Wrath of the Abyss

Thursday, July 25, 2013

In short time we'll be launching the first volume of the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path—Pathfinder Adventure Path #73 The Worldwound Incursion. Since the campaign deals with the denizens of the Abyss, we included stats for a demon lord in each volume. In the course of the Adventure Path you'll see stats and art for Xoveron, Shax, Sifkesh, Nocticula, Baphomet, and Deskari. Three other demon lords get stats in the fall when we release Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 4. In there you'll see Dagon, Kostchtchie, and Pazuzu. To give you a taste of a demon lord's power I've gleaned the following list of demon lord traits from a trusted demonologist.


Illustration by Helge C. Balzer

Demon Lord Traits

Demon Lord Traits (Ex, Sp, or Su): A demon lord is a powerful, unique demon that rules a layer of the Abyss. All demon lords are chaotic evil outsiders that are, at a minimum, CR 26. Demon lords have a particular suite of traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature's entry) as summarized here.

  • A demon lord can grant spells to its worshipers as if it were a deity. A demon lord's domains are Chaos, Evil, and two other domains relevant to its theme and interests. Like a deity, a demon lord has a favored weapon.
  • A demon lord's natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as chaotic, epic, and evil for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
  • Abyssal Resurrection (Ex) A demon lord rules an Abyssal realm, a vast world that not only serves as its home but provides it with power. If a demon lord is slain, its body rapidly melts into corruption (leaving behind any gear it held or carried), its soul returns to a hidden location within its realm, and it is immediately restored to life (as true resurrection) at that location. Once this occurs, a demon lord can't use this ability again until a full year has passed. A demon lord realizes it is vulnerable during this time and usually doesn't risk further battles for the remainder of that year, relying on the defenses of its realm and its legions of minions to protect it. A demon lord that is slain again during this year or is killed by unusual methods (such as by a true deity or an artifact created for this purpose) is slain forever—its remains appearing somewhere deep in the Abyss among other dead demon lords from the ages. A demon lord who does not control a domain does not gain this ability.
  • Frightful Presence (Su) A demon lord can activate its frightful presence as a free action as part of any attack, spell-like ability, special attack, or by speaking aloud.
  • Immunity to ability damage, ability drain, charm effects, compulsion effects, death effects, energy drain, and petrification.
  • Regeneration (Ex) Only epic and good damage, or damage from a creature of equal or greater power (such as an archdevil, deity, demon lord, or protean lord) interrupts a demon lord's regeneration.
  • Resistance to acid 30, cold 30, and fire 30.
  • Summon Demons (Sp) Three times per day as a swift action, a demon lord can summon any demon or combination of demons whose total combined CR is 20 or lower. This otherwise works like the summon universal monster rule with a 100% chance of success, and counts as a 9th-level spell effect.
  • Telepathy 300 feet.

Abyssal Realms

Demon lords' realms range in size, but even the smallest are as large as a continent, and the greatest are larger than some planets. The realms' environments, themes, and traits are as unique as the demon lords themselves, presenting unusual challenges and dangers to creatures trying to explore them. Yet despite the close connection a demon lord has to its realm, it does not exert total control over the realm, and powerful adventurers can infiltrate such realms and accomplish goals without arousing the lord's anger—if they're careful.

A demon lord gains the following additional powers while in its realm (the statistics presented on the following pages do not include these abilities):

  • Mythic: A demon lord functions as a 10th mythic rank creature, including the mythic power ability (10/day, surge +1d12). It may expend uses of mythic power to use the mythic versions of any spell-like ability denoted with an asterisk (*) just as if the ability were a mythic spell.
  • Use of the following spell-like abilities at will—demand, discern location, fabricate, major creation, and polymorph any object (when used on objects or creatures that are native to the realm, the polymorph duration factor increases by 6).
  • Use of the following spell-like abilities once per day—binding, miracle (limited to physical effects that manipulate the realm or to effects that are relevant to the demon lord's areas of concern)
  • Heightened Awareness (Ex): A demon lord gains a +10 insight bonus on Perception checks and Initiative checks.

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Peter Stewart wrote:

I'm from Dicefreaks. I don't mind tough demon lords. In fact, I encourage them.

The thing is, my complaint has nothing to do with toughness Jacob. It has to do with why habitually designers decide to close the doors on various means of attack that are basically the only effective attacks from certain schools of magic.

