[D&D 3.5e] That New Pit Fiend

[Celebrim]

Pants: I would assume so, because a Quickened Blasphemy every round would be just wrong.

Surefoot: I would assume it can use a Quickened Spell-Ability every round, provided that it never quickens the same power twice in the same day. I have no idea why the tactics don't use a Quickened ability in every round, unless of course, in 3.5 you can only quicken one spell like ability per day - which turns Quicken Spell-Ability from the uber monster feat into almost a waste of a feat. The inability to Quicken more than one ability would drop my assessment from CR 20 to CR 19 right off the bat, but then again Haste got nerfed too.

 

[JohnClark]

This may have been answered earlier in the thread, but I wasn't able to find it so I'll ask it here. Does DR of 15/holysilver mean that your weapon has to be silvered and have the holy enchantment? Or does it mean you have to have a weapon made of some substance called holysilver?

 

[Knight Otu]

According to the text, holysilver seems to be silver with the holy enchantment.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I looked at the Pit fiend, and therearea few things there that just don't add up (or at least, under 3.0). some of these are obviously typos, but some may be real changes. Here's my list:

* Size: Larger rather than Large. This seems to work the same as Large (-1 size panalty to AC); perhaps it is a reference to face/reach as well as size category?
* Hit points: By the standard formula, the 18d8+144 pit fiend should have 225 hit points (or 288 if he got max).
* Grapple: Should be +35 under the standard rules (unless I'm missing something).
* Damage: Should be one point lower across the board (e.g. 2d8+13, not 2d8+14)
* Saves: I'll assume that the copy on Morrus' page has a typo and the Reflex save hasn't been renamed.
* Feats: As mentioned before, 1+HD/3. Also, I assume the third feat is "Improved Initiative" (although the alternative would explain the pit fiend's Disguise score...).

 

[jgbrowning]

j browning: Care to take bets that PHB wont have some new feats, especially some with "Greater" in them

If you only use the core books then Id say nearly everyone ends up taking the same feats, doesnt sound like too many options. I fully expect the revised phb to have many new feats, probably a scattering from "splat books" which incidentally are set in the assumed campaign world, greyhawk, and are therefore not anymore under or overpowered than said assumed world.

After all, the monsters got quicken spell-like ability. If characters can get spell focus and greater spell focus whos not to say the monsters cant get ability focus and greater ability focus? Or should those only be in a "higher" magic campaign?

Technik

Of course there'll be new feats. They want people to have some reason to buy their books.

The reason why i say core books only, it that that is really the only part of DnD (and not even all of the core books) that is accessable to everyone. Most people agree the core books are "the game" while there is very large disagreement about everything else.

Ie. you're supposed to be able to play the game with only those three books. whether you think its limiting or not is your opinion.

If monsters are "balanced" against feats/spells/blah that are not in core books the monsters are not really balanced. If the monster is a CR 16 for a twinked out splat book group of 4 PCs, the monster is probably not balanced for 4 regular PCs.

joe b.

 

[Dark Wolf 97]

what about the Balor?

I've always loved the Balor, and I sincerely believe it doesn't stack up to 18 CR, so maybe it will be beefed up like the Pit Fiend.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

This is a SR based comment. So far in 3e I've never felt that I had to take spell penetration and GR SP, they would of come in handy but I could get by without them. If other monsters SR is boosted along with the pit fiends these feats may just become necesities for high level play.

And my opinion is that if a feat becomes a necesity it should just be part of the class. I hope the high SR is just an aberation or they did something for the primary spellcasters to help them penetrate SR without virtually making spell penetration feats a high level requirement.

 

[Intrope]

I looked at the Pit fiend, and therearea few things there that just don't add up (or at least, under 3.0). some of these are obviously typos, but some may be real changes. Here's my list:

* Size: Larger rather than Large. This seems to work the same as Large (-1 size panalty to AC); perhaps it is a reference to face/reach as well as size category?
* Hit points: By the standard formula, the 18d8+144 pit fiend should have 225 hit points (or 288 if he got max).
* Grapple: Should be +35 under the standard rules (unless I'm missing something).
* Damage: Should be one point lower across the board (e.g. 2d8+13, not 2d8+14)
* Saves: I'll assume that the copy on Morrus' page has a typo and the Reflex save hasn't been renamed.
* Feats: As mentioned before, 1+HD/3. Also, I assume the third feat is "Improved Initiative" (although the alternative would explain the pit fiend's Disguise score...).

I have been wondering about these. The Hit points are weird; I can't come up with any way to get that number (it's 3 more than 6/die, and only 1 more than 8 at first hit die, and 6 thereafter).

The grapple and damage are calculated as if he had 38 STR, but that would mean both the STR and the Attack Bonuses were wrong. Maybe they've added +1 Damage per size category above large?

