James Jacobs Creative Director |
I like the flavor of both of these books but noticed that the stats for the head demons and devils were nowhere to be found.
Is there any particular reason for this?
-Jamie
There's a very good reason: We don't know how epic level rules work in Pathfinder yet.
And to stat out someone as powerful as Nocticula, Geryon, Dagon, Mephistopheles, Asmodeus, or Lamashtu, we need to know how those rules would work.
And so, without those rules, we didn't bother statting any of them up.
If and when we DO have epic rules, though, statting up the arch fiends and demon lords is relatively high on my to-do list.
Rathendar |
If my memory serves, its due for 2 reasons.
1) Such writeups for be well into the mid-high 20's of CR, and they don't have an epic ruleset yet.
2) Anything above Nascent Demon Lord (and equivalent devil side) was not planned to be statted up as something that could be simply "hack hack dead"
That's just from memory of messageboard conversations and paizochat nights, i could be wrong, but if you are lucky perhaps james or one of the others will pop in here and say why.
edit: WTH james! couldn't you wait TWO MORE MINUTES so i could at least sound like i was accurately forshadowing your arrival?
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs Creative Director |
edit: WTH james! couldn't you wait TWO MORE MINUTES so i could at least sound like i was accurately forshadowing your arrival?
I saw the light go on here at the switchboard above your name, and saw that you were typing a 2.34 minute response, so I timed my post appropriately.
Because I'm evil.
Rathendar |
Rathendar wrote:edit: WTH james! couldn't you wait TWO MORE MINUTES so i could at least sound like i was accurately forshadowing your arrival?
I saw the light go on here at the switchboard above your name, and saw that you were typing a 2.34 minute response, so I timed my post appropriately.
Because I'm evil.
you SO are!
and wait...why am i on that switchboard?you're Big Brother??
Necromancer |
Jamie Devall wrote:I like the flavor of both of these books but noticed that the stats for the head demons and devils were nowhere to be found.
Is there any particular reason for this?
-JamieThere's a very good reason: We don't know how epic level rules work in Pathfinder yet.
And to stat out someone as powerful as Nocticula, Geryon, Dagon, Mephistopheles, Asmodeus, or Lamashtu, we need to know how those rules would work.
And so, without those rules, we didn't bother statting any of them up.
If and when we DO have epic rules, though, statting up the arch fiends and demon lords is relatively high on my to-do list.
This is good to know. I hated the CR 21 nonsense that started showing up WotC's fiend books; a balor can stand on its tiphooves and get crowned Archfiend in 3.5.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
This is good to know. I hated the CR 21 nonsense that started showing up WotC's fiend books; a balor can stand on its tiphooves and get crowned Archfiend in 3.5.
Does the knowledge that the CR 21–24 demon lords I statted up for Fiendish Codex I were intended to be avatars of creatures that were actually CR 26–32 make that feel any better?
Necromancer |
Necromancer wrote:This is good to know. I hated the CR 21 nonsense that started showing up WotC's fiend books; a balor can stand on its tiphooves and get crowned Archfiend in 3.5.Does the knowledge that the CR 21–24 demon lords I statted up for Fiendish Codex I were intended to be avatars of creatures that were actually CR 26–32 make that feel any better?
Yes and no.
Yes, in the sense that those were lesser aspects of fiendish demideities.
No, because of the stupidity I feel for not reading page 57 as clearly as I should have. I guess the divine proxy thing is something I always overlooked in favor of CR 20+ champions. I never had the players directly face an archfiend, only foil its plans. This had nothing to do with my perception of the stats as much as the unassailable nature of such an enemy: buried in layers of secrecy, epic-tier minions, and planes.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
Forgottenprince wrote:Add aother request for BotD: 3!+1, then you can do the other outsiders, like proteons, inevitables, etc.
The Book of the Damned series only covers evil outsiders. There's still plenty after demons, daemons, and devils, but something that covers proteans and inevitables and other non-evil creatures would have to be a different series entirely.
Trelmarixian the Black |
Book of the Damned:vol 3 would have info on the Four Horsemen, yes? make it NAO!!
Or i shall sacrifice the entire state of Washington to the coming Apocalypse!!
Mmmm... it's a start. Call me back when you snuff a world. Bonus points for how you do it.
Instantly stopping the biological activity of every ATP fed reaction in the world except your own - that's the sort of thing I think has style. A sort of sub-cellular Deplorable Word. Of course it also affects the microflora living inside of you, meaning that you survive the cessation of all meaningful biological life, but end up cold and alone, slowly starving to death. You don't even remember why you did it, just in the end, how very hungry you were...
James Jacobs Creative Director |
Book of the Damned:vol 3 would have info on the Four Horsemen, yes? make it NAO!!
Or i shall sacrifice the entire state of Washington to the coming Apocalypse!!
