how to convert Fiend Lords (and other singular non-diety beings)?

[BOZ]

One important thing to consider, at least for archfiends, is how the HDs for ordinary fiends have changed. Perhaps this requires a bump in the HD for lords as well? Keep in mind, balors and pit fiends once had only 13 HD each.

Anyone with the BoED have comparative figures on how the celestial paragons stack up to the archfiends in terms of HD?

Fiend name – 3e HD – 3.5e HD (any beings not listed remain unchanged)

Demons:
Vrock – 8 – 10
Hezrou – 9 – 10
Glabrezu – 10 – 12
Nalfeshnee – 11 – 14
Marilith – 9 – 16
Balor – 13 – 20

Devils:
Osyluth – 5 – 10
Hellcat – 7 – 8
Erinyes – 6 – 9
Hamatula – 9 – 12
Corunugon – 11 – 15
Gelugon –12 – 14
Pit Fiend –13 – 18

 

[Pants]

General stuff:
After a quick look through the BoED, most of the Celestial Paragons had DR 25/evil and [insert material here]. However, epic was strangely not included in their DR. I think a nice baseline would be that all unique Archfiends have DR 20/epic and good and cold iron or silver. Maybe more powerful fiend lords (like Demogorgon, Orcus, Asmo) could have 25 instead.

I'd suggest you ignore the BoVD versions, especially since the lower demons and devils got such a boost in power. The Archfiends should also get a boost in power.

 

[BOZ]

that last part is what i was just saying. but that doesn't mean ignoring the BoVD archfiends is a good idea either...

 

[Garnfellow]

One important thing to consider, at least for archfiends, is how the HDs for ordinary fiends have changed. Perhaps this requires a bump in the HD for lords as well? Keep in mind, balors and pit fiends once had only 13 HD each.

Anyone with the BoED have comparative figures on how the celestial paragons stack up to the archfiends in terms of HD?

Boz,

We definitely seem to be thinking along the same lines. I broke these same numbers out myself this afternoon. I understand why the designers increased the HD for the fiends -- they wanted to make the tougher "core" fiends viable challenges for upper level, non-epic parties, and they wanted to spread the range of fiend HD across 20 HD rather than 13.

It makes a certain amount of game design sense to have the core rule fiends represent a fairly wide range of HD and CRs, and to have the toughest of the the tough fiends comperable in HD to the highest of high non-epic PCs in level.

But does a rising Stygian tide lift all boats? Do these changes imply that /all/ fiends across the board should have their HD increased? It will be interesting to see if Green Ronin pushes the HD up on all of their demons and devils in the Book of Fiends, or if WoTC will inflate the HD on a 3.5 goristroi demon.

I'm inclined to think that the increased HD does not need to be automically applied to all 3.5 fiends. Exceptions should be made, of course. If a 3.0 demon had 10 HD and was described as beating up on Mariliths every second Tuesday, then it would make sense when converting that demon to 3.5 to increase its abilities in line with the Marilith. But in the absence of good reasons, I would be inclined to keep the HD the same for non-epic fiends.

Now what does this imply for the epic fiends? I think that even with the increased HD given to the core fiends, a 39 HD upper limit still makes sense. So at the topmost levels, I think their current HD will be OK. It's the epic fiends at the lower end of the ladder -- say from 18-24 HD -- that could possibly use an increased HD. Probably the thing to do with those guys is just look at them on a case by case basis, using balors and pit fiends as the gold standard to determine whether or not to increase (or even decrease) HD.

 

[BOZ]

sounds good to me.

 

[Grazzt]

All of the demons and devils (including the unique ones) in the Tome of Horrors have been updated for 3.5. Some (not the lords or princes necessarily) will be making an appearance in a few upcoming NG products.

The others, well...they will all be making an appearance, but that...for now...is a surprise.

 

[Garnfellow]

Ability Scores

I just pulled this information out of my original spreadsheet. First I looked at all the BoVD fiends’ ability scores. I got an average score for each fiend, a sum of all their scores, and noted what ability increases they would have received due to HD (+1 ability score/4 HD). Then I sorted the results by HD. I also pulled out the min, average, and max score for each ability. Here are the results:

