D&D 4E 4e Monster Manual excerpt

[DandD]

Tactics-wise, it would be better to dominate and charm the striker, because he's probably going to have a lower AC than the tank, and lower willdefense than your typical controller. Also, the striker is then near the gangmembers of the Succubus, and is denied his mobility schtick.

 

[Shazman]

If that flavor is banana nut guacamole. I personally do not like the idea of devils popping around, transposing, playing shuffleboard with the wizard, and yelling, "Go team!" I'm in favor of more traditional menacing.

I've got to agree with you. Whatever happened to devils being impressive physical combatants? If a first level fighter can do more damage than a 22nd level monster, something is very wrong here. Plus, all the shifting around seems much more like playing fantasy chess or a miniatures game, not D&D. You call it tactically interesting. I call it excessively gamist. It totally ruins the flavor of the game for me.

 

[Voss]

Tactics-wise, it would be better to dominate and charm the striker, because he's probably going to have a lower AC than the tank, and lower willdefense than your typical controller. Also, the striker is then near the gangmembers of the Succubus, and is denied his mobility schtick.

On the other hand... strikers seem even more mobile, so it may be harder to stick near them once they've been kissed.

On the other hand, the 'can't attack' portion will stay in effect, and in my experience, parties will really gun for the monster dominating party members. So making a primary damage dealer attack flunkies isn't a bad thing.

 

[Steely Dan]

1.) Quote this entirely.

2.) I believed that was changed long before 3ed.

1.) What do you mean?

2.) No it wasn't.

 

[Cirex]

If they are in the habit of treating the people with blue circles around their feet as though they were red circles, it's time to find a better group.

They can always fake a conversation, freeze, attack the individual, try to start a conversation again, freeze again, keep attacking, etc.

 

[Derren]

I don't think dominate + charm will be a good tactic.
First we don't know what dominate will actually do. According do DDM rules it just lets you use the standard action, not the move one.
Second after dominating someone you might have to wait till its his turn to move him
And Third, it requires three successful attacks, one for the dominate and two for the charm.

 

[Steely Dan]

Anyway Caina is much better.

Do you mean Cania, and if so, why?

 

[Steely Dan]

Aren't those all things that were also associated with 3rd Ed Hell? It seems rather unfair to blame 4th Ed for changes that were made long beforehand.

No, it has never been Cania, as for the others, yeah, and I'm not blaming anyone or anything, I'm just saying what I don't like about 4th Ed Hell, regardless of whether it was the same in a previous edition.

 

[Gargazon]

I've got to agree with you. Whatever happened to devils being impressive physical combatants? If a first level fighter can do more damage than a 22nd level monster, something is very wrong here. Plus, all the shifting around seems much more like playing fantasy chess or a miniatures game, not D&D. You call it tactically interesting. I call it excessively gamist. It totally ruins the flavor of the game for me.

I always wonder what people with this problem would suggest as alternatives when they complain about this. I don't mind all this tactical movement as it certainly has more flavour than 98% of 3.5's monsters whose tactics in a round were 'stand, shoot and get hit'. I'd like to see the mechanics you suggest for representing a well-ordered legion of immortal monsters.

Also, as far as flavour goes, that's up to the DM. You could say 'the War Devil slides the Wizard round to square B6 and uses Fiendish Tactics so the two Legion Devils can attack you' or you could say 'The War Devil catches you between the prongs of his massive trident and, with a roar, throws you over his head, and onto the ground between the two legion devils behind him. He turns and barks a command, and both the Legion Devils, fearing the Malebranche's wrath, they quickly stab at you'. Yes, the power descriptions are a bit vanilla, but there's nothing to stop the DM adding to that.

 

[mmu1]

Untrained skill = (stat bonus) + (level/2)
Trained skill = untrained skill + 5

So much easier, don't you think?

Not really. It's trivial either way.

Why are you paying for rules that you're going to ignore?

So should I ignore the fact that you're quoting that out of context so you can post a snarky one-line reply?

Just because you don't need something all of the time, it doesn't mean that it's not worth having.

And from all indications thus far, it'll be a hell of a lot easier than in 3E.

Well, assuming you don't ignore the rules.

The 4E design team is pre-ignoring the rules already, for my own good, so I figure I should be safe.