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There are actually quite a few Demon Lords statted up including Baphomet, Dagon, and...
Again, fair enough, but it also lays out how Demon Lords are supposed to be treated
For standard play, where player characters are unlikely to be above 20th level, demon lords should remain untouchable menaces at the hearts of their realms. They are the inspiration and source of power for dangerous foes themselves, and confronting and defeating a powerful cult and its leaders should itself be a task that even 20th-level PCs might struggle to complete.
Which is why I'm generally against statting them, because people will exploit it. The intent is for these things to be purely beyond mortal ken.
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Anzyr, do you even read the stuff you link?
The king in yellow is statted.
Hastur is the most mysterious of the Great Old Ones. In fact, the entity known as Hastur might actually be an Outer God. The physical manifestation of this entity is known as the King in Yellow, and though most consider this creature—a vaguely human-shaped figure draped in a yellow cloak—to be synonymous with Hastur himself, many scholars believe that the King in Yellow is nothing more than an avatar used by the true Hastur to move among the denizens of the physical world. Hastur himself is said to dwell upon a distant world called Carcosa on the shores of the monstrous Lake of Hali, and his power on a planet is strongest when the baleful light of Carcosa's star is visible in that planet's night sky.
Anzyr, do you even read the stuff you link?
The king in yellow is statted.
Hastur is the most mysterious of the Great Old Ones. In fact, the entity known as Hastur might actually be an Outer God. The physical manifestation of this entity is known as the King in Yellow, and though most consider this creature—a vaguely human-shaped figure draped in a yellow cloak—to be synonymous with Hastur himself, many scholars believe that the King in Yellow is nothing more than an avatar used by the true Hastur to move among the denizens of the physical world. Hastur himself is said to dwell upon a distant world called Carcosa on the shores of the monstrous Lake of Hali, and his power on a planet is strongest when the baleful light of Carcosa's star is visible in that planet's night sky.
I do in fact read the things I post. None of that information there is guaranteed to be true though (it's only something many believe) and the fact remains that those are Hastur's stats. Did you read the name at the top? It's not "The King in Yellow". It's "Great Old One, Hastur".
Which is why I'm generally against statting them, because people will exploit it. The intent is for these things to be purely beyond mortal ken.
Except they are meant to be fought. By adventures. And while they may be untouchable at the heart of their realm, outside of it no such untouchability need apply. Which is good since, Arkalion is mostly focused on the Prime Material Plane.
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Right. None of those things actually change the fact that Arkalion is capable of doing that. Getting people to accept reincarnation is easy. Particularly, if you can make the kind of Diplomacy rolls a level 20 full caster can. And being neutral, Arkalion has methods for dealing with those who don't. To be specific, using Soul Bind if Reincarnation isn't accepted.
Surprisingly, magic not functioning in the other worlds is actually barely even a setback. Such poor souls merely need relocated to Arkalion's demiplanes (which is possible even if the other world itself has no magic).
The Gods can try to take Arkalion's power away, but well they'd need stats to do that and that would end very very badly for them if someone like Lamashtu as a mere Demon Lord could take them out.
I'm sorry, but this is what high level play should look like. It's not easy mode playing, it's "this is the kind of thing high level was made for" playing
1)You don't get to make a roll to diplomacy someone to accept your reincarnation deal. No where in the rules does it say you can.
Making a deal before they die is also no guarantee they'll accept it afterword. Death might actually release them completely from the cares of the material world so that your deal is just rubbish to them now. And there's nothing you can do about it because now their soul has left and "passed on". Anything after death is purely DM discretion.Soul bind might work. That's a lot of magic casting on people to start undermining a god though. It also won't work against folk protected against it or who pass the test. That's a minimum of 5% of the population just on natural 20's.
I call BS on the plan, or rather I call Easy Mode DMing if you're getting away with it.
2) How does relocating them to your demiplane work if magic doesn't work on their home planet. You cast it in your plane but the effect works in their world....oh no wait, it can't because no magic. Oops.
3) Gods don't need stats to take your power away. They created the entire multiverse. They brought magic into existence. They did all of that without stats. They can certainly strip your power away without any effort. Read Wrath of the Righteous. You meet a deity in that and even with Mythic power the Paizo folk explain that she will completely mess you up if you persist in trying it on with her. No stats. No saves. Just messed up.
4) I agree in the spirit of things that you're saying. I love the idea of a Wizard saying they are trying to create their own form of afterlife devoid of the gods. What I'm saying is that your level 20 wizards current plan would fail spectacularly with any DM taking the time to think in high level mode. The DM can certainly work with your plan (I certainly would, its sounds awesome fun), but I'd have a serious of continuously harder steps involved before it started working. I'd be thinking maybe about level 30ish with some Mythic power you'd be looking at getting this to work. Of course I'd also have to make rules up for levels over 20 that would work. Maybe a path deification or some such thing.
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As for Cthulu, I think his stats make him easy to beat in a completely stale situation devoid of setting. There are ways to destroy it in game.
