Scions of Elemental Evil Released on D&D Beyond

D&D Beyond has released the new short adventure Scions of Elemental Evil ahead of its exclusive stores and convention organized play release. This week, Wizards of the Coast released the short adventure, which is set in the Greyhawk region and pits players against the Elemental Evil fanatic Ulsedra Vox. The adventure is made for up to six Level 4 adventurers with the D&D cartoon cast (plus new character Niko) provided as pregenerated characters. Amanda Hamon is credited as the lead designer while Will Doyle is credited as a designer on the adventure.

Notably, Scions of Elemental Evil uses the 2024 rule set and contains several magic items from the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. It also contains updated statblocks for several monsters, including the incubus and succubus demons. Notably, an incubus can shapeshift into a succubus and vice versa once per long rest, with each statblock containing different abilities and access to different spells. The succubus has access to an 8th level Dominate Person spell at will, while the incubus has access to a Nightmare bonus action that renders a creature with 20 or less HP unconscious on a failed saving throw.

The adventure will be available to play at organized play events at stores and conventions from October 29th to November 25th.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'm curious about the "why" for replacing Infernal Charm and the Golem's Slow with spells. The best I can think is so that they can be affected by Counterspell by RAW.

I'm glad to see DR and DI to nonmagical weapons gone, but the Ogre just becoming an even bigger bag of HP without even an added push or topple rider to its melee attack is discouraging.

I thought the monsters were supposed to be more dangerous now. Now they have more HP and their cool gimmick is affected by spell resistance and counterspell! Can't wait for my arcane trickster to steal a Golem slowing smash...

People were already seeing a little slowdown from the added players options. Now with more HP, it'll be worse.

 

[TiQuinn]

I agree with you on that. Here's another strange one. I'm not going to show the whole block, because it's almost exactly the same in all other ways but here's the Knight's Attacks:

Actions (Knight 2014)
Multiattack. The knight makes two melee attacks.
Greatsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) slashing damage.
Heavy Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, range 100/400 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d10) piercing damage.

Actions (Knight 2024)
Multiattack. The knight makes two attacks, using Greatsword or Heavy Crossbow in any combination.
Greatsword. Melee Attack Roll: +5, reach 5 ft. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) Slashing damage plus 4 (1d8) Radiant damage.
Heavy Crossbow. Ranged Attack Roll: +2, range 100/400 ft. Hit: 11 (2d10) Piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) Radiant damage.

... Their crossbow still sucks, Attack-mod wise, but it now packs a big wallop (and can be used with multiattack).

So I will say one thing about having good ranged damage - it was possible to give them a ranged attack but still make it completely advantageous to the PCs to stay ranged and shoot at the monster. If the damage hits as hard or nearly as hard as melee, it challenges party members whose strategy to stay ranged and free from danger.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

So I will say one thing about having good ranged damage - it was possible to give them a ranged attack but still make it completely advantageous to the PCs to stay ranged and shoot at the monster. If the damage hits as hard or nearly as hard as melee, it challenges party members whose strategy to stay ranged and free from danger.

Baldur's Gate 3 notedly added a lot of ranged attacks to creatures that don't have them in the official 5E rules, like giving intellect devourers a ranged psychic damage attack.

 

[mamba]

Here's hoping that they've gone back-and-forth on how much they include spell text in the monster blocks. DO NOT make us DMs look up spells to run monsters

yeah, I wish MotM would have gone all the way, as usual they did not decide on a clear line

 

[pukunui]

yeah, I wish MotM would have gone all the way, as usual they did not decide on a clear line

They even told us that MotM was a preview of what was to come. I guess they decided it still wasn't right and opted to tinker with monster mechanics and such even further.

Personally, I would rather that spellcasters still had spell slots, if nothing else. They experimented with calling out the main combat-oriented spells in a statblock. I liked that format. It's something I usually do myself for my custom statblocks.

I also don't like the new statblock design, but that's a bit off-topic.

 

[Remathilis]

yeah, I wish MotM would have gone all the way, as usual they did not decide on a clear line

There was a lot of pushback to it though. Complaining about non-spell "spells" that couldn't be learned, countered or dispelled. Or if certain abilities counted for things like Magic Resistance. I get it's annoying to look up spells, but it was equally annoying to determine if Magical Mockery counts as Viscous Mockery for determining if Magic Resistance works...

 

[GarrettKP]

Not really understanding people’s complaints here. The stat blocks outside of the Ogre seem like clear upgrades that keep the best design aspects from MotM (namely simplifying casting creatures and providing ranged options for otherwise melee focused builds) and seem to have gotten rid of the primary issue people had (counterspell not having an affect on most “magic” in stat blocks).

 

[Sulicius]

Not really understanding people’s complaints here. The stat blocks outside of the Ogre seem like clear upgrades that keep the best design aspects from MotM (namely simplifying casting creatures and providing ranged options for otherwise melee focused builds) and seem to have gotten rid of the primary issue people had (counterspell not having an affect on most “magic” in stat blocks).

Yeah that is what I am seeing too. There are also some damage increases on higher CR monsters.

 

[Nadan]

Based on what I seem, it just make those "feature" that have almost the same effect (even same wording) as same name spell out right just spell now

 

[darjr]

It’s claimable now