______________ | HD |Str |Dex |Con |Int |Wis |Cha | AVG_ | SUM |INC |
Martinet______ | 16 | 24 | 20 | 20 | 19 | 20 | 23 | 21.0 | 126 | +4 |
Glasya________ | 18 | 23 | 30 | 21 | 20 | 20 | 26 | 23.3 | 140 | +4 |
Amon__________ | 26 | 31 | 20 | 29 | 20 | 20 | 18 | 23.0 | 138 | +6 |
Juiblex_______ | 26 | 39 | 16 | 47 | 24 | 24 | 20 | 28.3 | 170 | +6 |
Geryon________ | 30 | 36 | 19 | 35 | 26 | 24 | 23 | 27.2 | 163 | +7 |
Pazuzu________ | 33 | 30 | 31 | 30 | 29 | 29 | 30 | 29.8 | 179 | +8 |
Yeenoghu______ | 33 | 37 | 28 | 32 | 26 | 25 | 25 | 28.8 | 173 | +8 |
Dispater______ | 34 | 39 | 16 | 37 | 31 | 24 | 31 | 29.7 | 178 | +8 |
Mammon________ | 34 | 36 | 17 | 35 | 30 | 31 | 27 | 29.3 | 176 | +8 |
Asmodeus______ | 35 | 40 | 23 | 30 | 30 | 34 | 30 | 31.2 | 187 | +8 |
Belial________ | 36 | 29 | 25 | 27 | 28 | 28 | 39 | 29.3 | 176 | +9 |
Graz'zt_______ | 36 | 26 | 30 | 28 | 35 | 22 | 39 | 30.0 | 180 | +9 |
Orcus_________ | 37 | 39 | 25 | 43 | 29 | 22 | 21 | 29.8 | 179 | +9 |
Baalzebub_____ | 38 | 41 | 15 | 36 | 30 | 29 | 27 | 29.7 | 178 | +9 |
Mephistopholes | 38 | 27 | 29 | 28 | 29 | 33 | 30 | 29.3 | 176 | +9 |
Demogorgon____ | 39 | 28 | 27 | 31 | 31 | 29 | 30 | 29.3 | 176 | +9 |

MIN___________ | __ | 23 | 15 | 20 | 19 | 20 | 18 |
AVG___________ | __ | 33 | 23 | 32 | 27 | 26 | 27 |
MAX___________ | __ | 41 | 31 | 47 | 35 | 34 | 39 |

If you look at the total points given to the fiends, you see two distinct groupings – basically, everyone with less than 30 HD, and everyone with more. The fiends with 31-39 HD have very similar ranges of ability scores. In this group Asmodeus is something of an outlier – he has much better ability scores on average than the other fiends, which somewhat compensates for his lack of HD (you don’t get to be archdevil without some inherent talent). If you pull out Asmodeus, the sum of all ability scores for fiends with 31-39 HD ranges from 173 to 180, or from only 165 to 171 if you pull out the bonuses from HD – a very tight band!

So the average ability score for a typical BoVD demon prince (before any ability increases) is 28.1, with 168.5 an average sum of all ability scores.

I took this info and developed a typical ability array for fiends from 31-39 HD, suitable for mid to high powered epic fiends. This ability array seems to be in the ballpark; just assign the scores to abilities, apply the bonuses from HD, and then adjust as necessary to fit the fiend’s concept.

Enough blather. Here’s my ability array for epic fiends: 35, 33, 30, 28, 23, 19.

 

[Shade]

Anyone with the BoED have comparative figures on how the celestial paragons stack up to the archfiends in terms of HD?

Archons:
Barachiel - 33 HD
Domiel - 30 HD
Erathaol - 28 HD
Pistis Sophia - 29 HD
Raziel - 36 HD
Sealtiel - 38 HD
Zaphkiel - 35 HD

Guardinals:
Talisid - 40 HD
Sathia - 34 HD
Manath - 26 HD
Vhara - 32 HD
Kharash - 33 HD
Bharrai - 31 HD

Eladrins:
Morwel - 39 HD
Faerinaal - 32 HD
Gwynharwyf - 26 HD

 

[BOZ]

There are times when knowing your math is a really great thing, and I’m glad to have someone around who can crunch numbers better than I can. so that array is what we would add ability adjustments to for high HD? I can work with that. what array would we use for those with less than 31 HD?

All of the demons and devils (including the unique ones) in the Tome of Horrors have been updated for 3.5. Some (not the lords or princes necessarily) will be making an appearance in a few upcoming NG products.

The others, well...they will all be making an appearance, but that...for now...is a surprise.

how long till we see them? they would make useful examples for what we're doing here, in fact they'd be better than the BoVD because they're 3.5.

 

[BOZ]

hmm, if talisid is 40 HD, then that might call for a slight bumping in HD for archfiends. although i doubt i'll find anyone more powerful than asmodeus to convert... (but you never know)