PDA

View Full Version : D&D question: How powerful should Demon Lords and Archdevils be?



supergoji18
2016-04-12, 04:11 PM
I've taken an interest in Demon Lords and Archdevils lately, and I wonder how powerful the forums think they should be.

According to Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells, page 141 under the section "Making Epic Archdevils," an Archdevil is "as close to a god as a creature can be without actually being one." That would put them at a significantly higher power level than almost any other creature in the game, baring the Demon Lords which are supposed to be roughly equal in terms of individual power, though far from being equal when it comes to influence and control of their realm (at least as far as I know).

As far as the game statistics go, they are certainly powerful, but it seems like they would be easy to beat compared to what the lore makes them out to be. I imagine the undisputed ruler of an entire layer of hell or the abyss being an obscenely powerful being that could wade through armies worth of their own kind before beginning to feel any form of exhaustion. But they seem to be just beefed up versions of other demons with more spells. This is especially true with the 5e version of the Demon Lords in my opinion. Most of them could, even at their full power, be taken down by a party of level 15 to 20 adventurers. They have relatively low hit points for their supposed CR, and a lot of people by that point have ways of bypassing their resistances and immunities. I feel that at full power, a Demon Lord and Archdevil should be so overwhelmingly powerful that even a party of epic level characters should be hard pressed to defeat them.

What do you think? How powerful should these mighty beings be as far as game mechanics go? About what level should a typical adventuring party be before they should even think of fighting them?

TheFamilarRaven
2016-04-12, 05:03 PM
I think as a general rule... Things become much less scary once you can see the stats. Therefore, (since in my setting they do act like deities) I leave my arch-fiends statless

But if you wanna stat them up, as a start, I would at least make them more powerful than a great wyrm dragon (barring prismatic, force, etc). Also, give them a damn theme for crying out load! They should be unique among their kind, not just Devils/Demons with class levels.

Also, don't discount the fact that these are very smart beings. It's easy to imagine a group of level 15-20 adventurers beating Mephistopheles into the dirt if you just put them in an arena. But in a game in which you plan on the PC's encountering arch-fiends, you have to consider the fact that the arch-fiends know of the PC's, and will take steps to thwart them. An Arch-fiend would have access to hordes of minions and wealth, and given enough time could make it nigh impossible for the PC's to even get to them, let alone beat him. Imagine the paranoia of a 20th level wizard. Now scale that by 100 and you have an arch-devil. They have contingencies for their contingencies' contingencies. They're not so prideful that they wouldn't retreat if their life depended on it. They're ruthless, spiteful, and, most probably, immortal.

martixy
2016-04-12, 05:16 PM
Well, first of all, the way I see it, they have plenty of built-in plot armor.
Not to mention resources the PCs can only dream of without cheese.

And second, depends on the expected campaign power level. For demon lords I tend to use the versions from the Demonomicon of Iggwilv, which are usually 10 or so CR higher than the ones from the Fiendish Codex.

BWR
2016-04-12, 06:23 PM
How powerful do you want them?
That's how powerful they should be.
Pre 2e they were powerful but still perfectly killable by high-level parties. Gods too were stat'ed and not too impressively so by today's standards. In 2e they were for the most part left unstat'ed, like gods, because the general game philosophy was that PCs weren't going to get in direct physical confrontation with such powerful beings and if they did they would lose. That's generally how I prefer it, but different settings and different campaigns have different goals.

Icewraith
2016-04-12, 07:12 PM
Considering the rules for multi-stage solo encounters and legendary abilities, if you think a demon lord is a pushover and your players are familiar with the usual stats, they get to where they think the demon lord should be about dead and instead they get a "THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM!"

Belac93
2016-04-12, 07:15 PM
Powerful. Of course it all depends on the demon, but your players want to pick a fight with Glasya or (gods forbid), Asmodeus? They should be prepared to all be dominated and made to fight, or to be wading through a literal army of pit fiends. They are fighting the closest they can to gods. They should feel like that is what happening.

Thrudd
2016-04-12, 07:16 PM
I'd say, they should be a difficult challenge for the highest level of characters. Stats alone don't necessarily convey this completely, it is their access to the vast resources of their abyssal realms, summoning very powerful minions as well as many powerful spells and spell-like abilities that make them such dangerous adversaries.

Kane0
2016-04-12, 09:52 PM
Well if you have greater and lesser deities, demon lords and archdevils should be equivalent to demi/quasi/pseudo deities, and powers in their own right.
If you want to translate that they would be as personally powerful as say an aspect of a greater god, or the avatar of a lesser.

But that's just raw stats. One of these are more than a bundle of HP to whittle away, each one wields incredible magics and possess artifact level items on top of the immense political power they hold and the armies of minions they command. Each one should be easily capable of taking out balors/pit fiends (otherwise called 'rivals') on a regular basis, even if put at a disadvantage. Solars should give pause and carefully consider attacking them even if they have the perfect opportunity to strike. Other powers should treat them as equals or at very least give grudging respect. A greater god or collection of lesser deities could probably expend some considerable resources to defeat them, but doing so would obviously require enough attention and power (either personal or in their forces) to consider themselves vulnerable while they do so. Remember the D&D gods are nowhere near perfect, just incredibly powerful.

Also the average party of 4-5 level 20s is already legendary, they are literally at the peak of what a mortal can achieve before they move on to becoming powers themselves. You're talking herculean individuals, not just any master of their chosen field.

Lhyonnaes
2016-04-13, 12:59 AM
Well, as some people have said, it depends ultimately on the genre of your game.

Some people think that they're something that max or near-max level PCs should be able to roll in and beat up. Some people think that they're good final boss material. Some people think that PCs have no business ever coming face-to-face with one and surviving.

Published statblocks here are kind of irrelevant. The question you need to ask is how powerful feels right in the setting and the story that you're running. Some of this might also depend on edition, but it doesn't necessarily have to. There isn't really one right answer here.

goto124
2016-04-13, 01:01 AM
One of these are more than a bundle of HP to whittle away, each one wields incredible magics and possess artifact level items on top of the immense political power they hold and the armies of minions they command.

I've always figured that's how leaders protect themselves - they should be deep down in the deepest levels of their own personal Hell, filled with the most dangerous monsters and terrain an entire plane could contain.

Like how RL leaders protect themselves.

Traab
2016-04-13, 01:06 AM
I read a fanfiction that I think applies here. The basic gist of it was, the adventure party had to invade the hell lords realm, a place that he basically created, where everything down to and including each blade of grass, is his to command, and its all attacking you. First they have to FIND the demon lord, by wading shoulder deep through vast armies of his minions, all the while he is taking pot shots at the group with long range magic. Everything from direct attacks to illusions, to fear spells, to turning the environment against them. For example, they were flying and he was constantly trying to create storms that would force them to land. Luckily a party member was able to combat the weather control. So you havent even reached the demon lord and its already draining them of spells and protections.

There is no stopping, there is no rest, its a never ending battle until they can reach the demon lords castle. So a massive war of attrition is taking place. Then they finally manage to fight the demon lord and they realize he is able to constantly regenerate any damage he takes nearly instantly because he can use his connection to the realm to drain power back into himself. So they get tired, he doesnt. In the end it took overwhelming power, after finding a way to sever his connection to the plane so he couldnt use its magic to heal himself. And even then they werent able to kill him, just cripple him to the point where they could force him into a bargain and leave without getting killed.

So really thats how I think it would go. A sprint for the big bad while fighting a massive army of demons that will never stop coming, not let you rest, and even if you COULD the demon lord has such total control over the environment, that the ground you sit on gets turned into a mountain sized golem ready to swallow you whole. The only path to victory is a blitzkrieg straight to the boss and hope you have enough power to take him out before you get overwhelmed.

The Insanity
2016-04-13, 02:12 AM
Gods. bnxnjsghjs

Mr Beer
2016-04-13, 03:30 AM
I rate them as gods. In their own realm, they cannot reasonably be defeated by mortals via brute force.

hamlet
2016-04-13, 08:21 AM
Depends on the game, campaign, system, etc.

But, for the most part, I'm on board with one of two methods.

1) The AD&D 2ed method. These beings are, along with the gods a status to which they aspire, are so far above PC's as to be utterly pointless to stat out for a direct confrontation. They are as far above the PC's as the PC's are above a nuisance flea. Confronting them in combat is meaningless in terms of campaign and story since the statline would simply read "you lose."

2) The AD&D 1ed/D&D3.x method. They are extremely personally powerful and, if you can get them utterly alone, completely defeatable. However, the bulk of their power rests not in their own innate power, but in the vast array of power they wield politically/socially. A party that dreams of taking on Asmodeus isn't just taking on a particularly powerful devil. They are taking him on. His immediate retainers (who happen to be the other Lords of Nine). The Thirteen (13 Pit Fiend generals who essentially run the nitty gritty of the Blood War). The Horde of devils occupying his palace. The other hordes of devils occupying his layer. Any magical artifacts that he might posses (conceivably anything and everything shy of a holy avenger). The assembled forces of all of the Lords of Nine and all their resources as well (for, surely, they would all unite to repel a direct attempt on Asmoedus' life barring a backstabbing betrayal at some point, but who would permit some upstart mortal to get away with that?). Essentially, the sum total of all that Hell has to offer. The PC's quite literally do not stand a chance without some fantastic form of Plot.

Preference? Neither, really, but if I had to pick one, it'd be the later. I like the option of giving the players a shot at success, even if what they're doing is fantastically, epically stupid.

ExLibrisMortis
2016-04-13, 08:54 AM
[...] if I had to pick one, it'd be the later. I like the option of giving the players a shot at success, even if what they're doing is fantastically, epically stupid.
This.

In 3.5 terms, I think the lords of the Abyss and the dukes of Hell should be built like level 20 high-OP PCs, with n hit dice of outsider on top, which also count as ½ class level for relevant calculations (caster level, initiator level, effective rogue level to flank people with Uncanny Dodge, you name it). This is just a mechanical way of showing that they are very, very powerful beings, both as species (unique, with n RHD), and as character (20 class levels), and they have eons of in-character optimization and practice behind them, but they live and die by the same rules as the PCs.

