D&D 4E 4e Monster Manual excerpt

[Kunimatyu]

In before someone mentions that save the succubus thing!

More seriously, I like the succubus abilities -- the charm kiss is tactically interesting, and at-will dominate for a round gives the succubus all kinds of ways to mess with a party (I'm hoping she can use the dominate to make a paladin mark one of his own party, so they'll take damage if they don't attack the paladin!) It's a lot cleaner and easier to use than the 3.5 succubus, and it really makes a lot more sense as a devil.

The war devil is good but not as good. I like that the trident is a rechargeable ability, and the teleportation and swag abilities make it a nasty leader-type for a squad of devils. I shudder to think of all the tactical movement possibilities when you've got a pit fiend, some war devils, and some legion devils running around.

In fact, that's my only complaint -- the movement abilities of the war devil will be tough for a DM to optimize well, just because there are so many possibilities! It is totally awesome that devils appear to actually work better as a team, though.

 

[frankthedm]

Yes, much less of Whack, whack, whack, dead in high level 4E.

 

[Sojorn]

The power-curve in 4e is a lot flatter then it was in 3.5.

It is slightly strange that the at-will claw of the War Devil only does 1d6 + 8.

I suppose it can technically use it's trident power approximately 50% of the time, and the damage from that seems a fair bit closer to what I expect from a level 22 monster.

Oh, and Fiendish Tactics seems like it could be downright evil, since it's a minor action that can transform into two extra attacks.

 

[hong]

"Crushgrip constrictor"

. . .

 

[Xyl]

Putting together an encounter in 4e is going to feel like building a warband, I think. "Okay, I have a war devil - to maximize his abilities I need to include at least 2 other devils of level 22 or lower..."

 

[Almacov]

This Monster Manual could be very, very nice...
Can't wait to stage an encounter with that new succubus. =)
Could be very interesting in political intrigue scenarios, especially now that it's a devil.
For some reason this succubus feels a lot more subtle than the 3rd edition one.

 

[AllisterH]

I'm curious to see how the monsters will work in combat as far as posing a threat. It seems at a glance that their damage dealing capability is lower based on their levels compared to 3.5.

Well, remember when we saw the high level Smite feats and people were bemoaning their seemingly lack of impact? 4E looks like it made the starting levels a bit tougher for both PCs and monsters, however, it doesn't get as powerful as a 3E characters/monsters become when compared to their lower level counterparts.

The advantage is that low level threats don't become useless as you go up in levels and there's less likelihood of a TPK as you don't have to worry about a high level monster obliterating a party in one round. As long as the XP budget is maintained for the party, the difficulty should be easy enough to gauge

From my mock battles, 25% of xp buget, curbstomp in favour of the PCs, 100% of the xp budget, PCs should win without the use of dailies, 125% of the xp and it should favour the monsters slightly if the PCs don't use dailies while the reverse happens if the PCs use dailies, while 150% and even with dailies, monsters should be favoured)

Ergo, it gives a DM more monsters straight out of the box to play with.

That said, technically, at a xp value of 400, a succubus and 2 kobold skirmishers should be a beatable challenge for the 6 pre-gen characters (although, I personally believe that even the new monster scale has a breaking limit and I suspect that an 8 level difference between monster and PC is just too much. If this actually is a beatable challenge, I'm more impressed with the math).

 

[Jack99]

"Crushgrip constrictor"

. . .

 

[Imban]

"Crushgrip Constrictor" and "Legion Devil Legionnaire" sure are names.

War Devils having their weapon in hand be a recharge-based power sure is something, too. I'm not entirely surprised, given that they also provided us with a Mind Flayer that couldn't use its weapon in hand unless its opponents were flat-footed, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

 

[cthulhu_duck]

I have to wonder with:

12 legion devil legionnaires (level 21 minion)

is that 12 individual legion devil legionnaires, or devil legionnaires from the 12th legion?