146 replies to this topic

[T.G.Maestro]

The next part of the Creature Revisions. Demons, just like Dragons suffered greatly from their appearance in the BG series. These creatures are the manifestations of evil, and possess powers that should make them tough even against a HLA level character. Instead of this -to make the game playable and satisfying for less experienced players too- the developers stripped the demons from most of their unique abilities, and even toned down their stats to a questionable level. Here are my proposed modifications for 2 demons following the sourcebooks (other demons/devils will follow later):

Tanar'ri

Balor (Chaotic evil)
Ability scores: 22 STR, 20 DEX, 22 CON, 19 INT, 15 WIS, 20 CHA
HP: 220
AC: -8 (+ Aura of Flaming Death)
THAC0: 7 (+ weapon bonus)
Nr. of attacks: 2
Damage: (Vorpal) 2D6 +4 +STR modifier +4D6 Fire (save vs breath at -2 to negate), save vs. spell at -4 or flee in terror for 1-3 rounds
Magical Resistances: 75% Magic, 50% Magic Damage, Fire/Electricity immunity, 25% Cold/Acid, Immune to +2 weapons and less
Physical Resistances: 30% to all forms of attack
Special abilities: permanent Aura of Flaming Death (undispellable), Aura of Fear, Sunfire if killed.
Innate abilities (at will): Know Alignment, Remove Magic, Symbol Fear/Stun/Death, Domination, Fire Storm, Telekinesis, Dimension Door
Gate: (once/hour) 1 Balor/Marilith, or 1-3 Nabassu/Glabrezu/Cambion, or 1-5 Alu-Fiend/Succubus; 100% success.

Marilith (Chaotic Evil)
Ability scores: 20 STR, 22 DEX, 19 CON, 17 INT, 18 WIS, 18 CHA
HP: 185
AC: -9
THAC0: 8 (+ weapon bonus)
Nr. of attacks: 6
Damage: 2D4 +3 +STR modifier, +1D10 Fire/Acid/Cold/Electricity, or Poison (2/sec for 30 sec), or Stun for 3 rounds (save vs. spells), or bonus damage (2D6).
Magical Resistances: 70% Magic, 25% Magic Damage, Immunity to Electricity, 50% Fire, 30% Acid/Cold, Immune to +1 weapons and less.
Physical Resistances: 20% to all forms of attack
Special abilities: Aura of Fear
Innate abilities (at will):Know Alignment,Animate Dead,Cloudkill,Greater Malison,Telekinesis,Protection form Magical Weapons (1/day),Blade Barrier,Dimension Door
Gate: (once/hour) 1 Marilith 35% success, or 1 Nabassu/Glabrezu 50% success, or 1-4 Alu-Fiend/Succubus/Quasit 100% success.

Edited by T.G.Maestro, 08 June 2004 - 01:30 PM.

[Jinnai]

Its been a while since i fought them so they may have some of these:

Balor
Should also get Death Throe (deal 20d10 dmg, save vs. breath for 1/2 within 100')

Should get a form of entangle that on criticals allows the balor to bring the player in for each round dealing damage and paralyzed for 1d4 rounds.

Wail of the Banshee should be given for Blasphomey

Being able to cause enrage would repalce insanity.

We can ignore implosion as that would be an instant chunking ability.

If possible to impliment everyone attacking it melee should take massive fire damge 6d6 is what the book says.

Also the Balor should get the sorceor spell speed HLA and prem. true seeing ability.

Gates also for less than a Maralith or Balor should gate in atleast 2 of the same, probably 3 for really low level ones.


Maralth
Immunity to poison as well as electricity

Should also probably get permenat deflect missile weapons, probably at something like 80-90%.

Gating should summon in atleast 2 if its of the lesser demons

Edited by Jinnai, 08 June 2004 - 02:49 PM.

[T.G.Maestro]

Jinnai, you haven't read these descriptions careful enough:

Balor
Should also get Death Throe

Death Throes means they blow up in a massive fireball if killed. Take a look at here:

Sunfire if killed

***

If possible to impliment everyone attacking it melee should take massive fire damge 6d6 is what the book says

Look here:

permanent Aura of Flaming Death

***

Should get a form of entangle that on criticals allows the balor to bring the player in for each round dealing damage and paralyzed for 1d4 rounds

This type of attack would really require a whip/flail animation for the Balors, but since they only have their bare hands (no sword or whip animation), I say we should drop the idea to implement the whip effects. It'd look out of place. The Vorpal hit with massive fire damage is more than enough I think.

Being able to cause enrage would repalce insanity

Yes, I could create a special Berserk ability for them, useable on opponents.