Deities, on the other hand, have a portfolio and worshipers. I wouldn't allow a deity to be destroyed without also destroying the portfolio or the worshipers, for example, by creating a more successful god with the same portfolio, or by getting a deity to fight them directly. Divine power is qualitatively of a different kind than any mortal power (that's why Asmodeus is not a god, in my view). The best a non-deity can hope for is the imprisonment of a deity, and even that only with full-blown epic magic and a whole bucket of 'distracting the deity so they don't stop us before the ritual ends'.

Darth Ultron
2016-04-13, 07:43 PM
What do you think? How powerful should these mighty beings be as far as game mechanics go? About what level should a typical adventuring party be before they should even think of fighting them?

I like them to be all powerful beyond anything known or unknown. The Pc's have no chance unless they are all greater gods/deities themselves.

Now this is not to say they can't stop plans or plots, just that they can't kill the Arch Lords. And there are some plots were a ''band of hardy adventurers'' can kill one, but it won't be in a ''crazy dice roll of combat''.

A Demon Lord/Arch Devil should have great power far beyond what can be easily described in game mechanics. Just the simple fact that they have existed for 10,000 years or more can give them a huge amount of power. Think like they could take 100 years off to make some custom magic items. Or even just 20 years to study something. Or even just a whole year to do something.

Âmesang
2016-04-14, 10:14 AM
As some sort of comparison…

I recall Bel, the weakest of the Nine, as being a slightly-more advanced pit fiend, which tops out at CR 39.
Orcus is somewhat balor-like, and an advanced balor tops out at CR 41.
Advanced infernals top out at CR 44.
Advanced solar angels top out at CR 46.

Iuz, son of Graz'zt and Iggwilv, is an outsider 20/cleric 20/assassin 10 rank 3 demigod (DRAGON #294). No Challenge Rating, but… should he really be stronger than his father? Granted, he's a demigod, and I'm not sure if archdevils and demon princes would surpass greater deities (except when within their home planes).

So I suppose if it were me… CR 46-50 minimum, gradually approaching 60+ for the most powerful fiends? Book of Vile Darkness suggests the application of single-digit divine ranks, but considering Graz'zt operates three layers of the Abyss I can imagine he, and certainly Asmodeous, being more powerful at home.


"THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM!"
"ARRGH! I HATE FILING TAXES!" (http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=335)

Incanur
2016-04-14, 11:12 AM
If you extrapolate based on how powerful deities can be under 3.5 epic rules, accepting the principle that demon lords and archdevils are as powerful as deities or nearly so, then they should be much more powerful than any existing states that I've seen. The salient divine ability Alter Reality alone makes 3.x deities absurdly powerful if properly (ab)used. It gets even sillier with epic spells. For example, give a deity full caster levels and have them use Alter Reality to mimic simulacrum repeatedly, then have the simulacra donate 9th-level (or higher) slots to epic spells.

So 3.x deities approach rule-zero levels of power according to the RAW, despite how their stats look on first glance. You just have to optimize, as with anything else.

Personally, in my version of Forgotten Realms, deities and the mightiest archfiends resemble averagish-showing top-tier comics characters like Thor or Superman. A greater deities basic attack is equivalent to a small nuclear bomb, capable of mostly destroying a city.

Lord Ao, by contrast, is akin to a full-potential (CBR) comics top-tier character, able to destroy planets at a whim.

MrStabby
2016-04-14, 04:15 PM
Pretty powerful, but circumstantially of immense power.

I see them as malevolent - scheming and never ever passive. You dont stroll into the hells and kill one of these things. They know you are coming, they don't just wait, they attack when you are exhausted, in your sleep, out of spells... Their power in their own domain is even more powerful, able to turn their environment against you - if you want to defeat them you have to wrest their domain from them whilst they are out to specifically ruin your day.

Segev
2016-04-14, 04:39 PM
Asmodeus - especially in the heart of his power - should be like facing Darkseid when he finally gained the Anti-Life Equation. (https://modernmythologies.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/power_of_the_anti-life_equation.jpg) Every soul is his. Everything there is built from a soul he owns. There is no will save his, for his will is Law and and Evil is his will.

To even enter his domain without giving your soul to him is a violation of the Law, and Law does not permit violation, not in his realm.

All freedom is an illusion, all hope delusion: Asmodeus is the ultimate expression of the Tyrant, and none can out-think him, for every thought they have is his thought to examine, to have, to alter, to insert. He has already thought of all of your plans, and his plans account for them. You only succeed if it furthers his aims, and you defeat him only by furthering his plans even more.

Black Window
2016-04-14, 05:10 PM
In my personal opinion, and speaking purely in terms of 3.x D&D, on the one hand a demon lord or archdevil needs, at the very least, to be noticeably more powerful than a Balor or Pit Fiend to merit such status -but not necessarily by a lot, because a great deal of their power is metaphysical and political. And on the other hand, the Epic Level Handbook is utter rubbish, and anything that isn't at least remotely defeatable in a straight fight by a party of characters who have reached the highest level they can get to is a waste of space in the game. So if the setting has 20th level characters in it, the demon lords and archdevils (and gods, if they can be fought which I think should be possible) should range from CR 21 at the low end to CR 27 at the absolute high end -but as noted, no-one ever said you'd be able to get into a straight fight with them, any more than you can just walk up to Obama or Putin and tell them to put up their dukes. (Except far more so since Putin, Obama and their respective elite security personel aren't CR 20+ immortal supergeniuses with reality-altering magic powers.)

Having said that, Challenge Ratings above 20 get very tricky to calibrate, even ignoring all the difficulties with estimating CR which crop up well before that. Is a Solar really the same EL as two Titans? A Great Gold Wyrm as dangerous as four Solars? I doubt it. Personally I prefer to stop my campaigns around level 15-16, where things are a bit more coherent, and make gods and archfiends CR 18-20 since that gives me a lot more benchmarks to work with, and really more than enough power compared to a setting mostly populated by beings of CR 1-5. (Heck, Miracle straight-up is a 9th level spell.)

Wide-ranging godlike abilities like granting spells to clerics, creating planar realms, responding to prayers and perceiving things related to their portfolio don't really affect CR after all, and those are the things that set gods and planar lords apart from other creatures in my view, far more so than their combat capabilites.

wumpus
2016-04-14, 05:32 PM
Back in 1e, TSR published a module called Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits. It was listed for levels 10-14 (expect lots of deaths of those less than level 15, I'm sure), and was the seventh of a series of modules (by the time I bought them, they were consolidated into G1-3, D1-2, D3, Q1. I think there was a hardbound book published once that included published modules form level 1 to the start of G1, and then continued to Q1).

The upshot was that you confronted Lolth (a demon lady) on her own plane in a quest to destroy her. She had all of 66 hit points (which was considered low at the time, probably the only way to kill her), but still had plenty of firepower and defenses. I don't think gods/godesses had any real particular power (except that they often were given plot armor, and that "greater gods (or at least pantheon leaders)" all had 400hp flat. She was still considered the goddess of the drow (and the drow were introduced with the three previous modules and a cameo in the giant adventures).

Beleriphon
2016-04-15, 04:29 PM
Demogorgon in 4E has a 40th level challenge, and the game topped out at 30th level. He had something like five or six out of turn actions, plus his own five actions per turn. So he was more than a match for the typical adventuring party.

Vinyadan
2016-04-15, 05:03 PM
Back in 1e, TSR published a module called Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits. It was listed for levels 10-14 (expect lots of deaths of those less than level 15, I'm sure), and was the seventh of a series of modules (by the time I bought them, they were consolidated into G1-3, D1-2, D3, Q1. I think there was a hardbound book published once that included published modules form level 1 to the start of G1, and then continued to Q1).

The upshot was that you confronted Lolth (a demon lady) on her own plane in a quest to destroy her. She had all of 66 hit points (which was considered low at the time, probably the only way to kill her), but still had plenty of firepower and defenses. I don't think gods/godesses had any real particular power (except that they often were given plot armor, and that "greater gods (or at least pantheon leaders)" all had 400hp flat. She was still considered the goddess of the drow (and the drow were introduced with the three previous modules and a cameo in the giant adventures).

Is that the famous "Lolth got booty" image?

Anyway, the notice that the demons own their place is right. Who let the adventurers in there? And why? Is that one of those places, where getting in is so stupid, you only need guards for people who want to get out? Or do they need a powerful helper to get them inside?

Anyway, I like the idea of demon lords and similar creatures as being untouchable because you can't attack them. What you meet on earth are their avatars, while their planes are actually their mind. What you meet in their mind is their self representation. But they simply do not exist in a three-dimensional fashion. They are something else, and can occasionally influence reality outside their mind in nasty ways.

However, this can be boring for players. So you can choose a number of special abilities and create a really killable monster. You then choose the appropriate level encounter and the percentage of losses in life and possessions needed to win. Then you need a way out.

What I wonder is: what are these guys exactly? Where do they come from? You could give them powers based on their origins. A power I like and should be problematic for the players to work with is creating exact copies of the players to throw against them while they are fighting the demon.

Rheios
2016-04-15, 05:47 PM
How powerful do you want them?
That's how powerful they should be.
Pre 2e they were powerful but still perfectly killable by high-level parties. Gods too were stat'ed and not too impressively so by today's standards. In 2e they were for the most part left unstat'ed, like gods, because the general game philosophy was that PCs weren't going to get in direct physical confrontation with such powerful beings and if they did they would lose. That's generally how I prefer it, but different settings and different campaigns have different goals.

Yeah I like the "just trust me don't do this" with extra powerful beings. If they throw down an avatar I might use stats for that and its usually how I treat already stated gods and devils. Anything with stats is an avatar of the greater being.
Now that being said I'm game for my players killing such powerful beings. They just have to be smart about. *cough*LadyofPain*cough*

Segev
2016-04-15, 11:10 PM
I confess that I've often wanted to see an "archfiend" who has all the trappings, all the reputed power, and all the influence and reach of any of the big names...but is personally no stronger than a 5th level spellcaster. He is, however, just that BRILLIANT. Either as a manipulator of Law (if a Devil), or a trickster and manipulator of people (if a Demon), or as a schemer, planner, and power-broker (if something in between), if not in some way all three. So he manages to be the guy everybody heeds because it's in their best interests, or they're afraid of what his minions will do to them, or because ignoring or defying him likely plays into his hands as much as obedience, and obedience is less likely to get you hurt in the process.

