D&D Infernal and Drizzt CRT

[Saga89]

I'm opening this thread by Mr.Bambu advice.

Copying from a discussion we were having:


About the infernals

since it's not directly stated an infernal is a threat in the physical sense but may be intended also as a threat to the influence of an archdemon/archdevil (after all the enmity between Graz'zt and Demogorgon was born purely out of the possession of a title) [...] the infernal IMHO should be downgraded to something like: at least High 3-A, possibly low 2-C, higher with preparation time.

And here I proceed to further elaborate:

Back to the infernal and back when Robert J. Schwalb, crunch and fluff designer for the 4e, had a real blog and not this self-promoting thing, also interpreted the infernal as not a real imminent threat but only a potential one:

Neither the archdevils nor the gods tolerate their existence and many screaming scions are put down before they can swell in evil and size. Yet, perhaps as a testimony to the wickedness pervading the Nine Hells, there remain enough to be worrisome to those who cast a wary eye toward Asmodeus's blighted realm.

So they would still need to be powerful enough to dominate the "lower" circles of hierarchies of Lower Planes but weak enough to be "put down" like wild dogs by the highest echelons when need arises.
Personal power (in the destructive sense) in the Lower Planes is directly tied to prestige (or at least was up until 4e got discontinued; I have almost no knowledge about what 5e may have changed), as seen in the cases of the archdevils Bael, Glasya and Hag Countess, and to the control an outsider may exert out of his plane/demiplane/level/circle/whatever. There was also a 3.5 campaign against Demogorgon, Savage Tide published on Dungeon Magazine, where the whole point was to weaken his grasp on the 88th layer of the Abyss in order to weaken Demogorgon himself.
So a loose infernal would pose a threat in the sense he can almost certainly rise to a prominent position and gain enough power to become a real challenge.
So it could fairly be at least High 3-A, likely low 2-C, higher with preparation time.

As for the Infernal... that is very interesting, then. I would like to bring this up to the other D&D voodoo people (Azzy and Qawsed and the like) and perhaps suggest a rating be shifted to "At least 6-B, would eventually become 2-C"

The High 3-A tier still doesn't sit right with me since there's no reason to place it at baseline 4-D.

Not even the fact that the Epic Level Handbook suggests to threat all abominations as rank 0 divinities? That would also mean they can't be permanently killed by anything that doesn't have rank 0 divinity or higher, iirc. Or is that just low-Godly rege?

Probably just Low-Godly, though that is a good point. Those profiles were largely handled by Qawsed if you wanna speak with him.

About Drizzt

Drizzt do'Urden defeating Demogorgon (it was heavily implied he defeated the actual demon prince and not only some aspect)

About Driz'zt, the parallel Out of the Abyss 5e campaign corroborate what is said in the books making no mention of the various demon lords being avatars:

Also I will note, Drizzt should probably be beefed up in tier to "At least 6-C, possibly 6-B" based on his 4e level of 21 (putting him right between scaling to Imix and Father Llymic)

 

[Qawsedf234]

Well considering the evidence then I agree with the "6-B, potentially Low 2-C" thing.

> Drizzt do'Urden defeating Demogorgon

He did do this, but he had an entire city and some of Lolth's people amping him. When fighting Demogorgon he even notes that it would take something like 10,000 of his attacks before he could even theoretically put down Demogorgon. Though I guess "did some minuscule amount of damage" is warranted of an upgrade considering the AP difference

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Regardless of how we handle Drizzt he should receive the (at minimum) At least 6-C, possibly 6-B since he's level 21 in 4e

 

[Qawsedf234]

I don't know how to word the possibly 6-B key to make it sound not like a stretch. Unless "Estimated that if he hit Demogorgon 10,000 times that he could defeat the monster." is an acceptable explanation.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I dunno

His Demogorgan feat is weird at best

 

[Qawsedf234]

Well just a straight up "Feat / 10,000" gets me Low 6-B and he might scale to epic level encounters by 4e, so guess I'm fine with a "possibly 6-B" key.

 

[Qawsedf234]

Okay I was wrong. He thought he would need over a million hits to kill Demogorgo . So I don't know how reliable that 6-B scaling is now.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

The possibly 6-B thing comes from being 21, which is the mid-point between scaling to Imix and Father Llymic.

I think we should just ignore his fight with Demogorgon for now since he was so massively amped.

