THE NINE HELLS (Layers 6 – 9): Beyond the Gates: A Deeper Dive – RPGBOT.Podcast S4E38

Show Notes

Welcome back to the depths of the 9 hells, where danger and treachery lurk at every turn. In this second of our two-part episode of the RPGBOT.Podcast, we explore deeper in the lore and history of these infernal planes in the world of Forgotten Realms. From tyrannical rulers to twisted creatures, join us as we journey through the dangerous landscapes of the 9 hells. So grab your weapons and prepare for adventure, as we explore the depths of these notorious planes. Follow us into our descent into the infernal realms now.

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How to Find Us:

In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net

Tyler Kamstra

• Twitter: @RPGBOTDOTNET
• Facebook: rpgbotbotdotnet
• Bluesky: rpgbot.bsky.social

Ash Ely

• Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games
• Twitter: @GravenAshes
• YouTube @ashravenmedia

Randall James

• AmateurJack.com
• @JackAmateur

Producer Dan

• @Lzr_illuminati

I’m on the highway to hell I’m on the highway to hell. Oh god. That was atrocious. That was that was atrocious. Yeah, the delay the delay just completely completely messed us up

Randall James (03:39.828)

Way to hell! I’m on the highway to – Oh no, the delay got us!

Tyler (03:47.331)

Yeah, oh no

Randall James (03:52.018)

Oh, man, I was harmonized. It turns out it turns out here’s the on my end, I was harmonizing with ash and it was like really like we were actually hitting it. And then all of a sudden he started dragging it out and I’m like, oh, there’s delay. And then I got sad. And honestly, if you think about it, it’s a good metaphor for how

Tyler (03:52.803)

You can’t do a duet on the internet.

Ash (03:55.022)

No, you can’t.

Tyler (03:59.299)

Yeah. Uh -huh.

Tyler (04:11.299)

as other people on the internet.

Ash (04:11.758)

Thank you. Thank you for making my awesome bit less awesome. I appreciate it.

Tyler (04:18.723)

It was fun.

Randall James (04:18.868)

Yeah, no, that’s hell. Okay.

Ash (04:22.83)

Yeah, it’s human nature to take something that’s so great and ruin it just a little bit so that you can have more of it. That’s a quote from The Good Place.

Randall James (04:33.652)

I haven’t actually watched that show.

Tyler (04:33.763)

Oh God.

Ash (04:35.31)

No? Oh my god, you need to watch it.

Randall James (04:37.268)

I love that you’re rendition of Highway to Hell. It’s like, we had a great thing. There was a great thing on this podcast once.

All right, folks at home, this is the second part of our two -part coverage of the nine hells. So on average, you can expect about four and a half hells per episode.

Ash (04:59.854)

why not why nine why not 10 or seven because there were seven hells originally why nine

Tyler (05:07.747)

No? Ask Gary Gygax.

Randall James (05:09.78)

Okay, that’s a great question. Imagine like the original list was like, you know, 17 hells. And then they were going through and like, one of them was the one where like you open the fridge, but everything’s expired. And they’re dead. Yeah, like he went to the fridge that day and he opened it. It’s like, ah, there’s only beer and he started pounding it, which is how he started writing the list for the night. Well, the 17 hells to start with. And then somebody like finally started vetoing these things.

Tyler (05:16.675)

Hehehe

Tyler (05:22.919)

Just that experience.

Ash (05:36.686)

Is nine a bad luck number? Okay, apparently it is in Japan. Nine is a bad luck number. So, so.

Randall James (05:43.476)

makes sense. So Thedra is saying nine hells in Dante’s Inferno. It’s seven in Dante’s Inferno, right?

Ash (05:49.007)

It’s seven and Dante’s Inferno, but that’s weird because it’s lucky number seven.

Randall James (05:53.524)

Oh, Tsuka is also saying nine. Okay, I’m doing that quick fact check. How many?

Tyler (05:54.051)

All right. Well.

Ash (06:01.678)

I think it was seven hells. I don’t think it was it. Oh, OK.

Tyler (06:04.899)

It’s a Google search away, we’re gonna find out. Nine, yeah, all right. Yeah, I mean, it’s the seven deadly sins from Paradise Lost, is that? Geez, I am not well read.

Randall James (06:05.492)

Nine, nine. No, everybody’s right.

Ash (06:16.704)

Here let me let me do I don’t I don’t but why do I think it was seven?

Randall James (06:23.86)

I don’t know. We both thought it was seven, although I think if we go back, if we go back in the record to the first episode, I think in that episode we asserted it was seven and then kept going. Cool. Well, we figured it out. So there probably wasn’t a Fritzschild in. He probably always was targeting nine and this is what we got. So, I don’t know. Bye.

Tyler (06:23.875)

Seven Deadly Sins.

You did.

Tyler (06:33.539)

Hehehehe

Ash (06:35.95)

Is that, cause.

Tyler (06:40.643)

Ha ha!

Ash (06:40.91)

Gotcha because people are always saying like the seventh circle of hell so

Randall James (06:45.652)

Oh, because it was particularly bad, right? Like that was the one with the lawyers, I think.

Ash (06:49.742)

No, it’s the circle of violence.

Randall James (06:51.636)

Uh.

Randall James (06:55.764)

What is the seventh circle of hell? The violence against neighbors, violence against themselves, violence against God, nature, and art. If that doesn’t sum up this podcast, I don’t know what does.

Ash (07:08.174)

That’s fair.

Tyler (07:08.979)

Violence against self, sir. Alright.

Randall James (07:13.14)

Okay. All right. So folks, I’ll remember.

Ash (07:14.722)

Oh my god, I remember I know why I’m calling it seven hells because it’s from Final Fantasy seven hells.

Randall James (07:18.74)

Okay.

Tyler (07:21.699)

Oh, alright.

Ash (07:24.686)

Yeah.

Tyler (07:26.925)

Alright, hey, so let’s talk about Malbolgy? Malbolge? How do you pronounce that, folks? Find it out in the comments.

Ash (07:33.206)

Malborg. Mal – Malborg.

Randall James (07:33.524)

Yeah. Is that like the Korean like shaved meat with the egg on top?

Ash (07:39.886)

It’s Malbolg.

Tyler (07:42.407)

Malborg, sure, why not? So this one’s weird. I mean, they’re all kind of weird, but this one’s especially weird. It is described as a functionally endless slope. Now, depending on your depiction of the hells, like there is a geography, there’s a top, there’s a bottom, and you can go from one layer down to another layer somehow. So I’m not sure, like, if it’s an endless slope,

Ash (07:44.494)

Yes.

Tyler (08:11.491)

but there’s a top and a bottom. Is it really endless? Don’t think about it too hard. This layer of hell absolutely sucks. All of the architecture maybe intentionally looks like it’s just completely falling apart, but there are prisons, fortresses, citadels, lairs, et cetera.

Ash (08:18.094)

I won’t.

Randall James (08:33.748)

I’ve got an answer to your physics question and then we could do Asha’s real commentary for the actual episode. Imagine if it was perfectly flat and infinite, right? That’s fine. But then gravity just goes at an angle. So if you’re there, it feels like you’re on a slope, but that’s how you.

Tyler (08:38.567)

Okay.

Ash (08:46.606)

This is edging very closely to science talk and I’m not here for it.

Tyler (08:48.323)

That’s the worst.

Tyler (08:52.771)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha

Randall James (08:53.38)

Okay, fine, you do your bit.

Ash (08:56.174)

Um

Tyler (08:57.187)

What if just while you were there you always felt like you were falling over to the side slightly?

Randall James (09:02.644)

Well, no, but that’s exactly what it would feel like. Like from your field of view or from your point of view, it’d feel like you’re getting dragged down a slope, much like we’re dragging down ash.

Tyler (09:08.167)

Are we just torturing that? Yeah.

Ash (09:11.662)

Yeah, I feel like I’m in Malbolg already. It’s great. So Malbolg is actually it does is an infinite level more of suck than the rest of hell because it is the prison part of hell. Yes, hell has a prison as well. So specifically, it is hell for D is a prison for devils who have done something they were not supposed to.

Tyler (09:14.787)

Ah!

Randall James (09:18.036)

Wait, you…

Tyler (09:32.387)

Mm -hmm.

Ash (09:41.742)

Basically Malbolg is described. Yeah, that’s great. Basically, yeah, evil people have prisons too. Exactly. Exactly. And so the way it’s described is yes, it’s on an infinite slope, but also there are these adamantine towers that are on the slope that have these platforms that are balanced on it in some way. Don’t know how that’s supposed to work. But anyway,

Randall James (09:42.868)

I love that so much.

Randall James (09:51.092)

Well, they’re lawful evil, that’s the whole thing, right?

Tyler (09:53.347)

Yeah.

Ash (10:10.712)

That’s that that is out of the path of the boulders that are coming through so that you know administrative stuff can be done without being hit by a bunch of boulders but and the punishment that a lot of Bad devils get is they get lowered below these platforms into a cage where they get pummeled by stones repeatedly So that’s fun for them

Randall James (10:20.628)

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay.

Ash (10:36.256)

So you think that the person who runs this place has to be very strict, a very special kind of evil. It’s actually as Maria’s daughter, and she’s a she’s she’s the most notorious criminal in the nine hells. So, yeah, she basically started the mafia in hell and now is also the prison warden. That sounds like a great system. Oh.

Tyler (11:02.883)

Yeah. Now I’m not familiar with this story. Like, the mafia in hell, so she started a crime syndicate in hell? Were they breaking the laws?

Randall James (11:04.468)

Takes one to know one. Is that a, is that work here?

Ash (11:11.886)

She did, yes, 100 % she did.

Yes, yes they were.

Randall James (11:17.876)

Well, at least scurrying them certain it’s like, you know, hey, hey, it turns out, you know, I know, I know you’ve got a contract with this devil over here. But here’s the deal. I think I’ve got a way that we can kind of get around that. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Ash (11:30.498)

It’s funny you should mention that because her specialty so you remember how I said every every circle and every archdevil has a sort of hat or sphere of influence that they have when it comes to deals. So Glacia and her minions focus on making deals with mortals who are trying to find legal loopholes in the law to exploit. So like if you want to sue Disney and get a bunch of money legally, she’ll help you do that.