Why is the blanket decision made to make high end monsters immune to the key features of two entire schools of magic? Are players who know their campaigns will likely face these foes just supposed to avoid specializing in those schools of magic? And toward what good end? What about -5 hp, -1 on checks is so devastating to a monster of this caliber that they need a specific immunity?

What about charm and compulsion? I understand these are powerful effects, but wouldn't a mechanic that say, gave them a new save each round be more effective than a blanket immunity that completely shuts down the guy who has played an enchanter since level 1?

The reason we made them immune to mind-affecting magic is because we don't want them being controlled by other creatures via effects like dominate monster. I do understand this is going to shut down characters who specialize in mind control, but players of those characters should realize that mind control is VERY good, among the best magic in the game when it works, and one of the trade-offs for being able to seize control of creatures that may well be able to offer you options far in excess of what you can normally access at your level (it's possible, for example, for a 1st level character to charm a storm giant) is that you're going to also be facing numerous creatures that are VERY resistant or just flat-out immune to your magic. Undead and constructs are hardly uncommon foes in the game, and even then, many enchantment spells have built in limitations in that they only affect humanoids.

Hyperspecializaiton in one single form of anything can make a character quite effective, but the existence of things like immunities and resistances are there to reward and encourage folks to at least have two relatively different forms of dealing with things.

As for the necromancy bit—they aren't blanket immune to that type of magic. There's more to necromancy than death effects and energy drains.

As for the surge mechanic... I'll leave that argument over on the rules forums, since now's not the time to be discussing final rules as they appear in unreleased but soon to be available books.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Shalafi2412 wrote:
Will the powers of Hell get the same treatment?

I'm sure that some day they will.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Alleran wrote:

"Regeneration (Ex) Only epic and good damage, or damage from a creature of equal or greater power (such as an archdevil, deity, demon lord, or protean lord) interrupts a demon lord's regeneration."

I assume that "deity" there includes demigods? Given that full gods don't get statblocks, it would seem a bit odd for them to be counted.

Yes. Deity includes demigod.

Dark Archive

Peter Stewart wrote:
Blanket immunity to the key effects and conditions associated with necromancy and enchantment. Because we learned nothing in ten years of game design.

Unfortunately, it's a legacy of the original binary 'all or nothing' design inherited from 3rd edition.

Instead of staged or tiered effects, where a dominate spell had to succeed by X to totally dominate something, and could confuse or daze them for a round or so on a 'partial success' or 'lesser success,' effects that would be far more palatable to land on 'boss mobs,' and give the enchantment specialist a little something useful even when he doesn't totally hose the encounter by dominating the heck out of the dragon, we've got spells (and entire class roles depending on classes of effects like 'mind-affecting effects') that are either too good (if the target fails their save) or utterly worthless (if the target makes their save or is immune).

If dominate person still dazed a target for a round, or had some other debuffing / controlling effect even if it failed to dominate them, then it would be entirely acceptable to make a 'boss mob' immune to the highest level success on a dominate spell, but allow it to still be hindered by the lower levels of possible success, so that the telepath psion or enchantment specialist wizard isn't rooting around to see if he has any CL 5 wands that will fail to pierce spell resistance and prove about as effective as spending the combat crying helplessly for the last fight of the epic campaign.

But that's more a Mutants & Masterminds sort of direction.

D&D's long had a strange idea of 'too weak here' and 'too strong there' meaning 'balanced! Yay!' Back in the day, it was argued that it was a sign of the magic-user being 'balanced' that he started out with 1d4 hit points and three random spells, of which he could cast one a day, and then ended up being crazy powerful, as if 'too weak' and 'too strong' at different stages of the level curve somehow averaged out and made the class 'just right.'


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Yeah, well, count me against encounter ending spells having a secondary effect which still screws the opponent over even if he saves. We already got too many of those with the last sourcebooks, where, even in the unlikely case that an NPC opponent even can make his save against the usual SAD-optimized caster, he still gets screwed. Terrible Remorse says hello.

I probably would be a bit less against those spells if AP writers would bother to give them to caster NPC's (with a decent save which is not way too low for its level), instead of mostly going with CRB spells. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.

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magnuskn wrote:

Yeah, well, count me against encounter ending spells having a secondary effect which still screws the opponent over even if he saves. We already got too many of those with the last sourcebooks, where, even in the unlikely case that an opponent even can make his save against the usual SAD-optimized caster, he still gets screwed. Terrible Remorse says hello.

