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Message: <blockquote data-quote="drnuncheon" data-source="post: 411087" data-attributes="member: 96">How do you provide epic level stats when epic levels go on up forever?  There's always going to be someone who will be upset because the demons/devils/whatever aren't powerful enough to challenge their ever-increasingly-leveled players.At least with the core books you know that 20th level is 'it'. (Except for those 26th level commoners running around metropoli according to the DMG!)I would say that a great wyrm red dragon ought to occupy roughly the same power niche as a demon lord.  They ought to be terrifying, unique opponents with their own name, personality, tactics, etc - just like a demon lord.  Players should be terrified when they think of fighting them - just like a demon lord.  If they're not, the DM ain't doing his job right.I find this whole debate fascinating because there are aparrently so many people who think that there's some kind of 'objective D&D reality' - UK tosses off bits about how 32nd level characters might be the toughest in the world, but not on the planes, for example - and then talks about Union from the ELH.The ELH, the planar cosmology - all of those things are tools.  They modify the defaults of D&D.  There's no way for WOTC to know which ones you're using - I for one will be using the ELH, but I don't intend to spend my money on D&Dg - so they can't assume you're using any of them.  It's the only rational way to do things.Is Graz'zt a terrifying opponent for 20th level characters?  At CR 24, he ought to be.  At CR 24 he could be the climactic encounter for an entire campaign that's started from first level, slowly uncovering his plots, getting closer and closer to the center as the PCs grow in power until they can finally confront the demon lord himself.  And he'll be a tough encounter - I mean, an encounter with an EL of Party Level+4 is one CR below "overpowering", as in "run or die".  And that's just Graz'zt alone.If you want to use Graz'zt as an opponent in a higher-level Epic game, then it behooves you to make him into an Epic opponent - you, not WOTC, just the same as if you wanted to make changes to any other monster to fit your specific campaign.  You can't expect Wizards to write things specifically for your game.  I think this has been said about six times now by different people, so I'm not sure why I'm trying to say it.You can say "they should have included two sets of stats", but why stop at 2?  Why not include stats so people can be challenged by Graz'zt when they're 50th level? Or 100th?  You're basically saying 'these aren't the stats I wanted' - well, you obviously have some idea of the stats you wanted, so use them.  We won't tell.  Honest.See, to provide Epic stats for the demon lords (without requiring the ELH) they'd have to reprint rules from the ELH.  And to provide divine stats, they'd have to reprint rules from D&Dg.  So now you have three sets of stats (regular, epic, and divine) and the rules to support them...and all of a sudden you're over the page count, and the book is looking less like the 'Book of Vile Darkness' and more like 'WOTC tries to do Legions of Hell'. Either the book becomes a $40 hardback (and doesn't sell as well) or you cut something.  What goes? How about the stuff that's redundant, reprinted, and dealing with non-core stuff?  Like...the duplicate demon lord stats, because like it or not, they're not the focus of the book.As for Graz'zt's power relative to other demon lords - and keeping in mind I don't have the BoVD yet - remember that CR reflects how tough a particular creature is for a party of 4 characters to beat.  The king of an entire country could be a terrifying and unbeatable foe because of the resources at his command - and yet he might be only a 5th level Aristocrat (CR 5).  So there may be other factors which keep Graz'zt on the level of Demogorgon and Orcus.  After all, I don't think that demon lords go out and have an Irish stand-down to determine things...J</blockquote>

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