Opinions on Player Content in Fiendish Codex II

[Callos_DeTerran]

The title pretty much says it all. What do the people on these boards think of the player usable content in the Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells. Persanolly I like most of it, espicially the prestiege classes in the book. Granted, I'm just a fan of devils in particular but most of it seems usable and adaptable to individual settings or even other creature types.


Feats: These I don't know about. Most of the general feats seem...well useless. More then half the general feats have a side note that PC's can't even take it without DM approval and doing a favor for a Lord of the Nine. Undo Resistanc and Supernatural Instincts seem worthwhile though I could be wrong about that. However it really comes through with the Divine and metamagic feats seem to be the real good stuff here.

Spells: Here I'm disappointed actually. Investiture spells are a nice idea, I think their pretty flavorful and some are useful, but the stacking with other investiture spells is hardly even touched upon. The only thing that even can stack is fire resistance which one simple spell can remove the need for.

Prestiege Classes: I think WoTC came through wonderfully here. Hellfire Warlock seems almost like a must-take extention of the Warlock class with the extra damage per level in the class (Though with Con damage) and Hellfire Infusion really makes it worth it. HellBreaker are useful for what they do, a Spellthief (Cept with spell-like abilities) and dogged pursuit of those trying to teleport away. Hellreaver is by far becoming my favorite prestiege class, doing what I think should have been done with a Paladin. IMO a Paladin can surpass a Fighter (Easily) in charge damage using Furious Strike and still retain a very good chance of hitting his target (Better then the fighter anyway) Though a frenzied beserker still would do it better, I think the barbarian is close to tied with it. A Soulguard has decent flavor but I think is...decent by itself. If you come up against evil outsiders regularly (Like most high-level games provide) then it will do much better most likely.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I'm still trying to get over the fact that Fiendish Codex II has Prestige classes while Fiendish Codex I is useless fluff with some Book of Vile Darkness and Manual of the Planes reprints.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Are you serious? There has to be more in there then that. Why would they have printed it otherwise?

[Khantalas]

I'm still trying to get over the fact that Fiendish Codex II has Prestige classes while Fiendish Codex I is useless fluff with some Book of Vile Darkness and Manual of the Planes reprints.

Baatezu are much cooler than those pathetic excuses for fiends. That may be why.

[Amiria]

Hmm, I really like my Fiendish Codex I. Those are not reprints but updates to 3.5 - and they were really needed. Ok, I'm a tanar'ri fan although Pazuzu is my favorite demon lord ...

They brought the Molydeus tanar'ri to 3.x D&D ! That alone is worth the book, although his Fast Heling rate is too uber.

I also like some of the new spells, Vision of Entropy and Inner Beauty are excellent bard spells.

The only thing that they really messed up is Lolth's origin.

[PhoeKun]

Things the FCII did well:

- Kill the Hag Countess, and replace her with Glasya. All I can say is that it's about damn time. I'd never even considered the idea of Hell's Princess having her own layer before, but it was really well done, and the writeup on Malboge is among my favorite parts of the book.

- Create the Lords of the Nine as aspects, rather than dumbing them down to a bunch of CR 21 wusses like they did in FCI. These guys are ancient, primal evils; they should be obscenely powerful. No character anywhere near 20th level should have a chance to kill them. And yet, fights against Asmodeus and company make for fantastic campaigns, and few if any games reach into super-Epic levels. This is an elegant solution to satisfy both camps.

- The Prestige Classes, especially the Hellfire Warlock. They're flavorful, useful, and just generally cool.

-Corruption and the Faustian Pacts. Mechanical benefits for selling your soul? Welcome to Temptationville, population: the PCs.

- The Falxugon/Harvester Devil, the Merregon/Legion Devil, and the Hellfire Engine. These are inspired creations. I cannot heap enough praise upon them. The flavor for the Narzugon is quite cool, as well.

-The Hellbred. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. If ever there was a way to breath new life into Paladins, these guys would be it. So many ideas for characters using this race...


Things the FCII did poorly:

- The feats. They're there, they're kind of cool, but overall... meh.

- The physical representation of Asmodeus. What the crap is up with that rediculous stuff he calls hair? Oh, and his tactics are kind of lame, too. The Overlord of Hell should not be running the instant some lucky punk manages to hit him...

- The physiology of devils. So, devils are made up of millions of tiny sacs filled with little devil fetuses? *twitch*

- The Brachina/Pleasure Devil. Why does she have a 29 Charisma? Why does this CR 11 monster have more of a presence than a Solar? Just... why?

- The map of Baator. Specifically, the scale. Why is Hell so tiny? It holds all Lawful Evil souls from 1000 and more worlds - do they even fit in that itty bitty plane? That scale is just sitting up there, mocking me. Any PC I show it to with half a brain is going to see it and laugh.
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I realize this thread is supposed to be about the player content of the book, but honestly, it's all for the player. Most of the devils have listed level adjustments, and every player should be able to learn the inner workings of the source of Lawful Evil in the multiverse. That there are overt sections devoted specifically to the players is a bonus.

[Thomas]

- The map of Baator. Specifically, the scale. Why is Hell so tiny? It holds all Lawful Evil souls from 1000 and more worlds - do they even fit in that itty bitty plane? That scale is just sitting up there, mocking me. Any PC I show it to with half a brain is going to see it and laugh.

Because bad is sexier?

[PhoeKun]

Er... what? Did you mean to quote the Brachina complaint?

[Thomas]

... yes. I don't know what I was cut-and-pasting.

[Everyman]

Echo PhoeKun.

I also wish that they had done more with the FCI. However, I also suspect that they used FCI as an experiment to figure out what they needed for other suppliments like it. Chaos always gets the shaft in D&D. There's plenty of evil, plenty of good, powerful lawful entities, but chaos gets so little love.
...
Tis sad.

[AtomicKitKat]

FC1 was a real waste of my money. They actually said "Prestige Classes" in the contents page, as I recalled, but when you turn to look, all you see is "Buy this book to get this PrC!" What a crock!

Note also that nothing in FC1 had a Level Adjustment. -_- They better damn well put out errata as well as a better web enhancement. Aspects? Then what does that make those pieces of crap in the book that any 20th level party could curbstomp before breakfast?

Edit: At least in another month, we'll have Thrall of Malcanthet in Dragon, so that might be interesting.

[PhoeKun]

Aspects? Then what does that make those pieces of crap in the book that any 20th level party could curbstomp before breakfast?

Oh, but you can't forget that Demon Princes are never encountered alone, so it's ok that they're pushovers.

Really, it all comes down to design philosophy. WotC doesn't support Epic much if they can help it, but they still want these iconic baddies to turn up in people's games. So Ed Stark and company toned Grazzt and Demogoron down and called them the most powerful demons in existence.

Robin Laws and Robert Schwab, on the other hand, have been quoted as saying they believe the archdevils should have a CR of "stupidly high". So they designed aspects to make them usable pre-Epic. Of course, the CR 27 Asmodeus makes you wonder how well they managed to restrain themselves, but still.

And that's really the difference between FCI and FCII - the designers were just more excited about their work the second time around.

[Renegade Paladin]

Yeah, I think they screwed up FC1 slightly, though I haven't gotten to read most of my copy yet because my brother borrowed it and forgot to give it back before going back to college. Whether it says so or not, I still use the demon lords as presented in the Book of Vile Darkness (with 3.5 alterations) and treat the depictions in FC1 as aspects.

As for FC2, I have all kinds of fun with it as a DM. I haven't gotten to try it as a player yet because I'm slipping more and more into just DMing all the time now...