Define "Lesser Demon"

iandarksword

In regards to the final Underdark boon:
-Demon Slayer
You have a chance to slay "lesser demons" outright when attacking them. The chance runs from 0-5% depending on the demon's hit points remaining

Which types of demons are considered "lesser" and which are considered "greater?" Are we talking everything weaker than Goristro? Glabrezu? The non-bonus encounter demons? If this has previously been discussed, please redirect me to that discussion. I'm simply searching for some clarification before choosing.

tvcity

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1210085/demon-slayer-boon

zibadawa

tvcity said:

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1210085/demon-slayer-boon

To be clear, that is a previous discussion that comes to no conclusions and has no solid evidence for anything.

kurtb88

iandarksword said:

In regards to the final Underdark boon:

-Demon Slayer

You have a chance to slay "lesser demons" outright when attacking them. The chance runs from 0-5% depending on the demon's hit points remaining



Which types of demons are considered "lesser" and which are considered "greater?" Are we talking everything weaker than Goristro? Glabrezu? The non-bonus encounter demons? If this has previously been discussed, please redirect me to that discussion. I'm simply searching for some clarification before choosing.

it seems like a pretty useless boon since they dont even say which demons are lesser. and since the chance is likely very small. just take Abyssal Strikes.

iandarksword

That's the two I was waffling between. I'm in no hurry, the folks on the AH are asking about twice too much for the 4th boon book and I already have the last book. Maybe I'll get a drop, but I'm not paying what they're asking. If they'd drop the prices below 75k AD then I might consider it. To me, that 4th boon isn't worth spending 150k on.

strumslinger

I'll ask the devs.

zibadawa

strumslinger said:

I'll ask the devs.

Here's hoping, then.

strumslinger

Sorry, realized I never responded to this. A lesser demon is a minion like a shadow demon, shrieking cultist, barlguras, zythars, etc.

zibadawa

strumslinger said:

Sorry, realized I never responded to this. A lesser demon is a minion like a shadow demon, shrieking cultist, barlguras, zythars, etc.

@strumslinger That's...not terribly clearer. What is "etc."? Does it include Glabrezus and Nalfeshnees? Including or excluding those spawned from Overload encounters? Does it matter if they have elite bonuses (silver or gold HP border and associated boosts)?

imit8r

I would imagine that would mean if it can come from a blue or purple portal, not a lesser demon. If it can come from a green one, yep, lesser demon.

tassedethe13

So useless boon as we expected

ambisinisterr

defiantone99 said:

He means Balors, Glabrezus, and Nalfeshnees, Goristro and Demogorgon are not Lesser Demons, the rest are. I guess. lol

All of those based on D&D Lore are definitely not lesser demons. Glabrezu is a Type III Demon and is a Greater Demon. Balors and Goristro are Type VI demons which are as strong as they get below the Demon Lords. Demogorgon is a Demon Lord which means it is the strongest demon on an Abyssal Plane (Plane 88: The Gaping Maw to be specific).

Unfortunately it is not easy to be more specific than greater or lesser. There are at least 42 different type of Tanar'ri alone.
You can use Glabrezu's as a rough gauge for a comparison as they are the first demon which would be considered a Greater Demon so anything which is as hard or harder to fight than a Glabrezu would be a Greater Demon.

zibadawa

ambisinisterr said:

defiantone99 said:

He means Balors, Glabrezus, and Nalfeshnees, Goristro and Demogorgon are not Lesser Demons, the rest are. I guess. lol

All of those based on D&D Lore are definitely not lesser demons. Glabrezu is a Type III Demon and is a Greater Demon. Balors and Goristro are Type VI demons which are as strong as they get below the Demon Lords. Demogorgon is a Demon Lord which means it is the strongest demon on an Abyssal Plane (Plane 88: The Gaping Maw to be specific).

Unfortunately it is not easy to be more specific than greater or lesser. There are at least 42 different type of Tanar'ri alone.
You can use Glabrezu's as a rough gauge for a comparison as they are the first demon which would be considered a Greater Demon so anything which is as hard or harder to fight than a Glabrezu would be a Greater Demon.

@ambisinisterr
A Zythar with the golden hp border is tougher to fight than a plain, undecorated Glabrezu. Does that make that Zythar a greater demon?

mrgiggles651

ambisinisterr said:

defiantone99 said:

He means Balors, Glabrezus, and Nalfeshnees, Goristro and Demogorgon are not Lesser Demons, the rest are. I guess. lol

All of those based on D&D Lore are definitely not lesser demons. Glabrezu is a Type III Demon and is a Greater Demon. Balors and Goristro are Type VI demons which are as strong as they get below the Demon Lords. Demogorgon is a Demon Lord which means it is the strongest demon on an Abyssal Plane (Plane 88: The Gaping Maw to be specific).