Or I guess if you want to like do tax evasion, but not get caught you could also do that but the most hilarious thing about this sphere of influence is that glassy a specializes in getting people who are already have their souls Bargained for with another devil To get them out of it get them out of the contract with that They’ve made with another devil in exchange for her now getting their souls. So it’s like

Why would you do that? It just seems strictly worse. Like, this is pretty much agreed. This is kind of the worst place to be in hell. So why would you want to go to Glacier instead of, I don’t know, La Vista’s unless you really don’t like cold.

Tyler (12:28.995)

Hahaha

Randall James (12:43.732)

That’s a good reason. I feel that way sometimes.

Tyler (12:48.899)

Okay, so as someone who spends a lot of time looking for gaps and loopholes and errors and rules…

Ash (12:58.166)

You and Glacier would get along real well. Yeah, you and Glacier would get along really well.

Randall James (13:00.148)

Bleh.

Tyler (13:02.891)

Alright, uh, Glacia Warlock patron of character optimizers. Just add that to her resume.

Ash (13:07.726)

Yeah, 100%. 100 % she is. Yeah.

Randall James (13:09.172)

Yeah. I feel like there are DMs out there that want to send you to MelBog.

Ash (13:14.638)

Yeah, like like how the Vistas would help a criminal sort of like survive longer or something. Her her whole deal is no, no, no, we’re not going to break the law. We’re just going to exploit it so that we can get there and get you what you want. It’s a very specific, specific niche that she feels. And it’s part of her punishment as well, because she guess what she tried to do.

Tyler (13:14.819)

That’s fair.

Tyler (13:28.835)

Yeah.

Tyler (13:44.195)

Same thing we do with every archdemon. The same thing we do with every archdemon, Pinky. Try to overthrow Asmodeus.

Randall James (13:45.584)

overthrow as yeah, yeah, go ahead. You do it. You do it.

Ash (13:52.782)

Over. Yeah, you got it head of the class

Tyler (13:56.323)

Yeah.

Randall James (13:57.108)

Her father, she tried to portray her own father. Who would expect that of a devil in hell?

Ash (14:04.044)

Oh, yeah. That’s what’s weird about what’s weird about glassy is that she just kind of appeared randomly out of nowhere. Like, yeah, as Maria says, one day said, Hey, I have a daughter now and she’s going to do a tour throughout all of hell. And she did she went she did like there was like a whole parade and tour through all of hell for his daughter. It was the Lord’s weird man. It was very weird.

Randall James (14:13.108)

I’m gonna do Word for Athena.

Tyler (14:19.427)

Ha ha!

Randall James (14:28.116)

What was going on with Mel Boak before she got there? Like, was it a prison? Or did she get there and it’s like, this barren landscape, we’re gonna mess with gravity and throw boulders at people.

Tyler (14:28.737)

Yeah.

Ash (14:33.006)

Um, actually I had that information. Give me a second to track it down. Dan cut this out.

Randall James (14:39.188)

Okay, good. I was, I was, I was almost rhetorical. I’m excited. You’re going to answer it.

Tyler (14:52.579)

I keep thinking I’m doing a good job researching lore and then Ash keeps coming up with stuff I didn’t know about. Ask me about mechanics. Won’t make me sad.

Ash (14:52.718)

there.

Ash (14:57.646)

Yeah, I’m better. I’m better at your job than you are.

Randall James (14:58.996)

lore.

Randall James (15:07.604)

Where would you find a Honda mechanic these days?

Tyler (15:11.651)

A haunted dealership.

Randall James (15:14.452)

Thanks.

Ash (15:17.902)

Hold on.

There’s just so much stuff here. OK. Uh, Glacier. OK. Where is the present?

Ash (15:35.534)

Yeah, no, it was always just a prison. Yeah, it was always a prison. The book doesn’t say who was in charge of Malbog before her. Just, yeah, leaves it kind of vague. It’s very weird. Mm -hmm.

Randall James (15:40.244)

Hmm. I don’t.

Tyler (15:48.835)

Hmm. Interesting. They’re probably also in that prison though, if I had to guess.

Ash (15:55.31)

Yeah.

Tyler (15:57.858)

Alright, so Pathfinder lore, wildly different here. Most of the layers of Hell have been fairly similar between D &D and Pathfinder, like some name swaps, a few theme swaps here and there. In Pathfinder lore, this layer is a forest ruled by an archdevil named Moloch, where they hunt the spirits of the damned. So like…

If you go to hell as a shade, you can go to a bunch of different places, like you go to the forge where they turn you into a demon, you can become a slave to – or, sorry, forge where they turn you into a devil. You can become a slave to other devils and just like, great, you’re immortal and dead, you serve me forever now. In Moloch, it’s just like, oh yeah, go run wild through the forest, we will find you.

Ash (16:44.344)

Oh my god, I’m sorry to cut back real quick. There was an interesting thing about Malbolg that I forgot to mention. So we’re going to get to it in a second. But Malbolg was once ruled by the same person who now rules Maladominy. He ruled two. He ruled two different circles of hell. But we’ll get to that once we get to Maladominy, which is the next circle.

Tyler (17:00.619)

Oh!

Randall James (17:08.34)

Okay. And I guess it’s interesting that for this, the, the sixth layer of hell, that’s our, yeah, our sixth layer of hell. So in PF2, it’s Mullock. In 5e lore, Mullock was the,

Randall James (17:31.902)

was a previous ruler of Melbaugh.

Tyler (17:39.683)

Interesting.

Ash (17:39.822)

Malak? In 5e lore?

Randall James (17:40.98)

Yeah, so in the DMG, Melbog, like the opening line, I’ll read it. Melbog, the sixth layer has outlasted many rulers among the Malagard, the Hag Countess, and the Archdevil, Mullok. Malagard fell out of favor, blah, blah, blah. Mullok still lingers somewhere on the sixth layer as an imp. So way demoted, way demoted. Plotting to regain Asmodeus’s favor as an imp. Don’t know what the plan is there.

Tyler (17:54.595)

Ah.

Ash (17:54.866)

Interesting.

Tyler (18:01.699)

Yeah

Ash (18:02.6)

Yeah.

Ash (18:06.958)

Interesting. Yeah, because according to Morton Kynan, Beelzebub was ruler of Balbolg before Glacier. So maybe Malek was before him. It’s unclear.

Randall James (18:19.476)

Yeah, they’re not. Yeah, they’re not giving you anything. I think if anything, they’re just throwing in some flavor. I love the idea of a hag countess hanging out having a good time. Wish I knew more. But anyway.

Tyler (18:26.177)

Yeah.

Ash (18:28.27)

Yeah, that sounds rad

Tyler (18:32.899)

Alright, so next layer, Mala Domini. If I had to translate that, it probably just means bad domain, or domain of bad. Yeah.

Randall James (18:40.948)

That feels right. Yeah.

Ash (18:41.87)

Congratulations, you know how to do Italian. I’m proud of you.

Tyler (18:46.435)

I did actually take two years of Latin in school.

Ash (18:50.83)

Actually, I think that’s actually Latin. And it’s pronounced Malo Domini, so clearly you did not take Latin.

Tyler (18:56.899)

Sure. Look, it was in middle school. Gimme a break.

Randall James (19:00.276)

Hey, nobody’s speaking it.

Tyler (19:03.523)

No. All right. Melodomedy. So as best as I can tell, like this layer is the ruins of civilization and industry. So if you’ve ever had ambitions to build a city, build an empire, like build some great industrial work, a mine, a castle, any of those things, you can go here and find exactly that in absolute ruins. Completely messed up. Just wreck.

Ash (19:31.854)

Yeah, there’s a reason for that because there was once a thriving civilization and city in Maladominy and it was described as a lush area with gardens. Yes, in hell.

Tyler (19:43.523)

Who?

Randall James (19:46.258)

Back then it was a bit in a domine.

Tyler (19:48.995)

Ah.

Ash (19:49.902)

No, it was still it was still very much in hell. It wasn’t like this was like a nice place to live. It just looked kind of nice. But.

Randall James (19:58.708)

Yeah, I don’t know how to say facade in Italian. It might just be facade.

Ash (20:04.526)

Probably. Let’s go with that. So, yeah, this one ruled by Beelzebul, also known as the Lord of Flies. So interesting thing about Beelzebul is he has he’s the closest that as anybody has ever come to actually succeeding in overthrowing Asmodeus. He had a whole plan and it didn’t work out for him. And what’s interesting that I find about the book is that so.

Beelzebub wasn’t punished for trying to for trying to overthrow Osmarius, which apparently in hell is not a crime. Interesting.

Tyler (20:44.033)

And yet his daughter’s in prison for it.

Ash (20:46.83)

Hey, no one said this guy wasn’t a hypocrite. OK. But no, he basically got caught on what is essentially tax evasion because he didn’t fill out his paperwork, right? When he was trying to do his plan. And the thing was, was that so his his his devils comprise the majority of like the main elite army.

Tyler (20:50.819)

Fair.

Ash (21:15.95)

that is on the front lines of the blood war. So Beelzebub decided instead of sending his men to the front lines, he was going to hold them back in reserve for when he was going to invade Nessus and take over. But unfortunately for him, a bunch of demons broke through and started to threat and started to siege Dis, the city of Dis. And Beelzebub, people were like, hey, Beelzebub, where’s your forces?

And he doubled down. He’s like, I’m not bringing my forces. You can come take them from me. And so that’s what they did. They invade an army, invaded Maladomini and destroyed it. And that’s why it looks like crap now. And yeah. And then Asmodeus stripped him of his lordship of Malbolg and gave it to his daughter. And Asmodeus gave him a very funny punishment, which is he is not allowed to tell any lie.

Tyler (21:58.283)

Ah.

Ash (22:14.478)

to any devil for any reason ever. And when he does, he turns into a slug for how many years is it? I think it’s like a century. Let me let me double check.

Randall James (22:29.364)

So he’s allowed to lie, he’s just gotta do it strategically.

