Are demons/devils/dragons too complex?

[Creamsteak]

This somewhat goes back to the 4E article that concerned making monsters more simple. I've often debated with my group what direction this could take. One member of my group touts that demons are a pretty good example of a creature that's too complex to run: if you don't prepare before hand it's difficult to remember all their tricks and abilities.

When I look at most of the demons and devils in the monster manual, I think that they are pretty good examples of an iconic "one size fits all" monster. Hezrou, Vrocks, Glabrezu and similar monsters seem to work for almost any roll. They can be the "big bad evil guy" at the end of a lower or mid level adventure. They can also be the mooks that get dropped left and right by a higher level group. They also, for the most part, have the ability to be either a strong melee combatant or a ranged combatant. They are the very definition of a versatile monster, once you DO know all of their abilities. Individually, they can seem lackluster if they don't get to use their giant array of abilities, but I don't believe they are expected to.

I actually like them. I may be in the minority for this. With 4E coming up in every topic, I hope demons don't lose too much ground to the notion that you'll need 4 different "kinds" of vrock to form a challenge. I'd rather the base example of a vrock work for all purposes.

To a lesser degree, I think dragons are very versatile. You might need a bit more help, since they have to be built from the ground up. Draconomicon helps a lot for this. You can build a melee dragon, an aerial combat dragon, a breath weapon focused dragon, a spellslinging dragon.

Anyway this thread is mostly an aside. I'm curious what other people might think.

 

[delericho]

Yes, these are monsters that could stand to have some work done.

Dragons are particularly bad, in that you have to build them from the ground up. Another thing that is particularly poor is that the Monster Manual has full details for ten different types of dragons in twelve different age categories... but in actual use the differences between the types are really quite minor. That space could have been better used, giving one 'base' dragon, making the different colours into mini-templates, and then providing sample stats for more, simpler dragons across the full age range spectrum.

Demons and Devils suffer mostly from too many spell-like abilities, and particularly too many minor abilities. These are mostly holdovers from the 2nd edition designs for these creatures, and could do with some cleaning up - each creature should have a specific role (even if that is 'all-rounder'), with a set of powers that enable it to fulfil that role, and few or no superflous powers. Additionally, a CR 9 creature should not have sleep as a spell-like ability - give them deeper slumber or nothing. (That was just the first example that sprung to mind - although I think that specific example actually relates to the Beholder.)

 

[kensanata]

Yesterday my party of five level 8-10 characters came up against an adult black dragon, CR 14 which was guarding the other side of a portal. Due to roleplay they managed to pay the toll required and reach the exit of the cave where they decided to spend five rounds buffing up, turn around, and fight. In the time the party buffed up and got organized, I copied down the stats I'd be needing, picked the three most important spells and the seven feats, and I was basically ready when the party was ready. Phew!

 

[Derren]

No I don't think devils/demons and dragons are too complex. Sure they require more time to prepare/learn to run than a level 1 orc but that is to be expected from high powered opponents. Some DMs apparently want to not prepare anymore but instead want to run every monster directly out of the book. To me this is simply lazy.

I want strong, customizable monsters which also have something else than direct combat abilities than one trick wonders which I can't adjust to specific situations without "cheating" (rule 0) and by design always have a glaring weakness because they lack a vital defense.

Thats why I am very concerned about the plans to reduce monsters to pure combat machnines in 4E, to make fixed dragon statblocks and (unconfirmed) that dragons will loose spellcasting. And all that just to cater lazy Dms who can't even prepare their BBEGs for an adventure/campaign.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Yesterday my party of five level 8-10 characters came up against an adult black dragon, CR 14 which was guarding the other side of a portal. Due to roleplay they managed to pay the toll required and reach the exit of the cave where they decided to spend five rounds buffing up, turn around, and fight. In the time the party buffed up and got organized, I copied down the stats I'd be needing, picked the three most important spells and the seven feats, and I was basically ready when the party was ready. Phew!

And did they win?

I agree that the stats for some creatures in the MM are overly complicated - and I think too that more help on making monsters more powerful would be very helpful.

A CR20 Balor looks great, but once the characters surpass it in terms of power it's a horribly complicated job to create a new, CR 30 Balor Lord to threaten them. Same goes for less powerful creatures - I had a real struggle last night just understanding how to take a skeleton from 1HD to 5HD. I'm sure it gets easier with practice, but my number one hope for 4e is that this kind of prep is easier to do. If it is, it's very likely to tempt me into DMing again.

 

[Klaus]

For starters, I'd remove all spellcasting from dragons. And Spell Resistance. But then again, I'd remove Spell Resistance altogether.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Well, in my house rules, they are 'simpler' - in a way. By way of having fewer special abilities overall, and a distinct lack of certain abilities whatsoever, that is.

So, yeah.

 

[Psion]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't miss the days when monsters were a "bag of hit points with an AC and a damage rating." And I don't hasten to head back that direction.

I like demons (and devils and yugoloths and daemons*) as complex beings with motivations, MOs, and tactics that vary from simply hurting on the PCs. That authors of 4e obsess on making them that is just another sign that 4e is probably Not For Me^TM.

* - Differentiating here for the purposes of the very cool daemons in Book of Fiends.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I don't think they are too complex - and I regret the simplifying process that went on for demons and devils between 3e and 3.5e.

Why?

Because I don't think every ability has to be used in every encounter. I liked having devils that could be planar bound on one occasion to use as a mobile striker/attacker, but in a different adventure the very same devil could be planar bound by the NPC to provide unlimited Animate Dead, so that the wizard could fill his cavern with the zombie bodies of hundreds of slain villagers.

I think that any design decisions which are made on the basis of "this creature can't use all its cool abilities in the 3-5 rounds of combat it survives" are probably poor decisions.

I agree with delericho about dragons though - spot on there. It would have been much better to give one standard set of dragon statistics, and then provide simple flavour templates for the chromatic dragons (not that I'd be unhappy to see chromatic and metallic dragons disappear for ever, but that's another story). Also, if they were going to give dragons magic spells it might have made sense to fill their slots as far as possible with quickened spells so that they can zap them off in combat without affecting their other choices.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Thats why I am very concerned about the plans to reduce monsters to pure combat machnines in 4E, to make fixed dragon statblocks and (unconfirmed) that dragons will loose spellcasting. And all that just to cater lazy Dms who can't even prepare their BBEGs for an adventure/campaign.

While I am not entirely certain of how good an idea it is to simplify the crap out of every complicated monster, I actually do agree with de-emphasizing the spell casting of Dragons, and mostly for the following reasons.

- If your going to assume a dragon always has Shield and Mage Armour cast, why not just give it 8 more AC?
- Given the Breath weapon, a Dragon should not need blasting spells

The example from a few months ago of a massive red dragon fighting a typical party sounded pretty good to me. While I do like the out of combat flexibility that spell casting can give a dragon, I really do think that once combat hits, you should not especially need to use them. As it was said in one of the wizard blog entries "A massive dragon really ought to be using its teeth, claws, and breath weapon to kill the players, not a Finger of Death or Disintegrate spell".

Give the dragon a mix of fitting spell like abilities, and remove the need for buffing effects by making them a basic part of the package. Give it enough that it can still be a 'solo' monster, and your set.

END COMMUNICATION