Unfortunately it is not easy to be more specific than greater or lesser. There are at least 42 different type of Tanar'ri alone.
You can use Glabrezu's as a rough gauge for a comparison as they are the first demon which would be considered a Greater Demon so anything which is as hard or harder to fight than a Glabrezu would be a Greater Demon.

That's nice but doesn't have anything to do with how they are or are not coded in the boon though.

greywynd

Why isn't quasit on the list of lessers? >:)

iandarksword

@StrumSlinger Thanks Andy!

ambisinisterr

mrgiggles651 said:

That's nice but doesn't have anything to do with how they are or are not coded in the boon though.

Yes it does. If they are not lesser demons in lore then they are not going to be effected by the boon. When in doubt seek the lore.

greywynd said:

Why isn't quasit on the list of lessers? >:)

It should be. This would be the "etc" part of Andy's response. If it is not being effected by the boon please file a bug report.

zibadawa said:

@ambisinisterr
A Zythar with the golden hp border is tougher to fight than a plain, undecorated Glabrezu. Does that make that Zythar a greater demon?

It was actually kind of hard to find information on Zythar but all evidence I found based on the Fourth Edition Monster Manual, Fourth Edition Demonomicon and Fifth Edition Monster Manual point to them being Greater Demons.

"The zythar were spawned millennia ago by a balor legion whose members sought to seize control of the abyssal layer of their lord. Instilled with the destructive fury of their masters, zythars were given power over abyssal flame and infused with an insatiable appetite for combat. When the balors' rebellion failed, the zythars were claimed by the victorious demon lord, and they have since spread across the Abyss. Zythars do not care whom they serve. They live only to see other creatures burn, howling with dark laughter as their enemies are consumed by abyssal fire...among demonkind, only creatures with effective immunity against fire feel no fear at the approach of a Zythar."

mrgiggles651

ambisinisterr said:

mrgiggles651 said:

That's nice but doesn't have anything to do with how they are or are not coded in the boon though.

Yes it does. If they are not lesser demons in lore then they are not going to be effected by the boon. When in doubt seek the lore.

The lore doesn't tell us how things actually are ingame, it tells us how things might be. Demogorgon is highly magic resistant in the lore (SR 36, so our level 70 toons which equate to roughly level 23/24 in pnp would have roughly a 50/50 chance of a spell even working on him, before his saves) but not so much ingame... You can bet the CW/DC/SW would howl with rage if Demo was lore correct.

People play the game, not the lore. Which is why we want to know which demons are actually affected by this boon.

ambisinisterr

There's a difference between saying the mechanics are different and the lore is different.
The lore in the entire game is virtually flawless. Demogorgon being resistant to magic is a mechanic and is not a defining feature of the lore.

Let me type out the lore of Demogorgon directly from the Out of Abyss supplement:

Prince of Demons, the Sibilant Beast, and Master of the Spiraling Depths, Demogorgon is the embodiment of chaos, madness, and destruction, seeking to corrupt all that is good and undermine order in the multiverse, to see everything dragged howling into the infinite depths of the abyss.

The demon lord is a meld of different forms, with a saurian lower body and clawed, webbed feet, as well as suckered tentacles sprouting from the shoulders of a great apelike torso, surmounted by two hideous simian heads, named Aameul and Hathradiah, both equally mad. Their gaze brings madness and confusion to any who confront it.

Similarly, the spiraling Y sign of the Demogorogon's cult can inspire madness in those who contemplate it for too long. All of the followers of the Prince of Demons goes mad sooner or later.

That is the lore aspect of Demogorgon. What it looks like, what it is and what defines it as a creature.

The spell resistance is a mechanic and is defined only within the D&D mechanics portion and ONLY in the mechanics portion:
Magic Resistance: Demogorgon has advantage on savings throws against spells and other magical effects.

Note: Spell resistance no longer works mechanically the same way as it did in previous editions and is not as powerful as it once was.


Mechanics do not define what a creature is in the lore. Demogorgon is a demon lord. A Glabrezu is a Rank III Demon. A Balor is a Rank VI demon. Those are all part of the lore defined as a ranking system of demons in the abyss.

If an item says it has a bonus vs elves then it has a bonus vs any creature that is in the lore an elf. That would include Drow, Eladrin (in the forgotten realms), and Avariel. If it is an elf then the sword will have a bonus.