The save or die effect it gives off will seriously wipe most of a party though. Especially if he just pops up like he does I the books.
Id set the DC of knowing the things Cthulu can do at somewhere in the 60 range. That's just to learn what he is. Increases in DC for each power you want as per the DC's for knowledge checks in the book. It is after all a super rare and unheard of creature.
That's after seeing him or maybe hearing about him in the tomes of the dudes trying to summon him forth.
A 60 knowledge test is doable at that level. Communing etc. might work, depending if the DM decides your deity has even heard of a creature from the Far Realms and cares enough to learn about it. But we can assume the players work out what the thing can do before or when they meet it. That means they can pretty much defend against most of what he does.
Now setting makes it a little more interesting. I imagine he would originally emerge in the deepest depths, given his appearance and what I know if him from the books. More than likely it's aboleths that have summoned him, and given that the ritual worked we can assume the players haven't slaughtered them all so there are quite a few high level casting Aboleths hanging around with Ol' Tentacle face.
Now we have a battle underwater in a strongly magically protected area with Aboleth's and their minions plus Cthulu. Also, they presumably had to fight their way in to the place or at least bypass some serious defences, so lets assume at least 3/4 of their resources are depleted. This is standard given this is an end boss fight in a campaign one would assume.
That makes things a little more debatable on how easy the players can wipe him.
Note: This is just how I envisage things might go. Others will likely play it different.
Ur going about it all wrong, instead of making it Cthulhu vs the 20/10 mythic party, pull out Cthulhu, Hastur AND Bokrug with an army of cultists at once against that same party. The PC's should still win (Mythic GG) but hey, they won't forget that fight in a hurry!
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The Bestiary 4 stat block is his 'running around in my pajamas' stat block, much the same as most characters would be were they to be murdered in their beds.
When the stars come right and Cthulhu straps on his version of adventuring gear, the party's getting started. ;)
Right. None of those things actually change the fact that Arkalion is capable of doing that. Getting people to accept reincarnation is easy. Particularly, if you can make the kind of Diplomacy rolls a level 20 full caster can. And being neutral, Arkalion has methods for dealing with those who don't. To be specific, using Soul Bind if Reincarnation isn't accepted.
Surprisingly, magic not functioning in the other worlds is actually barely even a setback. Such poor souls merely need relocated to Arkalion's demiplanes (which is possible even if the other world itself has no magic).
The Gods can try to take Arkalion's power away, but well they'd need stats to do that and that would end very very badly for them if someone like Lamashtu as a mere Demon Lord could take them out.
I'm sorry, but this is what high level play should look like. It's not easy mode playing, it's "this is the kind of thing high level was made for" playing
1)You don't get to make a roll to diplomacy someone to accept your reincarnation deal. No where in the rules does it say you can.
Making a deal before they die is also no guarantee they'll accept it afterword. Death might actually release them completely from the cares of the material world so that your deal is just rubbish to them now. And there's nothing you can do about it because now their soul has left and "passed on". Anything after death is purely DM discretion.Soul bind might work. That's a lot of magic casting on people to start undermining a god though. It also won't work against folk protected against it or who pass the test. That's a minimum of 5% of the population just on natural 20's.
I call BS on the plan, or rather I call Easy Mode DMing if you're getting away with it.
2) How does relocating them to your demiplane work if magic doesn't work on their home planet. You cast it in your plane but the effect works in their world....oh no wait, it can't because no magic. Oops.
3) Gods don't need stats to take your power away....
1. Diplomacy is sufficient to make requests. Accepting reincarnation is pretty simple aid in my opinion for a +0 modifier, but lets assume you want to make it dangerous aid (even though it's you know not) and have it be +10. That's no sweat for a 20th level character.
First of all, no one is protected from Soul Bind. Any protections will be removed before it is cast. And even if the save is passed, it can simply be cast again. I supposed someone could roll 20's for the 20+ rounds after death it works, but the number of people who won't accept and will then continuously roll 20's is a very small sum. And let's be honest, even without diplomacy, if your choices are "be reincarnated when you die, or have your soul be trapped via soul bind", which would you take?
2. You take them to your demiplane through the Well of Many Worlds (I'm sad no one guessed) so that they can be subject to magic. Basically, you remove the population from their dead magic world and place them in demiplanes, which allows them to become part of the cycle.
3. They do. And I think you are confusing the gods in Golarion with someone else. Nethys is literally a Wizard who uncovered arcane secrets, went mad and became a god. He didn't create magic though. Perhaps you'd like to fill me in on which deities you think brought magic into existence. Godhood in Golarion doesn't really sound like the best and the brightest, or even particularly strong.
4. The main point is that this is the kind of thing a level 20 PC could pursue realistically. The DM should certainly provide challenges to such a PC (that is in the job description), but Cthulhu is just that to a level 20 PC. A challenge.