I probably would be a bit less against those spells if AP writers would bother to give them to caster NPC's (with a decent save which is not way too low for its level), instead of mostly going with CRB spells. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.

The reason we go with mostly CRB spells is twofold:

1) It's easier to write. Optimizing every single spellcaster's spells after sifting through several books means that the time it takes to build a statblock for a single NPC spellcaster becomes incredibly time-intensive, and that time is generally better spent getting the adventure as a whole in shape rather than focusing on the best possible build for any one NPC. The "Best spells" method of building a character is MUCH more appropriate for a player character than it is for an NPC. And if the GM wants to change an NPC's spell selection, that's a super easy change anyway.

2) It's easier to run. We assume that GMs are familiar with the core rulebook, but not necessarily with every product we print. By significantly limiting the non core spells we give to NPCs, we not only help to limit the amount of books the GM has to flip through in order to run a single character, but we also help GMs who have to lug around all the books to a game site and help to limit accusations of "pay to play" type comments.

Sometimes a non-core spell is PERFECT for an NPC and we'll give him it. But in most cases, a core spell works just as well.

And as for terrible remorse... we know. That spell's broken. Hasn't it been errataed? Or are we cursed to hear it brought up in effigy forever? It certainly is a well named spell, in any event, at least as my opinions on what we did in publishing it in its original form!


From a verisimilitude stand-point, I can't really see a demon lord (or anything demigod level) being mind controlled or duped by illusions so easily. Or at all. Just, I don't know, doesn't make much sense story-wise, or else every demon lord and empyreal lord would be bending each other to one another's will. And I'm alright with immunities as long as they make sense. Fire elementals should be immune to fire attacks because hell, they are made of the stuff! And demigods are made of sterner stuff than most mortals and shouldn't be dropped down anticlimactically by Dominate Monster. So I'm alright with this. Besides, even a wizard or sorcerer that specializes in enchantment still has other spells up their sleeves they can use to take on bad guys.


James Jacobs wrote:
magnuskn wrote:

Yeah, well, count me against encounter ending spells having a secondary effect which still screws the opponent over even if he saves. We already got too many of those with the last sourcebooks, where, even in the unlikely case that an opponent even can make his save against the usual SAD-optimized caster, he still gets screwed. Terrible Remorse says hello.

I probably would be a bit less against those spells if AP writers would bother to give them to caster NPC's (with a decent save which is not way too low for its level), instead of mostly going with CRB spells. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.

The reason we go with mostly CRB spells is twofold:

1) It's easier to write. Optimizing every single spellcaster's spells after sifting through several books means that the time it takes to build a statblock for a single NPC spellcaster becomes incredibly time-intensive, and that time is generally better spent getting the adventure as a whole in shape rather than focusing on the best possible build for any one NPC. The "Best spells" method of building a character is MUCH more appropriate for a player character than it is for an NPC. And if the GM wants to change an NPC's spell selection, that's a super easy change anyway.

2) It's easier to run. We assume that GMs are familiar with the core rulebook, but not necessarily with every product we print. By significantly limiting the non core spells we give to NPCs, we not only help to limit the amount of books the GM has to flip through in order to run a single character, but we also help GMs who have to lug around all the books to a game site and help to limit accusations of "pay to play" type comments.

Sometimes a non-core spell is PERFECT for an NPC and we'll give him it. But in most cases, a core spell works just as well.

And as for terrible remorse... we know. That spell's broken. Hasn't it been errataed? Or are we cursed to hear it brought up in effigy forever? It certainly...

Terrible Remorse does have a clarification and errata in it. I think with the new errata, it's fine. But it's also easy to take pot shots at devs for past hiccups here and there. Like how many people continue to bring up Prone Shooter post errata.

EDIT: Not a call out to you maguskin, just an observation of the forums in general.


magnuskn wrote:

Yeah, well, count me against encounter ending spells having a secondary effect which still screws the opponent over even if he saves. We already got too many of those with the last sourcebooks, where, even in the unlikely case that an NPC opponent even can make his save against the usual SAD-optimized caster, he still gets screwed. Terrible Remorse says hello.

I probably would be a bit less against those spells if AP writers would bother to give them to caster NPC's (with a decent save which is not way too low for its level), instead of mostly going with CRB spells. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.

