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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 4017855" data-attributes="member: 8461">A few people I want to reply to, so I'm going to use one post for everything.I think that's a step in the wrong direction. Catering to new DMs attracts new people, sure, but it's bad for retaining them. You only have to learn the game once, but when you do, you're then no longer "new," but experienced. At that point, having a game that's catering more towards new DM's becomes a disadvantage.You don't think that's expecting a lot from someone who never played the game before? I'm sorry, but if the person had never played D&D at all, of course he's going to need to look up the pit fiend's powers - he's going to need to look up everything. That's not a very good yardstick to use, methinks.I don't want my high/epic-level monsters to have "enough" options; I want them to have "a lot" of them. This guy is going to fight the exact same way every single time the PCs fight a pit fiend unless the DM tailors the monster.Even assuming that's true (which I don't think it is), I still see that as an example of the experienced people being disenfranchised so as to cater to the new people - which is ultimately a losing proposition, because new players eventually becomes experienced players, but the reverse isn't true.I agree that monsters should be unique from other monsters. But I don't think denying them spell-like abilities and/or spellcasting in favor of a couple of individualized combat powers is necessarily the way to do it. Would it really detract from the 4E pit fiend if it had some spell-like abilities in addition to the listed powers we saw?This may just be my bias, but monsters of such a high power seem to be inherently magical, to a degree, and this is reflected in having the ability to use a number of magical effects - they have more magical might on which to draw. What spells/spell-like abilities they have is where the differences are introduced (of course, unique powers help more, but the point is still a valid one).It's the fact that such spells/SLAs are so ubiquitous are what people seem to dislike. If the spell-like abilities were of spells that mortals couldn't cast, then that'd be something else altogether. Irregardless, this pit fiend has five relatively minor active powers - one of which can only be used once - giving it virtually no ability to even change how it fights.I don't see the problem with buffed monsters or readied areas. That just makes sense from an in-game point of view. It's another layer of tactics, which I think are what make the higher levels so much more interesting. Did the monster buff itself and lay magical traps, or did you catch it by surprise? Should you try to dispel it's protective spells, or go for a damage-dealing spell instead? These are the sorts of things that make high-level play so much fun, otherwise there's very little difference between it and the low levels.I agree with you here, I just think that, if the only difference is the summoned monsters it brings forth, the pit fiend will quickly become dull and boring - particularly since the summoned monsters don't matter much, since they're just there to be blown up. How quickly will the PCs catch on to such tactics and make sure to avoid them in the future (or, heck, even during the very first fight)?I'd rather get more mileage out of one monster; when the PCs can use divinations and knowledge checks to clue in about what they'll be facing, I don't want them to instantly know what "kind" of combatant each monster is, and know to adjust themselves accordingly, all from knowing just what it is.Um, then why are you posting here?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /> Yes, but that's you. It's not the fault of the game, though a number of people seem to think it is.That these things aren't relevant to you doesn't mean they aren't to someone else. How does having two words, create undead, listing in his stat block, make it so unusable to you? If you don't use those things, that's fine, it's not like they're hurting you - a few listed SLAs and skill bonuses that you don't even use are not the cause of any problems you're having crunching numbers. But they're useful to other DMs, so I don't see any harm, and I do see the utility there.Finally, the idea that you can "just give him" whatever else you want the pit fiend to have works much easier in reverse. Just delete what you don't want him to have. Adding something is more work, because relevant questions of where it comes from, how it works, etc. are there, and can be brought to the fore (e.g. can it be dispelled, and if so is it then gone, or does it return for after 1d4 rounds if it's an item, etc). Monsters are like trees - they have branches (options) and if there's too many, it's easy to cut them down; it's much harder to add more in when there's too few.</blockquote>

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