When TSR decided in the 1980s to stop using demons and devils in their products, it upset many hard-core gamers (and accomplished next to nothing in appeasing the Reactionary Right, who never looked closely enough to see that they were gone, and would have thought that the gargoyles and orcs in the monster books were demons, anyway). Plenty of people have attempted to "right that wrong." One attempt was Mayfair Games' line of Demons products, and Green Ronin's Legions of Hell reminds me of those books at their best.

Legions of Hell does not give you another new look at Hell or at its inhabitants. These horrible creatures and malevolent individuals will fit in right alongside the tried-and-true cornugons and pit fiends (particularly their 1st edition originals, much less so the Planescape versions -- the fiends here contradict material found in Hellbound and Faces of Evil). And while I think the d20 license offers gamers the chance to finally see some other views of the planes, most D&D players aren't going to argue with Green Ronin's approach. There are lots of wonderful new monsters here, with interesting concepts and well-done artwork. If you are at all interested in the subject matter, you will not be sorry you purchased this book.

The baatezu children of the god Set are full of wonderful plot hooks for adventures. The hellwardens are really cool scarecrowlike devils. Bulugons are suitably disgusting, low-power baatezu that live in the muck and spew acid. I could go on. And on. There's a lot of cool stuff here.

The book isn't without its problems, but those problems are small and easily corrected. It probably won't surprise a lot of you to learn that the main issues crop up with that ever-elusive, difficult to master concept: the Challenge Rating. For example, take the Herlekin, rated as CR 1. Its special attack deals 2d6+8 damage, with a +7 attack bonus (including standard bonus for charge). That's enough to take out a 1st-level character (instantly killing a mage) with one average blow; with that attack bonus, it hits even AC 18 (very high for a 1st-level character) half the time. If the creature is in its blood rage (assuming the horns down ability simply doubles the normal gore attack), this increases to 2d6+12 damage, +9 attack bonus. That kills more characters than not -- on just an average roll, much more often than half the time. Clearly not an average challenge for a 1st-level group. It's at least CR 2.

But actually, it appears that most of the problematic CRs (and I'm guessing that's probably only about 25 to 30 percent of them) are rated too high. That allows them to fit right in with the Monster Manual fiends, however, which I think are also rated too high. As a digression, while the vast majority of MM CRs are spot on, I think the ratings favor weird special abilities a little too much and don't give enough credit to creatures with a lot of hit points that dish out a lot of damage. Thus, the demons and devils are rated too high. I give them more hit points in my personal campaign to make up for it.

The prestige classes and the Fallen Celestial template are mediocre. They have interesting and evocative descriptions, but the game mechanics are handled strangely. For reasons I can't actually figure out, all the prestige classes require the character to be humanoid. Worse, they are extremely front-loaded. A single level of Balan's jackal, for example, gives you a permanent +4 bonus to Strength, your type changes to monstrous humanoid, and you get natural weapons that act as +2 weapons. The classes are treated more like monster templates in places, and the rules for the initiation rituals you have to undergo are handled like poisons (I presume), without actually telling the reader that. The template is way overpowered, considering it adds only +2 to the CR, and I'm not exactly sure why celestials become so much more powerful when they fall. Perhaps this is to encourage the temptation.

Lastly, be aware that a lot of the new monsters in this book (16 out of 41) are unique devils, so you're likely to get less use out of them than you would out of more general monsters. But they're fun to read, and you'll probably use at least one or two.

Like I said at the beginning of this review, I recommend this book with four stars. It fills a needed niche, and it's full of wonderful ideas and mostly well-designed monsters.

Back to Reviews Archive Page / Back to Monte's Home Page