It would be really, really hard to write convincingly, though.

TheCountAlucard
2016-04-15, 11:33 PM
"Powerful" is a nebulous term, one which means different things to different people.

To me, there's no meaningful difference between a demon lord/archdevil and a particular evil "god," especially since both literally fit the definition of the real-world word and there's no concrete in-setting thing to set them apart.

("What about divine ranks?" you might be asking. I said concrete. Divine ranks aren't a solid concept either, and, not being something characters perceive, the idea really only exists as a system construct.)

That, and I think saying that they arbitrarily aren't gods (in spite of being superhuman beings or spirits worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes) was part of a decision to avoid moral panics and such. But that's as much as I'm willing to say on the subject because going further would brush up against forum rules.

Darth Ultron
2016-04-16, 12:02 AM
I don't think of powerful as ''doing 100d100 damage'', but it's more like ''they create a tome of souls and allow a mortal to find it every couple years and send them a handful of souls''. And the average immortal has about 1,000 such things going on at any one time. So that with even just a dozen such items, they can expect a soul about everyday.

They slowly have lots of spellcasters over lots of years make lots of weapons to eventually equip an army in like a century.

A lot of this ''power'' does not translate well into rules, specifically rules about ''power levels''. An immortal might spend ten years casting divination's to find an artifact, though ''technically'' by the rules they can't possess it. The same way that if an immortal even only gained a ''level of power'' once a year they would be something like ''10,000 th'' level at the start of a typical game. But that does not typically fit in the rules.

Kelb_Panthera
2016-04-16, 03:04 AM
Others have said this but I'll repeat it; it depends on what you're aiming to do with them narratively.

If you want them to be powers completely beyond mortal ken, just say so and don't stat them out at all. If it has stats it can be killed, no matter how slim the odds may be.

If, on the other hand, you want them to be a final challeng to cap off a campaign then you should stat them out as just a bit more powerful than any other creature of their type and just a bit stronger than you expect the players to be when they face them.

In either case they should be just a bit lesser in power than true gods because that's where the lore puts them in the outer-realms pecking order.

Personally, I play 3.5 and use the stat blocks from the BoVD as my basis before a bit of optimization rejiggering. That puts them closer to the former category than the latter for my games since I generally try to aim a bit below the epic threshold but I'm willing to let the players take a stab at it if they want.

Gastronomie
2016-04-16, 03:56 AM
IMO it'd be a stupid idea to make them actually "slayable by mortal adventurers", because that simply doesn't make sense given what they're classified as in the world. If the players wanna fight a Demon Lord or Archdevil, the DM should do something like:

-Have it not be the actual Archfiend, but rather an embodiment (avatar) that still has massive power (Given Balors and Pit Fiends at full power are CR 20-ish, an avatar of an Archfiend should be CR 30-ish, at least in 5e standards. Even if it's an avatar, it's an Archdevil, so.)
-Use some plot device to severely weaken the Archfiend and make it possible for mortals to defeat it
-Use some plot device to uber-buff the characters, who are already epic-level (not buff up the stats, but explain that they've become so powerful the Archfiend relatively seems like it's become severely weakened)
-Have the characters actually become "gods" after some epic campaign

Anyhow I don't think it's logical for normal mortals to be able to defeat them.

TheCountAlucard
2016-04-16, 07:23 AM
IMO it'd be a stupid idea to make them actually "slayable by mortal adventurers", because that simply doesn't make sense given what they're classified as in the world.Why doesn't it? Just because you can't make sense of something doesn't render it invalid or "stupid."


Anyhow I don't think it's logical for normal mortals to be able to defeat [gods/demon lords/archdevils].It's not illogical if you're willing to accept that "superhuman" doesn't equate to "insurmountable." Again, Lolth, both a demon lord and a goddess, was intended not to be invulnerable (indeed, was intended to be defeated) in her original introduction.

Vinyadan
2016-04-16, 07:42 AM
There also is the fact that the heroes aren't normal people any more. Killing a demon lord is a feat that strains credibility, but, well, that's what D&D PCs are all about. It doesn't always need to be Cthulhuland.

Cosi
2016-04-16, 08:01 AM
There also is the fact that the heroes aren't normal people any more. Killing a demon lord is a feat that strains credibility, but, well, that's what D&D PCs are all about. It doesn't always need to be Cthulhuland.

Yup. As an adventurer, it is your inborn right to aspire to kill anything that exists in the world. You don't have to be able to kill them now, but you should be able to kill them at all.

Logosloki
2016-04-16, 08:50 AM
It depends on the story you are telling and the setting you wish to put them in. My hard and fast rule on it is that if they own a plane, a chunk of plane or could throw down with the aforementioned and have a shot at winning, then they are a lesser deity at least.

For my settings I break down deity into three loose concepts (and then occasionally break convention because I'm a DM and I like to contradict myself). Divine Deities anchor themselves into the fabric of the multiverse. They rely on petitioners to act as points on entry into the real. Natural Deities are deities that are, for want of a better term. They have existed for so long that they are a living part of the real. The downside is that a natural can only exert power within the plane they are from. Arcane Deities are a catch-all for any process that elevates someone to the point where they are able to claim the powers of a deity. Because of the methods varying wildly there is usually some way to neutralise them.

Archdevils and Demon Lords are in my setting usually natural deities. This gives reason to why they wish to bring "hell on [insert plane here]". As natural deities they can only exert control of something of their plane. However, if they can transform a part of a plane (or ultimately the entire plane) into the same essence of their plane then they have can exert power there.

ExLibrisMortis
2016-04-18, 10:50 AM
I confess that I've often wanted to see an "archfiend" who has all the trappings, all the reputed power, and all the influence and reach of any of the big names...but is personally no stronger than a 5th level spellcaster. He is, however, just that BRILLIANT. Either as a manipulator of Law (if a Devil), or a trickster and manipulator of people (if a Demon), or as a schemer, planner, and power-broker (if something in between), if not in some way all three. So he manages to be the guy everybody heeds because it's in their best interests, or they're afraid of what his minions will do to them, or because ignoring or defying him likely plays into his hands as much as obedience, and obedience is less likely to get you hurt in the process.

It would be really, really hard to write convincingly, though.
While interesting, I think the problem with this is, in D&D, that a lot of knowledge and manipulation is actually skill-based, and skill ranks are ultimately based on level (or hit dice). That is, you can stat a 5th-level wizard with 200 intelligence, charisma and wisdom, and call it a master manipulator, but that's not really all that interesting (and this character could still cast SoLs at ridiculous DCs). On the other hand, if you don't provide the right diplomacy ranks/bonus, it becomes hard to believe that the stats fit the backstory (which would include numerous skill successes, presumably).

As second problem, there is no particular reason a master manipulator at level 5 would not hit level 20 within a fairly short timespan, as immortal archfiends measure time (maybe 100 years).

So basically, I think it can't be done, not if you rule that 'diplomance a pit fiend' counts as 'defeating the encounter, you get some XP'.

Segev
2016-04-18, 01:09 PM
While interesting, I think the problem with this is, in D&D, that a lot of knowledge and manipulation is actually skill-based, and skill ranks are ultimately based on level (or hit dice). That is, you can stat a 5th-level wizard with 200 intelligence, charisma and wisdom, and call it a master manipulator, but that's not really all that interesting (and this character could still cast SoLs at ridiculous DCs). On the other hand, if you don't provide the right diplomacy ranks/bonus, it becomes hard to believe that the stats fit the backstory (which would include numerous skill successes, presumably).

As second problem, there is no particular reason a master manipulator at level 5 would not hit level 20 within a fairly short timespan, as immortal archfiends measure time (maybe 100 years).

So basically, I think it can't be done, not if you rule that 'diplomance a pit fiend' counts as 'defeating the encounter, you get some XP'.

Valid points. "5th level" is rather arbitrary; I suppose another way to put it is "not personally all that powerful; it's all in how well he's set up his situation and how he's managed to maneuver those loyal to him AND those who hate him into positions where things work out as he wishes."

In D&D 3.5 terms, then, perhaps he is a level 20 rogue, or even expert, and doesn't even have UMD.

I still am not sure how well brilliance and planning could ensure that, even when the guy who wants to kill you and has the power to do so under most circumstances is right there, he is, for whatever reason, truly incapable of making the choice to do so, even if he's willing to "damn the consequences." Or, perhaps, that you're able to arrange it such that the only people ever in a position to harm you are the sort who won't "damn the consequences" and have too much to lose by your coming to harm to be willing to risk it.

It would, I think, take too much fiat writing to make it work. Making that level of mastery believable is just too hard.

soldersbushwack
2016-04-18, 02:06 PM
All this talk of the ultimate true powerful power of the almost god-like archdevils is Lady of Pain tier jerkery. The Lady of Pain is ultimately extremely boring and unimpressive and archdevils are five times more of a disappointment than that. A jumped up zombie with airs on managed to defeat the LoP once. I shudder to think what a level 20 PC could do to an archdevil.

More seriously, character levels should not be used to measure player capabilities. First and foremost, a player's capability is measured by their intelligence and not arbitrary level caps on power. Also, a high level cleric can simply fiat divine intervention into killing an archdevil. An archdevil need not have mary-sue levels of invulnerability. An archdevil should simply employ MAD or similar schemes to stop potential threats. For example, he could simply have a contingent wish (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm) to teleport the sun into the negative energy plane.

Segev
2016-04-18, 03:23 PM
All this talk of the ultimate true powerful power of the almost god-like archdevils is Lady of Pain tier jerkery. The Lady of Pain is ultimately extremely boring and unimpressive and archdevils are five times more of a disappointment than that. A jumped up zombie with airs on managed to defeat the LoP once. I shudder to think what a level 20 PC could do to an archdevil.