We can ignore implosion as that would be an instant chunking ability

Exactly. Too powerful I think.

Also the Balor should get the sorceor spell speed HLA and prem. true seeing ability

Their original .cre file already has a "Detect Invisibility by script" opcode, and I'll grant them slightly increased spellcasting speed too.

Gates also for less than a Maralith or Balor should gate in atleast 2 of the same, probably 3 for really low level ones

I'd leave those summons as written above, I tried to follow the pnp suggestions as strictly as spellholdstudios.netpossible.

Maralth
Immunity to poison as well as electricity

Again, I think their .cres already have an immunity to poison opcode, but I'll check. I'm still udecided on their elemental resistances though. 2nd and 3rd E stats are different on them.

Should also probably get permenat deflect missile weapons, probably at something like 80-90%

Why? Because they have 6 arms? Nope, that won't mean they can deflect arrows or bullets. They aren't monks.

[Schatten]

why undecided what stats you use? clearly bg2 is 2nd ed, not?
is the phys res really necessary? it seems you like this resistance a bit?
and for the resis of all tanarri:
acid 0
cold half
electr 100
fire mag half
fire natural 100
gas (pois) half
magic missile 0
silver (greater tanarri) half

balor:
mag res is 70%
fear effect of their hand is -6
the weapon only is vorpal and no fire damage
perhaps you can create two weapons and the balor switches between them?
why the symbols? i dont think they can cast them.


marilith:
thac0 is 9
innates is also pi .


edit: oh and since mariliths are the strategists they could be smarter. like 19 or something.

Edited by Schatten, 09 June 2004 - 06:54 AM.

[T.G.Maestro]

why undecided what stats you use?

I have problems with their fire resistance. I think the Tanar'ri should be immune to fire as they are in 3rdE.

mag res is 70%
fear effect of their hand is -6
the weapon only is vorpal and no fire damage

I added these minor changes to make them a little bit balanced in BG2. In pnp they should get axtra abilities from using their whips, and they lose this because of the reasons mentioned above, the fire damage meant to balance this out. The -6 on their hit was too much IMHO. And no, I really don't think we should give Balors a secondary whip attack, since they don't have a whip on their creature animation. It'd look lame.

why the symbols? i dont think they can cast them

They can. All kind of symbols, at will. They even use it in unmodded BG2 (at least Symbol: Stun).

innates is also pi

I don't think this would really be implementable, and would be quite useless at the same time. Since PIs cannot attack, and Mariliths aren't really good spellcasters, we can as well drop this idea. Or we can give them Mislead instead.

[Schatten]

"I have problems with their fire resistance. I think the Tanar'ri should be immune to fire as they are in 3rdE"

natural fire, yes.


"And no, I really don't think we should give Balors a secondary whip attack, since they don't have a whip on their creature animation. It'd look lame."

they have three weapons. their fist which causes the flee. their sword which causes vorpal and their whip. but you are right, though. looks better this way.



"They can. All kind of symbols, at will. They even use it in unmodded BG2 (at least Symbol: Stun)."

ah, yes, yes. stupid me.



"I don't think this would really be implementable, and would be quite useless at the same time. Since PIs cannot attack, and Mariliths aren't really good spellcasters, we can as well drop this idea. Or we can give them Mislead instead. "

hey, if pi can use the gate ability (i think they can?). would be great.

[T.G.Maestro]

they have three weapons. their fist which causes the flee. their sword which causes vorpal and their whip. but you are right, though. looks better this way

If we are truly desperate, I can add them 3 stars in dual wielding and add two separate weapon items - one for the claw, and one for the sword. Still, with their 2 attacks and combined effects they are more interesting the way they look now IMO.

hey, if pi can use the gate ability (i think they can?). would be great.

Argh, now even I wouldn't use such tactics to make them more powerful...

[Jinnai]

Should also probably get permenat deflect missile weapons, probably at something like 80-90%

Why? Because they have 6 arms? Nope, that won't mean they can deflect arrows or bullets. They aren't monks.

Combined with 22 dexteriyt and 6 arms atleast some level of deflection should be possible, even if its only 10%

Actually ckecking back on my 2nd Edition Matalth were immune naturally to +2 weapons and weak only against cold iron and gold in the 3rd edtion.

That and they still had use of their tales in both for slapping and constricting.

Edited by Jinnai, 09 June 2004 - 01:36 PM.