 

[Qawsedf234]

That quote was pre-amp. Considering that he was pretty confident that he couldn't possible kill Demogorgon despite millions of hits I don't think the 6-B rating makes much sense.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

the 6-B rating has

nothing to do with Demogorgon

and is just our typical handling of people of his level (21 in 4e)

 

[Saga89]

I think that quote may be a little hyperbole to describe Demogorgon natural armor, Damage Reduction and especially his incredibly fast Regenerationn, which Drizzt had no means to stop or bypass.

 

[Qawsedf234]

I know the rating itself has nothing to do with Demogorgon, however, lore wise Drizzt fought him and lore wise he was confident that even in the Hunter State he was incapable of killing him even with a million direct hits. That statement disavows him from the rating imo. Since if he was possibly 6-B he could do something in one million direct hits.

6-C works I guess, since a million hits wouldn't bridge the gap between his AP and Demogorgon's durability.

 

[Saga89]

Still, Drizzt was able to evade Demogorgon even before being amped, what does that tell us about his speed in the Hunter state?


Also, no opinion on the infernal?

 

[Mr. Bambu]

He already agreed to the Infernal, so that part is done.

And... dunno

 

[Qawsedf234]

I gave my opinion in my first response.

> Well considering the evidence then I agree with the "6-B, potentially Low 2-C" thing.

As for Drizzt, I don't think his speed would change. Just that the higher rating could have something like "Avoided attacks from Demogorgon".

 

[Saga89]

sorry, I missed that

EDIT: what about the low-Godly regen?

 

[Qawsedf234]

Do Quasi-Deities have a low-godly regen feat? To my knowledge you have to be a Demigod before you start to embody concepts, give out spells, and have your own home plane.

 

[Saga89]

Iirc, page 27 of Deities and Demigods states that even rank 0 deities still need to be killed under specific conditions, like being killed by a deity of higher rank

 

[Qawsedf234]

Page 27

> Immortality: All deities (even those of rank 0) are naturally immortal and cannot die from natural causes. Deities do not age, and they do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe. The only way for a deity to die is through special circumstances, usually by being slain in magical or physical combat.

Nothing about needing a higher godly rank to kill one.

 

[Saga89]

I may be wrong, I remember there was an entire page all about deicide

 

[Qawsedf234]

In that section the options are

• Gods can die

• Gods are immortal and unkillable, even to other gods

• Its a mixed system where gods can only die to a certain type of god or a specific weakness

 

[Saga89]

Then I'm wrong, I've probably misconstructed that from how Salient Divine Abilities doesn't work on deities of equal or gretare rank and have lived with that lie for 15 years or so.


But thinking about it, can it still be scaled? The Immorality voice says they still follow the same rule of other deities and to my knowledge there is no example of deities dying to mere combat.

- Amaunator lost all but his faithfuls before dying;

- Takhisis/Tiamat had to be lured on the Material Plane (where she was weakened by a decree she also agreed to empower) and God knows whatever else Raistlin had planned;

- Mystra was drained of all of her power;

- 4e Io split into two different beings when cloven by a Primordial (which was presumably somewhat weaker than her given how Demogorgon, ranked amongst the mightiest of Primordials still sit at a lower level than Tiamat and Bahamut, 32 vs 35 iirc);

- 4e Tiamat wasn't able to kill her equal Bahamut (in the Scales of War campaign published on Dungeon Magazine; Bahamut essence was "sealed" and only required a suitable body to possess and be "revived");

- Bhaal and other deities that died in the Time of Troubles had their immortality and most of their powers stripped by Lord Ao;

- Bhaal, Cyric and Bane could not kill Jergal even after having stripped him of his portfolio.

Though admittedly I may be forgetting something.

 

[Qawsedf234]

In those however, they're all full on gods and can revive themselves due to embodying concepts or having back up plans in cased they died. With the Abominations they're only Quasi-Deities which are notably less powerful than even a demigod.

 

[Saga89]

yet as you quoted the Immortality voice for deities says:

All deities (even those of rank 0) are naturally immortal and cannot die from natural causes. Deities do not age, and they do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe. The only way for a deity to die is through special circumstances

 

[Qawsedf234]

But in those examples, most of them did die. They just reincarnated or resurrected themselves. Mystra did die during the Spellplague, she just resurrected, Bane and the others did die during the Avatar Crisis, they just resurrected. Amaunator did die, but he just resurrected. So on and so forth. Its possible to kill a god in combat, the issue is stopping them from coming back. Deities have the benefit of being tied to concepts or a plane which allows them to come back, the Abominations don't have that advantage.

