Fiendish Codex II next month--Any scoop/rumors/etc.?

[Mark CMG]

Haven't read through it all yet.

First impressions:
Not a big fan of the converted monsters. The amnizu, in particular, feels decidedly 'unfinished.' Its regeneration is not given a detailed description, its SLA's have been pared down A LOT. I'm all for streamlining and cutting out redundant (or useless) SLA's, but this kinda went too far.

The updated abishai are good though they still got gipped with a crummy picture (seems to be a recurring trend throughout editions).

The Narzugon lost its cool gaze attack. The xerfilstyx, in particular, lost some of its cooler (albeit fairly annoying to deal with) abilities.

The writeup on the River Styx mentions that the memory loss isn't permanent. I always thought it was, but I may be wrong.

Does it seem like they cut a lot of things down to, more or less, just what they do in ten rounds of combat?

 

[Pants]

Does it seem like they cut a lot of things down to, more or less, just what they do in ten rounds of combat?

Probably, but, IMO, there's a sweet spot between cutting out the chaff and cutting EVERYTHING down to 'is this usable in a sample 3 round combat?' That's one of the problems I had with the Mearls ogre mage (a creature that seriously needed an overhaul.... just not in that way). Some abilities SHOULD remain to keep the flavor of the creature.

I don't think that FCII hit that sweet spot.

 

[Garnfellow]

Statblock Format Changes

Looking over the new monster section, I noticed that WotC continues to tinker with the new statblock format. But in my mind the format has taken a huge step backwards with this latest iteration . . . There is now an "SA" line that appears before SQ, and is just a regurgitation of information supplied in the Special Actions, Attack Options, and Spell-Like Abilities lines. Seems like a complete waste of precious space, offering little benefit.

Also, there don't seem to be any parenthetical notes with the special ability listings with DCs, attack bonuses, and so forth -- for example, breath weapon (DC 21), trample (2d6+12), etc. I find these very helpful in play and would like to see them return.

And shouldn't most (all?) of these devils have the aligned strike (evil, lawful) attack option, as seen in the MMIV?

I still don't like having Strategies and Tactics, Sample Encounters, Ecology, Society, Typical Treasure and so on as standard passages for EVERY entry. For some monsters, yes please -- go nuts. But too many times these sections read like filler text. Less really can be more.

For my money, the current Paizo incarnation as seen in Dungeon seems to be much better that the last few changes from WotC -- maybe the designers need to stop futzing with the format? The utter inconstancy with little incremental improvement is getting to be a real detriment.

 

[Pants]

For my money, the current Paizo incarnation as seen in Dungeon seems to be much better that the last few changes from WotC -- maybe the designers need to stop futzing with the format? The utter inconstancy with little incremental improvement is getting to be a real detriment.

I'm sure it's more people not knowing exactly how to format them yet. The formating on the new stablock is a big pain, I've been using it for several months now and I still get hung up on some things. But yes, it is annoying.

 

[demiurge1138]

Fiendish Codex 2 was my favorite D&D book of the year, on flavor text alone. Until I got to the Monsters chapter.

Don't get me wrong, there's some great stuff in there. Lots of innovative mechanics (like the legion devils, which share a hit point total for all the devils in the troop, or the harvester devil having a permanent sanctuary up), but the conversions left something to be desired. Like the aminzu. Lost feeblemind, lost real fireballs... and the summon baatezu isn't even described! Plenty of stuff that got cut out of the book was mentioned elsewhere - the ronwe devil as an example of lateral promotion, harvester devils wielding soul-trapping scythes.

The book obviously got some last minute editing (a suspicion confirmed by the Design and Development article), but it apparently needed just a little bit more...

Demiurge out.

 

[Psion]

Don't get me wrong, there's some great stuff in there. Lots of innovative mechanics (like the legion devils, which share a hit point total for all the devils in the troop, or the harvester devil having a permanent sanctuary up), but the conversions left something to be desired.

This seems to be a trend for 3.5 -- nerf the SLAs of Outsiders. If you compare 3.5 outsider stats to pre-3.5 even in the MM, you'll see that someone left their spell like abilities back in the netherworld.

In other news, I find myself liking third party fiends more every day.

 

[BOZ]

I believe full exposure was reduced to a number of days, IIRC.

lame.

 

[Shade]

If the designers are still checking this thread, can you answer this?

The amnizu lists summon baatezu in its stat block, but doesn't list the ability in the text. In MMII, it had the following:

Summon Baatezu (Sp): Once per day, an amnizu can attempt to summon 1d3 advespas or 1 amnizu with a 50% chance of success.

Was this intended to be dropped, and if not, were you intending to keep it the same?

I'm guessing it got accidentally cut when the advespa was dropped, and probably would have been replaced with bearded devils.