The Devil's in the Details: Slavicsek reveals the Pit Fiend in all its glory

[Belphanior]

His damage is 1d12+11 with the mace. Looks like my beloved dodecahedrons are still in. So this is the best 4e preview ever.

 

[Kaodi]

I wonder. If all of your ability bonuses increase by level, does that mean that you will never actually gain any increases to those abilities as you level up (other than by age, maybe)?

 

[Rechan]

His damage output may not be great, but I can see it being used against weaker foes.

I imagine that the pitfiend teleports up into the mage's face and lays only two ongoing damage effects (Mace, Poison tail) + his Aura should make the mage fold soon.

 

[med stud]

It will be interesting to see how much HP characters get in 4e. Even if a pit fiend is a leader it would be strange if it didn't do much damage if it decides to go for melee.

OTOH, the flaming aura plus the flaming weapon plus blowing up minions might be a good damage output anyway.

 

[Belphanior]

What's up with the weird ability score order?

Start at Strength and from there on move down. Read it like that and you get Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis, Cha.

 

[Dragonblade]

I noticed that many of the ongoing effects last until "save is made" this makes it sound like the new D&D minis rule for failed saves will be in the core rules.

Basically if you are affected by an ongoing effect (e.g. the attack roll beats your Fort, Ref, or Will Defense), you roll a d20 each round to see if you can shake it off. IRC, 11-20 and you shake off the effect and if you roll a natural 20 you shake off all ongoing effects simultaneously.

The notation that the Pit Fiend has +2 to Saves would seem to confirm this mechanic. Presumably if the Pit Fiend gets hit by an ongoing effect, it too rolls every round to see if it shakes it off. And it gets a +2 to do so. Nice.

I love this new save mechanic. It keeps players in the game even if your character gets hit by an ongoing effect. No more sitting out the whole combat because your character failed a save in the first round. And think of the excitement at the table if someone rolls a 20 and shakes off a bunch of effects at once! Awesome mechanic!

 

[Belphanior]

Universal reach for size is gone too. Note how the mace has Reach 2 but the tail doesn't. This will prevent weird things like horses biting 10' away in 3.x

Good thing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

3e didn't give you XP for summoned creatures, because it is assumed as part of the monster's CR. For instance, a conjurer casts a spell (a resource) that gets a monster; he's wasting his resources, and when you defeat him the monsters aren't an issue any longer.

Thank you for explaining a rule I'm 100% familiar with

If XP is just a new expression of CR, then that's cool. I just wonder if you get 18k XP for defeating this guy in any way but a big fight. No doubt the DMG will clarify.

 

[withak]

Start at Strength and from there on move down. Read it like that and you get Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis, Cha.

That's still not the "right" order. Dex and Con have been transposed.

 

[IanB]

I still write mine Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con, Cha.