Tyler (22:30.275)

It…

Ash (22:32.494)

No, yeah, but the problem is, is that like when he becomes a slug, people just refuse to talk to him. Oh, for one year, he becomes he becomes a slug for he becomes a slug for one year. And what’s great about this is that it applied retroactively. So it meant all of the lies he had told in the entire applied retroactively. So he turned into a slug for a millennia. Yeah.

Randall James (22:42.996)

checks out.

Tyler (22:52.451)

Oh.

Tyler (22:56.305)

Oh no!

Tyler (23:00.651)

Mwah!

Randall James (23:01.876)

That’s not bad.

Ash (23:02.094)

And yeah, I know he’s he’s okay now, but he refuses to tell. He’s also he’s also a very vain person, so he doesn’t want to be a slug. So.

Randall James (23:07.38)

Yeah.

Tyler (23:11.651)

Uh, reasonable. Isn’t he a slug from the waist down though?

Ash (23:16.622)

Now that’s just in some of his depictions. Morton Kynan.

Randall James (23:16.852)

That’s what the DMG says.

Tyler (23:19.523)

Ah, got it.

Randall James (23:21.396)

What no, but the DMG does say that he’s a slug from the waist out.

Tyler (23:24.939)

Yeah.

Ash (23:25.07)

Well, again, this comes from a lot of conflicting information. This is Morgan Canaan that I’m getting him from. So they do not say that. So he might well be a slug from the waist down when he’s, you in his slug form. But anyway. So, yeah, that’s the first thing that he that that’s the first part of his punishment is he can’t lie to another devil. This go ahead.

Randall James (23:30.292)

Understood. Understood.

Randall James (23:50.1)

I think this actually drives into what you’re saying. So from the DMG, a bloated fiend with the lower body of an enormous slug, Beelzebubles form was inflicted on him by his modius as punishment for wavering loyalty. So the idea that he had a punishment, punishment was apparently for lying and it manifest as you look like slug boy.

Ash (24:03.63)

Yeah.

Tyler (24:10.179)

Hehehehe

Ash (24:10.414)

Well, Mordenkainen says that he only recently regained his form. So that’s probably why he’s depicted like that in other sources, because Mordenkainen kind of takes place chronologically a little bit later in the canon. But anyway, I don’t know. Take it up with Watsi, guys. OK, I’m just getting what I… I’m giving you what I have.

Tyler (24:15.075)

Ahhhh

Randall James (24:27.604)

A trustworthy narrator.

Randall James (24:37.492)

Don’t worry, Ash, I’ll call them.

Ash (24:39.534)

But the other part of his punishment is that his sphere of influence is he has to make deals with mortals who want to seek redemption. So like the clearing of a family name, the recovery of a lost fortune, that kind of stuff. And apparently he hates it. He absolutely hates having to help.

people get their stuff back. Because before his whole thing was like just making people suffer. Oh, and that’s the third part of his punishment. Any deal that you make with Beelzebub is destined to end in ruin for one of the two parties.

Tyler (25:26.339)

So, okay, so he is forced to make deals to help people recover things that they’ve lost or redeemed themselves in some fashion, and the deal has to end badly for one of them, and he’s a devil, so it’s going to be you. So you make a deal that he doesn’t want to make and things still go badly for you. Just perfect.

Ash (25:47.822)

Yeah, well, that’s the thing. So all devils, all the devils in hell know that so they don’t make deals with Beelzebub. But most mortals do not know that about Beelzebub. That’s a pretty closely guarded secret because otherwise he wouldn’t, no mortal would want to treat with him. But sometimes the book does say that sometimes these have gone badly for Beelzebub when he didn’t intend it. So again, it’s just all part of his punishment of like…

Tyler (25:56.203)

Yeah.

Tyler (26:01.379)

Hahaha!

Ash (26:16.558)

Oh, this might go real bad for you. And if it doesn’t go bad for you, it might go so bad for your the person who you’re making a deal with that you don’t get their soul at the end. Have fun with that. Yeah, Asmodeus really does not like Beelzebub. He really hates him.

Tyler (26:27.843)

Cheers.

Randall James (26:28.564)

Yeah.

Tyler (26:32.131)

Yeah.

Randall James (26:35.06)

But if you think about it, right, like, let’s say he makes a deal with 1000 mortals per year. If 1 % of those are like cataclysmically fail for him, he still has to deal with 10 of these bombs a year. So yeah, for the other 990, like they had a bad life now and that’s terrible. And in their head, it’s like, ah, we should make deals with the devil. So they always told me. And then for him, like occasionally it sucks too.

Ash (26:36.876)

Uhhh…

Tyler (26:50.499)

Yeah.

Ash (26:50.69)

Yep. Yep.

Ash (27:03.662)

Yeah. Yeah, it’s kind of sucks to be balesable. I’m not gonna lie.

Randall James (27:09.46)

fair. The Lord of the Lord of flies, you’re saying that’s joyful.

Tyler (27:11.329)

Alright.

Ash (27:15.776)

Nope. Nope.

Tyler (27:16.131)

I mean, sounds like a good title for a devil.

Ash (27:19.438)

Yeah, the moral of the story is do your paperwork and how. Get those TPS reports in on time.

Tyler (27:23.741)

Okay, so pathfinder yet again slightly different lore so the layer I do not know how to pronounce this it’s Co cy tus is it cocaidus is a coquettis is it cositas? I don’t know

Ash (27:42.51)

It’s I believe it’s cock. I believe it’s cockatoo’s cockatoo’s

Tyler (27:47.043)

Sure, why not. Cockatoos.

Randall James (27:48.788)

It is now.

Ash (27:51.054)

It’s a Greek word. I don’t know. Yeah.

Tyler (27:51.447)

Alright, so.

Tyler (27:56.227)

I’m real short on Greek people around me to explain this to me, unfortunately, so we’re gonna go with cockatoos. Okay, so it is also ruled by Balzabool, but in the Pathfinder lore, this is yet another ice lair. The shades, the spirits of the dead who have been sent to hell are stored in cages and…

Ash (28:01.422)

Yeah. Here, I’ll look it up while you talk. There you go.

Tyler (28:22.499)

The entire layer of hell is just a feasting plane for devils. Literally, they go there to eat copious amounts of food, and the dead people are forced to watch. That is the only thing that happens here. That’s it. Yeah, but like… Imagine if that’s the only thing you had. It’s like, I am…

Randall James (28:37.204)

I mean, that could suck.

Tyler (28:46.915)

I am the ruler of the level of hell where everybody goes and just has a nice meal. I mean, not them, but… Okay.

Randall James (28:53.204)

Okay, no, you’re, you’re, you’re denigrating this way too much. Like, come with me. perpetual party, where you get to binge everything you want, and nothing ever gets worse for you because you’re a devil.

Tyler (29:02.659)

Uh huh.

Tyler (29:11.427)

Okay, yeah.

Randall James (29:12.756)

Okay, what is it?

Ash (29:13.966)

So there’s some dispute. One source I found says it’s a co -citus, and the other one says it’s a co -citus.

Tyler (29:18.563)

Oh no.

Tyler (29:26.275)

Okay, so it is co -somethingitis.

Ash (29:29.966)

Yeah, I I I think cocaitis sounds better than cositis personally, but you Greek people, please add us on Twitter

Tyler (29:36.099)

So do I, but –

Randall James (29:37.044)

Yeah, I like consistency MSEs. I’d rather be Cachytus or Societus. So let’s go Cachytus.

Ash (29:43.151)

Yeah, society, society, we, you know, we live in a society.

Tyler (29:43.939)

Look, look until we get.

Tyler (29:49.347)

You know, we have the ability to get the Paizo folks on here to explain this nonsense.

Randall James (29:59.188)

I would love it. Like, don’t don’t brief them. Just like, come on, show, come on, show, we’re gonna talk about some things. How do we say these words? I wasn’t prepared for that. I can’t.

Ash (30:05.486)

Hey, I once got into a discussion with a new player of mine that I was introducing them to my world and I was like, I don’t know how I pronounce this thing.

Tyler (30:07.363)

Yeah.

Tyler (30:18.883)

Why are there so many apostrophes?

Ash (30:21.134)

They’re like, it’s your word though. They’re like, it’s your word though. Like, I don’t know what you want from me, man.

Randall James (30:21.204)

You

Tyler (30:28.483)

You

Randall James (30:28.596)

The fact that we can write words and we can speak words but they have to be the same? What do you want from me?

Tyler (30:34.995)

Uh huh.

Ash (30:36.362)

Consistency?

Randall James (30:38.484)

Ugh. Ugh. It’s part of the lore. Nobody knows how to say it.

Tyler (30:38.691)

Madness.

Tyler (30:45.187)

Alright. Okay, so that is layer number seven. Layer number eight, uh, Kania. Kania, who knows? Oh look, more ice. It’s another ice layer. Like, honestly, I didn’t realize there would be this many ice layers in Hell.

Randall James (30:58.164)

Well, okay.

Randall James (31:01.844)

It’s a heating and cooling system is what it is. Wait, okay, but you’re saying so many in five years, we’ve only had two, right? There was the one with so Stygia with Levisis and now this.

Tyler (31:04.451)

Yeah

Uhhhh

Tyler (31:13.699)

Yeah, I mean that… Look, if I had a nickel for every time a layer of hell froze over, I’d only have two nickels, which isn’t a lot. But it’s… It’s weird that it happened twice.

Randall James (31:22.516)

But yeah, I did.

Yeah, okay, I gotcha, I gotcha.

Ash (31:26.35)

You you you love that joke.

Tyler (31:29.301)

I kinda do, yeah. Alright, so, Kania, the Archdevil here is Mephistopheles. Yeah, great devil name.

Randall James (31:37.62)

Best name ever.

Ash (31:40.174)

If that sounds familiar, by the way, Mephistopheles was the devil that Faustus made a bargain with.

Tyler (31:47.011)

Ah, one of the…

Randall James (31:47.924)

Ah, yeah, the first Faustian bargain.

Ash (31:51.854)

Yes, the first Faustian bargain. Yes.

Tyler (31:54.383)

Alright, so, Mephistopheles, his whole deal is he wants to conquer the multiverse using an army of devils. You know who else wants to do that? Asmodeus. So he wants to depose Asmodeus, steal Asmodeus’ plan, and his army.

