Epic Enemies

[Vallaki Justice]

Can we remove or change creatures from dungeon encounters that are trivialized despite the impact they should have? One of my suggestions is that they are replaced by other creatures scaled up to make it so that dungeon challenge rating doesn't change, just the story implications.

Creatures such as...
Pit Fiends in Perfidus, generals of hell which only 666 exist across the planes.
Ancient Aboleths, who are creatures of immense power, cunning who would be in greater competition with the Dark Lord of Dementlieu.

Perhaps even other enemies such as Balors or Malthor, but I don't know enough about those canonically to make an informed decision. I'd just suggest that there is some text suggesting they are whisked away rather than killed again and again.

Any others may be suggested as well.

Suggestions:
- Elevate the CR of weaker creatures to replace these creatures
- "Impair" or "weaken" the creature by changing its name, such as making the Ancient Aboleth become "Adolescent Aboleth" or "Wounded Elder Aboleth"
- Make it so that the creatures aren't defeated, but instead have a "defeat" text that says they retreat back or are warped away by the mist (i.e. like the Mist Dragon)

[Drekavac]

I definitely think the aboleth could use that treatment in rename or indication it is not dead.

[FinalHeaven]

I probably wouldn't change Malthor simply because I think he fits with the story of the Domain. 

I definitely agree about the Pit Fiends, always thought that was a little odd.

I could go either way on the Aboleth.  I could see it being similar to Malthor, or not.  Could perhaps give it an actual name or some indication that you are not actually killing it, just defeating it.

[Favee]

I strongly agree with all of this.

Perfidus is by far the most egregious example.  Especially when DMs decide to do plots that involve fiends.  We'll end up with "low spawn" enemies as a main antagonist that causes major plot development in these stories. 

I know its a tedious painful job to change the monsters in established dungeons, bug test, and publish.  Even just changing the name and model used, without changing any mechanics.  Just so we can get away from Pit fiends would be a great benefit.  I'd also like to see Malthor do a retreat, rather than die.

[inkcorvid]

Malthor can die just fine. He has a phylactery that he resurrects at, just like a lich.

The aboleth is weird because everyone and their grandma has leather garments made out of its skin. If it's the same aboleth, it's being beaten up and skinned alive repeatedly. Yikes.

[zDark Shadowz]

The aboleths inherit the memories of their parents, so when one is a great arcane caster, all of them are, and they've had aeons to reproduce. Don't know how their family line succession falls one by one into Dementlieu, though I suspect perhaps an archmage of some creed cursed their family line to be spirited away but it can only do one at a time. Or the aboleths are out in the mist oceans and there's only room for one to crawl its way up into the sewers.

[DM Indolence]

I always just tell myself that the Aboleth is projecting the entire experience into people's brains and sending them away with scraps of faux Aboleth and some treasure to keep them happy and content while it goes on with its unfathomable business.

[Merry Munchkin]

it's being beaten up and skinned alive repeatedly. Yikes.

Such is the appropriate punishment for this fellow prisoner of the demiplane of dread, right?  Just like all those pit fiends and the like.... those merciless dark powers just keep resurrecting the poor things.

Cue the Godfather III line:  "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in"

[She Said Destroy]

I agree. The setting benefits from being less casually high CR.

Apparently there's just 24 Balors within the Abyss, so that's even weirder.

[BraveSirRobin]

I'd much prefer changing the mobs themselves than adding some text indicating that it's just whisked away, rather than killed. While on the one hand, trivializing slaying a monster type with a finite number in existence is, itself, lame, it's even more lame to fight things only for them to whisk away.

If it wasn't in Perfidus, it might be more interesting to have that type of dynamic with fiends and demons external of their planes; You slay them, break their binding, and send them back to hitherto wherever (Perfidus, for instance) rather than slaying them wholesale. But within Perfidus itself, it might be better to just make lesser fiends and devils more challenging, or find other more numerous/expendable foes to fight.

-- To put a finer point on this, you take Pit Fiend hearts as a crafting component. You can't whisk away a Pit Fiend after taking its heart, unless we're just throwing some common logic out the window.

[VaeVictis]

I am of the mind all enemies, particularly 'higher level' ones should be toned down in model and name rather than stats. That way when a Balor appears it invokes the appropriate level of rarity and dread. Particularly if you already know a demon halfway through his level of power takes a fully warded high level party to deal with. It helps with immersion immesurably.

The same should apply to the Shapechange spell. Can give it a Gelugon, or Bone Devil skin, while keeping the same stats.

I would do the same with the Dragon shape if I could, and turn it into something else.

The most adherent things are to low magic, the better.

[Revenant]

Eh. I like the aboleth as an enemy and it sells the theming of the dungeon, and to be quite honest you're never going to get to a point where dungeons actually feel fully immersive and in line with PnP or lore. You don't grind the Tomb of Annihilation on cooldown, you venture through it and handle its threat and then it's done and you're on to the next one.

