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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Just a side comment on how 4e is better for free form, low planning, DMs.

That's me. My 'adventures' are usually a bare handful of scrawled notes along the lines of "The PCs go to town. There's some kind of problem, like orcs. They do something about it. I think I want a gelatinous cube in there somewhere. The end." The one thing I *do* prep is characters, so I have a toolbox of things to pull out. I'm never sure how the PCs and the characters will interact or who will be popping up in a given adventure, so I make sure to have a lot of 'em. If I have an overarching plot for a campaign, I will have some BBEGs written up, and have all sorts of things happen which, unknown to the PCs at the time, are manifestations of said bad guy's powers, minions, influence, etc. Seemingly minor NPCs become major ones when the PCs take a liking to them, so I need to know what they can do beyond "hit people". Etc. (And having everyone be good at everything because every skill goes up with level is dull, dull, dull, dull. And did I mention that it's dull?)

4e seems very hostile to this playstyle. For one thing, everything is 'encounter' driven, and encounters need to be heavily set up in advance. I can't just grab 2 CR-appropriate monsters and toss them at the PCs, I need to decide how much XP an encounter "should" be worth,

This part I disagree with. It is not very different selecting 2 "level-appropriate" monsters or 2 CR-appropriate monsters. Especially with Minions, Regulars, Elites and Solo monsters you should be able to do this very quick. Possibly,y ou don't even look at the monster description, instead just flip to the guidelines and pick the appropriate numbers. (One designer/developer blog posts describes a major part of an adventure fighting spiders with web without having the actual precise monster stats prewritten, just using the internal design guidelines instead.)
then be sure to add in Interesting Terrain (TM),
[/quote]
That's entirely optional. But if you happen to be in an interesting locale, some rules/guideliens how to take advantage of it is a lot easier then having to guesswork everything about it.

I must determine when the encounter "begins" and "ends" (difficult when combat and talk intersperse regularly -- if you fight a monster, then stop and parely, then start fighting again, is that one encounter or three? What happens when another NPC walks into the action?), etc. It's not easy for me to distinguish Orc A from Orc B when they don't have skills or feats to swap out. Adding class levels is alleged to be possible, but we've seen nothing on how it will actually work.

I think a point in the stat block saying "monster role/level" will give you a lot better pointer then searching for Weapon Focus (Axe) or Weapon Focus (Bow) in the feat section.

I hope that the core rules will come with a nice explaination of how to adjucate what constitutes an encounter. But even then, I don't find your example particularly difficult.
Your example constitutes on encounter, people just switch from throwing darts and stabbing at each other to talking and then back again to the stabbing part. An NPC entering the fray doesn't change anything here.

Now, if the combattants flee, and find each other again in an entirely different situation, that would constitute two encounters.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm not seeing anything from this preview to port to my 3.5 game.

Anyone staying with 3.5 see anything interesting that I may have missed?

Not staying with 3.5, but the monster doesn't seem to have anything that couldn't be used in a 3.5 (aside from obvious things like no CR, HD or skill points). You could use the base premise to make Pit Fiends that are easier to run. Or add it as a new type of devil.
You might consider to "re-use" some of his special abilities, "Irresistable Command" could be an interesting ability for that purpose.

 

[Lenaianel]

Considering how it's easy for a pit fiend to move (teleport 10 as a move action) or move his allies (tactical teleport and irresistible command), what i would like to know is does the pit fiend need to have a line of effect available to use Irresistible Command or tactical Teleport?

The paladin's Binding smite could be very useful if the answer is yes. It would be difficult for defenders to do their job otherwise.

 

[Sir Sebastian Hardin]

What is keeping him from picking up a *real* (high plus) weapon (or any other source for a numerical increase for that matter... armor?) and breaking the math?

I think I know the awaswer: Maybe it is so that you don't get a friggin awsome +5 weapon each time you beat something powerful at high levels.

 

[HeinorNY]

Yeah, go bears!

 

[SlyFlourish]

Two pit fiends fighting?

If you had two pit-fiends fighting, could they kill eachother? It would appear they are immune to almost all of their own attacks.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Heck. If you put him inside a box with 50' thick walls, he can't get out.

Except you know, clawing his way out. He is an immortal Devil. Man is he gonna be pissed.

 

[Belphanior]

Heck. If you put him inside a box with 50' thick walls, he can't get out.

Sounds rather like a certain shadow-and-flame monstrosity from Tolkien, until the dwarves dug too deep and let him out.

And anyway it's not even true per se. If he can use rituals he can still teleport, scry, create undead, grant a wish once every 99 years, and all sorts of funky things.

 

[Lackhand]

Also, that is one hell of a box. I'd rule he shouldn't be able to get out.

50' thick? Really? Ew!

 

[Khaim]

If you had two pit-fiends fighting, could they kill eachother? It would appear they are immune to almost all of their own attacks.

Assuming, of course, they won't summon minions. Which may or may not be reasonable, depending on why they're fighting.

Even so, it's possible that resistances work more like SAGA's shields than 3e's resistances. That is, enough damage in a short enough time can punch through and slowly deplete your fire resistance. Between the 15 automatic fire and the d12+11 from his mace, getting 30+ fire damage in a round isn't hard: he just has to hit. Oh, and his tail does normal damage, and while his resistance might hold off the ongoing 15 poison forever, it won't help against being weakened. I think.

At least they don't have DR 15/Good. That made inter-demon fights just silly.