won't, so I've been arguing primarily in their terms. The new power levels fail under strictly utilitarian grounds as much as they fail as story elements.

Baphomet as no more powerful than a balor is as anticlimatic as it is improbable. And yes, it contradicts the mythology the game has had from day one, but I think it's more important for a lot of people that it makes for a poorer RPG experience.

Story is first. Rules are secondary. For what good are the best rules if they do not fascilitate the story, as no one plays the RAW to be playing the RAW and that alone.

Much of the story of D&D is wrapped up in the planes. Little Erik Mona did not grow up loving the planes by accident or because the RAW of the time thrilled his little heart. The planes have been and are one of the most consistently cool and fascinating aspects of D&D and have permeated every edition. Many the player who has never encountered a demon prince, and DM who has never run one, still follows their developments. Why? Not because of the RAW. Because of their story or myth. And this story or myth has been largely perpetuated in the RAW. Until now.

What does depowering demons do? At best, as offered as explaination, it works for the RAW. For the story or myth? It does nothing. Worse actually. It undercuts the story and myth built up over decades. And worse yet it does so without explanation within the mythology.

I can actually sympathize with the depower fans from a RAW standpoint, to a point, but from a perspective of the collective D&D mythology, as I presently understand things, this is hack work.

 

[Coriat]

And people who had a chance to preview the book says it consist of 1/3 page and merely a few "points not to forget".

I even think such additional information is needed at all. This book shows their official stats, and if I want to advance I already know how to do that. I can add class levels (PHB) or more monster HD (MM), what's this tiny section really supposed to tell me that I don't already know?

[/quote]

Oh no... is this true? Can someone confirm this (or deny it... please deny it)? I was hoping for some cool, unique advancements like advancing a dragon's age category... I seriously hope it isn't some half-assed job of 'don't forget to increase the BAB when you add an outsider hit die'. I knew that already.

On another issue... well I hate to self-quote. But nobody from the 'other side' of the debate gave a response, and I am really interested to know.

What's so shoddy about a balor? A single balor has the power to devastate entire kingdoms of the mortal world if it goes unchecked. The folks who slay it will probably be remembered as heroes for generations. Or, a pit fiend can cast wish too. It's all a matter of how you handle it - just because there are more pit fiends out there doesn't mean that the defeat of a pit fiend on one world has to be less memorable for the inhabitants.

You don't like epic level campaigns, that's fine. That, to me, means that the 20th level party's defeat of the terrible Trismegistus, a balor who led an invading army of demons, is going to be the subject of the epic poems 2000 years down the line. I really don't see why the demon lords must be brought to the party's level when there are already perfectly fine fiendish threats for a 20th level party to face.

Now as Ripzerai pointed out, it seems to me that having the Demon Lords be lesser challenges than nonunique demons really takes some of the prestige out of defeating them. It just isn't as cool to brag about killing Juiblex to your college of wizards when another archwizard gets up and says,

Juiblex? Juiblex? Punk. I just killed a balor.

and everyone starts oohing and ahhing because that's a more difficult feat.

I could see making the demon lords CR 20-ish if that 'cr bracket' was unfilled. But with a demon already filling it, isn't it sort of redundant? There's already a badass demon to fight at level 20, and I don't see what's so bad about it that you need to depower 20 more to that level.

 

[Gold Roger]

What good does the mythology of tough demon princes when only ever the epic playing minority encounters them in combat? The demon princes are most likely a bit high on their power/CR ratio.

I remember killing demogorgon in the BG2 game. What for? Mostly the xp. Still, that guy was an awesome and unique opponent and when I came about him learning to play and master D&D I immediatly made a connection with the D&D mythos.

I'm a great fan of the D&D mythos. I use planescape and spelljammer in my homebrew games. But I want to play with the mythos.

The real greatness of the D&D mythos is not the nice pictures and stories, but the stories people tell each other how they appeared in each others game. In each of that stories the personalities of the monsters where the same as where their rough ability outlines and appearance. But player x met Grazzt bound in a archmages crypt and bargained with him at third level, player y killed him when he was in his "kill things and take their stuff phase" and got killed by him when he said the name trice and the DM was a jerk, while player z had him as BBEG in his great metaplot campaign where he fought his projection at level 20 to prevent him from invading his world and draining the great cave of souls.