The best approach, imo, is keeping up a suspension of disbelief and just not questioning it too much - it makes absolutely no sense why most dungeons on the server would repopulate the way they do, not even those with Undead in them (seriously, Hotep should just be useless bonemeal by now for all the abuse she's suffered). You can more or less say "but the Dark Powers though" at which point... you don't need to change anything. It is inherently difficult to reconcile MMO mechanics (which are inherent to PWs) in lore and roleplay.

(24 balors makes no sense in the infinite Abyss, and it appears to be a one-off comment from 2e, but Pit Fiends could be swapped without much loss I suppose. I like the big lamprey though, he must stay.)

[Maffa]

But I feel the point Look Man brings stands. I mean it's a bit hard taking seriously the Black Duke's menace knowing that Malthor outranks him by not a low amount and that you grind it face every other day

[EO]

But I feel the point Look Man brings stands. I mean it's a bit hard taking seriously the Black Duke's menace knowing that Malthor outranks him by not a low amount and that you grind it face every other day

The same can be said of any monster though; it's hard to take a werewolf MPC seriously when you kill dozens at night too; should we take those out?

In the end, as Revenant said, this remains a persistent world and these mobs are a compromise to be made in the name of gameplay, lest we only fight mundane human NPCs.

[Calad]

The same can be said of any monster though; it's hard to take a werewolf MPC seriously when you kill dozens at night too; should we take those out?

In the end, as Revenant said, this remains a persistent world and these mobs are a compromise to be made in the name of gameplay, lest we only fight mundane human NPCs.

I understand your point, however werewolves and most other enemies like vampires, wights, etc. we can argue they come at different levels of power and strength. When it comes to beings like demons and devils, specifically devils who are named and evolved based on their strength, you cannot bring a sensible explanation as to why the Pit Fiend I ran into in the DM plot is scary, but the one I kill in Perfidus failed to even damage me. Because there are no "weaker Pit Fiends" or "weaker Ice Fiends", they are outsiders who are the embodiment of an idea of malovelence and strength. If a fiend was weaker than what it's meant to be, it wouldn't have reached that step of the ladder in the first place. I'd argue to not take them out, but reskinning them while keeping their stats the same is a good idea. Especially the higher ranking ones.

[EO]

I understand your point, however werewolves and most other enemies like vampires, wights, etc. we can argue they come at different levels of power and strength. When it comes to beings like demons and devils, specifically devils who are named and evolved based on their strength, you cannot bring a sensible explanation as to why the Pit Fiend I ran into in the DM plot is scary, but the one I kill in Perfidus failed to even damage me. Because there are no "weaker Pit Fiends" or "weaker Ice Fiends", they are outsiders who are the embodiment of an idea of malovelence and strength. If a fiend was weaker than what it's meant to be, it wouldn't have reached that step of the ladder in the first place. I'd argue to not take them out, but reskinning them while keeping their stats the same is a good idea. Especially the higher ranking ones.

Reskinning them would not be much better, since as you pointed out, their power is tied to their social status/rank (or vice-versa). An imp wouldn't be as strong as a Pit Fiend, otherwise it wouldn't be an imp.

[SardineTheAncestor]

Maybe Pit Friends, among other certain enemies, need to be buffed, and given some new abilties since they don't get their full array of PnP powers?

Meteor farmers insist they're easy to take care of once you know what to do!

[zDark Shadowz]

If you want to drive it so only better powerbuilders can beat them, or no one can beat them regardless of level / class / team make-up, sure.

May as well make every area undoable. That'll be lots of fun.

Once the difficulty gets too high whats left to do is people kiting Pit Fiends away from rocks before everyone else picks them up.

[Merry Munchkin]

When it comes to beings like demons and devils, specifically devils who are named and evolved based on their strength, you cannot bring a sensible explanation as to why the Pit Fiend I ran into in the DM plot is scary, but the one I kill in Perfidus failed to even damage me. Because there are no "weaker Pit Fiends" or "weaker Ice Fiends", they are outsiders who are the embodiment of an idea of malovelence and strength.

I can rationally justify it:  it is because the Dark Powers made them (or re-made them) that way.  Everything in this Demiplane is trapped, or is a corruption of something that was trapped, and there is no logical reason why the Dark Powers can't punish or augment anything here.  It is their creation, and our jail.  If they can create dark lords, imprison dark lords, and inflict various curses on dark lords, I have no problem with the notion that they can trap and modify similar (or lesser) creatures like demons and devils with equal ease and depraved creativity as they see fit.

Fantasy requires a certain degree of suspension of disbelief.  Roll with it.

[Calad]

Reskinning them would not be much better, since as you pointed out, their power is tied to their social status/rank (or vice-versa). An imp wouldn't be as strong as a Pit Fiend, otherwise it wouldn't be an imp.

