D&D 4E 4e Monster Manual excerpt

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

From the text

The succubus can affect only one target at a time with its charming kiss.

Dang. I knew there had to be catch. Should probably clean my glasses to read better.

Ah, at least she can take out two of them. One as her defender (the charmed victim), and one has her striker (dominated victim). (Off course, she's a bit more flexible then that - the dominated victim can also heal her and stuff... But it might really be the most effective tactic for her to charm the enemies defender and dominate their striker. Leader doesn't get to lead anyone, and the Controller now has to run away from her melee attacks)

I find it interesting that the Devils have no "Bwa ha ha! You may have foiled me now mortals but I shall return!" powers. No teleports, not even invisibility. The GM will have to hand out potions and magic items to cover any thing else he wants them to do.

Also... Without those non-combat powers, just what exactly is it devils can bargin to do? No more build a castle in one night? No more transporting the villains away? Why would Faust bargin away his soul for nothing more than a hot chick or a few ugly minions?

Well, she certainly has good "net-working" skills. Aside from her connections to her fiendish commanders, she is great at bluff, diplomacy, reading people and she can change her shape. Seems like a very useful ally that could get you to places a mere mortal might never get to.

All the little spell mumbo-jumbo I remember from 3E monsters hardly seem to have a better effect. Aside from Wish or Wall of Iron (for infinite amount of money), which spells are really useful for a pact with the devil? What do you expect to get out of it that can be covered with spells, but not the listed skills? Sure, the Succubus can't do it with a mere hand-wave, but I see this as a nice feature. This means even Devils have to work for their souls...

 

[IceFractal]

I'm hearing "rituals" a lot as the answer to every single "how does the monster actually do X, which it is described as doing" question. While I'm not saying rituals can't be the solution, I am saying that people are putting a lot of faith in a part of the system we haven't seen a single trace of.

Would it really be that hard to include? Not necessarily in the stat block, but in the extended description, something stating how much long-term control a succubus has over a victim, how hard it is to establish that control, and what it takes to break the control, in non-vague terms. Because while sometimes it's fine for things to be "mysterious power beyond your comprehension", other times the PCs are demon-hunting devil-thwarting experts, and knowing that kind of stuff is their business.

But so far, none of the monsters we've seen have had this kind of information, even when lots of other background information was given. I don't mind these kind of powers being in a different format than the combat stuff, but saying "ad hoc everthing" isn't useful. And I'll believe in rituals when I see them.

 

[WhatGravitas]

About being charmed (kissed) and just leaving her side ... this will still bring down the wrath of the the devilish lover in form of a Opportunity Attack..

Additionally, she's a controller - i.e. she really wants to wreak havoc using Dominate, far away from hard hitters.

If the striker/defender/meat shield/damage dealer/tank is moving away from her, she's already pretty happy!

Cheers, LT.

 

[Vempyre]

In any previous edition of D&D an 8th level difference was a TPK barring extremely unlikely circumstances of luck, tactics, or hopefully for the players both.

The point is that if you have a CR 8 encounter involving 4 creatures, then the individual creatures are only CR 4, and potentially well within the range of being defeated by a 1st level party in a difficult fight. That's actually extremely consistent with a 1st level 4e party being able to potentially defeat a single opponent in an 8th level encounter.

One important thing needs to be understood in the above statements.

It's like omparing apples vs oranges. 3E spawns 20 levels while 4E spawns 30 lvls. A lvl 30 4E character more or less should equal a lvl 20 3E character, as in which type of foes he's expected to face.

It means that your 8 levels of difference above doesn't mean the same thing in 4E than in 3E. If you want to compare it you can always do some maths as such : 8 * 20 / 30 = 5.33

Suddenly it doesn't seem so much of a difference ?

 

[WhatGravitas]

It's like omparing apples vs oranges. 3E spawns 20 levels while 4E spawns 30 lvls. A lvl 30 4E character more or less should equal a lvl 20 3E character, as in which type of foes he's expected to face.

Don't forget that they start at a power level closer to about 4th level in 3E - so it's rather something like (4E-Level * 16/30) +4 to get the "3E" level. And for comparisons: 8 * 16/30 = 4.something which is even less.

 

[Vempyre]

Don't forget that they start at a power level closer to about 4th level in 3E - so it's rather something like (4E-Level * 16/30) +4 to get the "3E" level. And for comparisons: 8 * 16/30 = 4.something which is even less.

Well, that too

I can certainly see 5 1st lvl PCs beat a CR5 encounter in 3E, albeit with difficulty and probably also much death and maiming! *grins evilly*

Heck I remember in 2E having my 1st lvl PC beat a 5th level NPC in an arena fight to secure 3rd place in a duel tournament, against all odds. (Ok I had such tremendous luck in that fight combined with dirty tactics on my part, but still ... hehe)

 

[small pumpkin man]

Now this time I'll have to agree with hong. If they're shielding the squishies and somehow also in melee with the succubus, something is seriously wrong. Maybe it'll turn out to be more useful if I ever actually run a succubus, but I'm not seeing it as a significant option right now.

The Succubus can move into melee. If she hits, the tanks has to either move away and let the other monsters past, or stay there and "protect" the Succubus, allowing for actual multilevel tactics, as opposed to much of 3.x's "I blast them with blah, they cast remove blah or suck it up".

 

[AllisterH]

I'm hearing "rituals" a lot as the answer to every single "how does the monster actually do X, which it is described as doing" question. While I'm not saying rituals can't be the solution, I am saying that people are putting a lot of faith in a part of the system we haven't seen a single trace of..

Well, the description clearly mentions that devils can't randomly appear in the material plane (no teleport/plane shift power which explains why demons/devils simply don't overwhelm a plane) and you probably summon a devil for the same reason as before (other than the pit fiend's wish ability, there has really never been a reason before as most demons/devils don't actually have anything to trade with)

Would it really be that hard to include? Not necessarily in the stat block, but in the extended description, something stating how much long-term control a succubus has over a victim, how hard it is to establish that control, and what it takes to break the control, in non-vague terms. Because while sometimes it's fine for things to be "mysterious power beyond your comprehension", other times the PCs are demon-hunting devil-thwarting experts, and knowing that kind of stuff is their business.

.

Well, the succubus actually lists what you're looking for in the fact that it lists how long its charming kiss works for. Based on exception design, there's probably a lexicon that clearly states what being CHARMED actually entails and charming kiss modifies what the standard effect is.

 

[Pinotage]

Level 21 encounter

1 war devil (level 22 brute)
1 ice devil (level 20 soldier)
2 bone devils (level 17 controller)
12 legion devil legionnaires (level 21 minion)

I'm not familiar with what we know from 'minion' but I'm assuming those devil legionnaires are not going to go down with one hit? Right?

Pinotage

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm not familiar with what we know from 'minion' but I'm assuming those devil legionnaires are not going to go down with one hit? Right?

Pinotage

Depends on who is hitting? 6th level minions seem to have 10 hit points. That could mean 21 level Minions have 35 hit points. That's certainly reachable for 11th level 3E fighters, but I have not a good idea what's on par for 4E 21th level characters.