Just like mindflayers can be alien meances, world invaders, elder evils, spelljammers, great overlords or just little weels in a greater scheeme and the Gith queen has propably died many times, in many different ways, the demon princes and their mythos is mutable.

And what is everybody hung up over the lowest CR archfiend anyway? Jubilex is a big chump of disgusting slime with few servants anyway, isn't he? Isn't that guy the joke of the abyss anyway?

Add in only one line, either "controls abyssal layers" or "away from home" and things get reasonable quickly. Getting hung up about one or two sentences missing (we're not even 100% sure they are missing) is a bit much.

 

[jasamcarl]

Yes, the epic level rules are in the DMG, not the PHB. As are prestige classes, magic items, and environment.

Since prestige classes are in nearly every supplement, I don't think it's a far stretch to think that some epic material should be as well.

Whether you like it or not, the RAW do not stop the game at 20th level.

Uh no. Magic items and prestige classes are in the dmg because they are conceptually suppossed to be part of the dm's responsibility in game; the dm hands out magic items and creates a fluff reason for prcs to be in place. Epic rules, on the other hand, tie directly into the core character creation and advancement that is typically left to players; the only reason its not is because it is in fact not a 'core' part of the experience.

While its true that prcs are given more support than epic material, i'd argue that is because they support the balanced level range that most players actually see, and not the (relativily) unbalanced level 20+ that no player expects to see. Magic items aren't even comparable, and you should know that. 'Optional' rules can be supported, but to expect any and all of them to be so is ridiculous.

 

[jasamcarl]

Without sufficient personal power there is none, that's right. Without the power to make others obey you, you won't be able to ever reach a place where you can start to offer political alliances.

Short term expendiency works, well, only a short term. The weak archfiends can't build empires on this that last for tens of thousand years.

Yet there is no system in the Abyss, it's one of the primordial places of chaos and evil.

There's only the system that you build and only as long as you can maintain it. You can't do either if you're lacking the power.

It's not merely a CE race, it's the concept of CE that has taken bodies. And yet there are a few entities that managed to build their fiefdoms and hold them since untold milenia

And not because all they could really offer was "Serve me and life a misserable life or be free and life a misserable life" but "Serve me or I destroy you"

Except, they do have the power to compel many, as indicated by the fact that their cr is higher than any other fiend in the the mm (assuming everything in the core rules is in this generic setting, an assumption which is irrelevant to most groups i bet). There is this thing called a snowball effect that doesn't require a phd in IR to understand, i.e. the timing of an alliance is important. If these fiends established an alliance early enough, it would grow on its own strength so as to overwhelm an inherently more powerful opposition that could not create that alliance. Do you want some historical examples.

And you obviously didn't understand my point earlier. If one powerful fiend can create coherence out of chaos, then there is not reason why a less powerful fiend can a more immediate hierarchy, which would then snowball down to the lower levels, deterring rebellion from those immediatly above. There is not need for an 'abstract' order, national loyalties or the like. This hierarchy would be beyond single human agency; a fully natural and immediate outcome of brutish, 'chaotic' tendencies.

 

[jasamcarl]

Oh no... is this true? Can someone confirm this (or deny it... please deny it)? I was hoping for some cool, unique advancements like advancing a dragon's age category... I seriously hope it isn't some half-assed job of 'don't forget to increase the BAB when you add an outsider hit die'. I knew that already.

On another issue... well I hate to self-quote. But nobody from the 'other side' of the debate gave a response, and I am really interested to know.



Now as Ripzerai pointed out, it seems to me that having the Demon Lords be lesser challenges than nonunique demons really takes some of the prestige out of defeating them. It just isn't as cool to brag about killing Juiblex to your college of wizards when another archwizard gets up and says,



and everyone starts oohing and ahhing because that's a more difficult feat.

I could see making the demon lords CR 20-ish if that 'cr bracket' was unfilled. But with a demon already filling it, isn't it sort of redundant? There's already a badass demon to fight at level 20, and I don't see what's so bad about it that you need to depower 20 more to that level.[/QUOTE]

I must have missed the 20+ CR core demons. And where is it stated that there are advanced balors or what not.

And I don't even know why i'm arguing over arbitrary interpreations of fluff, which is mostly irrelevant to most people's games. The fact is these mechanics are usable.