Couldn't you just switch out some spells they have for others in UM and UC?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:

The reason we go with mostly CRB spells is twofold:

1) It's easier to write. Optimizing every single spellcaster's spells after sifting through several books means that the time it takes to build a statblock for a single NPC spellcaster becomes incredibly time-intensive, and that time is generally better spent getting the adventure as a whole in shape rather than focusing on the best possible build for any one NPC. The "Best spells" method of building a character is MUCH more appropriate for a player character than it is for an NPC. And if the GM wants to change an NPC's spell selection, that's a super easy change anyway.

2) It's easier to run. We assume that GMs are familiar with the core rulebook, but not necessarily with every product we print. By significantly limiting the non core spells we give to NPCs, we not only help to limit the amount of books the GM has to flip through in order to run a single character, but we also help GMs who have to lug around all the books to a game site and help to limit accusations of "pay to play" type comments.

Sometimes a non-core spell is PERFECT for an NPC and we'll give him it. But in most cases, a core spell works just as well.

And as for terrible remorse... we know. That spell's broken. Hasn't it been errataed? Or are we cursed to hear it brought up in effigy forever? It certainly...

Thanks for the answer, James. I suspected as much in regards to statblock building, I still have vivid memories of trying to build "more colorful than core" high-level characters in 3.5 and sitting for hours on just one character which then was downed in two rounds.

At least that's a good argument for you guys bringing out a good character builder program. ;)

As for Terrible Remorse, it was the first spell which came to mind in regards to the lose/lose spells. I know it is much less egregious than it was before, but it's still a one round stunlock when you make your save and since NPC characters at higher levels don't last much more than two or three rounds, that is significant. But it's good to know that you guys took that spell as a lesson.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Odraude wrote:

Terrible Remorse does have a clarification and errata in it. I think with the new errata, it's fine. But it's also easy to take pot shots at devs for past hiccups here and there. Like how many people continue to bring up Prone Shooter post errata.

EDIT: Not a call out to you maguskin, just an observation of the forums in general.

No offense taken. I brought it up, after all. Although not because I wanted to take a potshot, but rather because it was the first spell which came to mind when talking about the lose/lose spells.

Odraude wrote:
Couldn't you just switch out some spells they have for others in UM and UC?

Yes. But I do buy the AP's because they do the work for me. ^^


Excellent read. On a mechanical note is the specific immunity set meant to pertain explicitly to demon lords, or is it the set of effects that designers determined is best to lock away for CR 26+ foes?

*rubs hands*

I can't wait to know more about Abyssal Realms. One understands there is a level of uniqueness to each Realm, but to what extant?

If Realms do vary much from the template, is it on the scale of Type, as in an Abyssal Realm is identical to other Abyssal Realms but different than hypothetical Protean Realms? Or might Kotsch's and Baph's grant say, different Mythic ranks, or new SLAs, or alternatives to Heightened Awareness?

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Jaerc wrote:

Excellent read. On a mechanical note is the specific immunity set meant to pertain explicitly to demon lords, or is it the set of effects that designers determined is best to lock away for CR 26+ foes?

*rubs hands*

I can't wait to know more about Abyssal Realms. One understands there is a level of uniqueness to each Realm, but to what extant?

If Realms do vary much from the template, is it on the scale of Type, as in an Abyssal Realm is identical to other Abyssal Realms but different than hypothetical Protean Realms? Or might Kotsch's and Baph's grant say, different Mythic ranks, or new SLAs, or alternatives to Heightened Awareness?

This set of traits and immunities is specific to demon lords. Other 26+ foes get other traits and abilities.

Each Abyssal Realm is a unique world, but the type of world doesn't change what the demon lord's traits do. More accurately, the nature of each demon lord's unique personalized statistics help to inform what their realm is like.

Silver Crusade

James are there going to Mythic versions of Ajure or Banishment?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Lou Diamond wrote:
James are there going to Mythic versions of Ajure or Banishment?

Since we're only a few weeks away from the Mythic Adventures release... you won't have to wait long for the answer!


This seems mostly alright. I do wish there was more of a penalty for them dying. For them in a in setting aspect it probably sucks for the demon lord considering they will get humiliated and laughed at by other demon lords, and secretly by a lot of their minions, for being killed by some meddling adventurers. I don't think other demons they control in their realms are the most trustworthy entities to protect somebody that's more vulnerable than before either, them being demons and all. That has to make life pretty miserable for them considering that any smart arch-fiend is probably also a paranoid arch-fiend. Still, continuing to exist is better for them than the alternative.