Randall James (32:02.74)

Good choice.

Randall James (32:13.716)

I mean, okay, steal his plan. Like what other plan is there gonna be? Like, oh, we’re gonna get an army of demons. They’re never gonna work with me. I…

Ash (32:20.622)

Yeah, and and this uh, uh, the other place that this might sound familiar is if you play baldur’s gate three we talked before uh, we got it confused, uh the Artifact macguffin of baldur’s gate three was stolen from this guy’s vault Yeah, so which makes sense because mephistopheles is basically like the arch wizard of the of the nine hells and his uh,

His his domain is basically one big cold library where someone just took the air conditioner and just turned it on freezing. Yeah. And basically, so he makes he makes deals with wizards and sages. And sometimes part of the deal is, is that while you’re still alive, you have to do research for Mephistopheles in Kenya, which sucks because you’re immortal and it’s freezing.

Tyler (32:57.635)

No.

Randall James (32:58.42)

We have it in a blade.

Tyler (33:16.417)

Ah.

Randall James (33:17.172)

Go to hell. Yeah.

Ash (33:18.894)

Yeah, it’s freezing. But he will give you that really powerful 10th level spell that you’ve wanted or like.

Randall James (33:26.836)

Okay, that sounds honestly a lot like a PhD program. Being realistic, right? Like I’m sitting in a cold lab doing research, not getting paid anything whatsoever. But soon as I’m done with that, I’m gonna get 10 level spell hanging on my wall.

Tyler (33:30.851)

hahahaha

Ash (33:31.694)

Pretty much. Yeah.

Ash (33:42.446)

Yeah, or maybe or maybe you’ll find find the secret to turning yourself into a lech who knows there’s or an artifact of great, great magical significance like what was seen in Baldur’s Gate three. So yeah, Mephistopheles is the way you go if you want all the magical power.

Randall James (33:50.132)

It’s in there.

Randall James (34:05.172)

I love that the…

Ash (34:06.35)

Which which automatically makes him Tyler’s favorite devil.

Tyler (34:12.963)

A little, yeah. It’s like, do I want the one that helps me cheat the rules or do I want the one that gives me incredible magical power? Hmm. What if I made deals? What if I made a deal with Mephistopheles and then talked to Glacier to get me out of the deal with Mephistopheles?

Randall James (34:15.156)

That’s fair.

Ash (34:22.318)

Both are great. I can’t choose

Ash (34:32.75)

Hey now now you’re thinking like an idiot. Love it

Randall James (34:32.916)

That is, yeah.

Tyler (34:36.959)

Congratulations, I’m now a Warlock. I don’t have the charisma for this.

Ash (34:40.238)

Hahahaha

Ehh…

Randall James (34:44.692)

Yeah, it’s like Tyler the player, Mephistopheles. Absolutely. Tyler the optimizer. Okay.

Tyler (34:52.487)

All right.

Ash (34:52.734)

I’m

Randall James (34:53.524)

I want to call out the name of the Isidore where Mephistopheles lives, Mephistar.

Ash (35:04.686)

Yeah.

Randall James (35:05.972)

Very creative.

Ash (35:07.278)

Hey, he loves himself a great deal. And the first step to doing that is to appreciate your name. So I can I can respect it. He knows how bad as his name is. I don’t know what you want.

Randall James (35:20.308)

No, that’s fair. I opened with saying it’s an awesome name. I want to read a little bit out of the DMG because I think like this is great. This is perfect. Like as you’re saying, it’s like we’re dealing with contradictory information. I don’t know what you want to do reading from these different sources when they literally are disagreeing from one source, from one source going to read this passage. He is Asmodeus’s greatest enemy and ally and the Archduke of Nessus appears to trust Mephistopheles’ counsel when it is offered.

Tyler (35:20.515)

All right.

Ash (35:23.118)

Hehehehe

Tyler (35:25.731)

Yeah.

Ash (35:49.262)

Yeah, he’s basically the Vizier and counselor to Asmodeus, which makes him the second most powerful devil in the Nine Hells.

Randall James (35:56.5)

also his greatest enemy.

Tyler (35:58.883)

Yeah.

Ash (35:59.054)

Well, yeah, because he’s probably going to try to overthrow him, because that’s what all devils do. The difference is that he the difference is that he’s smart about it. As you notice, the rest the rest of the devils have all been punished in some way or shape or form because they all tried to stupidly tried and failed to overthrow Asmodeus. But Mephistopheles, if anybody could succeed, it would be him. And that might be a good hook for a campaign. Mephistopheles kills Asmodeus and now he’s in charge.

Randall James (36:03.252)

He’s absolutely.

Tyler (36:07.459)

Ha ha.

Tyler (36:24.779)

Yeah.

Ash (36:27.726)

and not beholden to the same rules that Zemoidias says, that is a recipe for disaster. So that could be fun.

Tyler (36:32.995)

Yeah.

Randall James (36:34.182)

Also from the DMG, he is a godfather of sorts to Glacier.

Tyler (36:40.771)

Yeah, okay.

Ash (36:41.006)

Makes sense, makes sense. Yep. Mephistopheles is a cool, cool character. I think he doesn’t get used enough. Everybody is always like, ooh, sexy as Modius daddy. Nobody talks about Mephistopheles. Just because he’s like the old teacher guy who lives in a cold, cold library doesn’t mean he’s not cool, dang it.

Randall James (36:41.492)

So good, we’re getting all kinds of little, yeah.

Tyler (37:01.839)

Alright, okay, so Pathfinder lore, so you know how in 5e it’s Kania? In Pathfinder it’s Kana, C -A -I -N -A, literally they just move the eye to the other side of that.

Ash (37:10.252)

Ahem.

Ash (37:16.974)

Oh, I thought you were going to say thought you were going to say in five years, Kenya and Pathfinder, it’s Kanya. Like that doesn’t sound right.

Randall James (37:18.868)

That makes good sense.

Tyler (37:26.659)

No, that would be funny though. Literally, I found almost no information about this layer except that there’s a lot of iron and torture happens here and that’s basically all I could get. Like, this is the torture layer. Yeah. So…

Ash (37:41.742)

So just anywhere in hell.

Randall James (37:46.804)

Actually, wasn’t like the wasn’t the second layer in five, the lore, the place where you went to get iron ore. Yeah. So it’s a lot like this.

Tyler (37:52.835)

Yeah, I guess they pretty… Yeah, a bit. Um… Not like that.

Ash (37:58.83)

Who who who does yeah who does?

Tyler (38:01.667)

So, okay, so one other thing and we’ll go back to this when we talk about the River Styx in a minute. If you take the River Styx, which can carry you through the layers of hell in Pathfinder, it goes from the sixth layer of hell, Kena, off into the Astral Sea. The River Styx never reaches the seventh layer of hell.

Ash (38:29.206)

Interesting. You mean eighth layer of hell.

Tyler (38:30.145)

It’s a mystery. Yeah.

No, this is the 8 flyer.

Ash (38:36.718)

Oh, oh, you’re saying it doesn’t reach there before.

Tyler (38:37.729)

Yeah.

No, it never reaches layer number nine.

Ash (38:44.942)

confused. Yeah, yeah, you said it. You said the the river of sticks never reaches level seven.

Randall James (38:45.108)

You said some funny numbers a second ago. That’s okay. Let’s start over. So it reaches Kena.

Tyler (38:46.531)

Did I?

Tyler (38:53.443)

Okay, so we’re on.

Ash (38:54.862)

Thanks for watching!

Randall James (38:57.844)

Apparently math is hell. Okay, Tyler, can I call back what you said and then you tell me if I said what you were trying to say when you didn’t say what you meant to say? The River Sticks flows to the eighth layer of hell in VF2 and then exits into the astral sea, never reaching the ninth layer of hell.

Tyler (38:59.267)

What should I number these bullets?

Tyler (39:04.771)

Yeah, please. Words are hard.

Ash (39:07.726)

I have a headache.

Tyler (39:12.131)

Yeah, yes.

Yes. Correct.

Ash (39:17.486)

Okay. All right. All right. Fair enough. Because you originally said it doesn’t reach the seventh layer. And then I was confused. And I said, But what about the eighth layer? We’re on the eighth layer. You’re like, Yeah, this is the eighth layer. I was just like, Tyler, what are you talking about?

Tyler (39:23.267)

Oh god.

Randall James (39:26.612)

I think he stuck a six layer in there somewhere.

Tyler (39:30.883)

oh

Randall James (39:32.884)

You know Ash doesn’t like numbers, why are you trying to mess with him?

Tyler (39:35.235)

You

Ash (39:36.16)

I think I messed Tyler up by saying that there were seven layers of hell at the beginning instead of nine.

Tyler (39:42.051)

My brain is bad. It’s okay. No, no, no, no. This is a long -standing problem, sir.

Ash (39:45.262)

I’m so sorry, this is my fault.

I have I have imparted my my absolute just not understanding math onto you and I apologize.

Tyler (39:59.459)

Look, I understand dice math.

Randall James (40:01.461)

This is contagious.

Ash (40:03.182)

Yeah, my, yeah, my uneducated demeanor is going to extend to you to Randall. You’ll be trying to you’ll be trying to do some complex equations and be like, I want a burger. And then you will forget numbers are a thing.

Randall James (40:05.172)

Oh… Oh no…

Tyler (40:05.603)

Ha ha.

Randall James (40:18.804)

do that? Is that you? That’s you?

Tyler (40:21.091)

Oh no! Oh no! It turns out the eighth layer of hell is just forgetting the ability to do math. Quick, let’s move to the ninth.

Ash (40:23.406)

Sorry buddy.

Randall James (40:24.956)

Apparently I’ve hit stage four, whatever disease this is.

Ash (40:27.188)

I’m

Ash (40:33.934)

Yeah.

Randall James (40:34.772)

There are people, no, I would say there are people out there right now it’s like, take me to the eighth layer of hell, are you kidding?

Ash (40:39.726)

Yeah, no, that is my heaven. That’s my eighth layer of heaven. I don’t know what you’re talking about. So let’s get to the big grand daddy finale, Nessus.

Tyler (40:50.019)

Yeah, Nessus.