More seriously, character levels should not be used to measure player capabilities. First and foremost, a player's capability is measured by their intelligence and not arbitrary level caps on power. Also, a high level cleric can simply fiat divine intervention into killing an archdevil. An archdevil need not have mary-sue levels of invulnerability. An archdevil should simply employ MAD or similar schemes to stop potential threats. For example, he could simply have a contingent wish (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm) to teleport the sun into the negative energy plane.

So... your answer to the OP's question is... "Nothing should be powerful, least of all Arch-Devils?"

I don't think that's actually your point, but I really can't figure out what you're trying to say here, at least not in a constructive sense.

Incanur
2016-04-18, 04:03 PM
-Use some plot device to severely weaken the Archfiend and make it possible for mortals to defeat it
-Have the characters actually become "gods" after some epic campaign

That's how I handled deicide in a long-standing campaign. The campaign ended after one of the PCs slew Kelemvor and merged with the remnants of Myrkul to become the new death deity. The PCs managed this by using Bhaal's lingering essence in the Winding Water against Kelemvor, temporally stripping away his divine powers and allowing the party to penetrate his divine domain. The party proceeded to battle this weakened deity in a level-appropriate (early epic, maybe 25ish) encounter. (In the battle they used mindrape to turn Kelemvor into a devotee of Shar and make him sacrifice himself to her. Yeah, it was that kind of campaign.)

GrayDeath
2016-04-18, 04:59 PM
Aside from the obvious (depends on the itnended mood/Setting/etc), my go is this:

Archdevils use the stats in the books, their true power usually stems from their mastery of their Layer.
Its Asmodeus plan to keep them totally unchallenging, even should all 8 unite against him, to prevent "truly powerful" beings from achieving Archdevil-hood.

Asmodeus himself is one of the most powerful Gods ... but due to his wounds and Fall "in prison for life". So as long as you are not insane enough to try and actually challenge him in hell...your soul is somewhat safe...or at least you can think it is. ;)
Should he ever get free...well ^^

Demon lord son the other Hand rule by Power (and short-time-scheming) alone, so I would boost their stats and abilities...however they totally lack the Archdevils Backup and Control, even in "their" layer of the abyss.
So they are totally "takeable" by truly powerful parties.

Gods outside of very very specific Plots have Plot Armor. period.

supergoji18
2016-04-23, 11:36 AM
Hurray i have free time to respond again!

Thanks for all the input so far. Here's what my view is:

As far as mechanics go and in the interest of keeping gameplay and story integrated, a party of level 20 or below characters should not be able to even last a round against these things in a strait up 1v1 fight. They are "beyond the ken of mortals" and level 20 is still considered mortal. By level 21, then they should start having a chance, since they have gone beyond the limit of mortal capabilities. That being said, they should be still be hard pressed to defeat them 1v1 at least until they reach around level 40 where they can be about equal.

That's just their for their own personal power. Their influence is obviously going to put them at a serious advantage even at those levels. They should hold absolute dominion over their planes, able to alter the environment and the laws that govern it on a whim. Their minions should be legion, and each of them should have a significant deal of power in their own right. I can see some of the more paranoid ones having their own Praetorian Guards (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PraetorianGuard) with them at all times. Their wealth and political power should be through the roof, and they should be able to afford almost any goods and service from anyone except rival archfiends and gods. They would basically be Littlefinger from Game of Thrones but with a LOT of magical powers.

When dealing with other fiends, I can see the Demon Lords/Princes being able to go through entire armies of them without breaking any sweat. They earned their position through their own strength, physical or magical, and they are constantly being challenged for their title. It would only make sense for the more powerful Demon Lords, who have defended their titles for longer than some gods have even lived, to be able to keep up with the constant battles.

An Archduke/Archduchess of hell should be less powerful personally, but more powerful in terms of knowledge, influence, and politics. Unlike the Demon Lords, their titles are granted to them by Asmodeus, not earned by slaughtering countless rival balors and demon lords until you've become so powerful you can't be touched except by other powerful Demons. That being said though, their title comes with plenty of power to compensate for it. Within their domains only Asmodeus should be able to defeat them (it is technically his domain to begin with anyway), and they should hold a greater degree of control over it than a Demon Lord, who only really controls the realm because of personal strength rather than having been given full control over it by the powers that be. A better way to describe it would be though a terrible analogy: A Demon Lord is like a professional hacker: they're dangerous and they can do crazy stuff with their software, but they don't have complete control over the system (at least not always). An Archdevil is like a software developer: they aren't really as dangerous personally as a hacker, but they have a greater control over the system (they invented it, so they understand it better).

PairO'Dice Lost
2016-04-24, 09:31 PM
My view is that archdevils, demon princes, animal lords, throne archons, and other such unique outsiders should be really really freakin' powerful, the exact definition of which can vary but which should at least require an entire campaign to center around the destruction of one of them.

If you go by the standard assumptions of BECMI, 2e, and 3e D&D (with its Immortal module, High-Level Characters supplement, or Epic Level Handbook, respectively), or those of Planescape and similar settings in any edition--that the multiverse is incredibly old and in a rough power equilibrium, full of many powerful unique beings that embody, personify, or at least hold dominion over various aspects of reality--then we're talking "unbeatable by non-epic/non-godlike characters for all practical purposes without heavy DM fiat" levels of power. As I said in an older thread on the subject (spoilered for length):



Do you believe Asmodeus should not be threatened by a team of about 5 'young gods'? (entirely possible party composition, 5 Demigods. At level 30, it's implied that essentially you are going to take up full, if minor, godhood as soon as the campaign ends, so a lvl 30 team is essentially an adventuring party of Gods and beings of Godlike power.) Of course, even a level 30 party would only be able to threaten him if they got him in such a situation as to be able to actually fight him.
No, he shouldn't be threatened in the slightest by 5 level 30 characters. Think of it this way: The multiverse has been around for a long time. Asmodeus has been around from the beginning, quite literally. He has managed to hold off assassinations from demon princes, celestial invasions, pissed-off gods, and plenty other threats to his power...yet he is supposed to be threatened by a handful of recently-ascended mortals?

If that were the case, he would have been bumped off centuries ago at the very least due to pure statistics: if a party of 5 demigods faces him once a year, he'll eventually die to iterative probability, and the prospect of one of the most powerful beings of Law being killed due to randomness is laughable.

[...]

In prior editions, you'd better believe that there were beings you couldn't defeat at 20th/30th/40th level. The archfiends have been fighting each other for eons; no, you don't get to magically succeed at killing them just because you want to see if you can. In some cases, these were simply statless ("Sigil encounter: 4 dabus and Lady of Pain. Dabus, HD 5+3, AC -3, claws 2d4; Lady of Pain: --") and in some cases they were given stats such that only if PCs were high above the norm (i.e., if a group consciously decided to break rules or build ridiculous characters to challenge them) would they have a chance to be defeated, in which case the fact that no one who came before had a chance makes sense because no one else had such ridiculous power.

Am I saying such creatures should be DM fiat monsters who are just there for fluff? If you want that, sure; Asmodeus is, has been, and always will be Lord of the Ninth, forever and ever. Otherwise, I'm saying you need to put them at a power level that makes sense, and having Asmodeus, Lord of the Ninth, absolute master of Hell, who defeated all other Lords of the Nine combined in the Reckoning, etc. being able to be killed by 5 creatures less powerful than any 5 Lords does not make sense.


Let me put it this way:

The multiverse is really old. I mean really freaking old. By the 3e rules, a character can go from level 1 to level 20 in approximately 6 months (13 encounters * 20 levels = 260 encounters in 180 days, assuming 4 encounters a day with a few days of downtime in between levels). Levels are slightly slower in prior editions, but I don't have those XP tables with me at the moment to check. Just over 1/3 of all characters will be full spellcasters, meaning that if you assume a conservative estimate that around 3 adventuring parties start exploring every year, that means that every single year for pretty much forever, 4 nerdy bookworms or novice priests go from studying 0th-level spells to routinely breaking the laws of physics over their knees. If you assume that the majority of adventuring parties are good or neutral with good tendencies, that's 3 20th-level spellcasters that might have a motivation to go after Asmodeus every year. Let's put in a lot of downtime and make that 3 20th-level spellcasters every decade, to err on the very conservative side.

If you assume that only 1% of those characters decide to actually go for evil gods or unique outsiders, and only 1% of that 1% go for Asmodeus in particular, and only 1% of the 1% of the 1% actually make it to Nessus, and only 1% of the 1% of the 1% of the 1% make it to Asmodeus himself, that's still at least a few hundred billion adventurers. Think of any games you've played in or run; exactly how often do the BBEGs in your world survive at higher levels if the players really want to kill them--I mean, "this guy personally killed my family so I'm going to true res and go after him as often as necessary" really want to kill them. Every time Asmodeus kills a party, they either get true rezzed, rinse, and repeat, or if he traps their souls their allies will come after him.

How many characters can you think of, even ones from the ELH, can survive a few dozen 20th-level or low-epic characters showing up to their doorstep and challenging them to duels to the death on a regular basis? Either Asmodeus can make them not attack him, in which case he has powers of mind control far surpassing the best enchanter if he can convince mind-affecting-immune creatures and gods not to do so; or he doesn't kill them but has practically impenetrable defenses, in which case he surpasses the best Batman wizard; or he has the most powerful offensive abilities, in which case he makes a buff-and-blast CoDzilla look like a child; or a combination of the three.

[...]

The problem is that the level scale is exponential--the ol' Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards problem (except that in this case it also involves Exponential Deities). A difference of 10 levels can mean the difference between being literally unable to lose to an opponent and being literally unable to survive against an opponent. In 4e's level-capped system, the most powerful creature is within 5 or 10 levels of the most powerful PCs, making it a really tough challenge but not insurmountable--and 4e's math makes a challenge of +/-10 not all that different. In prior editions, a gap of 20 levels is really freaking big, so even a level 40ish Asmodeus would be almost impossible for nonepic characters, and he could easily be much higher than that (keeping in mind that the BoVD/FC2 stats are for his aspect, and a pathetic one at that).