 

[Saga89]

Well this is an ability all outsiders have in some degree, as shown by the balor Errtu which had his body destroyed on the material plane by Drizzt but regenerated in the Abyss (the books in question are The Crystal Shard, where Errtu got killed, and then Siege of Darkness and Passage to Daw where the balor returns); And isn't low-Godly Regenerationn by definition:

Low-Godly: The ability to regenerate from the complete physical destruction of your body, instead restoring it from your disembodied consciousness, whether that be your soul, mind, or something else.

Besides Errtu, I believe there are other examples though iirc they usually include the loss of some amount of power or some form of demotion in case of baatezus. Can't recall other sources as of now though.

 

[Qawsedf234]

Sure, but Abominations aren't tied to a plan like any of them. Balor's are tied to the Abyss/

 

[Saga89]

Except, at least in the Infernal case, they are since they are outsiders native of an external plane and take the subtype of their native plane: an ousider is by definition:

at least partially composed by the essence (but not necessarily the material) of some plane other than the Material Plane

 

[Qawsedf234]

Well, I guess you're right about that. Low-Godly is fine with me then, however, it should be noted like with our Demogorgon profile. In that Low-Godly is over time and not a combat applicable ability.

 

[Saga89]

Ok, one last clarification though: if Errtu regen is to be taken by example, he just cannot exit the Abyss for 100 years by itself but it can still be summoned. So if an outsider has the ability to interact with other planes (for example: gate can be used to strike from your plane to another, or an outsider may be able to summon something able to summon him in return and send it to wherever to be summoned there [Fraz-Urb'luu for example should be able to do that with his summons, but really any two creatures with gate, planar binding or planar ally could do that]), that low-Godly key could still be combat applicable.


EDIT: well I just put on hold my horses by myself... I remembered there should be written somewhere that an outsider needs 1 day per HD to regain its full power. Maybe it was on 3e Book of Vile Darkness, or the aforementioned Savage Tides campaign?

 

[Qawsedf234]

Dunno, but it know it takes awhile for most beings to regain both their full form and power if killed outside of their homeplane.

 

[Saga89]

Savage Tides on Dungeon Magazine #150 (Prince of Demon article) does state regardless of the amount lost it takes Demogorgon several months to regain all its power but it doesn't get any more clear than that (however Demogorgon can no longer use gate only after losing roughly a full 1/4 of his power). Regardless, there it goes combat applicability against most evenly matched foes.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

doesn't that just sorta mean that

like

He gets weaker

He isn't dead

 

[Qawsedf234]

Canonically speaking his orb (or whatever powers the tide) is broken and his plans were foiled. Him being killed isn't the confirmed ending afaik. Now if he does die he'll come back. Either through regen or the Abyss just bringing him back. But it takes time for him to regain his power.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

So

It's still sorta combat applicable, he just becomes weaker

 

[Qawsedf234]

Like, in the story Demogorgon has a "max" level and he would basically obliterate the PCs in a normal fight. However, if the adventurers do a bunch of stuff they can heavily weaken Demogorgon. The list is like

• Have Orcus fight Demogorgon

• Have Mal leave him which shakes his confidence and co trol of his layer

• Kill some of his proxies

• Kill his son

• Do some other stuff

Then you fight him. Now its very likely that the PCs kill Demogorgon since like 3 endings bank on that, but there's endings where he survives and I don't know if a second adventure gives a confirmed ending. I just knkw that he canonically fails.

But if he does die. He eventually comes back and attempts to get his Prince Crown back. But its a notable time after the adventure ends.

 

[Saga89]

"Reincarnation" via proxy/clone or aspect would be instant, though the latter would stive deprive him of a significant chunk of his power (ala Obox-Ob). In any case it would still take him "several months" to regain any power he may have lost.

There is no sequel to Savage Tides, it was the last 3.5e campaign published on Dungeon Magazine and after that the Paizo stuff moved to Pathfinder.

 

[Qawsedf234]

Yeah I thought that there wasn't a sequel. The most I remember is his 4e bio mentioning the adventure and that he failed in his plan.

But for total destruction he would still still come back, it would just take a while. Presumably it would work like that with the Infernal. They die, eventually come back, and have to wait for their strength to return.

 

[Saga89]

Yes, I concur. I've consulted both Fiendish Codex I-II and there isn't anything more specific regarding the time.

Regarding archdemons, Clone is not a viable spell for combat due to its casting time and aspects are usually so significantly weaker than the original they are likely to flee and wait as long as it needs to recover their full might (especially if they are in-character since they would fear their usual enemies finding out their weakened state and exploiting it to wrestle control on the abyssal layer(s) or even outright destroy/seal them).

 

[Qawsedf234]

So if its okay with Bambu I guess apply the changes?