The Book of Vile Darkness - it is mine, review within

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Again, it goes back to, "This book wasn't written with someone telepathically scanning my mind. It wasn't to my precise specifications--damn them!"

No it's people who are giving thier opinions and reasons why this book may or may not meet thier groups needs. Isn't that the purpose of this BB? You don't seem to like critical posts very much, "What did you think they were going to read your mind?" seems to be a response you like to give.

 

[RobNJ]

I don't have any argument with that logic.

But that is simply a basis for WHY they are not compatible.

I would prefer that they were compatible. CR24 is not an OVERWHELMING challenge to L20 chars. IMO, Grazz'zt should be.

Let's take this back a bit: do you think there's a way for Grazz'zt to be challenging to both 20th level characters and 32nd level characters?

I think the answer is obviously not.

So the only thing I can guess is that you're advocating that they rewrite the Epic Level Handbook or the core rules to deal with this one complaint?

 

[BryonD]

Well, basically you have to make one of three choices about your campaign world.

1) Epic-level characters don't exist, and demon lords are extremely powerful. CR 28 sounds good for this.

2) Epic-level characters exist, and the demon lords are extremely powerful. Quasi-divine sounds good here.

3) Epic-level characters exist, and while the demon lords are powerful, there are much more powerful things out there. CR 28 works here.

It seems pretty easy to pick one of the three and adjust the demon lord stats appropriately. The default assumption is #1, which is the only safe one to assume unless you want to require the use of the ELH.

That is a fine.

All I asked was "Is it unreasonable then to expect the two books to at least be compatible?"

To which the reply came (not from you or RobNJ) that they were. Obviously, that is not really correct.

The two of you have provided reasonable positions for why perhaps they should not be.

As I said in my reply to Rob, I think that some of these entities should be beyond "mortal" heroes. But I will agree that this is simply a point of view, and has nothing fundamentally correct about it.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Someone earlier mentioned that the archfiends in the BoVD were written with epic level players in mind. Is this true? How can someone prove this?

"Epic" means >20th level. All of the archfiends are above CR 20, and thus suited for epic characters.

 

[RobNJ]

No it's people who are giving thier opinions and reasons why this book may or may not meet thier groups needs. Isn't that the purpose of this BB? You don't seem to like critical posts very much, "What did you think they were going to read your mind?" seems to be a response you like to give.

It's no more my only response to things than, "3E is bad at this," is yours. I happen to be thoroughly fed up with people acting as though Wizards did something wrong when they merely don't like what Wizards did for a reason of personal taste. If you frame your comments in the context of personal taste, rather than trying to argue that Wizards made a mistake here, and did something objectively bad, then you'd not hear me complaining, I think.

 

[Wolfen Priest]

When someone says "I'm disgusted with the way WotC presented the arch-demons in the BoVD, but I always insist on using 'offical' WotC stats, without variation" is a lot like saying, "All I ever eat when I go out for dinner is steak, but this restaurant always serves my steak forzen and raw; what gives?"

Simply (a) order something else (i.e., change the given stats and 'break' your rule), or (b) go to another restaurant/eat at home (i.e., don't even buy the book).

 

[BryonD]

Let's take this back a bit: do you think there's a way for Grazz'zt to be challenging to both 20th level characters and 32nd level characters?

I think the answer is obviously not.

So the only thing I can guess is that you're advocating that they rewrite the Epic Level Handbook or the core rules to deal with this one complaint?

That would be a rather gross extrapolation.

I do not think Grazz'zt should be challenging to L20 characters.

But all I am really saying is that if he is challenging to L20 chars in one book and would probably be challenging to much higher characters if presented in another book, then those two books are not compatible.

Is it a major problem that two official (non-core) D&D books are not compatible? No, of course not.

Is it interesting and worthy of questioning? I think so.

 

[RobNJ]

That would be a rather gross extrapolation.

It was intended to be, but I didn't understand your point at the time. You were responding to someone who felt the same creature ought to be challenging to 2 characters that are 12 levels apart. This is clearly off, even without the huge leap up from core levels to epic levels, and I don't know how anyone (not you, since we appear to share an opinion on this) could argue it.

 

[Henry]

I am still unclear why one person should think Grazz't to be any greater or weaker in power than any other demon lord or devil prince.

In all the official stuff from years gone by, Grazz't was not as powerful as Demogorgon, and certainly was about as powerful as Fraz-Urb Luu (that demon-baboon prince) Grazz't was not written as insanely physically powerful; Grazz't was instead a prince of deception.

Who were the insanely powerful ones? Orcus and Demogorgon. These two were to each other what Asmodeus and Mephistopheles were to each other - the head Bottom-Feeders in the Pond of Evil.

The use of one product's rules in another is a different discussion entirely - suffice it to say that WotC's official stance is to NEVER assume that a gamer has one certain product, and do not make content from another book dependent on content the gamer may not have. I for one prefer this policy, though I understand others do not. In my opinion, it is far better to add Epic levels or Divine ranks to the demons, than to assume that all gamers want it that way.

This is a major sticking point: WotC's and Monte Cook's vision is one of many; there are other ways to portray the Demon Princes and Devils, and not all people will be satisfied with the vision that WotC presents.

--------------------------
On a side note:
In fact, not to offend Greymarch or any others in any way, but I think it would be a really good discussion topic, to discuss why some gaming groups demand official stats from the parent company, while some groups do not. Such a discussion would also tie in with why some gamers feel that some products are unnecessary, such as rules for vile actions, rules for naval and mass combat, rules for playing out diplomacy, etc. What's official, and why do we care? (or not care?)

After all, this topic of "official rules" sometimes splits the gaming community right down the middle! An honest yet peaceable discussion might be very helpful in understanding.

 

[The Serge]

It's not concstructive criticism. The book is written. There's no way you can help with the construction.

Furthermore, what you're in essence saying is, "This is how I wanted it to be," but that's not only not constructive criticism, it's not valid criticism. If there had been some error, or problem with the book, it might be valid to say, "They made a mistake here." Your complaints are with tone and preference and flavor, about creative decisions that were made that may be only relevent in specific to the campaign or campaigns you happen to run. It has no applicability to the wider world.

It is not constructive, helpful, useful or enlightening to know that you would've liked divine archfiends. Furthermore, by all accounts, the BoVD talks about making these characters divine, so what's there to complain about?

They chose to go a way you do not prefer. What kind of constructive criticism can possibly be applied to this situation? "Next time, do it more the way I would've liked it"?

Indeed the book is written. Quite a few books have been written and most, if not all, of them have errata based upon things people have come across. A few even include variant optional rules for gamers. I suspect that constructive criticism played a role.

As for whether it has application to the greater world or not, it could be argued that most of the comments on this topic have no greater application. However, that's irrelevent; if people want to share their positions and offer advice for potential (however unlikely) future adjustments, what's wrong with that?

With regards to discussions about making them divine, I've already conceded that being the case... I just don't think that the decision to do this, from what I've seen and heard thus far, goes far enough.

And a word on criticism. Constructive criticism can be applied to a completed task. Writers learn from this form of criticism all the time, and use it for future projects... some of which are related to the project to which the criticism initially referred. Further, criticism, by its nature, is always going to be somewhat subjective as well as objective when it comes to crafts or artistic endeavours. There's no escaping that. Just a note.