Well... if you sacrifice the entire state of Washington, not only would you more or less cut yourself off from any future Paizo products... but you'd also be basically handing the reins over to Playstation in the US Console war. You don't wanna do that, do you? Also... think of all the dead bigfoots!
Monkeygod |
Monkeygod wrote:Book of the Damned:vol 3 would have info on the Four Horsemen, yes? make it NAO!!
Or i shall sacrifice the entire state of Washington to the coming Apocalypse!!
Mmmm... it's a start. Call me back when you snuff a world. Bonus points for how you do it.
Instantly stopping the biological activity of every ATP fed reaction in the world except your own - that's what I did. A sort of sub-cellular Deplorable Word. Of course it also affects the microflora living inside of you, meaning that you survive the cessation of all meaningful biological life, but end up cold and alone, slowly starving to death. You don't even remember why you did it, just in the end, how very hungry you were...
I have snuffed out worlds beyond counting, obliterated lives numbering in the trillions, and ye, i have even extinguished several star systems.
all for the coming of my lord, Apocalypse. Fear me, for I AM DEATH.
Are |
remoh wrote:The Book of the Damned series only covers evil outsiders. There's still plenty after demons, daemons, and devils, but something that covers proteans and inevitables and other non-evil creatures would have to be a different series entirely.Forgottenprince wrote:Add aother request for BotD: 3!+1, then you can do the other outsiders, like proteons, inevitables, etc.
You could have "Book of the Holy" for the good outsiders, and.. "Book of the Indifferent" (or something that actually works well and sounds well) for the neutral ones :)
Make the Daemons book first though!
Forgottenprince |
The Book of the Damned series only covers evil outsiders. There's still plenty after demons, daemons, and devils, but something that covers proteans and inevitables and other non-evil creatures would have to be a different series entirely.
This would be a problem how? :-)
Seriously, count this as a vote for additional "Book of ..." series.
Maybe written by the same "author" of the Book of Darkness as he works his way back to the light?
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs wrote:There's still plenty after demons, daemons, and devils*insert scooby doo "Huh?" here*
MORE than just daemons?
awesome. I loved the first two. They are easily two of the most heavily referenced books at my table right now - and I have everything you have ever published.
Kytons
QlippothDivs
Rakshasas
Asuras
Oni
Demodands
Not sure all of those could support a whole book, but I suspect most of them can.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
James Jacobs wrote:remoh wrote:The Book of the Damned series only covers evil outsiders. There's still plenty after demons, daemons, and devils, but something that covers proteans and inevitables and other non-evil creatures would have to be a different series entirely.Forgottenprince wrote:Add aother request for BotD: 3!+1, then you can do the other outsiders, like proteons, inevitables, etc.You could have "Book of the Holy" for the good outsiders, and.. "Book of the Indifferent" (or something that actually works well and sounds well) for the neutral ones :)
Make the Daemons book first though!
The "Book of the Damned" is an in-world object—your PCs can find a copy of it if they're lucky (or UNlucky) enough. There is no good guy version of the book, nor an indifferent book. If we explore non-evil outsiders, it'd be in an entirely different format than the Books of the Damned as a result.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
Distant Scholar |
Katerek wrote:James Jacobs wrote:There's still plenty after demons, daemons, and devilsMORE than just daemons?Kytons
Qlippoth
Divs
Rakshasas
Asuras
Oni
Demodands
Wait, asuras are evil? Zoroastrians might disagree. As might Norwegians.
Div (daeva) has the same problem from a different cultural perspective. I find the deva/div vs. yazata/asura theme one of the more fascinating connections in (pre)history.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
Wait, asuras are evil? Zoroastrians might disagree. As might Norwegians.
Div (daeva) has the same problem from a different cultural perspective. I find the deva/div vs. yazata/asura theme one of the more fascinating connections in (pre)history.
How real-world mythologies translate into RPG stats often has nothing to do with the real world.
In any event, we've had evil asuras in Pathfinder for about 2 years now (the first one showed up in Pathfinder #9).
Gorbacz |
Distant Scholar wrote:Wait, asuras are evil? Zoroastrians might disagree. As might Norwegians.
Div (daeva) has the same problem from a different cultural perspective. I find the deva/div vs. yazata/asura theme one of the more fascinating connections in (pre)history.
How real-world mythologies translate into RPG stats often has nothing to do with the real world.
In any event, we've had evil asuras in Pathfinder for about 2 years now (the first one showed up in Pathfinder #9).
Can we get back to pestering James about handing over the daemon book to Todd and planning future volumes on other Evil outsiders? Pretty please with a fiendish cherry on the top!
Jeff de luna |
Distant Scholar wrote:Wait, asuras are evil? Zoroastrians might disagree. As might Norwegians.