[T.G.Maestro]

Actually ckecking back on my 2nd Edition Matalth were immune naturally to +2 weapons

Were you referring to Marilith? I think they are immune to +2 in unmodded BG2.

they still had use of their tales in both for slapping and constricting

This goes under the same cathegory than the whip attack of Balors. Since there is no useable creature attack animation for this one, it won't be included. Don't you think it would look "odd" that a Marilith constricts a character without any signs of it..?

[T.G.Maestro]

I need specific 2ndE (or at least 3rdE) descriptions and details about the following demons. Any help and info would be greatly appreciated. If someone can send the info via MSN Messenger, its all the better.

- Maurezhi
- Nabassu
- Glabrezu
- Cambion
- Babau
- Alu-fiend
- Succubus
- Yochlol

[BobTokyo]

http://www.systemref...toDe.html#demon

All 3.5, but most are there.

Edited by BobTokyo, 09 June 2004 - 04:11 PM.

[T.G.Maestro]

Actually, only Babau, Glabrezu and the Succubus is documented there, I use this 3.5 Manual too. And as you said even those are 3rdE, which is a bit different from 2ndE - it can be quite hard to "guess" the proper values for them in 2ndE followin these values...

[Feanor]

Gate: (once/hour) 1 Balor/Marilith, or 1-3 Nabassu/Glabrezu/Cambion, or 1-5 Alu-Fiend/Succubus; 100% success.

I have some troubles with this Gate ability : how a Balor could be able to summon a demon of the same power (another Balor) ? I suppose their summoning ability cames from their capacity to command lesser demons.
Also, Balor should not have permanent True Seeing ?

Edited by Feanor, 10 June 2004 - 01:26 AM.

[T.G.Maestro]

I have some troubles with this Gate ability : how a Balor could be able to summon a demon of the same power (another Balor) ? I suppose their summoning ability cames from their capacity to command lesser demons.

No. They can gate in demons like written above, just a greater variety (but since some of those aren't present in BG2, I only added these). Since Balors are most powerful of the True Tanar'ri, they can call another Balor. Other (lesser) Tanar'ri can only ATTEMPT to gate in others, and only weaker than themselves.

Also, Balor should not have permanent True Seeing ?

Heh, Feanor, if you read through my previous posts in this thread, you'll notice that this was asked/answered before: they already have a "Detect Invisibility by script" opcode assigned to their .cres. That works quite similar. If I'd add a complete TS effect (possible of course), it would dispel all illusion-based spells of the party all the time a Balor is on screen. And I don't think that a summoned Balor would tell his summoners or even other creatures on the screen where your invisible party member hides (only the Balor can see him!).

[Feanor]

What kind of control a Balor has upon a summoned Balor ? The last one will atach everything on sight as a Pit Fiend does or he will stand as an ally with the Balor who summoned it ?

Edited by Feanor, 10 June 2004 - 02:29 AM.

[T.G.Maestro]

It is likely that there will be minor changes to Demogorgon and his servants in Watcher's Keep (Ascension version).

- Demogorgon will have *slightly* more of his powers available for him: Dual Action (he will be able to cast 2 spells/round for example) and Hypnosis Gaze in addition to his other abilities;
- some of his servants will be made unique: he will summon his general Severik, a male Balor.
- he will summon his special Marilith Blackguards instead of plain Mariliths.

[Feanor]

It is likely that there will be minor changes to Demogorgon and his servants in Watcher's Keep (Ascension version).

- Demogorgon will have *slightly* more of his powers available for him: Dual Action (he will be able to cast 2 spells/round for example) and Hypnosis Gaze in addition to his other abilities;
- some of his servants will be made unique: he will summon his general Severik, a male Balor.
- he will summon his special Marilith Blackguards instead of plain Mariliths.

TG, I don't want to spoil your enthusiasm, but I don't think you should add more improvements to the Demogorgon (even if they are fitting). The ASC version of the Demogorgon was already powerful enough, with such improvements he could become unbeatable.

[T.G.Maestro]

What kind of control a Balor has upon a summoned Balor ? The last one will atach everything on sight as a Pit Fiend does or he will stand as an ally with the Balor who summoned it ?

We modify all scripts for demons and devils. They'll no longer attack their kin. Their prime targets will be their ancient and natural foes (Baatezu vs Tanar'ri), and if they don't see any of them on screen, they'll attack everything that moves - after gating in other demons of course.

[T.G.Maestro]

TG, I don't want to spoil your enthusiasm, but I don't think you should add more improvements to the Demogorgon (even if they are fitting). The ASC version of the Demogorgon was already powerful enough, with such improvements he could become unbeatable.

I'll definitely consider this. Note however that these changes wouldn't make that battle much more difficult though.