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I do want to ask though if this actually matters in practice that much though?
I mean, no GM would make an encounter that is just two npcs fighting each other without players being there right? And all empyreal lord vs demon lord should be kind of narrative thing rather than "But they can't win because of stats!", I'd like to get people out of idea that stats decide the narrative since thats probably part of why paizo won't ever tell what gods can and can't do <_<
So doesn't this mostly matter for evil parties who want to fight good demigods having easier time than good parties fighting evil demigods? I can see it being problem in that respect, but I don't really see this being high enough concern compared to other stuff. Like, you know, would be nice instead to see paizo release errata for a lot of older player materials or even core rulebook spells. I had to house rule how Wall of Thorns works when I run RotR since text was vague enough we had lot of debates about it at the table and that took a lot of time...
There is also that I think ALL CR 24+ creatures need a buff. We have been doing mythic playtest with my players in preparation for Wrath of the Righteous were we try out level 20 party without mythics vs cr 25 and higher creatures before adding mythic ranks. We came into conclusion that CR 25 creatures can be beaten with 4 level 20 pcs without real problems while Kostchtchie isn't much of problem, at least if he loses in initiative with his +6 and pcs have buffs on, either besides being unkillable by them due to regeneration. Only really dangerous thing about demigods to level 20 party is that their save or die spells and effects have high enough dc that without mythic its harder to make them.
When I first saw the thread title, I thought this was going to be a thread for complaints about inappropriate behavior by Empyreal Lords . . . .
When I first saw the thread title, I thought this was going to be a thread for complaints about inappropriate behavior by Empyreal Lords . . . .
You been drinking tonight unarcane?
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^No, just working too late for too many days recently . . . And listening to the news an awful lot.
I hear that.
woah it is? do you have a source for that? because if there are things for it I would love to see them. even if Paizo just put it up online because it's been like a 6-year haitus on any material released for him and he seemed like he could easily be one of the very popular empyeral lords if he'd ever gotten anything other than his single bestiary entry...Oh for sure we need those. I even asked James Jacobs in his thread about the absence of boons for cernunos (CR 30!), and he replied saying it's probably from some miscommunication between the designers (in the CotR he is listed as a minor empyreal lord. Yeah).
Ps: cernunos's favired weapon is the club.
Chronicle of the Righteous pg. 56 under "Lesser Empyreal Lords" :
"Cernunnos: An unpredictable and elusive lord of the wild, Cernunnos travels the forested paths of the multiverse, setting natural balances to right and indulging his fiery passions."|
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Do note that is in universe text and that it gives definition of lesser empyreal lord as
"More empyreal lords exist than most mortals realize. Some focus on their divine duties and rarely receive notice on other planes, while others have small, specialized sects of worshipers. The following are but some of these lesser known empyreal lords."
In other words, its not saying that Cernunnos is less powerful, its saying he is less known on Golarion.
I mean, no GM would make an encounter that is just two NPCs fighting each other without players being there right? And all empyreal lord vs demon lord should be kind of narrative thing rather than "But they can't win because of stats!"
Still, Pathfinder is ultimately a game about stats (as you support with your playtest data), which become important what an empyreal lord is one of your allies (and a lot of their abilities assume they have friends). Still, I wouldn't be opposed to more Nobilis-like rules for demigods.
I don't really see this being high enough concern compared to other stuff. Like, you know, would be nice instead to see Paizo release errata for a lot of older player materials or even core rulebook spells.
This is pretty much the only counterargument I can really agree with, namely a practical one out of concern that we're in a zero-sum environment. I could give a better answer if I knew how Paizo worked (any insiders wanna chime in?). While an errata would be ideal I'd be somewhat happy if Paizo simply admitted their mistake.
There is also that I think ALL CR 24+ creatures need a buff. We have been doing mythic playtest with my players in preparation for Wrath of the Righteous were we try out level 20 party without mythics vs CR 25 and higher creatures before adding mythic ranks. We came into conclusion that CR 25 creatures can be beaten with 4 level 20 PCs without real problems[.]
Now this is an interesting finding. I'd like to see your data. I'm curious if it's simply due to PC optimization or if demigods could stand to be buffed some.