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That's kind of the level Cthulhu should be operating on, only more impersonally. Cthulhu (or any Great Old One or Outer God) shouldn't be killing, driving you mad, or tormenting you out of anything personal, they do it either because you're there (in the case of Cthulhu) or simply because you're so far beneath their notice that it doesn't even register that they're doing anything to you, because they don't even really know you are there.
This is why I prefer it when Lovecraftian entities are CN, instead of CE. It helps emphasize that they DON'T care, rather than being actively hostile towards tiny, insignificant little mortals.
I can't really see how he can be anything but the thing the bad guys are trying to bring sbout. They either stop the bad guys or he happens. However don't hold the final encounter anywhere near major shipping lanes...
let's face it Cthulu needs DR20/boat
A well balanced party of level 20 Sinspawn could most likely take him down without much fuss.
Even moreso if one of them is a Wizard.
Of course, There's always Vorpal weapons.
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A campaign of ours just finished this winter went up against one of the big bad evils from beyond (M'Har) I believe is what he was called, but he might have actually only been an avatar/spawn/servant of something greater. We went toe to toe, and half the party died and we barely made a scratch, so we started to run (which was the GMs intent all along.) In the running came the chase cards, and we fled across Leng as our team mates got picked off, one at a time. In the end, one pc, shaken, and insane, survived, my PC poetically made it to the gateway on the round it sealed (but fairness not fiat) and so was the last to be consumed.
It was basically the perfect ending, we saved the realm (by destabilizing and sealing the gate), and one lived to tell the tale, a broken husk of a man. Short of everyone dying it was as love crafting as possible.
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Actually relating to the topic of the thread -- there's a LOT more that would need to be done to make Cthulhu genuinely dangerous to L20/tier 10 characters (or least significantly more of a concern), but I can think of two properties to add to its statblock.
Champion of Nyarlathotep (Ex) - As high priest and champion of the Outer Gods, Cthulhu has been blessed with power above and beyond other Great Old Ones. Cthulhu is treated as having the mythic version of every feat it has, may use wish as an at-will spell-like ability, and recovers 1d6 mythic power per round. Should Cthulhu's status as champion be revoked, then wish reverts to being 1/day, Cthulhu's feats revert to non-mythic and Cthulhu recovers mythic power as normal for a Great Old One.
Unrelenting Nightmare (Ex) - While Cthulhu is active and on a prime material world, Cthulhu may automatically target any and all sleeping creatures on that world with its nightmare spell-like ability, applying Dreams of Madness when appropriate. This does not require an action on Cthulhu's part, and happens automatically when any creature goes to sleep within Cthulhu's sphere of influence. Cthulhu is automatically aware of all sleeping creatures in the world (regardless of normal protections from divination), and at any time while a creature is sleeping Cthulhu as a free action may spend mythic power to inflict a mythic nightmare instead.
And there you go. Cthulhu can casually shred reality apart like wet clay with at-will mythic wishes (though with a chance of finally running out of juice with a string of bad recovery rolls - no one ever said the Outer Gods were reliable), AND there's a massive doomsday counter - as nearly everyone in the world with even a single rank of Craft or Perform (and at Big C's discretion, plenty of people who don't meet that criteria, because mythic nightmare plus at-will insanity) will be going insane as soon as they go to bed.
There's also issues that would need to be addressed (like Cthulhu's relatively poor save DCs on its SLAs) (aside: how to know I'm jaded - I view DC 30+ as "poor"), but most of what I'm thinking would be tweaks to demigods in general, not Cthulhu itself.
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Is Cthulu statted for Mythic play? I was under the assumption he's just there as CR 30 in standard rules, not with Mythic addendum.
If Mythic is in play then he is beatable, and should be. CR 20 mythic 10 characters have the backing of the gods (depending on how they got their powers). We're talking children of the gods from Greek mythology here. The kinds of people who take down the ancient world ender of their mythos.
Assuming Mythic is in play (remember it's not standard, but optional rules), then it's up to the DM to adjust him accordingly. A few mythic powers on the big guy will swing the challenge.
Ultimately though, if you're throwing him into your campaign, he should be beatable.
Cthulhu is statted for mythic play - the Great Old One subtype carries a number of mythic-related perks, such as counting as a Rank 10 creature, having 10 mythic power, and having access to all available mythic versions of its spell-like abilities.
Here's the actual bit:
Mythic (Su) A Great Old One has Mythic Power (10/day, Surge +1d12) and counts as a 10th-rank Mythic creature. A Great Old One can use any of its spell-like abilities as the Mythic versions of those spells (if a Mythic version of that spell exists), expending Mythic Power as normal. It can also expend Mythic Power to use the augmented versions of these spell-like abilities.
Most of the outsider demigods get those perks while in their respective divine realms; Great Old Ones get them at all times.
I have no issue at all with mythic heroes being able to fight Cthulhu and win; my issue is that as written, Cthulhu wouldn't actually be a good challenge.
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A level 20 wizard kill cthulhu in a round with time stop + delayed blast fireball