Div (daeva) has the same problem from a different cultural perspective. I find the deva/div vs. yazata/asura theme one of the more fascinating connections in (pre)history.
How real-world mythologies translate into RPG stats often has nothing to do with the real world.
In any event, we've had evil asuras in Pathfinder for about 2 years now (the first one showed up in Pathfinder #9).
ASuras are bad. AHuras are good. Aesir are mostly good.
Divs and Daevas are bad. Devas and Dei and Theoi are good (usually).Including many pantheons and mythologies inevitably creates some dissonance. This can be fun, i.e.: I decided that Divs and Devas were linked in their origins in my homebrew game world and went different ways. But they're still cousins, in a stand-offish way. In Golarion, they appear to be (so far) unrelated.
Malafaxous |
Forgottenprince wrote:Add aother request for BotD: 3!+1, then you can do the other outsiders, like proteons, inevitables, etc.
Evil is in the works, I guess eventually "Book of the Exalted" for the good planes... and what? "Book of the Somewhat Dispassionate" for a Neutral plane?
Any case, sign me up for all the above.
Echo Vining |
Kytons
Qlippoth
Divs
Rakshasas
Asuras
Oni
DemodandsNot sure all of those could support a whole book, but I suspect most of them can.
Any that don't simply require more development. On the other hand, there could also be some advantage to combining two or three of the smaller ones into a single book, especially if they can be made to have some thematic similarity.
Buddah668 |
Nope; that guy's lost forever to the darkness.
Ouch.
Still looks like your seeing the will of the people here in what they want/need for gaming. Great evil makes great heroes, even if they are evil as well :P
I'd like to see Rakshasas and Daemons get their time.
Maybe I'm way old school, but I still consider oni to be more like ogres thanks to the ogre mage.
Katerek |
Katerek wrote:James Jacobs wrote:There's still plenty after demons, daemons, and devils*insert scooby doo "Huh?" here*
MORE than just daemons?
awesome. I loved the first two. They are easily two of the most heavily referenced books at my table right now - and I have everything you have ever published.
Kytons
Qlippoth
Divs
Rakshasas
Asuras
Oni
DemodandsNot sure all of those could support a whole book, but I suspect most of them can.
Rakshasa, Asura, and Oni would actually be pretty cool as a combined book. Qlippoth of course...duh, I don't know what I was thinking.
I didn't think demodands had made any kind of appearance yet. I would love to see them get the Pathfinder awesomization treatment though.
Distant Scholar |
How real-world mythologies translate into RPG stats often has nothing to do with the real world.
Yeah, I know. I just like the idea of two sets of (probably neutral) outsiders, with one culture considering group A "good" and group B "evil", while the other switches the alignments around.
In any event, we've had evil asuras in Pathfinder for about 2 years now (the first one showed up in Pathfinder #9).
Well, I haven't been in Pathfinder for 2 years now ... :-)
James Jacobs Creative Director |
Gorbacz |
A quick note:
All the Books of the Damned so far have titles focused on the leaders of the fiendish race that is the subject of the book.
If we do daemons in book three, it'd likely be called something like: "Book of the Damned 3: Horsemen of Apocalypse."
PLEEEEEEEEAAAAASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
F. Wesley Schneider Contributor |
F. Wesley Schneider Contributor |
Maybe written by the same "author" of the Book of Darkness as he works his way back to the light?
We've already got a bit of this in the world already. The Book of the Damned was authored by the angel Tabris, a scholarly servant of goodness who was ordered to record all the lore of all the multiverse. Over an untold period, he did exactly this. When he reported the completion of his work to his superiors they exiled him for blasphemy. Of that vast collection, the scattered pages detailing the realms of evil together comprise what is known as the Book of the Damned. Even that name is a misnomer, though. As a single book, the section of Tabris's chronicles relating to Abbadon, the Abyss, and Hell alone would comprise millions of pages. What typically fall into the hands of soon-to-be-damned mortals are folios, chapters, and stray pages from this collection relating to a united topic. This is why you get rules for Book of the Damned: Diabolic in the series's first volume and Book of the Damned: Demonic in the second. Largely, though, these pages are hunted for by both agents of the light and the dark, either to purge or exploit that which the pages bear - what some call immortal secrets and others call darkest blasphemy.
In any case, the exact details, powers, and number of chapters of the complete Book of the Damned remains mysterious.
As for the ostensibly less directly heretical volumes of Tabris's work covering the other realms of the Multiverse, these rarely garner as much interest as the infamous chapters. That said, they undoubtedly hold secrets the inhabitants of even the most sterling realms would prefer mortals not know, and so the few existent are coveted and guarded in some of the most heavily guarded repositories in the multiverse. Personally, if I were looking for a copy - maybe even a complete copy of the entire work - I'd start my search in Axis.