A boon which says that there will be increased damage against all Lesser Demons then all creatures defined by the lore to be lesser demons will be effected. If you don't know the lore I gave you the rough standard: any demon as powerful or more powerful than a glabrezu. When in doubt seek the answer from the lore as I had to do with Zythar. If a creature which is defined by the lore as a lesser demon is not effected then file a bug report.

ogarious

ambisinisterr said:

defiantone99 said:

He means Balors, Glabrezus, and Nalfeshnees, Goristro and Demogorgon are not Lesser Demons, the rest are. I guess. lol

All of those based on D&D Lore are definitely not lesser demons. Glabrezu is a Type III Demon and is a Greater Demon. Balors and Goristro are Type VI demons which are as strong as they get below the Demon Lords. Demogorgon is a Demon Lord which means it is the strongest demon on an Abyssal Plane (Plane 88: The Gaping Maw to be specific).

Unfortunately it is not easy to be more specific than greater or lesser. There are at least 42 different type of Tanar'ri alone.
You can use Glabrezu's as a rough gauge for a comparison as they are the first demon which would be considered a Greater Demon so anything which is as hard or harder to fight than a Glabrezu would be a Greater Demon.

Or, you can put what rank of demon they are in the name of the monster.

Balor Type 4
Clabrezu Type 3
Etc
But no. Better to be vague then to let the player know for sure eh?

ambisinisterr

Again, there are over 42 different kinds of tanar'ri alone. You can easily find the information on any number of actual D&D Wiki's. Trust me, that's what I did for those which were not in my fairly limited collection of manuals. It's not vague at all if you know D&D. If you don't know D&D the information is not hard to find with a simple google search.

This isn't made up stuff from Cryptic. There are a large number of sources from the people who actually make the D&D lore and even more sources from numerous fans of the lore.

zibadawa

@ambisinisterr Do you even realize how much you are contradicting yourself? See Andy's post, saying Zythars are lesser demons.

strumslinger said:

Sorry, realized I never responded to this. A lesser demon is a minion like a shadow demon, shrieking cultist, barlguras, zythars, etc.

Now see your post stating that you think they sound like Greater demons.

ambisinisterr said:

It was actually kind of hard to find information on Zythar but all evidence I found based on the Fourth Edition Monster Manual, Fourth Edition Demonomicon and Fifth Edition Monster Manual point to them being Greater Demons.

Yet you keep stumping on "all you need is lore", when you can't even reach a consistent or clear conclusion with it! And I point out to you something you bring up yourself: mechanics can change anything. If it is mechanically convenient to treat things differently, then the game is likely to do so. That's why we're asking about the game's mechanics and not the source material's lore. It's kind of unprecedented for the lore to let a monster have over 100 times the HP and significantly more damage than another copy of that monster, yet we deal with that all the time in the game. The lore is useless there. We need to know the mechanics! Like I said: if a Zythar is a lesser demon, and a Glabrezu is greater, and your standard is "Glabrezu is the cut-off point", then how do you resolve Elite Zythar > Generic Glabrezu? More importantly, how does the game resolve that?

So can we please get a clear, unambiguous description of the game's mechanics here, please?

mrgiggles651

ambisinisterr said:

There's a difference between saying the mechanics are different and the lore is different.
The lore in the entire game is virtually flawless. Demogorgon being resistant to magic is a mechanic and is not a defining feature of the lore.
...

A boon which says that there will be increased damage against all Lesser Demons then all creatures defined by the lore to be lesser demons will be effected. If you don't know the lore I gave you the rough standard: any demon as powerful or more powerful than a glabrezu. When in doubt seek the answer from the lore as I had to do with Zythar. If a creature which is defined by the lore as a lesser demon is not effected then file a bug report.

Not everyone who plays this game is well versed in the lore, nor do they necessarily care to be. This is why Lesser Demon needs to be defined for the game and not "just look at lore".

I care about mechanics because I am playing a game, I am not playing the lore. Your last paragraph saying the boon affects Lesser Demons as defined by lore is not irrelevant, because the lore is a different thing than the game and the lore is not presented ingame, there are no NPCs or books telling us what a "Lesser Demon" is.

The game runs on mechanics. Mechanics not lore not being the game is why we can have level 70 orcs in the Dwarven King questline and it's fine. Rest assured lorewise there aren't entire tribes where even the lowliest member is theoretically challenging for an epic character. If we go by lore correctness (orcs are generally low level grunts except maybe a few leaders) the orcs should be practically exploding as soon as my character approached them. That doesn't happen.