Or, to put this another way: How many solars could Asmodeus take out if they wanted to kill him? A solar is CR 20, and if Celestia emptied its armies, it could probably field a few thousand of them if it meant overturning the Lord of the Ninth. If a 5th-level character is about max real-world normal, a 10th-level character is getting to ridiculous levels of power, and a 20th-level character can kill practically infinite numbers of 1st-level characters before his morning coffee, for Asmodeus to have survived to this point he'd have to be able to take out any solars that challenged him, putting him around 40ish.

If you instead go by the standard assumptions of 1e, or those of Dragonlance and similar settings in any edition--that gods and other unique beings are not embodiments of anything, merely beings with greater mastery of their powers or with more and/or better power sources, and there is nothing setting gods and unique outsiders apart from mortals in a fundamental way--then we're talking "beatable by mortals, just not yet due to all their resources" levels of power. This is the framework in which Lolth and Demogorgon haven't stuck around for eons because they're personally all-but-invincible, but because they control entire layers of the Abyss, have entire races of creatures either under their direct control or fanatically devoted to them to the point they might as well have direct control, own artifacts and relics about which mortals can only dream, and have been playing the Demon Lord game long enough to know what works and what doesn't.

Sure, a 15th-level fighter can take on Lolth in a toe-to-toe fight and win, but the first few thousand mortals who decide to take on Lolth find themselves killed by drow raiding parties whose matriarchs divined a threat to their goddess and took exception to their blasphemous intentions. The next few thousand find themselves waylaid on the way to the Demonweb Pits by squads of yochlols, mysterious portal mishaps, bands of roving demons loyal to demon princes that owe Lolth a favor, and the like; the few thousand after that actually make it into the Demonweb Pits and promptly die to environmental hazards like "tripping and falling for eternity" or "being eaten by the kind of spiders that make Shelob look like a tarantula"; the following few thousand make it to Lolth after having been greatly weakened by all the traps and monsters and get blasted into next week for their temerity; another few thousand make it to Lolth fresh and ready to do battle, but encounter her with artifact rods in each hand and three lesser drow deities around her.

Finally, finally, one very prepared, very smart, very lucky 15th-level fighter might be the one to make it past the drow to the Abyss, past the demons to the Demonweb Pits, past the traps and crazy spiders to Lolth's lair, resist her magic, defeat her vassals, get to fight the Demon Queen of Spiders herself, and manage to act and roll well enough to kill her. It's not just that anyone who decides to waltz up to Lolth has a snowball's chance in hell the Abyss to do so (as published modules unfortunately often make it seem so that people will actually buy and run them), or the whole setting background doesn't make sense; the setting canon wouldn't be "Lolth created the drow, sworn enemy of the surface elves, and Lolth and Corellon Latherian have been at odds for millennia since", it would be "Lolth created the drow, sworn enemy of the surface elves, and famed elven paladin Taluriel Moonblade disliked that decision, headed down to the Demonweb Pits with her friends, and offed Lolth for doing that, so famed drow ranger Phiarlaz Spidersworn got angry and headed up to Arborea with his friends and killed Corellon in retaliation, and now every elf and drow has to learn a new religion a dozen times during their lifetime because they keep killing each other's gods whenever one of their adventuring parties reaches mid-high level."


The former approach works much better for demon princes, chaotic or evil gods, and other beings that rely on personal strength, while the latter approach works for archdevils, lawful or good gods, and other beings that can rely on allies and followers, similar to GrayDeath's take on things. In either case, though, unique beings should require very exceptional circumstances, preparation, effort, and characters to defeat to be faithful to the mechanics and to the internal consistency of the setting.

BWR
2016-04-24, 11:32 PM
If you go by the standard assumptions of BECMI, *snip* that embody, personify, or at least hold dominion over various aspects of


Incorrect as far Mystara is concerned, which was primarily BECMI/RC. The Immortals are not actual metaphysical embodiments of anything, they are powerful beings with what amounts to political interests and/or hobbies.

PairO'Dice Lost
2016-04-25, 01:22 AM
Incorrect as far Mystara is concerned, which was primarily BECMI/RC. The Immortals are not actual metaphysical embodiments of anything, they are powerful beings with what amounts to political interests and/or hobbies.

While they do have their own interests, similar to divine portfolios in other editions, they still serve one of the five Spheres of Power first and foremost. You're right, "embody" isn't exactly the right term for it compared to the way that Planescape Powers embody their own areas of influence, but I tend to view them that way since Immortals (and their rules and BECMI's general Law/Neutrality/Chaos setup) strongly resemble the Lords of the Higher Worlds in the Elric series that inspired them. And it's definitely a different setup compared to Greyhawk or FR, where those gods engage in all the politicking and maneuvering of the Immortals but lack their higher purpose (unless you count "don't piss off Ao" as a higher purpose for FR deities :smallwink:).

supergoji18
2016-04-25, 11:29 AM
giant quote

So basically, when you reach level 20 you have the right to call yourself as low as a bacteria next to Zeus when comparing yourself to Asmodeus. And it's not even the kind that can make someone sick. Because you have about the same chance of beating Asmodeus as that bacteria has of beating Zeus.

The more I think about it, the more I begin to realize that these things shouldn't really be given stats outside of their supernatural powers and the stats for their avatars/aspects. Or at the very least stating them out is going to requiring A) the characters to already be in the high epic levels and/or B) a completely different method of stating out such a creature and a completely different style of fight than the D&D system can properly simulate.

Âmesang
2016-04-25, 03:59 PM
Would it be wrong to take inspiration from Count Strahd (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20061006a&page=2) of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft? A powerful being with powerful connections to the world around him… but sever those connections and he grows gradually weaker.

Perhaps a similar method could be employed to take down deity-level archfiends?

PairO'Dice Lost
2016-04-25, 11:09 PM
So basically, when you reach level 20 you have the right to call yourself as low as a bacteria next to Zeus when comparing yourself to Asmodeus. And it's not even the kind that can make someone sick. Because you have about the same chance of beating Asmodeus as that bacteria has of beating Zeus.

The more I think about it, the more I begin to realize that these things shouldn't really be given stats outside of their supernatural powers and the stats for their avatars/aspects.

Well, not exactly. Traveling to other planes and stabbing gods in the face is a time-honored tradition in D&D, and that's not a problem in and of itself. The problem comes in when the flavor of unique beings doesn't match the mechanics, as it tends to do in official statblocks because the designers tend to suck at statting out powerful creatures. Make the flavor match the mechanics, and gods are wimpy pushovers who fall to the first high-level mortal who breathes in their direction; make the mechanics match the flavor, and such beings are as close to immortal as makes no difference. If you want to kill such a being, then, you need to do something special to level the playing field--whether that takes the form of secret knowledge, specialized tools or training, help from other gods, or something else will vary--proportionally to the power level of the being involved.

As an example scenario, take the village of Genericsville. Once a year, Foulbreath the Devourer the great wyrm green dragon flies in, attacks the town, plunders its treasure, and flies off, and there's nothing the town can do about it, because a great wyrm is far beyond their power level. The DR, SR, AC, speed, insta-death breath weapon, and everything else combine to ensure that only HeroesTM can take on the dragon...but not just any heroes: Foulbreath is CR 24, and will eat anyone below high levels for breakfast.

But the high-level Heroes are off saving the world, and only mid-level PCs are available to help out. So what are they to do? Well, they might be specialized to take on dragons--a paladin to counter frightful presence and heal, a cleric to ward against its breath and claws, a transmuter to bring it down to earth and debuff it, and a ranger with Favored Enemy: Dragons to slice it to ribbons. They might do some research, find out what treasure the dragon covets most of all, and bribe it to leave the village alone if they get said treasure for it. They might be able to find a way into its lair and attack it while it sleeps. They might be particularly creative and come up with a foolproof plan to defeat it involving a canyon, some boulders, two illusions, and a ham sandwich. They might be able to buff up the villagers and assemble them into an army so they actually stand a chance against it. They might have found the orb of green dragonkind to use against the dragon--or just to scare it away by the mere threat of it. They might enlist the help of a great wyrm gold dragon to defeat it. Or they can power-level until they're strong enough to take it in a straight fight and do it that way.

But a generic ~10th level party, or a gaggle of villagers, with no particular plans, talents, or other advantageous factors will die quickly to Foulbreath--or at least they should. If a few mid-level adventurers can take out the dragon, the village could have hired some for that already--and if the villagers can do it themselves, there's no need for adventurers. One of the big complaints about the 5e transition was that with bounded accuracy and the removal of most "you must be this tall to play" abilities like DR and SR, a mid level party with a few followers or just a lot of commoners could take down what were supposed to be incredibly impressive foes, and it just didn't sit right with most people that that was the case.

Which brings us back to demon princes and such. I don't necessarily need Demogorgon to be statless or have stats like "AC: No; Attack: Yes; Damage: All of it" to live up to his reputation, but when the supposed biggest baddest demon in the entire multiverse, who can hold off any number of other demon prince challengers, who controls many Abyssal layers and bazillions of demons through sheer power, who is the centerpiece and star of at least a half-dozen adventure paths, is officially statted out as just CR 23 and a party kitted out with mind blank, death ward, and immunity to ability damage (y'know, the stuff that pretty much every party has had running 24/7 for the past 5 levels at least) is utterly immune to everything Demogorgon can do aside from plain ol' HP damage--which a few heals will take care of handily--and the balor he can summon 1/day is scarier than he is? Yeah, nothing will break my suspension of disbelief faster.

Vinyadan
2016-04-26, 04:46 AM
So basically, when you reach level 20 you have the right to call yourself as low as a bacteria next to Zeus when comparing yourself to Asmodeus. And it's not even the kind that can make someone sick. Because you have about the same chance of beating Asmodeus as that bacteria has of beating Zeus.