Ash (40:53.708)

Wasn’t he from wasn’t Nessus from the Nintendo games? No, it was Ness. Ness, it was Ness.

Randall James (40:53.78)

is necessary.

Tyler (40:59.011)

I don’t know. Oh.

Alright, Ness, famously named after the Nintendo Entertainment System. I don’t actually know if that’s true.

Randall James (41:06.196)

I see what you did there.

Ash (41:10.062)

No, I don’t think it is yeah, no, it’s a hundred percent not true

Randall James (41:11.859)

I know that it isn’t. I know that it isn’t.

Tyler (41:13.763)

But, okay.

Dang, that would’ve been really funny. Alright, so Nessus. This is where Asmodeus lives. In 5e, we have some lore about it. The entire layer of hell is mostly flat with giant, nearly bottomless pits. Functionally bottomless pits. You’re not gonna reach the bottom. The walls of these pits are fortresses.

And this is just where Asmodeus keeps his army, with which he plans to eventually conquer the multiverse. Asmodeus lives in a cathedral which comes up from the bottom of one of these bottomless pits. Don’t question it. He lives in it like a spire -like cathedral in the middle of one of these pits, because he has to. Why not? He’s gotta be fancy.

Ash (42:06.542)

So are you guys ready to hear the origin of how things work in hell and as Modius himself? Yeah. So as most is actually kind of an interesting character, most people just think he’s just, oh, he’s just Satan or just a generic evil guy. He’s got some motivations. So. A long time ago, the angels accused as Modius of being naughty, essentially, and like not.

Tyler (42:12.675)

Kinda, yeah.

Tyler (42:35.939)

Ha ha!

Ash (42:36.846)

He was already the ruler of hell. So was like, yeah, fair. But they were accusing him of, like, you know, deceiving people and, you know, not being lawful and all this other stuff. And he didn’t like that. So they to sell this dispute, they went to Primus, the guy of mechanist who’s like just completely lawful, neutral. He has no stake in things. They figured he would be a good neutral party. And so a bunch of people.

Randall James (42:41.396)

It checks out.

Tyler (42:41.891)

Okay.

Ash (43:06.51)

brought their arguments as to why like, you know, as much as is bad, and he should be eliminated and stuff like that, as much as is like, look, we don’t actually ever deceive people were upfront with humans as to what they’re going to get out of this deal. That’s kind of part of it. And, you know, it’s not, we’re not trying to trick good people into accepting deals, because if they were good, they probably wouldn’t accept the deal anyway. Word, word. Yeah, we’re, we’re, we’re taking

Randall James (43:29.876)

That’s entrapment. Yeah.

Tyler (43:31.075)

Yeah.

Ash (43:33.326)

we’re sifting out the bad evil parts of humanity. Like we’re getting rid of the evil people and bringing them here because if we can bring them here, we can use them as soldiers to keep back the demons. You know who wants to destroy everything and wants to trick people and kill them and has no logic or rhyme or reason or respect for law and order demons. Interesting, isn’t that word providing a valuable service?

by taking evil people from the prime material plane and keeping the really bad stuff from getting onto your doorstep. So I’m a good guy, actually. It’s basically which, you know, it kind of makes some twisted logical sense when you think about it. But so the angels were really pissed at him. And so it ended up just becoming a huge fight like people like there was a brawl in the courtroom.

Tyler (44:11.171)

No!

Ash (44:29.102)

So Primus was just like, okay, I’ve heard enough. I’m not going to rule on whether as Modius is doing the right thing, actually, because that’s not really my place. But here’s what I’m going to say. As Modius, you have to stay in hell with your devils. And I’m giving you this thing called the Ruby Rod that will give you the ability to make contracts with mortals. And that’s the only interaction that you can have with mortals is when you’re trying to make deals with them.

And if you or your devil friends break any of these contracts, you will be erased from existence. So or you’ll be punished. That’s what it is. You’ll be punished.

Tyler (45:06.211)

Wow.

Randall James (45:09.172)

The individual or the society as a whole? Has to be the individual.

Ash (45:12.878)

the individual but both essentially yeah uh which is why just why asmodeus has to keep his devils in line so that it stuff doesn’t rain down on his head he everybody’s essentially a prisoner in hell that’s essentially what is even asmodeus because everybody’s trying to take his job and he has to fulfill an arbitrary quota uh that primus has given to him and if he doesn’t fulfill it bad things will happen to him so yeah it sucks to be asmodeus y ‘all

Randall James (45:16.532)

Okay.

Tyler (45:16.771)

Interesting.

Ash (45:40.11)

Everybody thinks, oh, it’d be great to be the ruler of hell. No, it sucks just as hard.

Tyler (45:45.507)

Huh.

Randall James (45:45.524)

Nobody thinks that. Except for the archdevils on the other layers of hell, because it’s like, if you’re gonna be there, at least… you know.

Ash (45:53.112)

And tyler apparently tyler also thinks that

Tyler (45:56.163)

No, I’m kidding.

Randall James (45:56.404)

Okay, I love what you just described is basically the you can’t handle the truth from Jack Nicklaus’s character in a view good men.

Ash (46:06.22)

Uh huh.

Tyler (46:07.043)

Yeah, 100%.

Randall James (46:07.956)

You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. Who’s gonna fight you?

Ash (46:11.342)

Yeah, no That’s that’s exactly what as modeus is. He’s just he’s essentially jack nicholson from a few good men like that’s basically what he is Um, he thinks what he’s doing is completely justified. Um It’s you know juries out if he actually really believes that but He says he does um But uh, he the the thing about his money is he doesn’t have a sphere of influence because he doesn’t actually deal directly with mortals No, you can’t actually make a deal with as modeus

you have to deal with one of his archdevils or their minions.

Randall James (46:42.74)

It’s interesting though. So the whole idea of this is everybody, everybody like, okay, you know, I’m, I’m king devil. I’ve got all these devils underneath me. We have a strict hierarchy. There’s opportunities for promotion. If you can do the lawful backstab, you’ll get a promotion. Everybody comes in low level. If you survive long enough, I’ll turn you into an imp. If you just survive long enough as an imp will go into something better. Maybe you’re probably going to die. It’s going to suck.

Promotions, demotions, all the way. But this whole thing is basically everybody write contracts with mortals. We will turn their souls into more devils. The best devils will survive and I will put them in a pit to be in my army when they get good enough. And then eventually enough mortals will die having signed contracts with us that we can conquer the multiverse. That’s the plan.

Ash (47:37.294)

Yeah. Yeah. If if hell is one big corporation as Moe deus is the CEO, then the ruby rod is government regulation. So.

Tyler (47:37.699)

Seems to be, yeah.

Randall James (47:49.748)

Okay, okay. Well.

Tyler (47:52.099)

Just imagine you rule an entire plane of existence, you’re the embodiment of lawful evil in the multiverse, and you are forced to, at all times, hold the magical rod of multiplanar bureaucracy. Just like, government. Yeah.

Ash (48:09.902)

Yeah, he has to keep it with him at all times. If he is ever separated from the Ruby Rod, he’ll be like, erased from existence. So he can’t be parted from the Ruby Rod as much as he would want to because it’s both like his key to power and his jailer. So, yeah, it’s a…

Randall James (48:30.868)

might as well love it. Ruby Rod probably was my favorite character in Fifth Element.

Tyler (48:38.467)

Yeah, God, what a good movie. Alright. Okay.

Randall James (48:42.068)

It really is. Okay, well, just yeah, to throw this out there. So yeah, yeah, Lincoln, the show notes, Nessus, a famous centaur who killed Heracles, whose poison blood in turn, excuse me, killed by Heracles, whose poison blood in.

Ash (48:43.214)

I hate you so much.

Tyler (48:46.083)

Show notes.

Ash (48:57.804)

I’m sorry. I’m, I, I, no, no, no, no, stop. I’m sorry. How are you pronouncing that word?

Tyler (49:05.091)

Heracles? Yeah.

Randall James (49:05.364)

Here. Heracles, is that it?

Ash (49:07.534)

Yes, it’s Heracles, not Heracles. Hercules.

Randall James (49:10.868)

Who is this dude?

Tyler (49:12.611)

It’s Hercules.

Randall James (49:14.74)

Oh, okay. Then what? What? Why doesn’t it look like I thought it would look like? Oh, okay.

Ash (49:16.814)

Because the Greek because it’s Greek Hercules is the is the Latin version Heracles Heracles It’s like Heracles it sounds like some sort of tool or something I left my Heracles on the bench over there Can somebody please get them for me?

Randall James (49:24.5)

Really?

Tyler (49:25.473)

Yeah.

Can you blame him? Like, if you’ve never heard it pronounced, it makes sense based on the spelling.

Oh.

Randall James (49:39.604)

Well, I assumed there was some kind of hair disease. Like I was gonna get a little bit down later and find out like this was the first ball. Yeah. Anyway, okay.

Tyler (49:45.219)

You got some follicles? Alright yeah, Heracles kills the centaur.

Ash (49:45.742)

Oh, I love that. That is that is the greatest mispronunciation of a word that I’ve ever heard. And I love it so much. Heracles.

Tyler (49:57.699)

Oh

Randall James (49:57.716)

It’s gonna get better. We’re gonna keep doing this podcast. Ash, you’re gonna hear more. Anyway, Nessus was a centaur and now it’s the ninth layer of hell in fifth engines, Dungeons and Dragons.

Tyler (50:02.051)

You

Ash (50:10.702)

Uh, yeah, that’s right. Yeah, nessus killed his uh, or uh tried to take uh, heracles his wife, right? Is that right? I wasn’t I wasn’t paying I wasn’t paying attention to what you were saying because I was too focused on heracles

Tyler (50:19.139)

hand.

Tyler (50:24.195)

Alright, from what I remember of the Hercules myths, like, he got married like three times and didn’t actually want to get married with – but didn’t – also didn’t like to be told no, and that was his whole thing. Just like, which wife did this centaur steal?

Ash (50:36.75)

Well, the yeah, the yeah, the the big thing I remember. So how he died, I don’t know if it was Nessus, but one of the center tried to steal his wife. Heracles killed it and his wife. As the center was dying, he said to Heracles, his wife, if he’s ever unfaithful to you, he dip, dip, dip a robe into my blood. And if he’s ever unfaithful to you, give it to him.