Of course, it's possible that these are straight-up typos by the scooper. He got these off a T-shirt, didn't he? Did he actually have the shirt, or did he, say, take a picture with a digital cam and transcribe it from there?

Anyway, it's another mystery. And with that, I think we've beaten this poor fiend to death

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Ok, ignore the feats concerning getting the disintegrate to hit (since it aint hard) and we'll assume that he had either an 18 or a 16 and took spell prodigy. Hes a highly optimized transmuter, its just as effective against everything with armor that can be disintegrated.

Highly optimized? It's hard to get more optimized for this situation than that without using a noncore race to get starting int 20. The rules shouldn't be balanced around the assumption that every character will have maximum possible stats and optimal feats.

So, the important thing is Int 30, focus and greater focus, penetration and greater penetration. We'll throw the same spells, the disintegrate will still probably hit (maybe only 90% chance now). So, going by your percentages, with a heightened disintegrate and a quickened poly other on the first round we have almost a 40% chance of the encounter being over.

I only see maybe a 25% chane of the encounter being over in one round. Quickened polymorph other doesn't do much to the pit fiend. All of his spell like abilities still work. So he can still Quickened Unholy Aura (or Quickened polymorph self) and meteor swarm.

The only thing Polymorph other will do is reduce his insane natural armor bonusses and stats so that the fighters can reliably hit him until he polymorphs into something else on the next round.

Next round how about a Poly any object (same DC as disintegrate) and a quickened bestow curse (going for the 50% chance to act). Now we've spent all of our highest level spells. Lets move to the cleric.

Ok, simply put the cleric can end this fight "at will" if they have holy word memorized. The fiend has no way to stop this, and he wont be coming back for a day. Thats 24 hours the party has spent making sure it has the "right" stuff memorized (and prebuffed) for round 2 the next day. And guess what? If day 2 is going bad, I bet the cleric memorized holy word again just in case. There is also harm (however its reworded, it will still be powerful). The cleric can whip up an area of Forbiddance so the party needn't worry about fiend attacks day and night, and he can also summon his own allies that should be able to last a few rounds toe-to-toe.

Holy Word isn't likely to do much to the pit fiend. It still has to beat SR. Even assuming that the cleric has Greater Spell Penetration (hardly an obvious feat choice for most clerics), he would still get at best a 45% chance of sending the fiend away. It's better than disintegrate in this case but not by much.

Forbiddance--aren't we assuming that the cleric has the multiple thousands of gp worth of material components for this spell and that the pit fiend both fails his spell resistance and fails his save. It's unlikely to be an effective solution to a pit-fiend sized problem. Even if it automatically prevents the pit fiend from teleporting in on top of them it doesn't do anything to keep the pit fiend from teleporting in 50 yards away and walking over to them (well it might if there were much chance the pit fiend would fail his save and the forbiddance would get past the fiend's SR but there isn't much chance of that).

As far as knowing about the fiend, perhaps in a shadowrun game the PCs have no idea they are actually dealing with a dragon, but in d&d there are divinations, detection spells, informants, deities, and any number of other ways to discern the truth about things. If all else fails, a 5th level True Seeing can get the job done.

I wont even go into the fighter or rogue scenario since it really isnt my forte (also, nor would they likely be able to produce the immediate end of the fiend on round 1 like wizard and cleric).

Suffice to say, a 16th level party can still deal with this fiend, they just have to have some wiff of foul "fiendish" play.

Technik

I think you're seriously underestimating the fiend. Anyway, all of your arguments could still be used to justify a +10/+5 AB, 1d8+8 damage, AC 30, 30 HP 2 HD creature with +10/+10/+10 saves being CR 1. The first level optimized illusionist or enchanter has more chance of taking him out in round 1 than your optimized transmuter has of taking the 3.5e pit fiend out in round 1.

 

[Technik4]

Well, I dont have the books with the iconics in them (although it appears that book will be somewhat out of date as well) but could you post the 15th level version of the iconic wizard?

And were you kidding with GSP not being obvious for a cleric? What feats do clerics take? They get ~2 feats at first level from domains, and a feat at first level. Once again, if you have access to the iconics, please post the 15th level iconic cleric (or at least his feats and stats).

If you assume the PCs are unoptimized or even purposely built weakly than the CR system will no doubt not aid you much. Similarly, if your players arent familiar with how the game works, the system is pretty useless.

As far as forbiddance, considering we're talking about 16th level characters, sure lets assume they have a few thousand gold lying around (or easily obtainable from an NPC on loan, or in exchange for dealing with a Lord of the Hells coming to town). Needless to say, all of these SR saves the fiend is making, hes gonna fail one eventually.

I dont understand youre comparison to this 2HD monster...it doesnt make sense. Youre assuming an entirely linear system, and any system with spells that arent all balanced at the same level somewhat assumes that things wont be linear. Or at least not entirely linear to the extent its a little insulting to see that at the end of your post.

Technik