It stinks for the players that manage the accomplishment of taking one down. For doing what might be one of the highlights of a lifetime in gaming they get the reward for putting a demon lord away,...for a year. It seems pretty underwhelming. In certain situations they could be worse off than before depending on how ticked they got it.

They are pretty hard to kill off as it is. If they can't just kill them outright it would be nice if they could achieve other things against them like, the demon being banished from where it died for centuries, or maybe even eons or forever, all the demon's followers in the plane it died in losing their abilities to get spells and other abilities from their patron, the demon lord by cosmic decree being unable to ever take retribution directly or indirectly against those who killed it and the people and things they were close to and considered important, or some other harsh measure they have to face. Or at least make it so that if a demon lord ever dies in their home plane they stay dead.

As far as them having blanket immunity I don't know. Hopefully in the future there will be abilities that will allow a high level mythic character to bypass blanket normal immunity to effects or cause partial success with them. Then again for a long time now normal high level spell casters could get practical immunity to two entire schools of magic by casting mind blank and true seeing on themselves. That only got slightly better with Pathfinder's version of mind blank. Demon lords are at least entities so powerful that it makes sense to give wide sweeping immunities to.


It's a damned if ya do damned if ya don't scenario when it comes to wide-sweeping immunities. When the Tarrasque was first printed for Pathfinder, the design team left out certain immunities and now we get threads every so often complaining (or bragging) about how a party of Low or Mid-Level punks can "take out the Tarrasque" by exploiting some specific lack of immunity. And then other people show up in those threads and claim that it isn't right that the creme-de-la-creme of CR 21+ foes isn't more resistant to certain abilities.

So it's one or the other - you either make sure Demigod-level foes can't be harmed/exploited by mere mortal mid-level magic, or you don't. Either way, they can't be please everyone since there are quite a few people on both sides of the debate. Personally, I'm happy they went the way they did.

As for killing a Demon Lord and letting them come back - I like that too. As for it being a disappointing finale for an adventuring party that killed the Demon Lord, just don't set up it to be disappointing. If this "final battle" is supposed to be the climax to a long-term campaign or a lifetime achievement in gaming then make sure that's what it is. Two main ways set up their Abyssal Resurrection to be awesome:

1) The party kills the Demon Lord the first time outside of its home plane but the party has home field advantage. They call on allies from across the region, they gain assistance from powerful local magics, etc. Everything is tilted in the party's favour but it's still an epic battle (perhaps the party isn't even max tier yet - perhaps only 20/8 or 20/9 but they are able to overcome thanks to the additional support) and finally the Demon Lord goes down.

However, now the Lord is recovering on its home plane and the party now has one final quest - go the Lord's plane and kill it once and for all before the year is out. This time they won't have local support and the Demon Lord will have home field advantage making it an even tougher fight than the first time (if the party wasn't already max Tier, now's the time to give them their final power boost). If they succeed, now the party will have the ultimate bragging rights - killing a Demon Lord when it has home field advantage and the support of it's entire planar army. They lead an invasion (or perhaps it's a stealth mission) and put an end to the foul creature once and for all.

2) In this version, the party is actually made aware of the Lord's resurrection power in advance. There will only be one final climactic battle but first, the ensure the Demon Lord is slain for good, the party must undertake one last ultimate quest to gain (or create) an artifact specifically designed to hurt the Demon Lord, or beseech the power of a deity to bless their killing blow. Then they can engage the beast for The Final Battle.

Abyssal Resurrection is just all about managing party expectations.


James Jacobs wrote:
Demon lords are intended to be tough. Things that a max level, max tier party will probably TPK against unless...

By "max level, max tier party"... Am I correct in understanding we're talking about 20th level characters with 10 mythic tiers, each?

In other words, max level equals 20th level?


I believe that's been the level limit for a while. There are suggestions on how to allow people to go past level 20, but that's just for GMs who want that.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Hrothgar Rannúlfr wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Demon lords are intended to be tough. Things that a max level, max tier party will probably TPK against unless...

By "max level, max tier party"... Am I correct in understanding we're talking about 20th level characters with 10 mythic tiers, each?

In other words, max level equals 20th level?

That's exactly what I mean.

20th level, tier 10 is, once Mythic Adventures is out, the highest power level we'll be supporting. Before Mythic Adventures, 20th level was the highest power level we supported.


