I'm waiting for some Obyriths to make themselves known again. Nothing better than some ancients that make even pit fiends and balors quake.Won't happen. When I invented the obyriths, it was work for hire for Wizards of the Coast. They aren't open content, so we can't touch them.
The GOOD news is, though, that the primary inspiration for the obyriths were the qlippoth from Green Ronin's Book of Fiends, which IS open content. There's quite a few qlippoth in Bestiary 2; several reprinted from the Book of Fiends, and more brand new ones.
Hooray! I need Moar Fiends for my campaign... :D
I don't think that Chaotic means dumb, look at the Joker. I do think that in a mass battle Devils would have better tactics and work together better then demons. But this in not a question of mass battles, one on one pit fiend vs Balor, that is a different story.
Now ad&d my money is one the Balor, because Balor where tougher. but now both 3.5 and pathfinder, they have the same CR so tough to tell, however the immunity to Fire is a big plus for the Pit fiend. But I think it would come down to how the fight played out, who tricked who, where are they fighting, who rolled better in the fight. who cheated first.
Heck, the Balor's Vorpal quality on his sword is worthless against the Pit Fiend's regeneration.
People keep saying this. I miss something for sure.. once the Pit Fiend has been decapitated, couldn't the Balor Coup de Grace him? IIRC, CdG overcomes regeneration...
am I wrong?
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To all you Yugoloth / Daemon supporters, all one-and-a-half of you, you're not even in the conversation.
You are less than.
You are beneath.
You are a waste of text.
Yes yes, of course...
...continue to fight an eternal battle with your diametrically aligned punch bags and leave the REAL EVIL to the professionals.
Nyarlathotep arrives. Demons, Devils, and Daemons all realize they are insignificant specks of dust. Cthulhu devours them. ALL of them.
The end.
It's Cutehulu! Awwwwwwww :)
"He's called the Crawling Chaos, because he can't walk yet."
To quote a brilliantly written post from a Pit Fiend vs Balor Thread a few years ago:
You have the right answer -- the Devil wins -- but for the wrong reasons. It's not about stats it's about alignment.
CE SUCKS! It is crap. CE and CN are meaningful only for stupid masses of grunts. There should be a rule in D&D, any CE or CN PC or NPC can not have an INT score higher than 7. This makes it much more fathomable.
Long reign Lawful aligned entities.
BTW, the Fiendish Codex from Hell mentions that Devils are more powerful and much smarter than Demons but there are just so many more Demons that the Blood War continuously rages.
Of course. That rule make sense. Or, rather, the whining to get that rule makes perfect sense. The guy is whining. "Oah! Oah! I'm dumb! I'm stupid! Everyone makes fun of me! The only thing I know is follow orders. Make them have a rule that the other side must be more stupid than even me so I don't feel like such a failure!"
Sure, make that rule. Those it is for will just break it! :D
Boy, there it goes -- the Cthulhu post.
Surprised it took them this long to join the Thread.
Like I've said in other Demon vs Devil Threads: Cthulhu ain't D&D. You can maybe compare apples to oranges but not apples to plastic.
You're in the wrong place, Horny Boy: This is not about D&D. It's about Pathfinder. And I have stats for shoggoths, denizens of Leng, hounds of Tindalos, and other stuff saying that oh yes, Cthulhu is so Pathfinder.
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I dont suppose the lesser spawn of cthulu (starts with an M and ends with an indflayer) was based on anything that is open?
Nope.
It may LOOK like Cthulhu (who is in the public domain), but all of its powers and history and flavor were pretty much invented whole-cloth by Gygax for D&D, and it's now 100% owned by Wizards of the Coast.
May I direct you to the intellect devourer, who not only has almost the same name as the mind flayer, but also eats brains, has a scary brain-eating attack, has an extensive underground society based on a form of slavery and parasitism, is a CR 8 aberration, has legacy ties to psionics, has been in the game for decades, AND is open content (and thus gets to be in the Bestiary)?
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I dont suppose the lesser spawn of cthulu (starts with an M and ends with an indflayer) was based on anything that is open?Nope.
It may LOOK like Cthulhu (who is in the public domain), but all of its powers and history and flavor were pretty much invented whole-cloth by Gygax for D&D, and it's now 100% owned by Wizards of the Coast.
May I direct you to the intellect devourer, who not only has almost the same name as the mind flayer, but also eats brains, has a scary brain-eating attack, has an extensive underground society based on a form of slavery and parasitism, is a CR 8 aberration, has legacy ties to psionics, has been in the game for decades, AND is open content (and thus gets to be in the Bestiary)?
Could we make a squid-faced humanoid and infest it with an intellect devourer that has permanent gentle repose on the body? We could call the result a Flayed One and have the intellect devourer use its host's squidly bits to latch onto and open an opponent's head so it can eat the brain without moving out of the body. :P
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Creative Director
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Intellect Devourer?
