List of monsters confirmed in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

[MonsterEnvy]

Does anyone remember how powerful Abashai we're in previous editions?

Not nearly that strong. They used to be fairly minor devils. In 3.5 they went from 4 to 9 if I remember correctly.

Edit Correction 4 to 8 is the answer.

 

[GM Lent]

Does anyone remember how powerful Abashai we're in previous editions?

In 2e, the black abishai was the greatest monster you could face. If it hit you just right you were dead, but it was overall really wimpy and still worth a ton of XP.

Totally worth the risk to take one on.

 

[gyor]

Not nearly that strong. They used to be fairly minor devils. In 3.5 they went from 4 to 9 if I remember correctly.

Edit Correction 4 to 8 is the answer.

So at least some of them more then doubled in CR, with Red Abashai possibly rivalling Pit Fiends.

As it is Blue Abasai is equal CR to a Gorestro and for Devils only the Pit Fiend and Archdevils so far are more powerful then the Blue Abashai.

 

[gyor]

By the way anyone else notice the strange art for Tiefling subraces? Interesting.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

In 2e, the black abishai was the greatest monster you could face. If it hit you just right you were dead, but it was overall really wimpy and still worth a ton of XP.

Totally worth the risk to take one on.

Black Abishai were the weakest of the 2e Abishai.

 

[Demetrios1453]

So at least some of them more then doubled in CR, with Red Abashai possibly rivalling Pit Fiends.

As it is Blue Abasai is equal CR to a Gorestro and for Devils only the Pit Fiend and Archdevils so far are more powerful then the Blue Abashai.

As I mentioned before - the question is, are they upgrading them all to high-level CRs, or are we going to get a spread where white abishai are going to be about where they were previously and red abishai are epic-level threats. I could see them doing a wider spread of CRs, since before they were all grouped in a pretty small CR range, so a wider spread would allow them to be a themed foe throughout a long campaign.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I don't imagine Reds will be stronger then Pit Fiends or Arch Devils

 

[Demetrios1453]

I don't imagine Reds will be stronger then Pit Fiends or Arch Devils

If they keep the same traditional abishai hierarchy, they will almost certainly be on par (or nearly on par) with pit fiends at the very least. With blue being CR 17, for reds to be more powerful, they will need to be CR 18 at minimum; and to make them noticeably more powerful than the blues, that would imply something near pit fiend (CR 20) power levels...

But they wouldn't really rival pit fiends or archdevils in the hierarchy of the Nine Hells. They've always done their own thing in Tiamat's area of Avernus, kind of off to the side of the rest of the devilish hierarchy.

But in any case, it still is a pretty significant change, and I wonder how it will be explained in the book...

 

[gyor]

As I mentioned before - the question is, are they upgrading them all to high-level CRs, or are we going to get a spread where white abishai are going to be about where they were previously and red abishai are epic-level threats. I could see them doing a wider spread of CRs, since before they were all grouped in a pretty small CR range, so a wider spread would allow them to be a themed foe throughout a long campaign.

It would also allow the lower CR ones to be summoned by Infernal Calling, while still having some at higher CR.

 

[GM Lent]

Black Abishai were the weakest of the 2e Abishai.

Exactly. And they were a super easy foe if you had magic weapons, but still worth a truckload of XP proportionally. Their poison was nasty, but not actually as nasty as Type E, and if you could make your save you were home free.