Tangent101 wrote:
I believe that's been the level limit for a while. There are suggestions on how to allow people to go past level 20, but that's just for GMs who want that.

Thank you. I was thinking that 21+ level characters were really considered house-rules territory, even though such levels are briefly mentioned in the CRB. The term "max level" pretty much confirmed it.

Thanks, again.


James Jacobs wrote:
Hrothgar Rannúlfr wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Demon lords are intended to be tough. Things that a max level, max tier party will probably TPK against unless...

By "max level, max tier party"... Am I correct in understanding we're talking about 20th level characters with 10 mythic tiers, each?

In other words, max level equals 20th level?

That's exactly what I mean.

20th level, tier 10 is, once Mythic Adventures is out, the highest power level we'll be supporting. Before Mythic Adventures, 20th level was the highest power level we supported.

Thank you, James.

I'm still hoping for Epic level support for Pathfinder, in the future, but I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on the Mythic rules asap. And, practically salivating over these demon lords' stat blocks!


If the final floor Rappan Athuk is any indication of an Abyssal Realm...trolololo...

I mean the combination of these 2 continuous effects alone...

Spoiler:
No recovering Divine spells of any kind while resting in the area. All forms of magical transport does not function including teleportation and flight.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Hrothgar Rannúlfr wrote:
I'm still hoping for Epic level support for Pathfinder, in the future, but I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on the Mythic rules asap. And, practically salivating over these demon lords' stat blocks!

I've learned to never say never... but at this point, I'm pretty comfortable saying it's very very very very VERY unlikely you'll see us do "Epic level" content that expands the level cap beyond 21st level. Because that sort of expansion to the game would have required a different set of decisions on how to present demigods like demon lords, and now that they're set in stone with Mythic Adventures, the ship to do post 20th level levels has pretty much sailed.


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James Jacobs wrote:
Hrothgar Rannúlfr wrote:
I'm still hoping for Epic level support for Pathfinder, in the future, but I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on the Mythic rules asap. And, practically salivating over these demon lords' stat blocks!
I've learned to never say never... but at this point, I'm pretty comfortable saying it's very very very very VERY unlikely you'll see us do "Epic level" content that expands the level cap beyond 21st level. Because that sort of expansion to the game would have required a different set of decisions on how to present demigods like demon lords, and now that they're set in stone with Mythic Adventures, the ship to do post 20th level levels has pretty much sailed.

Thank you for the reply, James.

While I'm sad to read that expanded epic rules are that unlikely, it does give me comfort that if I house-rule how it works based on what's given in the CRB (& Mythic), it won't be overruled any time soon.

Basically, I would have a class level cap (so no 21st level fighters), but no character level cap (so a 15th level fighter, 10th level cleric would be possible). BAB would probably be capped at a max of +20 and base saves at a max of +12.

Can't wait to get a look at one of the demon lord stat blocks!


How expandable is the mythic ruleset? You've currently got ten mythic tiers, but could the cap theoretically be raised or would that just break the game in an entirely new way?


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Let's just say that at the point where you get to tier nine, in case you ever get killed you respawn like a MMO raid boss. Not much more "up" to go from there, outside from actual godhood.

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Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:
How expandable is the mythic ruleset? You've currently got ten mythic tiers, but could the cap theoretically be raised or would that just break the game in an entirely new way?

The mythic rules are 100% expandable within their own construction—we can build an infinite number of more powers for them.

But the number of tiers is as set in stone as the number of levels.

There HAS to be a top end to things, folks. That's the only way we can use our rules to present a world with any sense of scaling in power. The lack of a cap for Epic Level was, in my opinion, the singlemost reason those rules were over the long run increasingly unworkable from an adventure design standpoint... UNLESS you were only designing adventures for yourself.

We NEED a cap if we're going to continue publishing world content and adventures that folks can all have shared experiences in, in other words.


I fully agree with that, James.

Most of the characters I GM and play are under 10th level.

I only have a handful from AD&D of the 80's that actually reached higher level. And, it's only very few of those that would be epic level if converted to Pathfinder. Those few would be along the lines of the beings from the mythologies presented in the AD&D Legends & Lore.

So, for my purposes, not having official epic rules for Pathfinder works fine.

If I can understand how the demon lords are built, that should be enough for me. The package of Demon Lord Traits in the blog post answers most of this, I think. Just waiting to see how numerical advancement is handled for these beings.

