Customer Reviews

Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After having read this book cover to cover, I thought I'd give some feedback on it. There have been several updates from the previous book on demons and devils, The Book of Vile Darkness, which I will come to later.

Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells is a nice counterpoint to the previous book in the series, Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss. It is laid out in the same fashion as its predicessor, with an introduction that mainly consists of a fairly long story about the origin of devilkind. This includes the history of Asmodeus and how he tricked the lawful dieties into signing the contract full of loopholes that handed him the authority to handle punishment of souls, and indirectly subvert and trap them.

The first chapter of the book mainly deals in generalities about devils with sections on what motivates them, how to use them as more than just throwaway encounters, Faustian Pacts, the Blood War, biology, and a condensed recent history of the Nine Hells, including the Reconing and the current political climate.

The second chapter goes into the details of each layer, including the population breakdown, which unique devils and lawful evil dieties populate the level and what each diety's relationship with the Arch-Devils is, as well as major cities and landmarks. There is a brief introduction to the Arch-Duke/Dutchess of the layer, and tips on roleplaying them for the DM. Each section closes with two or three encounters, most of which I was pleasantly surprised to find are quite in depth.

The third chapter is pretty short and is basically monster type bios and stat sheets, as could be expected, almost all of them are devils. Most of them are new, but there are some carry overs from The Book of Vile Darkness.

The fourth chapter introduces a new race, a small number of new classes, some spells, traits, and advantages and disadvantages on "selling your character's soul to the Arch-Devil" so to speak. The hellbred are souls that repented their evil just as they died, and so to find out which way they would swing, they are then reincarnated by the gods as a hellbred to decide their fate. Only a truely heroic feat or sacrifice can save a hellbred from an eternity of punishment. The new classes are as follows: a thief that focuses on stealing from devils, a cleric-type that focuses on saving the souls that are already trapped in Baator, a fanatical paladin type that always wants to be on the front lines, and a sorceror type that handles the Hellfire that Mephistopheles has been working on. Spells I merely glanced over, but most of them seem to focus on giving the target aspects of a specific devil type for a short amount of time. Traits are mostly carried over from The Book of Vile Darkness, things such as Dark Speech, monsterous scales, devilish vision, and so on. Out of this section, I found the advantages/disadvanges granted by the Arch-Dukes/Dutchesses the most interesting. There is a detailed write up for each, and how they are tied to the devil sponsor. If you're running an evil campaign, you'll definitely want to give this section a look.

The last chapter is devoted to the Arch-Devils themselves. They are arranged by layer, and all of them are given a biography in addition to the ones detailed in their layer description. There are also notes on their cult in the Material Plane, who is who's enemy and ally, how these relationships have changed since The Book of Vile Darkness, and how to leverage them for the PC's benefit. The stats given are for the aspects of the Arch-Devils, however.

Why I knocked off a star: The main thing that bothered me was that there is almost no information given on the unique devils that are between the pit fiends and Arch-Devils on the heirarchy. Just names at most. More detail in this respect would have been appreciated.

The second thing is that the stats given for the Arch-Devils are for their aspects, not for the Arch-Devil themselves. Now, this is probably not a problem for meeting them on the Material Plane or other places except for Baator. If you have ultra high level PCs going to Baator to fight them directly, this could be a problem because an aspect cannot manifest on the same plane as the original. They should have included a double stat sheet for the Arch-Devils, one for the aspect and one for the actual devil. You can use the stat sheets from The Book of Vile Darkness, but it would have been nice to have them all in one place.

The last few things are more nitpicks, really. Personally, I find the tale in the introduction a bit farfetched, considering that you'd think the gods would actually read what they were agreeing to and would be smart enough to recognize that Asmodeus was putting one over on them. Some of the art has been recycled from The Book of Vile Darkness, and as previous reviewers have noticed, not all of them are correct. There are also a few minor retcons and omissions from the information in previous books. For example, the origin of the nippurbio has been changed, and there is no mention of the yearly meeting between the Arch-Devils to report on the Blood War to Asmodeus.

Overall, this is a good book to have if you're running a campaign with devils. It takes almost everything from The Book of Vile Darkness and some of the previous, more general book on demons and devils and expands on it. I was particularly interested in the political shakeup and changing relationships between the Arch-Devils. There is a lot of information between these covers, and any DM with even a passing interest in running a campaign with them will find something useful.

