NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Adso" data-source="post: 3834114" data-attributes="member: 6706">The goal is not to take away toys, but rather to make toy both simpler for the new or casual DM and more dynamic for the experienced DM.  So, what is the spined devil missing? Well the Summon Baatezu...and that ability has always been either useless or problematic. Not only has it never worked very well in the rules space it was allotted (spell-like ability) it’s a real story killer, as DMs are pushed toward fudging that roll to fit their narrative or live with the fact that an encounter with these lawful icons is really friggen random. Here’s my novel approach—if you want more spine devils in an encounter, put more devils in an encounter! If you want them to gate in, have them gate in—the resource of Hell can make it happen in a variety of ways, it doesn’t have to sit entirely in the monster's ability entry. This ability should have always been on the encounter-design/story-design side of the D&D fence, and it wasn't purely because of legacy. Devils had it from the go, for reason that are thematic but strangled by bad rules (IMO). Don’t let the rules hamstring the story, rather let them serve the story and play. Yes, I know, it’s an interesting design stance for a developer to take. Then there is the ever-edition-shifting array of spell-like abilities devils have had. Now I am not saying that all devils should not have spell-like abilities, but I don’t know if all of them or even most of them need it. I think it might even be better to say something like “many devils are versed in the arcane arts” and give the DM guidance for making devils that do this in ways that serve the play and story of a campaign. In this way devil encounters can have just as much variety they need for an encounter or a story, not what the designer thinks you have to have each and every time. Having cooler devils of a type is always neat, it’s another reason to start monsters simply, it makes it easier and more fun the run the better ones. In the end, I think that you can have a simple, very thematic monsters fulfilling legacy and story roles without being slaves to out-dated or just plain bad legacy mechanics. It’s the theme that makes the monster interesting on the narrative side of the game. In short, the rules should serve theme in the best possible way, not the other way around.Just say'n ;-)</blockquote>

Verification