gizmo33 said:
What I'm talking about are favorable circumstances.
That's pretty vague. Do you have an example of the sort of "circumstances" that could allow a number of demons to gain stations well above their ability level, and an entire class of other demons to stay below theirs? Being born rich and going to good colleges aren't going to help demons much.
By that reasoning you could say that high intelligence must mean that you have lots of gold.
I think you have a different definition of "reasoning" than I do.
What you're suggesting is that political power stems from nothing other than personal ability.
No, I'm saying that political
ability comes from personal ability.
I suppose that would mean that if I were as strong and smart as one of the Kennedys that I would have the same status in society.
No, it means that Joseph Kennedy got his son elected President because he was ruthless, a clever businessman, and had great networking skills, and because his son was charismatic and a good speaker, with the foresight to have a respectable book ghostwritten for him.
If you're saying that Yeenoghu's success is due more to having smart campaign managers than any charisma or skill of his own, one must wonder what his campaign managers need him for, if they're so smart and their strength and hit dice don't matter. This is the
Abyss we're talking about, a place where murdering your boss to get ahead is perfectly acceptable.
Analogies with real world aren't going to apply.
Were Yeenoghu able to reduce his followers to mere "passive-aggressive", he'd probably wonder what's wrong with them.
No, "passive-aggressive" is the perfect phrase to describe what I was talking about, and it has nothing to do with "inner children."
A balor says to a marilith, "Hey, what are we following this mook around for? He's little more than a beast, not a sophisticated sort like us."
The marilith says, "You're right. Let's stop molesting nuns and eating babies for a bit, go round up a bunch of allies, and confront him."
They go to Yeenoghu's throne, and they're all Hostile. Yeenoghu rolls an intimidate check. He succeeds, and they're all reduced to Unfriendly. They decide not to attack him, but things are still tense.
They leave, and their reactions automatically go back to Hostile. That's how the skill works. So they go out and, rather than confront the intimidating demon prince, they set fire to his palace and slaughter his remaining allies elsewhere.
That's passive-aggressive, by definition. No inner-children to be seen, and if Yeenoghu thinks something's wrong with them he's too dead to say so.
That's why Intimidate isn't a very good skill for use in politics, and
that's why "passive-aggressive" is the perfect way to describe what happens to enemies who you use it against. They're passive, because they're Intimidated. They're aggressive, because the side-effect of the skill is it leaves them with a grudge.
To me - having seen characters with high stats fail, and low stats succeed due to choices and circumstances both in and out of their control, I believe there is a lot more to success.
Damn straight there is, but those with higher skills are going to be more successful
consistently than those who don't. Yeenoghu's not going to be an Abyssal lord for any length of time, and silly Kennedy analogies aren't going to change this (are you talking about politics in the Abyss or the United States?). Even if Yeenoghu's dad is going to
eat him as soon as help him unless he gets a few more ranks in diplomacy, bootlegger or no.
How, then, does an Abyssal lord manage to rule for more than a few years at a time? By having the skills and prowess to back up their rhetoric. An unadvanced balor has a superior combination of these qualities than Yeenoghu does; I think he'd make a very effective bodyguard for one, but campaign-ending ubervillain? No.
There's nothing to suggest (and the flavor text you quote from the 1E MM suggests otherwise) that Balors were ever on equal footing with Yeenoghu to the extent that it would come down to dice rolls in some sort of fair contest.
The flavor text says that balors are charismatic, relatively disciplined, and prone to taking charge, which was my point. In 1e, Yeenoghu had only one advantage over them: he was physically a lot more powerful (in fact, he was a lesser deity). This doesn't mean he's going to have to constantly fight every demon in the Abyss to prove that (silly); it just means that he's going to have to be able to prove his prowess to those around him.
Continuously. The argument that he can use alliances and fear to do the same thing fails with the current stats, where he lacks both the prowess or the skills to do so.
Do I agree with your basic point, which is that a demon can control demons of equal power? Sure, theoretically. Could this possibly work with the current stat blocks, and the current group of contenders (Yeenoghu and balor)? Absolutely not, and it's pointless to pretend otherwise.
I'm saying stats aren't the ONLY thing that matters. Maybe once every thousand years Yeenoghu battles it out with a Balor just to show who's boss. Is it possible that he'd lose? Well, yea, but one assumes that because he's showing up in the rules that he hasn't so far. But it seems that luck (and were not talking great amounts of luck here) is something that some folks are just loathe to apply as a reason for success.