Come on Jacobs.
I bethca everyone who still plays -- including our favorite designers such as Mona and Jacobs yerselves -- still use Mind Flayers, Beholders, Githyanki, and the others in their home games.
Actually, I'd say you're wrong.
I've got two games going right now, and none of them use mind flayers, beholders, githyanki, or the others. I'm actually quite proud of what we've done, and believe it or not, I think what we've done with the intellect devourers in particular is pretty damn cool. I like it BETTER than mind flayers, in fact, because it covers the same type of genre but does it differently than the, in my opinion, overplayed mind flayers.
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Could we make a squid-faced humanoid and infest it with an intellect devourer that has permanent gentle repose on the body? We could call the result a Flayed One and have the intellect devourer use its host's squidly bits to latch onto and open an opponent's head so it can eat the brain without moving out of the body. :P
You could.
I wouldn't.
I dont suppose the lesser spawn of cthulu (starts with an M and ends with an indflayer) was based on anything that is open?Nope.
It may LOOK like Cthulhu (who is in the public domain), but all of its powers and history and flavor were pretty much invented whole-cloth by Gygax for D&D, and it's now 100% owned by Wizards of the Coast.
May I direct you to the intellect devourer, who not only has almost the same name as the mind flayer, but also eats brains, has a scary brain-eating attack, has an extensive underground society based on a form of slavery and parasitism, is a CR 8 aberration, has legacy ties to psionics, has been in the game for decades, AND is open content (and thus gets to be in the Bestiary)?
HAZAH!
I actually liked it before you said this but now that I see they basically can fill that same niche I am most assuredly happy.
it goes to show you point of view on something can make it that much different.
I think it's funny that there are Neothilids and no mindflayers though. How'd they end up in the setting?
because they are awesome and dont follow the laws of man. Devoted followers of chaotic madness rule the cosmic universe.
Thus why Chaos and Law are insignificant beings compared to the unholy laws of chaotic madness!
Intellect Devourer?
Come on Jacobs.
I bethca everyone who still plays -- including our favorite designers such as Mona and Jacobs yerselves -- still use Mind Flayers, Beholders, Githyanki, and the others in their home games.
You just lost a bet.
I don't use mind flayers. If I ever need something like that, I'd go with intellect devourers or just some Darklands humanoid race (like drow) and add psionic levels. Without psionics in the game, I don't really need them, anyway.
I don't use beholders. They're badly designed, anyway. Too much all or nothing for me. Might as well let the party fight against an actual d20. 11+ they win, 10 or less they die. Plus, using antimagic is a pain in the arse, having to recalculate so many things, I'd rather not use that too often.
Gith? Nah, I don't use them. Some weird-faced critters stolen from G.R.R. Martin and then copyrighted? wotc can keep them.
And there's not really that much in the rest I can get too excited about. I can do without all of that. wotc has decided to keep their toys, let them keep it. And I keep the money I would have otherwise spent on anything of theirs.
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I think it's funny that there are Neothilids and no mindflayers though. How'd they end up in the setting?
They ended up in the setting because as I was writing "Into the Darklands," I wanted to have a race of intelligent giant worms. And since I'd already seen that neothelids were in the SRD (thanks to the psionic rules being part of the SRD—this is how the intellect devourer got into the game), they made a GREAT addition to the game.
They're pretty different in Pathfinder from a flavor standpoint, down to having a different alignment. They're basically minions of Lovecraft's Great Old Ones now.
I think it's funny that there are Neothilids and no mindflayers though. How'd they end up in the setting?
They're open content, illithids aren't.
So they used them. Stat-wise, anyway. They got a new backstory to fully integrate them into Golarion.
Edit: Ninjaed by a big frikking dinosaur. I just set my Rune Giant Ninjas on it!
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If you want to use mind flayers:
1. Use them. The 3.5 backwards compatibility is there for a reason. You can do some conversion work, but if you're lazy just assign them a CMB and CMD.
2. The recent Book of Monster Templates had a template called "Eldritch Spawn" which basically turns humans into mind-flayers. And you can then apply it to other things. The picture (IIRC) had a horse that was mind-flayer'd up.
3. Like JJ suggested, use an alternate monster, such as the intellect devourer, the phrenic scorge, etc.
Heck, the Balor's Vorpal quality on his sword is worthless against the Pit Fiend's regeneration.People keep saying this. I miss something for sure.. once the Pit Fiend has been decapitated, couldn't the Balor Coup de Grace him? IIRC, CdG overcomes regeneration...
am I wrong?
One, no, coup de grace does not overcome regeneration in Pathfinder.