Will there be guidance for statting up homebrewed demon lords? (I'm assuming the answer is yes.)

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Hrothgar Rannúlfr wrote:
Will there be guidance for statting up homebrewed demon lords? (I'm assuming the answer is yes.)

Not beyond having several fully-statted up examples of demon lords.

Mythic Adventures will provide rules for how to build mythic monsters, but demon lords kind of ride the line between core monsters and mythic monsters.

The actual creation of demon lords simply follows the normal monster creation rules for the most part.


Thank you, James.

That works for me. Fully statted up demon lords following the normal monster creation rules plus Mythic works very well for me.


The cool thing about these "Demon Lord" rules is that (with a little work) they could be malleable. You could use the same rules to create and stat out Infernal Archdukes or Daemonic Harbingers (Who would be LE and NE, of course) or just use them to represent whatever the main "fiendish" entities are in your unique setting.

The Exchange

Odraude wrote:
Fire elementals should be immune to fire attacks because hell, they are made of the stuff!

You are made of flesh, bones and blood... yet somehow I imagine you are not immune to a fist to the face, even though you are made of the same thing as it!

As a side note, I too think it makes sense for fire elementals to be immune to fire.

The Exchange

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

On the note of Immunities, specifically Negative Levels:

While I do think a few creatures should be immune and maybe even empowered by Negative levels such as Undead, I do think it should be a pretty short list of what's out-and-out immune to Negative Levels.

That being said, I do have an idea on how to sorta redesign it for other creatures that get the immunity for some nonsensical reason. I call it the Innervating quality. Essentially, at the start of the turn of the creature, the creature recovers from a number of temporary negative levels and can never gain permanent negative levels. A Demon Lord could have Innervating 6 and thus recover from 6 Negative Levels at the start of their turn.

It still retains the element of dissuading people from trying to pump ALL the negative levels into these creatures while still allowing strategic use of Negative Levels. It could tie into other systems such as Mythic ("Spend a point of mythic power to Innervate X as an immediate action.") and such.

Of course, things are quite late to implement that into the system now except via house ruling. STILL! Could be a useful design idea for Pathfinder 1.5/2.0 or whatever.


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Lord Snow wrote:
Odraude wrote:
Fire elementals should be immune to fire attacks because hell, they are made of the stuff!

You are made of flesh, bones and blood... yet somehow I imagine you are not immune to a fist to the face, even though you are made of the same thing as it!

As a side note, I too think it makes sense for fire elementals to be immune to fire.

I am not made of fists, ergo... ;)

Liberty's Edge

Odraude wrote:
I am not made of fists

Chuck Norris however...


Axial wrote:
The cool thing about these "Demon Lord" rules is that (with a little work) they could be malleable. You could use the same rules to create and stat out Infernal Archdukes or Daemonic Harbingers (Who would be LE and NE, of course) or just use them to represent whatever the main "fiendish" entities are in your unique setting.

Very true.

I'm actually hoping for traits for the Archdukes and Daemonic Harbringers, too. Also, traits for the upper opposition would be nice, too.


Axial wrote:
The cool thing about these "Demon Lord" rules is that (with a little work) they could be malleable. You could use the same rules to create and stat out Infernal Archdukes or Daemonic Harbingers (Who would be LE and NE, of course) or just use them to represent whatever the main "fiendish" entities are in your unique setting.

I'm definitely going to be making the statistics for a certain Empyreal Lord soon, myself. Once I get my hands on the Bestiary 4, at least..

Can't wait!


Checked out Xoveron's stats.

His powers pretty much are in accordance to the demon lord template in the last issue of Dragon magazine.

Although I do notice a slight discrepancy. He is CR 27, but listed as 29 in an article in Second Darkness.


Second Darkness was 3.5. Since Mythic is scaled a bit differently (CR 30 cap), Older CRs have had to be adjusted.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Abyssal Lord wrote:

Checked out Xoveron's stats.

His powers pretty much are in accordance to the demon lord template in the last issue of Dragon magazine.

Although I do notice a slight discrepancy. He is CR 27, but listed as 29 in an article in Second Darkness.

Yeah; the article in Second Darkness was a 3.5 article, which had different metrics entirely for high CR foes.

You can probably still look at the CRs listed in there to get an idea of which demon lords are tougher than others... but there's some variations there as well.

In any event, the CRs listed in that 3.5 article from Pathfinder #18 are out of date and for a different rules set.

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