This reminds me of the story of a lowly scarab who dropped a poo ball on Zeus to have him stand up and make the eggs of the eagle nesting on his lap fall on the ground. What I mean is that no one can be safe from players, even if they are level 1, as long as they play it smart.

Segev
2016-04-26, 12:48 PM
Regarding the green dragon example... 10th level adventurers aren't exactly common, either, so "the village would have gotten some already" isn't really a good argument as to why they can't possibly be enough on their own.

PairO'Dice Lost
2016-04-27, 12:35 AM
They're not super-common, no, but by the 3e DMG demographics guidelines a small city of 5,000+ has a better than 1-in-4 chance to have a 10th level wizard, cleric, fighter, and rogue and a large city of 12,000+ is guaranteed to have them, so sending a messenger to the nearest city to tell them about their annual difficulties and hoping that some mid-level adventurers answer the call isn't at all out of the question.

More importantly, while 10th level was chosen somewhat arbitrarily because it's the midpoint of the non-epic level range, the same point applies to adventurers of 5th--or 15th--level just as well. If a being of a certain high power level who is supposed to be a certain degree of impressive and awesome can be taken out by a half-dozen random people who are supposed to be drastically less impressive and awesome than it is (barring very extenuating circumstances), and there are other beings of a certain high power level who want to see the first being dead but haven't managed it yet (barring very extenuating circumstances), then the setting (at least the high-level bits of it) ceases to make sense.

It's the reverse of the "Why don't high level NPCs solve everything?" problem, where high-level creatures are too powerful rather than too weak and if Elminster can solve any problem with a flick of his wrist then adventurers are basically irrelevant and a setting which pretends they matter doesn't make sense. The difference is that it's easy to fix that problem--simply make more high-level challenges and posit a sort of high-level cold war, as pretty much all settings do--whereas trying to "de-level" the setting to account for pushover demon princes just makes the situation worse.

Gastronomie
2016-04-27, 04:18 AM
See, (at least in 5e) Balors are CR19 and Pit Fiends are CR20. And a Demon Lord/Archdevil has dozens of those stuff under command, keeping all of them in check through brute power.

So…

GrayDeath
2016-04-27, 05:24 AM
Through Brute Power?
In 5th?
Where everything has an unmoving Ceiling?

I think not ;)


Not that I hate 5th, but for D&D its really the "wrong way" (as the typical D&D Experience is about Power, various Methods of flexible Mixing of Power oh and POWER^^) to go. If you want a System that has a real Ceiling in Power and allows for classic "the many beat the strong few" even if its one Lvl 20 vs. 50 Level 2,there are many better Systems out there.

supergoji18
2016-04-27, 03:37 PM
Well, not exactly. Traveling to other planes and stabbing gods in the face is a time-honored tradition in D&D, and that's not a problem in and of itself. The problem comes in when the flavor of unique beings doesn't match the mechanics, as it tends to do in official statblocks because the designers tend to suck at statting out powerful creatures. Make the flavor match the mechanics, and gods are wimpy pushovers who fall to the first high-level mortal who breathes in their direction; make the mechanics match the flavor, and such beings are as close to immortal as makes no difference. If you want to kill such a being, then, you need to do something special to level the playing field--whether that takes the form of secret knowledge, specialized tools or training, help from other gods, or something else will vary--proportionally to the power level of the being involved.
I've been trying to fix this issue with some homebrewing, at least in 5e. So far, i've decided to give the Demon Lords all levels in Warlock class, buff some abilities and damage, and give them some more abilities. The end result is that they're significantly more powerful than before, but I still think they need to be edited a bit before i'm satisfied. They are not yet at the level where I can see them controlling an entire abyssal layer through sheer force alone. Demogorgon is almost there, since I gave him the unique ability to be able to concentrate on two spells at once (an unheard of ability in 5e), but I still don't see him as having reached the proper level of power yet.

I like the second idea better: making the mechanics match the fluff. It could be a campaign in and of itself just trying to level the playing field. Something I was considering for the 5e Demon Lords was to convert some of the Salient Divine Abilities in the 3e Deities and Demigods into 5e equivalents and give them to them. Maybe also look through Book of Vile Darkness for some assistance as well.

What suggestions do you have for buffing them?

Segev
2016-04-27, 03:57 PM
They're not super-common, no, but by the 3e DMG demographics guidelines a small city of 5,000+ has a better than 1-in-4 chance to have a 10th level wizard, cleric, fighter, and rogue and a large city of 12,000+ is guaranteed to have them, so sending a messenger to the nearest city to tell them about their annual difficulties and hoping that some mid-level adventurers answer the call isn't at all out of the question.

Sure. But the answer as to why this is still a problem by the time the PCs show up can be as easy as, "This isn't the only village asking for 10th level characters to help them, and the PCs are the first of that rare breed to have time and interest."

endur
2016-04-27, 10:00 PM
1e Lolth had only 66 hp, but she could heal herself which most other 1e demon lords and arch devils could not do.

PairO'Dice Lost
2016-04-28, 12:33 AM
Sure. But the answer as to why this is still a problem by the time the PCs show up can be as easy as, "This isn't the only village asking for 10th level characters to help them, and the PCs are the first of that rare breed to have time and interest."

Again, the dragon analogy isn't a perfect one. For one dragon and one village at one particular time, there are plenty of good explanations, anything from "everyone's busy" to "all the nearby high-level characters are evil and like seeing the village suffer." But there are many dragons and many many many humanoids out there, and the situation generalizes. If N generic humanoids of level X pose a significant threat to a [descriptor] [monster type] of CR X+Y, the larger Y becomes the more outlandish explanations you have to come up with for why the [descriptor] [monster] hasn't been removed already and the more internal consistency suffers.

Also, the scale of time involved is a factor as well: "there are no adventurers around this year" is perfectly reasonable, "there haven't been any adventurers around in the past two decades and none can be found" is tenuously plausible, "this dragon has been terrorizing the village since my grandfather's grandfather was a boy and in all that time we haven't been able to train, hire, trick, attract, or bribe anyone to help us" is basically pure plot device.

The unique outsider situation is both of those, but more so. Much more powerful beings, vastly more people who hate them, much larger stakes, and much much larger time scales combine to make "Why hasn't any group of powerful Good people decided to take on the literal source of all evil in the world at any point in the entire history of the multiverse?" a much more intractable problem than "Why hasn't any adventuring party swung by Genericsville to take care of their dragon problem?"


I've been trying to fix this issue with some homebrewing, at least in 5e. So far, i've decided to give the Demon Lords all levels in Warlock class, buff some abilities and damage, and give them some more abilities. The end result is that they're significantly more powerful than before, but I still think they need to be edited a bit before i'm satisfied. They are not yet at the level where I can see them controlling an entire abyssal layer through sheer force alone. Demogorgon is almost there, since I gave him the unique ability to be able to concentrate on two spells at once (an unheard of ability in 5e), but I still don't see him as having reached the proper level of power yet.

I like the second idea better: making the mechanics match the fluff. It could be a campaign in and of itself just trying to level the playing field. Something I was considering for the 5e Demon Lords was to convert some of the Salient Divine Abilities in the 3e Deities and Demigods into 5e equivalents and give them to them. Maybe also look through Book of Vile Darkness for some assistance as well.

What suggestions do you have for buffing them?

Part of the issue with beefing up unique beings in 5e is that, as GrayDeath mentioned, the range of capabilities deemed acceptable for any creature in the system is vastly smaller than in previous editions. In 5e "He can have two entire buff spells going at once!" qualifies as a holy-crap-no-one-else-has-it ability and throwing enough bow-wielding commoners at something will solve most problems, so you don't have all that much to work with within the system; the math-fix stuff for legendary creatures like Legendary Resistance helps, but isn't enough. In 3e, the minimum bar for a scary demon prince is the balor's at-will blasphemy and good DR and resistances, while in AD&D the balor lacks such a tactic but has psionic blast and immunity to nonmagical weapons as its sources of army-immunity (and has at-will multi-target 600-pound telekinesis to take out their leaders), so unique outsiders are for all practical purposes immune to armies mechanically and are a serious threat to even large numbers of heroes.

If you want to stat godlike beings in 5e, break the assumptions the same way that 3e's ELH and D&DG did, whether that means directly converting SDAs as you're doing or thinking about what limits 5e places on creatures and then breaking those in half. Let Demogorgon not need to concentrate on spells at all and give him two turns per round, since he's just that good at multitasking. Give Mephistopheles hellfire, which ignores all resistances and immunities because that stuff can burn fire itself, and a charming gaze with a stupidly long range to represent his awe-inspiring presence. Let Orcus use his wand's abilities at will, because he just has that much necromantic oomph, and let him turn incorporeal whenever he wants as a nod to Tenebrous. Give Bel double-advantage on melee attacks (roll three times, take the highest), because if you're in melee range of him you're already dead and just don't know it yet, and the ability to summon a bunch of balors as a nod to the Dark Eight. Let Juiblex have a base AC of 25, because seriously it's like trying to damage Jello, and a grapple modifier of +Yes. Give Dispater double proficiency on all saves and the ability to make a Con save against any attack to negate it, because he has contingencies for his contingencies. And so on and so forth.

Vinyadan
2016-04-28, 06:35 AM
"Until we found this oilfield, we didn't have the money to pay someone to dispose of it."
"We were afraid that some idiot would try and fail, and that we would suffer repercussions, so we kept the thing hush-hush."
"The Parliament only recently stopped the practice to syphon powerful adventurers to the capital."
"The dragon was placed there as a punishment for a rebellion, and has been there ever since. It has occasionally gone rogue, but the king wanted us to keep it, and now that the region finally broke away, we need it killed before it hears about it."
"Our charisma is really low and nobody believes us, or they think we are sending them into a trap. It's a genetic thing."
"We don't like foreigners, that's why we have been attempting to handle it ourselves for so long. Adventurers have occasionally looted us."
"Last time, the mercenaries we hired allied themselves with it and plundered the village".
"Gasp! Maybe you are the chosen ones who will succeed where your peers failed!"

Eldan
2016-04-28, 07:52 AM
1e Lolth had only 66 hp, but she could heal herself which most other 1e demon lords and arch devils could not do.

