Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4021064" data-attributes="member: 4937">Agreed.  And, I was kinda annoyed by how much room the new stat block took to do the equivalent of 'claw/claw/bite'.  This is probably largely my background, but the new stat block reads like a system requirements document.  It looks like something you'd send a developer who needed to know how to code monster behavior and powers.  It doesn't look like a PnP stat block.  Notice how most of the powers are written in jargon to a degree which exceeds even the normally high jargon quotient you'd expect in a stat block: 'aura 5', 'close burst 2', 'Ranged...', etc.One thing I noted is that the pit fiend has lost some pretty significant abilities: create undead, invisibility, dispel magic, mass hold monster, persistant image, meteor swarm, power word (stun), and regeneration.  Some of those abilities are irrelevant to combat and maybe some are problimatic, and I do understand the argument 'Well, off stage, the pit fiend can do anything the DM wants it to do', but I do think something is lost conceptually if the monster loses abilities like 'create undead', 'invisibility', 'greater dispel magic', and 'persistant image'.  Basically, this stat block tells me that the Pit Fiend is there to be killed by PC's so that they can take his stuff.  Which, if I'm a computer programmer is basically all I need to know.  Afterall, anything that isn't combat is going to be run as a cut scene using narrator fiat anyway.  Anyway, it sounds like combat is going to be fun (assuming I'd ever play 4e), and I do like that they improved the ratio of hitpoints to damage to make combats last longer, but otherwise I feel like something is missing.(Incidently, I'm getting really tired of hearing how great it is to be running 4-5 massive combats a session with multiple opponents, as if somehow this is a new thing.  Did people really never do that in 3E?  I used to host an open table night at a local game store, and often get 4-7 combats into 3-4 hours of play - plus time for character creation, exposition, and allocating experience points.  And that was with 'non-expert' players.)</blockquote>

Verification