Two, vorpal has no effect on pit fiends because losing their head does not kill them. The only actual mechanical effect vorpal has is to kill creatures on a confirmed natural 20 critical; pit fiends are immune to death unless their regeneration has been suppressed.
I know I am indisputably late on this post, however I'd just like to say that this post has BY FAR and BAR NONE been both the most useful and most entertaining.
And so, I wish to thank the vast majority of you for your intelligent input and charismatic wit.
~ Andros
After all this argument over theory, has anyone tried the radical notion of actually PLAYING THE COMBAT OUT? It's not like that the Bestiary stats aren't there.
One could even play different varieties of both I believe and experiment with various scenarios.
I believe the crux of the question is: Can vorpal or coup-de-grace beat regeneration and prevent it from kicking in and reviving the Pit Fiend?
I don't think it does. You have to actually suppress the regeneration with a good weapon or good spell, which we're assuming the Balor simply doesn't have. Doesn't matter what else the Balor does he can't be the regeneration and the Pit Fiend will just keep coming back.
You have to actually suppress the regeneration with a good weapon or good spell, which we're assuming the Balor simply doesn't have. Doesn't matter what else the Balor does he can't be the regeneration and the Pit Fiend will just keep coming back.
Hmm, it could keep destroying the body for a while and then get a holy weapon for the finishing blow. I guess the average balor has a holy sword in its hoard, from a paladin it slaughtered a few hundred years ago...
You have to actually suppress the regeneration with a good weapon or good spell, which we're assuming the Balor simply doesn't have. Doesn't matter what else the Balor does he can't be the regeneration and the Pit Fiend will just keep coming back.Hmm, it could keep destroying the body for a while and then get a holy weapon for the finishing blow. I guess the average balor has a holy sword in its hoard, from a paladin it slaughtered a few hundred years ago...
The assumptions of the fight don't allow for that. The idea was the fight occurs with stat blocks exactly as they are, no outside help.
So Pit Fiend defeats Balor. What's the big deal?
By the way, we are assuming the Pit Fiend doesn't use scry and wish, otherwise the battle wouldn't even need to be played out.
It's true, both would honestly probably just teleport away because it's unlikely they have anything specific to gain and wouldn't want to risk themselves in a direct fight. Powerful devils at the very least would send someone else in their (or many devils).
The Pit fiend is the more likely victor.
He won't be concerned with following the rules.
The Pit fiend is the more likely victor.
He won't be concerned with following the rules.
How do you figure the devil doesn't want to follow rules?
A Pit Fiend and a Balor in a fair fight greater teleport home, because neither side is interested in playing fair.
In a full fight angels win because it could last decades with two incredibly powerful forces of evil concerning themselves with eachother and not performing evil.
In a full fight angels win because it could last decades with two incredibly powerful forces of evil concerning themselves with eachother and not performing evil.
I'm pretty sure this scenario happens all the time, and the angels don't consider it a win because the daemons are fighting in neutral territory ... guess where that is.
How do you figure the devil doesn't want to follow rules?The Pit fiend is the more likely victor.
He won't be concerned with following the rules.
Devils are, by definition, lawful.
In a full fight angels win because it could last decades with two incredibly powerful forces of evil concerning themselves with eachother and not performing evil.I'm pretty sure this scenario happens all the time, and the angels don't consider it a win because the daemons are fighting in neutral territory ... guess where that is.
It happens in a neutral setting if the fight is fair, but either side would spend time and effort trying to force the game to happen in a place which puts the other at a disadvantage because neither would fight fair. It would most likely happen in a place where destruction and collateral damage would be harmful to one side, and one which inherently benefits the other.
Devils are, by definition, lawful.How do you figure the devil doesn't want to follow rules?The Pit fiend is the more likely victor.
He won't be concerned with following the rules.
Right, and Pit Fiends are devils. He's going to follow any rules. He might look for loopholes in them too, because he is lawful evil. But he's definitely going to follow the rules.
Look, all that matters is a balance. We need NE to serve as low level adventurer boss fights, CE to work as grunts in an army or squadron, and LE to rule them all.
Of course Devils have the best tactics.
I mean, they're not Daemon Knights or anything.
#LawfulEvilIsBestEvil
I think the biggest competitions are the cook offs, the weight lifting beauty contest and jeopardy questions.
And Oh man! The jeopardy match is already over and the pit fiend won by a land slide when correctly answering the 3rd riddle of the test of the starstone. Weight lifting was no easy task either but the Pit fiend struck out again by adding an additional 7 basilisks to his mountain of creatures.
Next off is the beauty contest and - By the gawds, The Balor won, having successfully wooed the acidic ooze next to the Pit fiend's Giant pod fly.
Finally the Cook offs, and judging who's the wiser man, using his smarts and craftmanship the battle is on.
I'd be more interested what characters and creatures would do best here