And she was like, OK. And so she had thought that he she thought that he was I don’t know if he was or not. I think maybe he was being unfaithful to her. It’s left ambiguous. And so she gave it to him. And it’s it was poison that stuck to his skin. And he tried to tear it off and end up tearing himself apart. And so his wife felt so guilty on his funeral par that she threw herself onto the fire. And that’s how Heracles died. Greek myths, y ‘all.

Tyler (51:08.547)

She did.

Tyler (51:34.627)

Yeah!

Ash (51:35.758)

Greek myths.

Tyler (51:37.779)

Alright, hey, so Pathfinder myths. Alright, so the lore for Nessus is pretty cool in Pathfinder. So, the lair Nessus is nearly unknown. The end.

Ash (51:55.214)

Cool.

Tyler (51:56.563)

Yep, that’s all I could find.

Randall James (51:59.604)

But because a second ago what you said is that it’s pretty cool.

Tyler (52:03.127)

Uh -huh. Nearly unknown. That is literally the only information I could find. That’s not nearly. That’s pretty much entirely. We know it’s there in theory. We know Asmodeus lives there, again, in theory. But I think that’s it. Like, as far as I can tell, you can’t get there. Like, if you plane -shift into Hell, you arrive on the top layer of Hell. You have to go down using the River Styx.

The River Styx goes from layer 8 out into the Astral Sea, so the one way to go down a layer does not reach layer number 9. So as far as I know, within the Pathfinder lore, no mortal has ever been to Nessus.

Randall James (52:48.084)

So it sounds like in PF2, Hell has eight layers and then there’s a rumor that maybe, okay.

Tyler (52:54.531)

Eh. Spicy bonus layer. I –

Randall James (52:57.812)

Yeah. It’s like somebody put, you know, carpet over the stairs that lead down into the basement.

Tyler (53:04.451)

Does that count? Alright, so we talked about this a little bit. We talked about the River Styx. Let’s talk, how do we get in and out of hell? Because apparently there’s some steps and like the exact text that we’ve given, we’ve read some of this already on this episode and the last one, but how do we get in and out of hell? Because it is kind of ambiguous.

Ash (53:32.038)

Plane shift. It’s the answer to everything.

Tyler (53:35.267)

Let’s see, so from the Dundramaster’s guide, no planar portals connect directly to the lower layers of the Nine Hells by Asmodeus’s orders. So like, we’ve talked about the planes a bit, we’ve talked about the Aetherial Plane, we talked about Spelljammer and a little bit about the Astral Sea, then a lot of planes just have portals that go to other planes, random places on those planes, and they just happen by some…

whatever. Asmodeus is apparently cool enough to say like, no, this is my plane of existence. Absolutely not. You can go to the top layer, you can show up on my front door. You do not get to show up in my force.

Ash (54:18.094)

Yep, that’s how it works so if you want to get down to the cathedral and Tell Esmodeus that you love him and you’re big you’re his biggest fan you have to go through all of that stuff We just talked about all of it

Tyler (54:30.851)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, the freezing, the layers, the feasting, the city, the sewers, the ice, the fire.

Ash (54:40.27)

Maybe I’ll give you a nice souvenir for your troubles.

Tyler (54:42.947)

Heheheheh

Randall James (54:43.124)

Let’s say I get down to like the third level or the fourth level and then I realize this hike’s not for me.

Tyler (54:50.435)

You can get out just fine, as far as I can tell. Yeah. It’s hard to get in. It’s easy to get out. Actually, it’s also really easy to get in. It’s just not easy to get in very far. Because…

Randall James (54:51.75)

Okay, so Planner Portal out. That’s great. Just know… Okay.

Ash (54:55.086)

Yeah.

Ash (55:01.518)

I mean, it depends. There are some settings where it’s pretty hard to get out of hell as well. Like, depending on how low you are down, like plane shifting wouldn’t work. You might have to go back up, but who knows? Yeah. When you get to Stygia, there’s that cold that will kill you in five seconds. So good luck with that. I hope you brought some really warm clothes.

Randall James (55:01.908)

Yeah, okay.

Tyler (55:18.851)

Hahaha!

Tyler (55:25.057)

Alright, so we talked about the River Styx. The exact text I found, a tendril of the Styx winds through every layer of the nine hells, allowing passage from one layer of that plane to the next. So like, what form this takes exactly in 5e is really badly explained or just not explained. In Pathfinder, there are these things called Hellmouths, which are literally like it’s a giant sculpture of a face with an open demon mouth.

and the river Styx goes into it. So like, great big landmark. Yeah, makes sense.

Ash (55:56.046)

Makes sense.

You know, what’s also funny about the sticks is it’s the only way for the demons of the abyss to get out of the abyss. So that’s why there’s the blood war. Yeah.

Tyler (56:08.003)

Yeah. Yup.

Oh boy, yeah, that’s a whole thing. All right, so this is very much like the River Styx taking from Greek mythology. Like it is, you know, it carries dead spirits in some fashion. If you touch the waters of the River Styx, you lose all of your memories, which is a terrible, terrible way to go.

Randall James (56:34.004)

Oh, so boating down is not the smart idea.

Tyler (56:37.347)

Yeah, uh, but –

Ash (56:37.358)

Well, is that in D &D or in mythology?

Tyler (56:41.539)

Yes. Yeah. Let’s see. So there are, there are creatures that make a, make a living off of faring people along the river sticks. Like there are certain creatures that are immune to it. So they’re just like, yeah, whatever river sticks. It’s fine. Get in my boat. There are creatures who are just very clever and careful. There are some that are just insane.

Ash (56:42.478)

Oh, okay.

Tyler (57:09.219)

And then there are like there are fiends that live in the River Styx along with other insane creatures who’ve gone in there and it’s like, ah, I no longer have memory. So like, like I imagine if you just live in the River Styx, like your your brain just does not retain information. So that’s got to be a terrible, terrible way to exist. Yeah.

Ash (57:29.166)

Yeah.

Tyler (57:38.339)

Yeah, let’s see, okay, so there is some exact text from the DMG. The most expeditious means of doing so is the River Styx, which plunges ever deeper as it flows from one layer to the next. Only the most courageous adventurers can withstand the torment and horror of that journey. Because yeah, everything you’re gonna see on the River Styx is gonna suck.

Randall James (57:57.554)

On the flip side though, it sounds like as long as I could just touch the water and then I’ll forget everything I’ve seen. So.

Tyler (58:02.179)

That’s true. That’s true.

Ash (58:05.742)

So let’s say I’m planning my holiday getaway to the ninth layer of hell. What are some of the locals that I can find in my lovely excursion down the nine layers?

Tyler (58:18.241)

Well, let me.

Randall James (58:18.292)

Well Ash, I think you can look forward to meeting demons. Oh, meeting? Take that one more time. Some demons. Lots of devils.

Tyler (58:21.569)

Well…

Ash (58:23.406)

Definitely. I mean maybe meeting demons on the first layer. Yeah, lots of devils. Yeah

Tyler (58:26.755)

Yeah. Yeah. Lots of devils and then on the on the upper couple layers of hell, you’re actually likely to meet mortals in mortals and other planar travelers in cities in the first couple layers of hell, like

Randall James (58:30.964)

There were two possible words I could say.

Tyler (58:51.871)

Layers 3 and below, people probably aren’t gonna go that far unless they’ve got some really crazy stuff they have to do because it’s hard. And you have to touch the river Styx if nobody wants to.

Ash (59:03.086)

Yeah.

Tyler (59:04.355)

Yeah. Like, the city of Dis seems like it would be a pretty cool destination. Like, the stuff you’re gonna get there is probably pretty crazy. Like, the trading’s probably interesting. You can probably get really cool magic items. Plus, like, how cool is it to be like, I bought this cool sword in hell. It was great.

Ash (59:21.518)

Maybe not the best place.

Ash (59:26.414)

Yeah, but maybe not the best place for like a destination wedding, unless, you know, you really don’t want anybody to show up. Lovely, lovely beachfront property at Dis, second layer of hell. So, yeah, we talked we talked before about how certain devils start as Lemurs and then they work their way up to stronger and stronger devils. It’s basically like getting promoted.

Tyler (59:30.691)

Yeah.

Tyler (59:40.419)

Yes.

Randall James (59:44.532)

We’re doing ice sculptures.

Ash (59:55.918)

Now if you’re looking at Mordenkainen, which is where we first got like some of the higher tier devil and demon stat blocks, you’ll wonder why are there so many demon prince stat blocks and only one devil prince? What was it? Archdevil that’s what I meant. Zario. Zario. Why is Zario the only one here? Well, Zario is kind of the most pathetic of the archdevils. Not gonna lie. Sorry for all those Zario stands out there.

Tyler (01:00:10.979)

Archdevil.

Tyler (01:00:21.219)

Hehehehe

Tyler (01:00:25.539)

all two of them.

Ash (01:00:26.67)

Yeah, all two of them. She’s kind of a crappy character. Sorry. Yeah. So the problem is, is that arch devils are on a full other level of power from demon princes. And they’re essentially like, like gods. So that’s why they don’t get a stat block. Because if they got a stat block, they were they would be killable. And if you want to make them killable, you’re probably doing some

Tyler (01:00:30.307)

No.

Ash (01:00:55.854)

very high level campaign stuff. So yeah, yeah.

Tyler (01:01:00.099)

Sounds right. I mean, shoot, the Demon Princes range from what, like, CR, like, just below 20 to, like, mid -20s or something, if I’m remembering right.

Ash (01:01:10.062)

Yeah, and they’re extremely takeable. Like even at like level 13, you could kill the Demogorgon. I know stranger things made him seem like he was really scary. He’s not. He’s pretty pathetic, actually.

Tyler (01:01:16.489)

I’m

Tyler (01:01:22.083)

Mm -hmm.

Randall James (01:01:26.547)

That wasn’t even the dimmigorgan though, right?

Tyler (01:01:28.291)

No. Yeah. It was the weird flappy mouth. They called it Demogorgon, because that’s who they were fighting in D &D. That was not a two -headed baboon, sir. Tentacle arms.

