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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Jacobs" data-source="post: 2859080" data-attributes="member: 23937">For what it's worth; my personal preference for demon lord stat blocks is in the 24–32 range (as they're presented in the Demonomicon articles in Dragon). In hindsight, it would have probably have been better to omit stat blocks for demon lords entirely from the book, but that would have done a great disservice to those DMs who want to use them as monsters to fight. Demon lords can serve as BBEGs of any CR or as undefeatable forces. The fact that they rule entire realms and layers on the Abyss tells me that they're tougher than the rank & file demons that otherwise dwell there (on up to and including balors), which is why I prefer to see their stats at a higher level.Nonetheless... the book's first purpose was to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, and that meant that we had to start the demon lord stat blocks at a baseline of about 20, since the vast majority of D&D players don't utilize the Epic level rules. Since space in the book was a concern, I wasn't able to do an exhaustive treatment of how to advance the demon lord statblocks from their baselines up to whatever level suits the needs of your campaign; the section that IS in the book makes it as clear as possible that you SHOULD use the statblocks given as something to build upon.I don't think that stat blocks for CR 20–23 demon lords is going to ruin them as viable villains in the D&D game, especially when the rest of the book makes it clear that they are the baddest of the bad on the Abyss (flavor-wise, at least). After all, the demon lords survived the whole "de-demoning" that D&D went through in the dark days of pre-Planescape 2nd Edition. And as GVDammerung put it so well several posts back: "Story is first. Rules are secondary." There's more flavor and story in Hordes of the Abyss than there is rules crunch—sure, the rules provide stats for relatively weak demon lords (although their actual stats are in fact rather tough; they're certainly no pushovers for a party of 20th level characters), but if you (like me) need stats for tougher demon lords, the tools are all there for you to build them to your exact needs. Barring that, keep an eye on Dragon for those Demonomicon articles (if you like your demon lords at CR 24–32, that is)—I'll keep writing them as long as the good editors at Dragon let me. Tome of Horrors is also an excelent resource if you want demon stat blocks that are even more powerful than that.My advice to those who are disapointed with the demon lord stat blocks in the book: use them as avatars for the demon lords when they wish to work their evils off-plane, and either use the tougher stat blocks from Book of Vile Darkness or the Demonomicon articles for them when they're encountered on the Abyss. That's what I'll be doing in my own campaigns, and it's how we'll likely be handling things in any demon lord-associated adventrues that will be appearing in Dungeon.</blockquote>

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