The second Fiendish Codex follows in the footsteps of the first. Like Hordes of the Abyss, this work focuses on one of the great fiendish races - the devils. It contains fascinating material, drawn on previous explorations of the Hells (which were initially described for the D&D cosmology WAY back in Dragon 75-76).

The book follows the familiar formmat. An introductory chapter, followed by in-depth material (in this case, the geography and politics of the Hells). Then new character options, including Devil-touched feats and a new race, the Hellbred, new spells, and prestige classes. Then a chapter with monsters, and finally some details (and aspects for) the Lords of the Nine.

The content is solid, and definitely makes this reviewer ready to run hellish adventures. Sections on devilish cults as well as feats customized to focus on a particular Lord of the Nine (whom do you serve?...) give a gamemaster a lot of useful campaign hooks.

The revisionism is kept to a minimum, mostly focused on Malbolge. The sixth layer of hell, originally something of a poor stepchild among the layers, gets literally remade from the ground up. Its former ruler, the Hag Countess, is replaced by Glasya, daughter of Asmodeus, who has been a fan-favorite ever since she appeared in the original Monster Manual II. The Hag Countess' fate is a fascinating one, so I won't spoil it.

The rest of the Hells are kept mostly unchanged. Even some of the original dukes of Hell mentioned back in the Dragon issues are given a mention. Players of the classic Hells won't feel like the infernal pit has changed underneath them. There are also a few classic side references - another variant illustration of the Paladin in Hell, for instance. Kudos to WotC for remembering their long-standing fans.

Sadly, the book misses on a few things. The difference between Baatezu and the rest of the hellish residents is never explained, missing a great opportunity for political power games. The monsters have quite a few repeats - abishai and some of the devils from earlier books get an update. Others are simply not particularly original (e.g., Steel Devils).

Some of the artwork is severely lacking too. While shadowy illustrations are good for atmosphere, they should not be used for illustrating what a monster looks like - Assassin Devil, Malebranche and Orthon for instance. Others are simply wrong - the Kalabon illustration bears no resemblance to its description, while the Pleasure Devil looks like left-over artwork from the Shadow Magic section of the Tome of Magic.

Overall, the book is a good one. I look forward to any future books in the series, whether another Fiendish Codex for the yugoloths, or a Celestial Codex about the Heavens.

First, I caution you that this supplement is written for 3.5 edition D&D, NOT the current edition of the game.

That said, this supplement is great for providing flavor and a mythico-historic background to enrich your campaign. It's especially good at communicating what Hell actually is in a D&D context. Hell is not just some place with a whiff of brimstone in the air and a bunch of really cool monsters to fight. Hell is... well, HELL. The authors do at least begin to convey the flavour of eons sealed within that absolute tyranny.

Another feature of this book worth mentioning is that like a lot of the later 3.5 ed supplements, it collects together a bunch of thematically relevant stuff that had already been published in previous works. You might consider this either good or bad, depending on how many of the other supplements you happen to own. That aside, in my view this book does contain enough original stuff to justify the purchase price; including some unusually good artwork. I especially liked their rendering of the aminzu.

Where this book does tend to fall down is in the finer details of some of the new rules it introduces. These are not always very well thought out.

For example, according to the rules in this book, in order to condemn a chaotically aligned character to an eternity in Hell, all a devil needs to do is induce that character to behave lawfully. Specific lawful acts are listed, with point values assigned to each. When the point total reaches a certain level, eternal damnation awaits.

This totally violates the spirit of the entire alignment system. Chaotic Good characters who start committing lawful acts become lawful good characters. They don't end up in Hell.

I confess I shudder slightly at the thought that somewhere there might be DM's naive enough to blindly apply the rules laid down in this book. Such unthinking obedience to authority really would be in the spirit of the Nine Hells.

The good news is that most of the stuff likely to make it into actual game play (prestige classes, feats and so on) is actually fairly decent. So as long as you're careful to use some of your own judgment and discretion in deciding how much of this book should go into practice, the Fiendish Codex II will make a pretty solid addition to your 3.5 ed D&D library.

Theo.

This book is all about Devils and the Plane where they reside. I mean all about them. In my mind there are three really fantastic masterminds in Dungeons and Dragons: Dragons, Mindflayers and Devils.