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Eh, it is pretty unofficial in nature(by that I mean we use our tables' house rules such as variation of elephant in the room feat tax house rule) and its still unfinished as we do it if session otherwise gets canceled or if we have extra time after session. I can tell details about it so far though. Do note it is hard to tell how optimized character is even if you tell players to avoid optimizing too much when you are creating characters at level 20. There is also that in regular campaigns usually make it harder to get items(settlement base values, loot players get, etc), so kind of hard to simulate character with level 20's average wealth by level accurately.
So anyway, first round of playtesting character gen was level 20/mythic tier 10 with players encouraged to go crazy and try to break things and crafting was allowed. We did come to conclusion that each PC they created, besides the buffer, are capable of killing all creatures in bestiary in one round solo if they get full attack even without buffs. Real test is gonna be when we try out how many rounds they can survive as a party multiple demigod level foes at same time(in other words, to see if demigods can kill them if they don't fight back). I'm not planning to test how effective PCs are as party since if single PC is capable of killing Cthulhu in one round without other PCs(assuming they survive the save or die aura) without buffs, well its not gonna become harder to do it with other people included.
Another note: I've been mostly testing whether PCs can survive full attack or special abilities of the monster and whether they can in turn survive full attack from PCs. I haven't yet taken in account possible tactical hazards or mooks or such. I did test out CR 25 Isph-Aun-Vuln's hit and run incorporeal tactics though, against single character it can extend beyond 3 rounds, but definitely against four pcs she wouldn't survive that long.
I did make one observation about this round of playtesting thoughts: Guns scale with mythic and demigod levels weirdly because all of high CR creatures have awful touch ac compared to their normal ac. Guns themselves aren't that great, but anything that targets touch ac becomes really powerful against demigods.
Second round of playtesting is going to be just level 20 character without crafting allowed at chargen with goal of making "regular" character player would do in a campaign. We haven't really started it as first one is still unfinished, but one player did their level 20 cavalier in advance so we tested it for fun. Conclusions here:
It is a fact that if level 20 cavalier charge crits, it makes enough damage to kill any one creature in the game.
Level 20 cavalier can K.O. tarrasque rather easily since cavalier is more likely to hit tarrasque with most of its attacks and deals more damage per attack and Tarrasque doesn't have any other important mechanical gimmicks than dealing lot of melee damage.
Against other cr 25 foes, cavalier has less of chances to take on them alone as they don't just deal melee damage. Yarthoon from Bestiary 6 freezes cavalier really fast into stagger stun lock with its cold damage. Thats said, if cavalier hadn't been alone, freedom of movement would have really fast countered Yarthoon and it otherwise doesn't deal enough damage compared to the cavalier.
Against Kostchtchie in bout of just melee damage, the demon lord beats him faster than he can deal damage(plus regeneration too), but Cavalier was still able to do 200+ damage just by himself against him.
So wouldn't want to do much of conclusions since tests are still unfinished and this was mostly about attack rolls and ac, but basically as far as I can see, you shouldn't ever have CR 24+ foes as solo encounters even though by CR apl difficulty rules they should be impossible to solo with level 20 character.
@AlgaeNymph:
I just want to say that I absolutely love the thought the OP gave to this. The Empyreal Lords make me actually want to be a demonstrably good character for once in Pathfinder.
If I ever run them, I'll almost certainly buff them a bit. If anybody ever does make homebrew buffed Empyreal Lords, I'd love to see. On my part, they'll be getting Shapechange and buffed mental stats across the board, and probably a nudge upward in HP.
Thank you, thank you, and thank you! You're my kind of orc. ^_^
I really should get to working on more re-statting...
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The oddest thing I find in the heavenly host is their sizes. There is ONE rank-and-file celestial that is Huge size (Exscinder Archon). Everything else is Large or smaller. Meanwhile infernals are often quite big.
I suppose Elysian Titans are technically good outsiders, and they're big, but I'm not sure I'd count them as celestials.
As to complaints about Empyreal Lords... I don't like the art for Soralyon's holy symbol. The text description is a stone spire while the art shows a flat stone spiral. And the spiral doesn't look good plastered on armor.