Ash (01:01:29.43)

Yeah.

Ash (01:01:36.142)

Yeah. Yeah, no, the the the Demogorgon and D &D is way cooler than in Stranger Things. Sorry for all you fans who came from Stranger Things. Our Demogorgon is way cooler. Just just so you know.

Tyler (01:01:45.187)

Just…

Randall James (01:01:50.58)

stranger things is awesome though and I’m looking forward to the final season coming.

Ash (01:01:54.67)

I’m not. I have a suspicion it’s going to be bad, but maybe that’s just me being pessimistic with the way things are going at Netflix right now.

Tyler (01:01:55.235)

So… Alright. So, uh… God, I hope not. Uh…

Tyler (01:02:06.659)

Okay, so something I kind of noticed about devils as we’ve looked at them over the course of this two -part episode. You start as a Lemur, you get promoted through various tiers of devil, usually by supplanting a higher -up or some other kind of wheeling and dealing, but it’s all like backstabbing, politics, shenanigans, things like that.

It seems like the entire thing top to bottom is just a cycle of abuse. It’s just like, the lower you are on the totem pole, the more you are abused, but to go up the totem pole, you have to be progressively more and more abusive. So it’s just like, you have to get worse and worse and worse to go further up the totem pole until you get to Asmodeus, who is just bullying the entire multiverse.

Ash (01:03:02.83)

to late stage capitalism.

Randall James (01:03:06.26)

I don’t think so. I feel like that’s a…

Ash (01:03:08.302)

I think so. I think so. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, what wing lady makes a good point. Any multi -level marketing company? Yeah. If you Yeah, I mean, if you want to look, I don’t want to get on my soapbox here. But like if you want for Fortune 500 companies or multi -level marketing companies or any of those big corporations, if you want to get to the top, you have to kind of be a bit of a jerk.

Tyler (01:03:09.731)

different sort of abuse.

Randall James (01:03:11.572)

No, I mean, it’s a borderline cliche. It, in the…

Tyler (01:03:14.915)

Kinda.

Tyler (01:03:20.481)

Oof. Oof. Yeah.

Ash (01:03:37.838)

And you have to be okay with exploiting people because that’s what 90 % of the companies do. So, yeah.

Randall James (01:03:46.42)

Nah. I mean, yeah, that’s… Nah. Anyway.

Tyler (01:03:46.563)

Yay! Alright. Anyway.

Ash (01:03:51.918)

We don’t endorse cut we don’t endorse communism and pinkos on our podcast. That’s what Randall’s saying

Tyler (01:03:53.083)

Alright.

Randall James (01:03:58.388)

No, no, it’s not that it’s just like it’s it’s a gross oversimplification. Anyway.

Tyler (01:03:58.787)

Hahaha!

Ash (01:04:03.276)

Mm -hmm.

Tyler (01:04:03.681)

Uh.

Ash (01:04:10.286)

We’re not a politics podcast, so let’s move on.

Randall James (01:04:23.508)

No, but I think the point that you’re making, Tyler, is, I guess, right and relevant. What is the idea here? The idea is, let’s build an army capable of conquering the multiverse. What does Asmodeus respect? He respects power and he respects people working within the system, climbing up to gain that power. So you can’t just come and cheat the system and then wind up as his lieutenant. You have to do it in the system. But luckily, they have eternity.

So they can keep cranking on souls, cranking on souls, where one out of 10 ,000, one out of a million actually winds up being good enough to be in the army. But one day, one day, they’re gonna be able to conquer the multiverse.

Ash (01:05:07.36)

Yeah, you’re right. It is an oversimplification of capitalism because in capitalism they can cheat the rules in order to advance up. Sorry, I’m done. I’m done. I’m done.

Tyler (01:05:07.489)

Yeah.

Tyler (01:05:15.171)

Sure. Hey, if there’s anything we can learn from Asmodeus, it’s never give up on your dreams, folks. Your horrible, horrible dreams. Your horrible, awful dreams. Never give up on them.

Ash (01:05:24.878)

Yeah.

Randall James (01:05:25.62)

Wait, what?

Ash (01:05:27.47)

See you.

Randall James (01:05:28.596)

Wait, let’s never give up on dreams if you’re asmodious.

Ash (01:05:33.327)

See, see, see, I’m not evil. I’m just a dreamer. And I’m not, I’m not a villain. I’m just ahead of the curve. Join my devil legions today. Brought to you and paid for by the team to vote as Modi is king of the multiverse.

Randall James (01:05:53.108)

Yeah, if Esmodeus ever conquers the multiverse, he does it through electoral politics. Oh god.

Ash (01:05:57.646)

He absolutely would. He’s not like Vekna, who just wants to murder everybody and turn them into his undead servants. No, no, no. If Asmodeus wants to take over the world, he wants to be both loved and feared. So he would absolutely exploit the political system in order to gain power. I would I would run a campaign where it’s like Asmodeus is actually like running.

Tyler (01:05:57.923)

Yeah.

Randall James (01:06:13.812)

Hmmmm

Ash (01:06:21.966)

to be president or whatever and nobody, everybody except the players thinks he’s just some normal dude, but you all know that he’s as mode as.

Randall James (01:06:32.788)

God. No, I’d like to keep the real world in my game separate. Thank you very much.

Ash (01:06:38.254)

Yeah, I realized it when I said it. I realized it when I said it.

Randall James (01:06:41.972)

Who would fall for that? Who would be? Anyway, here’s the deal, folks. This week, we have a question of the week.

Tyler (01:06:42.795)

Well, uh…

Uh…

Tyler (01:06:53.251)

Good. Great. Thank God! Get me out of this!

Randall James (01:06:53.46)

Tyler sitting here, thank God. Thank you.

Randall James (01:06:59.028)

Do you feel like D &D and Pathfinder are suffering from power creep within one edition or between editions? This question comes to us from at thegorazor.

Tyler (01:07:05.507)

Yes, both.

Ash (01:07:10.508)

I can’t speak too much to Pathfinder 2. Pathfinder 2 feels pretty well balanced from my perspective, but I only started doing it recently, so I don’t know what huge changes have been made. I will say fifth edition D &D, absolutely. Just look at how Sorcerer was, how it originally released and how it is now. Like every subclass they’ve had has power -crapped the previous subclasses.

Like to this is very egregious with Sorcerer just because of like the the most recent subclasses for Sorcerer are just better wholesale than the rest because they get free spells. This is the that simple. They get free spells. No, they’re the earlier subclasses don’t. So, yeah, and we talked about Eloquence Bard and how Eloquence Bard basically nullifies taking any other subclass of Bard, Twilight Cleric.

Tyler (01:07:59.331)

Yeah.

Ash (01:08:05.07)

controversial for a reason because it basically nullifies any other cleric subclass that you could take. D &D is notoriously bad about this. Like it’s been bad about this in all editions, I would say except maybe fourth edition. Fourth edition was better. But the problem that they had there was they went for complete balance to the point of homogenity, where all classes were basically the same, which was like, okay, that’s not what we were looking for.

Tyler (01:08:13.793)

Yeah.

Ash (01:08:34.676)

Balance is hard. I get that but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things At least they’re not under the the 3 .5 era because that stuff was wild That stuff was like it was the Wild West and it was just like we have all these different things and here’s sad bard on his sad little corner sitting over here Playing his little recording flute. So Yeah Yeah, you don’t play bard Yeah, you don’t play bard

Tyler (01:08:37.283)

Yeah.

Tyler (01:08:56.099)

How do you make Bard good, you multiclass? Yeah.

Randall James (01:09:00.02)

to do something else.

Tyler (01:09:04.707)

Yeah, okay, I agree with Ash on basically every point. Yeah, like 5e, obviously the power creep, significant. Like Tasha’s power crept the game so much. Like Xanathar’s a little bit. Yeah.

Ash (01:09:19.47)

Xanathar’s was less egregious than Tasha’s. Tasha’s was very blatant how much of Power Crypt everybody…

Tyler (01:09:29.123)

Yeah. Yeah.

Randall James (01:09:32.34)

So I want to add on to this question. Has it been a bad thing for 5e? Has that power creep made the game worse?

Tyler (01:09:38.979)

OOF

Ash (01:09:39.022)

Yes and yes and no. I would argue that in some ways it’s me. It’s corrected some of the problems that I think were the like the fundamental design issues with the classes that needed to be addressed, like specifically with Ranger, because Ranger was a broken class. And that’s why they’re that’s why I feel like they’re moving into the 2024 rules because like, OK, we went too far in some places. So we’re just going to make Tasha’s the new standard.

which I think is fair and valid, and that’s what they should do. So yes, I think it’s been good. No, in the fact that before they announced the 2024 rules, it didn’t validate a lot of choices for people. And especially if you’re playing with a group that really values optimization and combat and that kind of stuff, there were choices that you just were not allowed to play in some groups, which sucks. And

You know, every class should be viable. And for this obviously doesn’t affect groups like groups that I run where we don’t really care about optimization. You can play any class you want, any subclass you want, and you’ll probably still be OK. But with like with like Adventures League and like where they heavily favor optimization over role play, then there are just going to be some classes that you’re never going to see played because they’re just not good.

Tyler (01:11:01.891)

Yeah. I think the power creep was good because most of the power creep went to classes that aren’t wizard.

Ash (01:11:12.111)

Wow, wow. So blatant. The favoritism that’s on display is just like, it didn’t affect my class. So I don’t give a crap. So sensitive.

Tyler (01:11:18.979)

No.

Tyler (01:11:24.483)

No, no, no, no, that’s the opposite. Wizards are still the best class. Everyone else got to keep up a little bit. Like, I look at Sorcerer’s…

Randall James (01:11:25.492)

Well, it’s kind of the opposite. Yeah.

Randall James (01:11:35.188)

Yeah. The bar wasn’t set in Tasha’s, the bar was set with the first wizard was born.

Ash (01:11:36.174)

Yeah, no, I’ve no, no, no, no, no. I follow you. I follow you because basically what you’re saying is since nobody overtook my powercraft by precious wizard class, then I don’t care.

Tyler (01:11:41.153)

Yeah.