Another example being the level 72 "Decrepit Skeletons" in Dread Ring, skeletons are one of the lorewise weakest undead to begin with, then we add the "decrepit" description indicating they are even weaker than regular skeletons, but they are more epic (higher level) than my character. That makes zero sense lorewise (lore correctly "decrepit skeletons" would be an appropriate enemy for the first 10-12 levels of Neverwinter), but mechanically it's fine.

There are many examples of the lore being secondary to the game mechanics. Hiding the definition behind "look at the lore" is the wrong thing to do. The boon says Lesser Demons, but it does not say what qualifies ingame. Nowhere ingame is Lesser Demon defined, we can't even find out in the game story by talking to an NPC who tells us what a Lesser Demon is. That is entirely why we've had multiple threads on just what a "lesser demon" is for the boon. We shouldn't have to get out of the game to go google something like that, it's bad game design.

ambisinisterr

Mechanically convenient, yes. But the lore has never been touched at the expense of mechanics. They have removed mechanics or have tweaked mechanics to fit the mechanics of the game but they have never used lore to describe mechanics inaccurately.
Please do try to prove me wrong but this is the one thing which actual fans of D&D have discovered long ago.


Zephyrs, as I said, were not an easy find. They only exist in one manual as far as I can find and it does not specify the demon type however they had a challenge rating which places them above that of a Glabrezu. Whether or not they are Greater Demons for sure would have to go to Wizards of the Coast as it really is not defined unlike most demons.

Elites should not matter. A demon is of a type. Period. That's what I tried to get across with my elf example. An elf is an elf regardless of what sub-race they are and how powerful they are as an individual. If the creature is a lesser demon then it will remain a lesser demon regardless of it's stronger counterparts.

In java programming this is called is-a. A puppy is-a dog but not all dogs are puppies. Well all demons are demons but not all demons are the same. A balor is-a Greater Demon. A Chasme is-a Lesser demon.

There's very little lore-wise which is wrong in Neverwinter. The mechanics are often skewed to fit the game but the lore has always remained in tact. There has been no cases to this point in time where they have used lore incorrectly to describe a mechanic. They have altered mechanics but never by using the lore incorrectly so a lesser demon means the fodder. The Chasme (which are not in NW atm) shadow demons, balguras.

Perhaps anything which has minion as title which should NOT include Glabrezu or Nlafezshee and most definitely would not under any circumstances include Balors or Demogorgon.

zibadawa

ambisinisterr said:

Perhaps anything which has minion as title which should NOT include Glabrezu or Nlafezshee and most definitely would not under any circumstances include Balors or Demogorgon.

What do you mean by "minion as title". Even basic shadow demons don't have "minion" anywhere in their name.

iandarksword

For reference, I took Abyssal Strikes instead. 10% vs demons all of the time seems more useful in the long run as opposed to 5% based on x number of hp the demon has remaining. You guys can continue debate though...

zibadawa

iandarksword said:

For reference, I took Abyssal Strikes instead. 10% vs demons all of the time seems more useful in the long run as opposed to 5% based on x number of hp the demon has remaining. You guys can continue debate though...

Oh, yes, in the long run the analysis is pretty obvious. "Useless against bosses" pretty much always translates into "why bother?"

greywynd

ambisinisterr said:

greywynd said:

Why isn't quasit on the list of lessers? >:)

It should be. This would be the "etc" part of Andy's response. If it is not being effected by the boon please file a bug report.

The only quasits currently in the game, that I am aware of, are the zen store companions.

mrgiggles651

ambisinisterr said:

There's very little lore-wise which is wrong in Neverwinter.

You are continuing to post "lore is always right" even after it's been pointed out to you that while you say a zythar is a Greater Demon per lore, Strum had previously identified a zythar in this thread as being a Lesser Demon for boon purposes. We have a clear case of lore/= game right there despite your continued insistence of lore trumping the game.

In the game it doesn't matter what the outside the game lore says, it only matters what the game actually does and if it's internally consistent in the game. If the devs decided to program a million little "Lesser Demon" demogorgons running around Icewind Dale and said "yup, that's the way it is", that's the game despite what any outside the game lore says.

As I have said, Lesser Demon is not defined anywhere ingame, making things confusing for players (and thus these threads). You continue to insist something obviously confusing for the playerbase (multiple threads with no clear answer) is fine. It's clearly not fine as witnessed by the repeated threads without a clear answer as to how it works in the game.

myleafs

Just a quick question. Doesn't everyone already have a chance at slaying a lesser demon outright depending on how many hit points it has remaining? I'd prefer to have more clarity on this boon.