If you're looking for content you can use all the time, then this isn't the best book for you. Go look at the compendiums or the Complete books. If you want villains and powers to tie together an entire campaign from level 1 into epic, than this is for you.

Included inside is a very nice tale of the creation of hell and the devils that can be easily adapted for your home brew world. Then theres feats, spells, prestige classes, descriptions of the layers and lots of new devils.

Again I must stress that the prestige classes, feats and spells are really geared towards either serving devils or fighting them. This book is a commitment to a devil themed campaign. It does so beautifully.

With the help of this book, my main villain just became a pawn in planar politics. My PCs have lots of options, on how to progress forward. I've got lots of ideas and environments for epic feeling quests before we get to the main devils. I highly reccomend it.

Robin Laws is one of my favorite writers and I think he proves his mettle with this book. Not only the best treatise I've read on the Nine Hells, but I think the best supplement I've read for 3.5E. Book depicts the Nine Hells in the way I've always thought it should be which is accessible to players (and not just high level characters) with both politics and room for some hack 'n slash. Great buy to apply to your campaign regardless of which edition you're using.

In a great and perhaps superior followup to Jacob and Mona's Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, Robin Laws and Robert Schwalb prove that Devils are definitely a more complex and interesting opponent to play with in any D&D campaign. Whereas the Abyss is an infinite font of pure evil and rage, Schwalb and Laws wisely cast Devils as distinctly "Lawful" evil, always operating in complex structures of rules, terrified of being "demoted" to a lower class of Devil and ever-scheming to topple their wary superiors.

Unlike Demons, Devils look and think before they leap into combat, and Tyrants' writers force the reader to keep this in mind. Many creature descriptions come with a sample lair or ambush plan, reflecting the Devil's awareness of terrain and the need to leverage every available advantage to the quicker and more painful destruction of the players.

Every aspect of the book drives home the impression that Devils are simply a more developed race. Where the Abyss has no end to its lairs and hordes the Nine Hells have exactly as many lairs as advertised. Unfortunately, this tends to make Devils look a tad weaker and less flexible for the more creative Dungeon Master, but any creative DM can work in some "fine print" to make a Devil encounter interesting and appropriately harrowing.

Schwalb and Laws also provide more "background" material than Mona and Jacob do in Hordes of the Abyss, such as the legend of the Pact Primeval, an account of how Asmodeus tricked the primal deities of Law into creating the Nine Hells themselves. This kind of scene-setting just isn't seen in the previous codex, whose main draws exist in the rather raw impression of Demons' supposedly endless power and numbers. Backgrounds also exist in lots of little tips on running a devil encounter, encouraging DMs to always think about how the Devils will plan out their engagement to the PCs, finding purpose and direction, and especially, malice in every step and round.

In fact, a last sentence from those tips would be perfect to end this review. "If you play your Devils properly, your players are likely to whine and complain that you're out to get them. Just remember: The Devils made you do it."

Well, I have to congratulate Wizards for adding another great book to the list of accessories. Our group runs several high level to epic level campaigns and this is a must for anyone who wants to involve the Blood War and the politics and intrigue of hell to your campaign. The new stats for the all the major players are here along with prominent followers and factions for each lord. There are many new feats and skills specific to just these planes as well as a few new presige classes that you can use for PC's and NPC's. The other great things is the plethora of roleplaying ideas for each of the nine hells, including cities, landmarks and many maps to really help you flush out your campaign. Things like this and other information make it a must for your collection so that when your party meets Mephistopheles, its an experience that they will never forget!

This book is a very good addition to any D&D campaign that plans on traveling to the Outer Planes, or fights extraplanar threats on a regular basis. The maps of the nine layers, and the detailed write-ups of the unique leaders of each of the layers add to it's usefulness. The extra devils are also useful to allow for rotating of devilish threats.

This is an excelent follow up to Fiendish Codex I. I like demons and devils as villians since there is no moral questions with destroying them and it is nice to have a villian from time to time which you should destroy without hesitation. The matrial is well presented.

This book gave great inside views into hell. It gave the facts on how hell lives, sleeps and breaths, along with the ArchDevils to go with it. If your planning on running a adventure in hell for a duration of time i suggest this book.