[3.5e] Barbed Devil stats

[Zappo]

I think that if I wanted to show some creatures from the new revision of my game, I would make sure to only show creatures that were substantially changed.

In other words, of course all the 3.5E creatures we've seen are very different from their previous version. Even if they probably have a majority of largely unaltered creatures, they are only showing the ones which were altered the most. Not much point in showing off a creature that is just like what you already have in your MM.

What I'm really disappointed with is the lack of round-by-round tactics like what the Pit Fiend had. I really hoped on all monsters having that.

 

[BOZ]

Re: Devil names.

And what could the 'generic names' of demons be? All those Abyssal names ought to have more mundane counterparts.

type I-VI.

 

[Stalker0]

Now I've seen 3 creature listings from the revision -- the pit fiend, mummy, and now barbed devil. All three have had major revisions and power-ups. They were not simply brought into compliance with the rules. They were not simply rewritten to clear up understandability of their stats. They were drastically changed. That is not the right way to do a revision that will be backwards compatible.

Quasqueton [/B]

To be fair, both the mummy and pit fiend were creatures that a lot of people wanted to see stronger. I believe the mummy in 2e was much more badass than the 3e one, and the 3.5e starts to bring that back.

But it would be nice to see if any monsters got redone WITHOUT a major change in power

Also, I'm sadly not seeing the great tactics section we saw for teh pit fiend, which I think was almost universally liked by everyone who saw it. I hope they didn't scrap the idea, although maybe the only did it for the real bad boys.

 

[daTim]

The tactics was the greatest addition to the MM, I agree. Though I think it might be unnecessary on some monsters like generic Mummies...

Round 1: Shamble and Moan
Round 2: Hit people
Round 3: Go To 2

The Pit Fiend tactics were great, and I hope they keep their promise that the tactics wont just be smackdowns, but what the actual monster would do. For example a Red Dragon wouldnt start off combat with his breathweapon since he might automatically consider any human a non threat, and wants to keep their precious gold intact etc etc...

 

[Quasqueton]

To be fair, both the mummy and pit fiend were creatures that a lot of people wanted to see stronger. I believe the mummy in 2e was much more badass than the 3e one, and the 3.5e starts to bring that back.

One of the wonderful things D&D3 gave us was the standardized and fairly-easy-to-implement advancement rules. The standard mummy not tough enough for my 6th-level PCs? Advance it. Add class levels. Or ask the game designers to change the base stats so the out-of-the-book monster is too tough for your 3rd-level PCs now?

Remember, the base stats in the MM are considered the weakest and most common creatures of each type. Advancing them to challenge higher-level PCs is easy. Regressing them is not.

Even with the pit fiend: some folks said they should be tougher to be the "great generals of Hell's armies". But thats like saying base humans should be tougher to reflect their position as "great adventurers of the world." With pit fiends, just as with humans, you can advance them or add class levels to raise them to the "great" level you want them to be. When WotC changes the base stats upward, that pulls the rug out from under previously published material.

From the "In the Works" article:

So, when the designers looked at demons and devils, they noticed that a good number of them were bunched together in a knot that spanned a relatively small number of CRs. After much painstaking work, they sorted out each demon and devil, determined where on the Challenge Rating scale each one would best fit, and modified each one to fit.

This shows that the revision designers did not revise each devil to fit the rules and be more clear, they rewrote the devils to fall into different CRs.

Are they going to revise the standard humanoid races to fit on the CR scale? Kobolds will be 1/4, goblins will be 1/2, orcs will be 1, hobgoblins will be 2, gnolls will be 3, bugbears will be 4. . .

Quasqueton

 

[Drakron]

Unless you have someone in your group playing a pit fiend, mummy, or barbed devil, who the hell is going to care if Horrendous Fiendish Adversary #52,613 has 9 HD or 12 HD?

Simple, anyone that is running a 3rd ed module and simply uses the MM for "updating" it to revised 3rd ed.

So they cannot run then as written, they cannot even run with the same creatures/levels and there will many things that would be out-of-place since some creatures that were CR 5 will be CR 6.

So what ends up being redoing the whole module stats with intended party level of play will end up diferent from what was printed on the cover.

Some of those changes are in many people view, not nedeed since one thing is "buffing" a creature so its represents its listed CR or changing its listed CR to reflect its true CR and another is redesign creatures.

A lot of things look like being "advanced" D&D 3rd ed and not "revised" D&D 3rd ed.

Worst is the huge amount of books that require being revised "MotP,D&DG, MM2 and BoVD" and WotC says "we are not going to do it".

 

[EricNoah]

I would guess we're getting peeks at the "most changed" monsters. After all, a preview of a monster that hasn't changed at all would be kind of boring.

 

[Quasqueton]

Also, it should be taken into consideration that many creatures (devils included) will rarely be met one at a time. So a given EL/CR can be made by a group of lower CR devils.

No need to shoehorn each devil into a CR scale by completely rewriting the creatures.

Quasqueton

 

[BOZ]

hey, anyone have links to these various items? that is, if i can even look at them at work...

 

[EricNoah]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20030511a