Monster vault: I has it

[Aegeri]

New Balor kicks the old Balor's a$$.

"Beheading Blade" is the name of one of it's close blast 3 powers.

I would be interested to know more about the Balor. Does that power kill enemies reduced to 0 HP (EG no death saves). I've been wondering about if we'll start seeing more of these effects at epic tier.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Sounds cool, although I will be adding a lot of these critters by hand into the existing monster builder.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

If you picked up the MM1 and saw those crazy elementals and then gave 4e a pass, you wouldn't have picked up the MM3.

But then you hear about Essentials and ask, as this perosn did, what type of elementals are here.

Well, to answer the original question, the Monster Vault does seem to have the "pure" elementals. Someone else merely pointed out that WotC had already designed these for MM3, so all that remained was to essentialize those elementals. In other words, given the retro feel of Essentials and the fact that they had already created pure elementals, it would have been very surprising for them to include the hybrid elementals instead in the Monster Vault.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, to answer the original question, the Monster Vault does seem to have the "pure" elementals. Someone else merely pointed out that WotC had already designed these for MM3, so all that remained was to essentialize those elementals. In other words, given the retro feel of Essentials and the fact that they had already created pure elementals, it would have been very surprising for them to include the hybrid elementals instead in the Monster Vault.

Nothing WoTC does these days surprises me.

 

[Bungo_Underhill]

Are mindflayers there is so how many and at what levels? Are any of them Solos?

What is the lowest level Solo monster?

 

[Scribble]

Just out of curiosity-

Do the books inside the box have the shiny cover (like in Gamma World) or the flat cover (like the non boxed books.)

 

[Fiery James]

Just out of curiosity-

Do the books inside the box have the shiny cover (like in Gamma World) or the flat cover (like the non boxed books.)

Shiny, like the DM's kit book as well.

 

[Fiery James]

What level is the new Balor?

Same as the MM1 version. It's a lot like the revised version in Demonomicon, only with a few more tweaks.

 

[Fiery_Dragon]

Are there any trolls in it. And if so, how are they different?

TROLL

Troll (level 9 Brute), Battle Troll (12 Soldier), Bladerager Troll (12 Brute), Ghost Troll Render (13 Brute).

Attack roll and damge are beefed up from previous versions.

 

[Fiery_Dragon]

Are mindflayers there is so how many and at what levels? Are any of them Solos?

What is the lowest level Solo monster?

MINDFLAYER Thrall Master (Level 14 Elite Controller (Leader))
Mind Flayer Unseen (invisible while it has a creature grabbed)
Concordant Mind Flayer
Mind Flayer Starship Captain*

Lowest level Solo is Fledgling White Dragon (level 1 solo brute)
Young White Dragon is a level 3 solo brute
Actually, the only solos up until level 9 are dragons.
Level 9 solo Artillery is Beholder
Hydra is level 10 solo brute

Highest level monster is Balor (level 27 elite brute)

* No, not really. Just the 3 mindflayers. It would be crazy if they had a starship captain.