Yeah, but in 1e, 1d8+5 was a lot of damage.

Segev
2016-04-28, 08:10 AM
Again, the dragon analogy isn't a perfect one. For one dragon and one village at one particular time, there are plenty of good explanations, anything from "everyone's busy" to "all the nearby high-level characters are evil and like seeing the village suffer." But there are many dragons and many many many humanoids out there, and the situation generalizes. If N generic humanoids of level X pose a significant threat to a [descriptor] [monster type] of CR X+Y, the larger Y becomes the more outlandish explanations you have to come up with for why the [descriptor] [monster] hasn't been removed already and the more internal consistency suffers.Not...really. Because you only ever need it to work for this one place, this one time. I mean, your party isn't going around making a career out of hunting dragons terrorizing villages since time immemorial, are they?

The design problem only occurs if you over-use it. That the PCs are the ones in the right place at the right time to solve this problem is perfectly reasonable; after all, somebody had to be. And if nobody was, then it makes sense that it's still there to be solved when the PCs get there.

Most D&D worlds assume that the monster menaces are actually much greater in number than adventurers to take care of them.


Also, the scale of time involved is a factor as well: "there are no adventurers around this year" is perfectly reasonable, "there haven't been any adventurers around in the past two decades and none can be found" is tenuously plausible, "this dragon has been terrorizing the village since my grandfather's grandfather was a boy and in all that time we haven't been able to train, hire, trick, attract, or bribe anyone to help us" is basically pure plot device.Well, either don't do that, then, or consider the threat level(s) and commonality of adventurers. You mention that the "nearby" city of 5000 and the big city a province or two over of 25000 should have 1-5 level 10 characters just living there.

One level 10 character who isn't an adventurer by trade is likely level 10 through years and years of hard work, and has a profession. He has, by himself, at least a 50/50 shot of dying in a fight with this dragon. He doesn't think it's worth that risk. He has his own life to lead. It's not his responsibility, and while he might feel bad, he will look at it and say, "I am no match for a dragon; I cannot help you."

5 level 10 characters are likely to be able to take this dragon with reasonable risk, rather than "I'm as likely to die as not" chances. However, if they are, again, not adventurers, then this isn't their job. Heck, even if you use the "powerful people move in similar circles" argument to say they all know each other (which, depending on their professions, may be a stretch), they may not be a "group." Putting them together could be an adventure in and of itself, going about it Ocean's 11 style where recruiting the specialists for your plan is a major part of the story. And that would require knowing their specialties and having a specific plan, rather than just saying, "We need help; somebody help us, please! Hey, I hear you're powerful, so why don't you work with that other powerful guy you barely know and risk life and limb for us?"

If you want generations-long dragon-threats, calibrate your world such that a group of 10th level adventurers who work together regularly enough to just HEAR about a problem and come up with their own plan to solve it as a group is rare enough to make it make sense.

That might actually be an interesting quest for lower-level PCs: help RECRUIT the higher-level party to solve the problem. The adventure would be based around figuring out your plan, finding the NPCs of sufficient level and skill, and convincing them to band together as a party. Maybe then let the players take over the higher-level NPCs to execute the plan.


The unique outsider situation is both of those, but more so. Much more powerful beings, vastly more people who hate them, much larger stakes, and much much larger time scales combine to make "Why hasn't any group of powerful Good people decided to take on the literal source of all evil in the world at any point in the entire history of the multiverse?" a much more intractable problem than "Why hasn't any adventuring party swung by Genericsville to take care of their dragon problem?"Eh... yes and no. The "literal source of all evil in the world" probably hasn't been taken down because nobody has been powerful enough. Your high-level party of PCs is likely the most powerful concentration of individual puissance the world has seen for a very long time, outside of the "literal source of all evil's" domain. And this "literal source of all evil" is probably NOT the only encounter in this quest; it's the last one, the BBEG boss battle to cap off a massive, dangerous, high-level dungeon. Which may well have killed thousands of would-be heroes just trying to get through to the literal source of all evil in the world.


Part of the issue with beefing up unique beings in 5e is that, as GrayDeath mentioned, the range of capabilities deemed acceptable for any creature in the system is vastly smaller than in previous editions. In 5e "He can have two entire buff spells going at once!" qualifies as a holy-crap-no-one-else-has-it ability and throwing enough bow-wielding commoners at something will solve most problems, so you don't have all that much to work with within the system; the math-fix stuff for legendary creatures like Legendary Resistance helps, but isn't enough.Granted, to an extent. Though part of this is that shifting the goal posts from "one lone dragon terrorizing a village" to "the literal source of all evil in the world" without adding a massively dangerous labrynthine dungeon to explore just to GET to said literal source of all evil in the world is where your real problem arises.

That army of bow-wielding peasants isn't all that hot if it can't survive to GET To the threat. And while they will do damage going in, they'll be mown down like chaff by the lower-level threats that have any real AoE abilities. They'll never be an army of peasants, bow-wielding or otherwise, by the time they get to the literal source of all evil in the world. If they're lucky, a handful of them will survive to be brought before it and told how futile their efforts were. I will not comment on whether that's good or bad luck.

Âmesang
2016-04-28, 09:19 AM
Yeah, but in 1e, 1d8+5 was a lot of damage.

"…and back in our day d20s had pictures of bumble bees on them! But we had to call 'em d-dicketies, because the Kaiser had stolen our word "twenty."

supergoji18
2016-04-28, 10:07 AM
Part of the issue with beefing up unique beings in 5e is that, as GrayDeath mentioned, the range of capabilities deemed acceptable for any creature in the system is vastly smaller than in previous editions. In 5e "He can have two entire buff spells going at once!" qualifies as a holy-crap-no-one-else-has-it ability and throwing enough bow-wielding commoners at something will solve most problems, so you don't have all that much to work with within the system; the math-fix stuff for legendary creatures like Legendary Resistance helps, but isn't enough. In 3e, the minimum bar for a scary demon prince is the balor's at-will blasphemy and good DR and resistances, while in AD&D the balor lacks such a tactic but has psionic blast and immunity to nonmagical weapons as its sources of army-immunity (and has at-will multi-target 600-pound telekinesis to take out their leaders), so unique outsiders are for all practical purposes immune to armies mechanically and are a serious threat to even large numbers of heroes.

If you want to stat godlike beings in 5e, break the assumptions the same way that 3e's ELH and D&DG did, whether that means directly converting SDAs as you're doing or thinking about what limits 5e places on creatures and then breaking those in half. Let Demogorgon not need to concentrate on spells at all and give him two turns per round, since he's just that good at multitasking. Give Mephistopheles hellfire, which ignores all resistances and immunities because that stuff can burn fire itself, and a charming gaze with a stupidly long range to represent his awe-inspiring presence. Let Orcus use his wand's abilities at will, because he just has that much necromantic oomph, and let him turn incorporeal whenever he wants as a nod to Tenebrous. Give Bel double-advantage on melee attacks (roll three times, take the highest), because if you're in melee range of him you're already dead and just don't know it yet, and the ability to summon a bunch of balors as a nod to the Dark Eight. Let Juiblex have a base AC of 25, because seriously it's like trying to damage Jello, and a grapple modifier of +Yes. Give Dispater double proficiency on all saves and the ability to make a Con save against any attack to negate it, because he has contingencies for his contingencies. And so on and so forth.
So far I have only been doing the Demon Lords, and here is what I gave them:
- all of them get between 16 to 20 levels in warlock. Demogorgon and Orcus got the full 20, Graz'zt got 19, Fraz got 18, Juiblex and Zuggtmoy got 17, and Baphomet and Yeenoghu got 16.
- Limited Magic Immunity, like the Rakshasa and Tiamat
- Much better Innate Spellcasting (at will Telekinesis for instance)
- Demonic Possession ability
- Summon Demon feature, where they get the summoning ability they had from 3e/3.5e
- other unique features each (Baphomet gets a special roar; Demogorgon can concentrate on two spells; Orcus can summon a bunch of undead even without spells/Wand of Orcus)
- Several ability score buffs and saving throw/skill increases

I'll certainly be giving them more to make them seem unique though. I might even break the rules of the system and give them ability scores above 30.

TheCountAlucard
2016-04-28, 10:12 AM
There also seems to be this weird notion that seems to be present where "defeating" an Archdevil/Demon Lord in any capacity by necessity involves slugging it out with the thing and destroying it forever and/or removing its ability to impact the setting.

Just food for thought, maybe the band of adventurers saves the village by convincing the dragon to take its interest elsewhere. Or defeats Orcus by destroying the artifact he's after before he gets his grubby mitts on it. Or stops Bel's dastardly plan by sneaking into his fortress and stealing the prototype, then use your demonic connections to keep him too busy with the Blood War to send any vengeance your way. And so on.

The ability to destroy utterly unique beings of singular evil can remain legendary feats when opposing them at all doesn't have to be a matter of trading HP until one of you dies.

Segev
2016-04-28, 10:42 AM
The Rod of Orcus was often considered a big prize...and bigger risk...in older D&D editions. It is very powerful, but using it brings you more and more at risk of his influence (or flat-out being sucked down to the Abyss into his presence).

One way to deal serious defeat to Archfiends would be to manage to take their tools away. Coopt them and make them truly, really, your own. Imagine Orcus's impotent rage as he is stuck on the Abyss when he not only finds his Rod in the hands of a PC (where normally, that might be seen as an opportunity for revenge), but that PC manages to sever his power over it, claiming the power well and truly for his own.

supergoji18
2016-04-28, 02:35 PM
There also seems to be this weird notion that seems to be present where "defeating" an Archdevil/Demon Lord in any capacity by necessity involves slugging it out with the thing and destroying it forever and/or removing its ability to impact the setting.

Just food for thought, maybe the band of adventurers saves the village by convincing the dragon to take its interest elsewhere. Or defeats Orcus by destroying the artifact he's after before he gets his grubby mitts on it. Or stops Bel's dastardly plan by sneaking into his fortress and stealing the prototype, then use your demonic connections to keep him too busy with the Blood War to send any vengeance your way. And so on.

