The Fiendish Races and Ravenloft

[ewancummins]

- they have a portal out of Ravenloft, but it leads to Hell

LOL!

You evil monster!

[Hogan Van Monsterband]

Oh, it's worse than that - they're Good PCs (well, the two strongest personalities in the group are CG and LN-but-tendiing-G respectively), so they can't just throw it away. Their first question whenever they go through the Mists of lose any gear or anything like that is 'Where's the box?'

[High Priest Mikhal]

Several of them, including Orcus, and I think Asmodeus, were in the 3.0 Book of Vile Darkness.

The Book of Vile Darkness or Fiendish Codex I and II. The former is 3.0 while the latter two are 3.5 and technically "aspects" rather than the full-on fiendish lords that are epic-level foes (like I'm going to let even a lvl 20 group take on Graz'zt or Pale Night? Dream on, these things are just below demigods in power!).

[alhoon]

The former is 3.0 while the latter two are 3.5 and technically "aspects" rather than the full-on fiendish lords that are epic-level foes (like I'm going to let even a lvl 20 group take on Graz'zt or Pale Night? Dream on, these things are just below demigods in power!).

IMO a 20th lvl party is also just bellow demigods in power.

[High Priest Mikhal]

The former is 3.0 while the latter two are 3.5 and technically "aspects" rather than the full-on fiendish lords that are epic-level foes (like I'm going to let even a lvl 20 group take on Graz'zt or Pale Night? Dream on, these things are just below demigods in power!).

IMO a 20th lvl party is also just bellow demigods in power.

That's fine. Personally I find the idea of fiendish lords being so powerful that even epic-level characters don't stand a snowball's chance rather comforting. It's a reminder that there are and always will be bigger, meaner, more powerful beings. After the time I've spent in MMOs where the grandmaster BBEGs can be felled by teams of ten people, I need to have some undefeatable foes in my tabletop games. It certainly helped shock a new group of MMO-players-turned-tabletop-players I DM (using 3.x; I'm now officially an "old school" D&Der according to some peers) out of their preconceptions.

[The Giamarga]

Of course there's also the awesome free Gates of Hell netbook from Dicefreaks.

Dicefreaks did a lot of work on integrating 3E Deities & Demigods rules with the Epic Level Handbook rules and making it all work with the flavour from earlier D&D. Their Archfiends are on par with lesser gods as it was always protrayed in the flavour of D&D and they made their rules-representations fit that. They also revised the rules for deities (brilliantly getting rid of those 20 outsider HD for deities, thus giving more class levels and more room to build flavour). In their Cosmology Demigods start at CL30 iirc.

The DF! builds might be a bit too strong for most Ravenloft fans but I still suggest you check out the netbook and check out the rest of their forums and plunder it for anything you can use...

Let me explain a bit where I'm coming from. Yes, the 3E WotC Archfiends have a CR, and can be killed by low-level epic PCs. Which is a gross error on part of WotC. That's why they somewhat nebulously stated those stats are only aspects of the real Archfiends who are probably a bit higher in CR and release the next stats which were equally insufficient. WotC botched it all up massively by making those stats for PCs to kill as they thought that's what the players want. (Which is probably true in some cases) But the flavour given to these beings in the past settings and even in 3E does not fit with their stats. The D&D Cosmology hinges on the fact that Planar Lords like Graz'zt or Asmodeus need to be on par with the gods at least in their homeplanes. Else why has not Kurtulmak conquered all of Hell yet? (This is the so called Special K problem).

So if you want to have stats for gods and planar lords you need to have them make sense in relation to each other and fit with their flavor. This is what Dicefreaks spent considerable effort on in imho they excelled at it. Maybe the power level is a bit too high for some people taste but it fits with the levels that the gods where given in 3E Deities & Demigods. The flavour is also generally resonant in much of the Planescape campaign, which made some Demon Lords lesser deities and even more powerful on their homeplanes.

[Germaine]

It's funny you should mention wandering pit fiends, Strahdsbuddy, since I had an NPC in my campaign who was exactly that, though the party didn't realize it. Accidentally summoned years ago by a PC psionicist who didn't understand the nature of the demiplane, then pretty much forgotten about, he took to heart Milton's line about reigning and serving, and decide he'd rather be a potential lord or king than a general in the Blood War back home. I played him with subtlety, manipulations, and illusions, though, rather than hellfire and winged legions. Other than said pit fiend, I've used de Penible, Thissalra Tor, my own "Son of Erlin" and the Straw God (if he counts), as well as using Drigor and my own Bloated Beast of Corrigan's Atoll as background elements. I have used the GC and- to a lesser extent- some of his children extensively, but I don't suppose that counts, since he isn't really a fiend IMC.

[Strahdsbuddy]

I think you sort of prove my point, Germaine. Your pit fiend is not acting like a pit fiend. A subtle malignant force is the perfect villain for Ravenloft, be he from Baator or from Brooklyn. An enormous winged creature flaying humans with a fiery whip is so over the top as to be more curiosity than terrifying.

Take the Black Duke. He shows up, levels a town, and disappears. Is he Godzilla? He has all the gothic fury of a hurricane: there is little that can be done about him and thus little struggle with the morality of dealing with him. He works better as legend than fact.

Inajira is actually a marvelous Faust-demon stand in; I just hate that he was introduced as part of Strahd's story instead of someone less important. In order to make a deal with the devil, I suppose one has to show up from time to time...

My main point on outsiders is that a little dab will do ya. The Demiplane of Dread is no place for the Blood War (I think we're all in agreement here) and using a powerful outsider in place of the traditional villains can seem like forcing a round peg into a square hole. A few imps and mephits are fine; A marilith under the Sleeping Beast seems forced.

[Germaine]

I do have to admit that-where Ravenloft is concerned- I've never been a big fan of village-destroying baatezu or babau. And I've always pretty well hated that giant marilith- ever since Adam's Wrath introduced her. Plus, I tend to think that most baatezu and yugoloths should be more Lucifer/ Faust/ Lewis Vendredi, rather than the rampaging Hulk on speed. I do rather like the idea of Kartad and co. being subtly influenced by evil from below, though.

[Germaine]

Oh, correction. I did run CoD with its nalfeshnee- Malistroi, I think- but I rather disliked him and his reality-warping, and shamelessly killed both him and Yagno by the end of the adventure. I also once wrote up an adventure inspired by Sleepy Hollow that used a hezrou and its cult as a red herring, but a demon half-dead and buried under 40 or 50 feet of swampland probably isn't going to be doing much rampaging, either.

[tomokaicho]

I have to second the praise for The Gates of Hell by DiceFreaks. TGOH was a monumental work on the Nine Hells. I use this version of the Hells as my headcanon.