Tyler (01:11:49.474)

Yeah. What? Look, OK. If they had made the wizard more powerful and had to advance everybody to keep up, it’s like, OK, this is just an arms race. But they looked at all of the classes and said, like, OK, we’re like, we’re going to try and like, raise all ships. And wizard got to stay where it was because wizard was perfect.

Ash (01:12:11.15)

Yeah, Wizard is objectively the strongest class in D &D. There’s Wizard and then there’s everybody else down here. It’s very blatant.

Randall James (01:12:12.276)

Perfect.

Tyler (01:12:15.043)

Yeah, exactly.

Tyler (01:12:20.067)

Yeah, and like the subclasses, the subclasses they gave us in Tasha’s, Bladesinger, massively overrated by most people. You look at Bladesinger and everyone thinks all of these features are really cool. Yes, the features are really cool, but the best thing that a Bladesinger can ever do is just cast a spell. Like, 100 % of the time. And also Order of Scribes, which was a love letter to me.

Ash (01:12:41.742)

Well, it –

Ash (01:12:45.582)

I as speaking as a DM who currently has one more than one blade singer in their campaign. I think you’re wrong. I think you’re wrong. Blade singers are incredibly powerful and they even show up Paladins, which is wild. Like in what they do. Like it’s like, why do we need a fighter anymore? Because now we have a tank and a blaster and a support caster.

Tyler (01:12:53.571)

Really? Wow. Okay.

Ash (01:13:11.022)

Hell, the freaking blade saver can probably just do this whole fight by themselves. It’s stupid.

Tyler (01:13:16.355)

Okay, you know who’s better at being a martial character than a blade singer doing martial stuff? Any summoned creature. Like, yeah, you can just summon, like, why take the subclass? Just summon something.

Ash (01:13:25.102)

Yeah, that’s fair. But I…

I don’t know. I’ve just seen them. I’ve seen them perform very well. I agree with you that I do think it is overrated. But if you lean into it.

Randall James (01:13:32.564)

an incident.

Randall James (01:13:40.02)

Well, but the point he’s making isn’t that they can’t perform very well. He knows they can perform well. They’re wizards. The point that he’s trying to make is they don’t have to be a plate singer to perform well. They could…

Tyler (01:13:43.299)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tyler (01:13:50.243)

Yeah. They could just be a wizard. Yeah. It’s like…

Ash (01:13:52.11)

Yeah, but the problem is, I counter your point about summoned creature, is that you know how you get rid of a summoned creature? Attack the squishy wizard so their concentration is broken. And sometimes that’s even worse because like if you summon an elemental and you knock out the wizard, which isn’t hard to do, I might add, suddenly you have a new strong enemy on the field who is now trying to kill all of you. So yeah, that’s maybe not the best approach.

Tyler (01:14:02.403)

That’s fair. That’s fair. Alright.

Randall James (01:14:18.708)

So you summon another elemental.

Tyler (01:14:20.963)

There you go, that’s thinking like a wizard. Alright, okay, but…

Randall James (01:14:24.98)

Fight fire with fire!

Ash (01:14:26.872)

Yeah, but you know who can do that and also not have to deal with those with those saves because they don’t get hit. Bladesinger because they don’t get hit. That’s the that’s the issue. I’ve seen people I’ve seen people play Bladesinger who have bumped their AC up to 30. It’s insane at like level seven. It’s insane. I can’t hit that.

Randall James (01:14:32.98)

Are you gonna say a playtinger?

Tyler (01:14:38.531)

That’s true.

Tyler (01:14:45.283)

Yeah. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Tyler (01:14:51.501)

Dex saves, man. Alright, okay. So, I –

Ash (01:14:53.55)

Yeah.

Tyler (01:14:59.171)

I think the power creep, most of it in 5e has been good. There are a few places where it has gone way too far. Ash called out some of the really busted subclasses and why they’re a problem. In terms of things that are bad about it, all of the adventures that were published before Tasha’s were expecting a wildly different level of power from the characters. If you go back and take Tasha’s era characters into those adventures, they are going to be a cakewalk. Like,

any even reasonably optimized character will just steamroll those adventures, zero problems. So like in a lot of ways, those adventures are just obsolete. So you have to either like limit your characters or adjust the campaign or something. It’s like, that’s a ton of work and trouble created by this power creep.

Ash (01:15:46.54)

Yeah.

Randall James (01:15:47.38)

Oh no, I have to buy new adventures!

Tyler (01:15:49.731)

Exactly. Yeah. I have to buy adventures that keep up with the meta. Good god.

Ash (01:15:54.862)

Yeah, when you can go into the Tomb of Horrors and feel like it’s a cakewalk, something has gone wrong. Something is just fundamentally wrong.

Tyler (01:16:05.635)

In terms of Power Creep across editions, yes, obviously. Like, if you look at the Tomb of Horrors and how it’s handled in, like, first or second edition compared to how you would handle it in fifth edition, like, no contest. Fifth edition characters are gonna walk through that so much more easily.

Ash (01:16:22.094)

Yeah, it’s become I think the one of the major complaints of 5e is that 5e really uh power loads the player characters and doesn’t compensate with the monsters so it often feels like the dm is playing with kid gloves on which has been an interesting transition from uh 5e to pathfinder 2 especially when i’m homebrewing campaigns because in 5e i’m used to just being like uh okay uh the the player characters are at this level

Tyler (01:16:38.017)

Meh.

Ash (01:16:49.87)

So if I put something that’s just like a level, like a CR level under them, I can just put a bunch of stuff on there and they’ll figure it out. I did that with a Pathfinder 2. I threw like a level two, three level two zombies at four level two characters. That went well. That was a nightmare. So yeah, I’m like, oh, I have to make calculations and actually pay attention.

Tyler (01:17:10.915)

Hahaha!

Randall James (01:17:14.1)

The… Yeah, yes…

Tyler (01:17:14.435)

You

Ash (01:17:19.214)

to how I build encounters and can’t just throw random stuff on the board. Oh, this is nice. I like this.

Tyler (01:17:25.315)

Yeah.

Randall James (01:17:27.412)

You say that so the the one thing that my sons wanted to do for spring break, we had spring break this week was play Pathfinder two. So we ran a one shot. It was the one shot the rot. One shot. Headshot the rot. Thank you. Yeah. That makes a lot more sense. Honestly. It’s actually I don’t know if the humble but it’ll still up or I guess by the time this podcast comes out, it’ll almost certainly be gone. Yeah. But anyway,

Tyler (01:17:40.099)

Head shot the rot.

Tyler (01:17:45.475)

Yeah.

Tyler (01:17:50.915)

Probably not.

Randall James (01:17:55.346)

through a series of poor tactical choices that my kids made, they got their first TPK.

Tyler (01:18:04.707)

Randall, I’d like to point out that I’ve had exactly two TPKs in my entire life and both of them have been with you in the past.

Randall James (01:18:13.076)

That’s correct.

Ash (01:18:13.87)

Yeah, I TPK’d a Pathfinder 2 game.

Randall James (01:18:16.66)

They were both my fault a little bit.

Tyler (01:18:18.727)

Sorry, you TPK’d your party too.

Ash (01:18:22.136)

Yeah, I typically had a one shot PFT game. Not technically one person survived, but that was that was it. Yeah. Wildly underestimated what I thought the party could handle, because again, like compared to five, I took four level seven players and put a CR 13 with legendary actions and it bruised them a bit, but they still frickin nerfed it. So.

Tyler (01:18:26.051)

Ah.

Tyler (01:18:50.435)

Yep.

Ash (01:18:51.31)

So it’s just like so taking one doing something similar would absolutely destroy a party in Pathfinder 2. So it’s just yeah, the the the five monsters are hitting with like wet pool noodles is what it feels like.

Randall James (01:19:01.428)

Yeah.

Randall James (01:19:08.852)

Sincerely, I feel this way more and more. I feel like the only way to make 5e feel threatening is something like Gritty Realism where you are just, no, no long rest. Like we’re not doing the two fight adventuring day where you get a nappy nap after you’ve cast four spells in the day. I’m going to drive you to the point where like you’re breaking the meta wall and you’re like, folks, I only have four first level spell slots left and we are level 10.

Tyler (01:19:08.899)

Yeah.

Tyler (01:19:22.371)

Yeah.

Ash (01:19:36.366)

Yeah, no, I agree. The long rest has been the killer of 5e in a lot of ways.

Randall James (01:19:44.308)

Yeah, so Gorsor, thank you very much for your question. We have enjoyed it, and I think that leads us to our next segment, All Hail the Leisure Illuminati.

Ash (01:19:53.558)

Hail Satan!

Tyler (01:19:54.083)

We’re recording this on Easter.

Randall James (01:19:58.484)

I’m Riddle James.

Ash (01:20:02.766)

I don’t know what to tell you, man. I don’t know what to tell you. It needed to be said.

Randall James (01:20:03.26)

Yeah.

Tyler (01:20:06.051)

Yeah.

Randall James (01:20:11.25)

Old hill. Wait, no, I did that. That’s how we got here in the first place. I’m Randall James and you will find me on amateurjack .com and on Twitter and Instagram at Jack amateur.

Tyler (01:20:13.635)

Yeah.

Tyler (01:20:23.907)

I’m Tyler Kamstra, you’ll find me on RPGBot .net, Facebook and Twitter, RPG, BOT, DOT, NET, and most other socials as RPGBot.

Ash (01:20:35.15)

serious wrecks. You can find me supplicant on Twitter at Craven Ashes. Nope, can’t do that. Yeah, I tried. Hail the Beast 666 and all that on this our holy day of Jesus and the Savior. Praise the Antichrist. And if you hate all of that, yeah, feel free to at me on Twitter.

Tyler (01:20:44.547)

Yeah, that’s hard. That hurts.

Randall James (01:20:45.82)

No, it was pretty good, it was pretty good.

Ash (01:21:02.004)

or check out my YouTube channel at Ash Raven Media. Excuse me, I got too into the bit. And if you want me to run a game for you or your friends, or yell at me some more, you can feel free to reach out to me on startplaying .games, link in the description.

Tyler (01:21:11.203)

You

Randall James (01:21:23.636)

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