The ability to destroy utterly unique beings of singular evil can remain legendary feats when opposing them at all doesn't have to be a matter of trading HP until one of you dies.
this discussion is all ABOUT a slug fest with the archfiends, not about ways to undermine them. I initially made this thread because I was interested in the individual, personal power of these beings and how it either succeeded or failed to hold up to the fluff about them.

PairO'Dice Lost
2016-04-30, 09:36 PM
*snip list of one-off examples*


Not...really. Because you only ever need it to work for this one place, this one time.

Again, we're not talking about one particular dragon (for the dragon analogy) or one particular archfiend (for the thread topic). For a single scenario, a DM can come up with any number of excuses, explanations, or exceptions to make whatever he wants to work, actually work, or modify any creature mechanically until he gets a desired outcome. In my personal case, I chuck out the god and unique being stats from published books and re-stat them because the official stats are terrible, my parties can play to their full power and skill without worrying about accidentally curbstomping the final boss of a campaign, and that works fine for everyone involved.

We're talking about the general case: overall flavor for godlike beings, typical adventuring parties, and the like. We can look at archfiend stats in the books, we can look at capabilities of PCs at various levels, and we can make a judgment of how they compare by RAW, versus how they should compare based on archfiend flavor and setting assumptions. The OP asked "About what level should a typical adventuring party be before they should even think of fighting them?", not "I have a party of X level, should they think of fighting this particular archfiend?"

As another analogy (since my last one worked so very well :smallwink:), it's common forum advice that 3e enchanters and rogues have difficulties at high levels because so many monsters are immune or highly resistant to mind-affecting effects and precision damage, and if they want to have a chance against those monsters they have to deliberately pick up something (such as adapted Nightmare Spinner for the former or wands of grave strike for the latter). That statement is backed up by looking at all the stats for high-level monsters with those immunities and player capabilities for overcoming them, and people don't need to add "...unless the DM calibrates his world such that outsiders and undead are rare enough to make it make sense" because the DM tweaking the baseline assumptions is always an option.

So I'm saying that, going by the baseline game and setting assumptions in the general case across any number of godlike beings, either (A) such beings should each individually be powerful enough mechanically to win against the most powerful opposition they will face the overwhelming majority of the time (if not automatically) or (B) such beings should have enough individual power to potentially win against the most powerful opposition their will face and have enough minions/equipment/loyal allies/etc. to justify their continued survival the rest of the time, and if you want to retain the mechanical implementations of those beings then the setting assumptions should change to either justify a continued turnover of godlike beings. The default setting (and any specific campaign setting implementations thereof) should be internally consistent by default with regard to high-level beings, and individual DMs shouldn't have to use fiat and one-off excuses every time to justify poor mechanics-flavor interactions.

Segev
2016-05-02, 02:23 PM
The thing is, while we have these things in the generic/abstract, for all games, any time a given game includes one will be "that one time."

So yes, you need it to make sense, for YOUR ONE GAME, that nobody has beaten the PCs to overthrowing them. But for Your One Game, you have all the excuses you want to insert: nobody has ever been as powerful as the party; nobody has ever found the way to follow a demon back to the abyss; Orcus has never been summoned in the flesh before; Asmodeus has always had everyone else assassinated, but your party slipped under his radar; other parties took out the 8 lords of hell "below" Asmodeus: now it's the PCs' turn.

You don't need to justify why "a 20th level party" hasn't taken them out yet. You just need to justify why that hasn't happened in your game, and that can be as simple as adjusting the rarity of 20th level parties.

halfeye
2016-05-02, 02:37 PM
This whole debate is very silly.

The Earth is one planet, circling one star. There are about a billion stars per galaxy, and more than a billion galaxies. if there is a god, it's god of all of that. Any devil that can contend with that god is absolutely beyond the power of anything that exists on any one planet.

Segev
2016-05-02, 02:42 PM
This whole debate is very silly.

The Earth is one planet, circling one star. There are about a billion stars per galaxy, and more than a billion galaxies. if there is a god, it's god of all of that. Any devil that can contend with that god is absolutely beyond the power of anything that exists on any one planet.

What does that have to do with the rice of price in Kara-Tur?

We're not talking about IRL, which would delve into religious topics best not touched on this board. We're talking about the cosmology of the D&D multiverse.

halfeye
2016-05-02, 02:47 PM
What does that have to do with the rice of price in Kara-Tur?

We're not talking about IRL, which would delve into religious topics best not touched on this board. We're talking about the cosmology of the D&D multiverse.
Yeah, but how many stars are there in the D&D pocket universe?

What does the night sky look like?

If there are stars in the sky like our sky has stars, it's rubbish.

If not, that ought to be covered, it wouldn't be that hard to write, but you can't have loads of stars and planet scale entities as the limit (biggest).

JoeJ
2016-05-02, 02:49 PM
Yeah, but how many stars are there in the D&D pocket universe?

What does the night sky look like?

If there are stars in the sky like our sky has stars, it's rubbish.

If not, that ought to be covered, it wouldn't be that hard to write, but you can't have loads of stars and planet scale entities as the limit (biggest).

The number of stars depends on which crystal sphere you're in. What the stars actually are depends on which crystal sphere you're in, too.

halfeye
2016-05-02, 02:57 PM
The number of stars depends on which crystal sphere you're in. What the stars actually are depends on which crystal sphere you're in, too.

Interesting: do the stars orbit the planets in D&D?

BWR
2016-05-02, 03:00 PM
Interesting: do the stars orbit the planets in D&D?

Depends on which setting.

Segev
2016-05-02, 03:03 PM
The Spelljammer setting covers the "outer space" questions, actually. Just as Planescape covers the multiverse. :smallbiggrin:

BWR
2016-05-02, 03:46 PM
The Spelljammer setting covers the "outer space" questions, actually. Just as Planescape covers the multiverse. :smallbiggrin:

And the answer is 'some do, some don't, sometimes the question isn't valid'

Segev
2016-05-02, 03:49 PM
And the answer is 'some do, some don't, sometimes the question isn't valid'

It is. Sorry; I wasn't trying to disagree with you, nor override your explanation. It just occurred to me that he may not have known there was a specific setting for D&D from which your answers came.

BWR
2016-05-02, 04:06 PM
It is. Sorry; I wasn't trying to disagree with you, nor override your explanation. It just occurred to me that he may not have known there was a specific setting for D&D from which your answers came.

I know, I was just building on your answer.

wumpus
2016-05-02, 04:15 PM
The Rod of Orcus was often considered a big prize...and bigger risk...in older D&D editions. It is very powerful, but using it brings you more and more at risk of his influence (or flat-out being sucked down to the Abyss into his presence).

One way to deal serious defeat to Archfiends would be to manage to take their tools away. Coopt them and make them truly, really, your own. Imagine Orcus's impotent rage as he is stuck on the Abyss when he not only finds his Rod in the hands of a PC (where normally, that might be seen as an opportunity for revenge), but that PC manages to sever his power over it, claiming the power well and truly for his own.

Maybe I'm too much a Tolkien fan, but wouldn't that making such a claim make the PC "Lord of Death and Prince of the Abyss"? Just how much longer is the campaign going to be viable once a PC gains such a throne? I will admit that I don't think that PCs were expected to continue much after playing "Queen of the Spiderweb Pits" (and killing Lolth), but they typically didn't wind up with an artifact/relic.

The biggest problem with the Rod is the same as the "Star Trek Continuity problem" (not linking to that which must not be linked to. You're welcome.) While letting a PC have the Rod is a great explanation to why they can now kill a god, it hardly stops them from killing the entire pantheon of evil (or good, assuming he just claimed the Rod). In 4e, relics would disappear after a short length of time, but presumably Orcus has had that Rod for eons (or roughly the lifetimes of the current gods). Once a player had taken the Rod and killed Orcus, presumably the resulting leveling would put him (and the rest of the party, assuming a single evil PC didn't become accendent) even more likely to kill off an entire pantheon.

Segev
2016-05-02, 04:47 PM
Maybe I'm too much a Tolkien fan, but wouldn't that making such a claim make the PC "Lord of Death and Prince of the Abyss"? Just how much longer is the campaign going to be viable once a PC gains such a throne? I will admit that I don't think that PCs were expected to continue much after playing "Queen of the Spiderweb Pits" (and killing Lolth), but they typically didn't wind up with an artifact/relic.

The biggest problem with the Rod is the same as the "Star Trek Continuity problem" (not linking to that which must not be linked to. You're welcome.) While letting a PC have the Rod is a great explanation to why they can now kill a god, it hardly stops them from killing the entire pantheon of evil (or good, assuming he just claimed the Rod). In 4e, relics would disappear after a short length of time, but presumably Orcus has had that Rod for eons (or roughly the lifetimes of the current gods). Once a player had taken the Rod and killed Orcus, presumably the resulting leveling would put him (and the rest of the party, assuming a single evil PC didn't become accendent) even more likely to kill off an entire pantheon.Sounds like the plot to the second Dragonlance trilogy!

More seriously, I wasn't saying "he got the Rod, so now he can kill Orcus." I was saying that his defeat of Orcus need not even involve Orcus's destruction: it could simply be that he severs Orcus's claim to it and establishes his own. Orcus loses the implement (potentially forever) and can no longer even attempt to use it to corrupt its wielder. Moreover, perhaps, the PC who achieves this can do much the same should anybody else ever get the Rod of [PC's name here].

My point was to suggest ways to defeat Archfiends and other Greater Entities through something other than direct confrontation, and without necessarily having to kill them. Dealing them crippling blows and establishing your own puissance in comparison is sometimes even more satisfying.

Imagine if Gollum had, through some mysterious quest that tempered his will while he pursued the hobbitses, managed to claim the Ring...and NOT be consumed by it the second time. To actually steal the power for himself, without corruption and loss of self. While Gollum's a bad guy, so it wouldn't have been good for the heroes, such a story would be a serious defeat for Sauron.

Or, perhaps you prefer more Girl Genius references. (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100709#.VyfK3svSnL4)