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

[Shade]

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)

Of course, he does have to deal with both Asmodeus and Demogorgon.

 

[Garnfellow]

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?

The problem with establishing an ability array for lesser epic fiends is the limited data -- there are only 5 BoVD fiends in this category, and two of them (Juiblex and Geryon) are problematic. Juiblex's scores are more in line with those of a greater prince, so despite his 26 HD I'd toss his scores from consideration. Geryon -- also at 26 HD -- has ability scores well below Juibilex's, but well above the next fiend (Glasya). One might argue that this is appropriate given his status as a deposed ruler of Hell, so I'd pull him out of consideration as well.

So that leaves just Martinet, Glasya, and Amon. Not a lot of data, but remember that these arrays are really just designed to be a short cut -- a handy place to begin when converting monsters. The average ability score for these three (without adjustments for HD) is 22.

A nice ability array to use for these lesser epic fiends, then might be: 27, 25, 23, 21, 19, 17. Assign this array before applying ability score bonuses from HD.

 

[Garnfellow]

Archons:
Barachiel - 33 HD
Domiel - 30 HD

Thanks, Shade -- that was extremely helpful. I'm glad to see that there's reasonable consistency between the BoED and the BoVD.

The HD ranges between the two books are certainly comparable: the celestials have a lower limit of 26 HD and an upper limit of 40 HD.

Go WotC! Design continuity is a good thing.

 

[Shade]

Thanks, Shade -- that was extremely helpful. I'm glad to see that there's reasonable consistency between the BoED and the BoVD.

The HD ranges between the two books are certainly comparable: the celestials have a lower limit of 26 HD and an upper limit of 40 HD.

Go WotC! Design continuity is a good thing.

I'm glad to help out. It is nice to see consistency.

 

[Leopold]

so when do we start? who's our first victem?

 

[Garnfellow]

Miniatures Handbook and 3.5 Insights

I had a chance to look at the new Miniatures Handbook over the weekend, which contains several scaled down versions of the BoVD archfiends, like "Aspect of Orcus," "Aspect of Asmodeus," etc. A few quick (and unconfirmed) notes:

The aspects generally range in CR from around 9 to 11, with HD usually equal to the CR. Virtually all spell-like abilities have been stripped out, so these things are really just powerful brute combatants. Ability scores for the various Aspects appear to be slightly more than half the values for the "real" archfiends. What's really interesting is the damage reduction on these critters: most of them have something like DR 5/epic.

Based on this, the info we have on the celestial creatures from BoED (with DR/evil and special material), and the info from the 3.5 MM, I suspect that damage reduction for archfiends is still an open question even among WoTC designers. DR 20+/epic and good and special material seems a little much to me.

 

[Pants]

Question:
When I was planning on doing a personal conversion of Bel, I ran into a couple of problems. First off, I wondered whether Bel should be THE Pit Fiend, as in a fully advanced Pit Fiend plus some snazzy powers. Then I thought, really how many fully advanced Pit Fiends are there? There can't be many, if any at all, since such a powerful creature should at least be as tough, if not stronger than the Dukes.
And if Bel was to be a baseline (one of the weakest Archdevils presumably), then the other Archdevils should have above 54 HD, right?

 

[Garnfellow]

Question:
When I was planning on doing a personal conversion of Bel, I ran into a couple of problems. First off, I wondered whether Bel should be THE Pit Fiend, as in a fully advanced Pit Fiend plus some snazzy powers. Then I thought, really how many fully advanced Pit Fiends are there? There can't be many, if any at all, since such a powerful creature should at least be as tough, if not stronger than the Dukes.
And if Bel was to be a baseline (one of the weakest Archdevils presumably), then the other Archdevils should have above 54 HD, right?

This is a pretty tough question with no easy answer -- in some ways it seems like we have to throw out either the BoVD stats or the 3.5 advancement lines.

This very issue was also relevant in 3.0, but to a lesser degree. A 3.0 balor, for instance, had a base HD of 13 and could advance up to a maximum of 39 HD (note that this is also our upper limit for the BoVD arch-fiends.) Even at this point it was pretty easy to conceive of an advanced balor with just 10 levels in a character class as being on par if not outright superior to the archfiends.

In 3.5, as you note, the situation is even more problematic: the balor’s base HD was increased to 20, and the advancement line allows balors to increase to a full 60 HD! Even a standard 3.5 balor could give a BoVD archfiend trouble—just look at the balor’s new ability scores.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I understand why the 3.5 designers wanted to give the core fiends a boost in power. But in some respects I think they went a little overboard. I’m not sure it makes much sense to allow most fiends to advance beyond twice their HD. Outsider levels, of course, bring a fighter’s BAB, good saves, a gajillion skill points, and increase the DCs on all their supernatural abilities. But while additional outsider levels increase existing capacities pretty well, they don’t add much in the way of new capabilities. I would guess that adding more than 20 additional levels of outsider would be pretty boring*. Levels in prestige or character classes will at least add some spice to the mix.

So what does this mean for converting archfiends? Well, on one hand you can look at the 3.5 balor and say that all of the BoVD archfiends should get a commensurate power boost to keep them in line—we could reset their upper HD limit to 60 and add an additional +8 to all their ability scores. (Note that this would make their ability scores better than most gods as described in Deities and Demigods.)

On the other hand, it appears that the celestial paragons in BoED were clearly designed with the BoVD rather than 3.5 core fiends in mind. This would suggest a much more modest power boost for our archfiends.

My personal impulse would be to avoid or at least moderate further increases in power among the fiends, but that's really just an opinion.

* I once, as an exercise in insanity, advanced a nightwalker all the way to its 3.0 limit of 63 HD, and then added 20 levels of wizard. Just to see how crazy it would look.

Now granted, undead class levels are much less attractive than outsider class levels, but still -- the 42 extra undead levels really weren't worth it. Once your DCs and Skill bonuses are all above 40, who cares if they get any higher?

And interestingly enough, in 3.5 the nightwalker's advancement is capped at only twice its base HD

 

[Pants]

Well, in 3.0 Bel had twice as many HD as a normal Pit Fiend. Maybe that could be a starting point...

 

[BOZ]

ultimately, what it comes down to is that there is no exact way to do figure this out. the best we can hope for is a pattern that is suitable enough to use.