Pit Fiends in POTM are already not as strong as the original Pit Fiends stat-wise. Also going from Pit Fiend to imp yes, would be stupid, however there are about 14 ranks of devils to choose from, why are we dropping down to rank 2? Cornugons, Gelugons, Osyluths, and so on exist.

I can rationally justify it:  it is because the Dark Powers made them (or re-made them) that way.  Everything in this Demiplane is trapped, or is a corruption of something that was trapped, and there is no logical reason why the Dark Powers can't punish or augment anything here.  It is their creation, and our jail.  If they can create dark lords, imprison dark lords, and inflict various curses on dark lords, I have no problem with the notion that they can trap and modify similar (or lesser) creatures like demons and devils with equal ease and depraved creativity as they see fit.

Fantasy requires a certain degree of suspension of disbelief.  Roll with it.

Everything is already explained by Dark Powers. I'd rather not give them as an explanation to a fixable server design issue. (In my opinion. No offense.) It's more meaningful when they are given as answers to proper things. And I am pretty certain a Pit Fiend is stronger and more powerful than any of our Darklords, technically. If I didn't hold suspension of disbelief already, it'd become near impossible to play. I just think it'd be a good change if this was looked into.

[SardineTheAncestor]

If you want to drive it so only better powerbuilders can beat them, or no one can beat them regardless of level / class / team make-up, sure.

May as well make every area undoable. That'll be lots of fun.

Once the difficulty gets too high whats left to do is people kiting Pit Fiends away from rocks before everyone else picks them up.

Also true. But that's a major point of why I don't like where they're positioned. It just kinda seems weird they're the side show to the meteors. Slaying pit fiends should be a major goal of their presence, I guess is the way I feel.

Luckily, I'm not crazy enough to play a character who knows anything about the fiendish power structure. To any of my characters who can defeat them, that's just a big demon with powerful magic and sharp claws. Put as many volumes of Van Richten's in front of them as you want, I can only RP them as they are presented. A larger, more detailed domain would do Perfidus well in terms of enabling some environmental storytelling. As it is, it relies entirely on little lore journals that concern one of the several static presences there.

[Anarcoplayba]

Bigger Perfidus would be nice, sure.

But his whole discussion seems a little off.

First, afaik, Perfidus do not exist in the original Ravenloft setting. It is a creation for the server that fills a role needed by the server. As it was pointed above: it makes no sense creating a domain/dungeon/area that is not playable.

Perfidus is not a trivial area/dungeon (between open path and competent group). Gathering adamantine has its own problems. If gathering adamantine was so easy, the market would be thriving and it is not.

In the end, the only conflict that exists is a metagaming conflict. Some players know that a pit fiend is an endboss in DnD, but this is not the case in the domain Perfidus, a tailored domain in a persistent world for a videogame launched twenty years ago.

In game design, Perfidus is Perfect. It is a marvelous combination of luck, skill and power. And the reward is good.

Lorewise, I do agree that chosing another monster to roam the place would be more akin to DnD 3.5. But is that where the developers should spend their time? Re-skining a monster?

In many ocasions the disbeliefe was suspended: gold has no weight, you can palm via SoH 99 darts or shurikens, but cannot one key, skills, spells, feats and classes were changed. If warmage was deeply changed in its mechanics, why not Pit Fiends?

[Madame Trousers Son]

Plus this is Ravenloft, they could be fake Pit Fiends created by the Dark Powers to taunt Malthor.

[hn3SoNaReS]

Well ultimately, you have to decide if trivialising powerful monster races is a negative thing, and if it harms the setting, I totally agree that it does. Having fewer, much more challenging creatures like Aboleths, Pit Fiends, Beholders, even Drow, is just better design and implementation than having large numbers of them swarm you and be trivial to dispatch. Certain monsters and races are entirely designed to be horde like and relatively none threatening (in the broader sense), like bats, goblins, wolves, undead in general. Using a nebulous Non satisfactory explanation of "The Dark Powers made them this way" is just lazy.

[Anarcoplayba]

Well ultimately, you have to decide if trivialising powerful monster races is a negative thing, and if it harms the setting, I totally agree that it does. Having fewer, much more challenging creatures like Aboleths, Pit Fiends, Beholders, even Drow, is just better design and implementation than having large numbers of them swarm you and be trivial to dispatch. Certain monsters and races are entirely designed to be horde like and relatively none threatening (in the broader sense), like bats, goblins, wolves, undead in general. Using a nebulous Non satisfactory explanation of "The Dark Powers made them this way" is just lazy.

Calling it lazy is unfair.

The problem is that we are in a game (not PnP) more than 20 years old, famous for having lots os things hardcoded. In PnP you can easily create new monsters as your imagination demands. Were the game open source and easy to code it would be possible too. You could simply say they are Devil Johns, a mockery of the pit fiends bred in Perfidus and ok. You caould call the Aboleth the Andrew, the psychic Octopus or whatever.

The question to be balanced is how much development work will it takes to re-skin those monsters to something non-immersion breaker and it this amount of work would be more appreciated anywhere.