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

[Fifth Element]

But those aren't nitpicks. Avoiding redundancy is an accepted rule of writing. Avoiding unnecessary adjectives - and they almost all are - is another accepted rule. Voltaire said, "The adjective is the enemy of the noun." There are tons of other quotes out there along the same lines, like Stephen King saying that the road to hell is paved with adverbs. My comments are far from personal preferences. There are real, accepted rules of style that are being violated in the RPG industry all the time.

I will grant that that example from Paizo is a heck of a sentence. They probably tried to do too much with it. And that sentence should probably have been edited more harshly - but then again, maybe that's the style they were going for?

But when you talk about accepted rules of style - accepted by who? Saying that there is a single accepted set of rules for style is ridiculous. If the WotC editors establish their own rules of style to be used in 4E, those are the only rules of style that matter.

You may not like it, but you cannot claim any degree of objectivity here. Regardless of how many big names agree with you - I'm sure I could dredge up some big-name authors who love adjectives if I tried. But this is all about style, which is inherently subjective. Using adjectives to modify nouns is correct in English grammar. Saying that using adjectives violates some rule of style is...I don't know...wonky?

I'm not a professional writer, but I took my share of English courses in university, and I certainly don't recall learning about these universal "rules of style" you posit.

And I apologize to everyone else for the thread derail.

 

[catsclaw227]

actually it is 2/4 of an encounter.

I am relative sure that 5 vs 4 was no mistake. I see it that way: a level 26 monster is as strong as a LVL 26 char. (you could use PCs as enemies if desired) Thus, 4(5) vs 4(5) would be an even match (50-50) having one extra PC should tip the tide of battle in favour of the PCs.

Whether it's 2/4ths or 2/5ths, what I am trying to say is that the Pit Fiend is not a complete encounter in itself, and therefore there will be some very interesting synergies that will make the encounter more interesting. Looking at the Pit Fiend in a vacuum is not as relevant as when it's paired up with it's buddies. i.e. As far as encounters go, the whole will be much greater than the sum of it's parts.

 

[catsclaw227]

It's not the snark that's the problem, it's that the logical conclusion of your statement is that anyone who has a negative opinion about an aspect of 4E is somehow unreasonable and shouldn't participate in threads.

I don't want to put words in his mouth, but in my interpretation of what he said, it seems like there are some posters that snark and bash 4e in EVERY thread. In some cases, rehashing their same ol' tired story as to why they don't like 4e and will never play it, and in other cases, looking to find fault with nitpicks or with some element they hate, just to make themselves heard in the thread.

Note: It goes for both anti-4e'ers and pro-4e'ers.

Mostly, for me, it's tiring to hear the same posters coming into a 4e thread to bash some new mechanic or fluff just for the sake of bashing it. Especially when they have made it clear in other threads that they will never buy or play 4e.

 

[FourthBear]

And if 4e lets us 'swap out' Fire Giant levels for cleric levels, cool. If its solution is some sort of ultra-cheesy 'give it sorta kinda clerical powers' ala the hobgoblin pseudo-casters in MMV, not cool.

I do not regard adding cleric powers to a Fire Giant to be "ultra-cheesy" in any way whatsoever. It is a hundred time more elegant and less cheesy than the tortured and contrived methods that had to be used in previous editions. I simply cannot forget the various Giant high priests I've seen in 3e adventures with 3-5 levels of cleric, because every time the designer added a cleric level, saving throws, BAB and hitpoints all increased. If you want to somehow feel balance is kept, you could always lower the melee attack bonus and any remove any special melee attacks from the Fire Giant description before you added the cleric levels.

Even the yuan-ti fell into this, since their CR effectively rendered them a mid-level fighter by the 3e rules. I firmly believe that taking the Yuan-ti and giving it cleric spells would not only be easier, it would be much better design than trying to link all abilities to the system designed to generate PCs. I realize that some DMs love to play around with those 3e monster creation and customization rules, but every time I see one of those stat-block abominations I've got to chuckle. All that to give a monster a few interesting abilities?

In any case, I would suspect that the Training feats announced could be used for monster customization. Of course, if the monster doesn't have any feats in its stat block, you'll have to add them in so you can subtract them for balance reasons, i suppose.

 

[Plane Sailing]

His mace isn't given him any bonus to hit or damage (direct, there is an indirect damage bonus with the ongoing fire effect). It is converting his melee damage to fire which is a debuff from a normal mace if fire resistance is per-application a la 3.5 rather than per-round (given how much fire damage he is outputting, you want fire resistance badly). Heck, if 4e energy resistance is per-application, the ongoing fire effect won't have any effect at all against prepared opponents. To put it differently, he probably should be using a NON MAGIC, completely ORDINARY mace in place of his cool firey one.

On the other hand, a plain +4 (he *is* lvl 26) mace stands a good chance of doubling his (weapon) damage output. More, probably. If he is facing people with FR, he will do better with a +4 mace than Frenzying with the flaming one and tail.

You may be making an invalid assumption here though. The mace damage might be considered Fire AND weapon, and only if you are resistant to BOTH those things will you be ignoring the damage.

So Fred with fire resistance still takes the 1d12+11 damage (but doesn't catch fire). Ghosty mcGhost who doesn't take any weapon damage still takes 1d12+11 fire damage from a blow.

That seems a more likely assumption to me than your assumption that the damage is entirely Fire and can be entirely absorbed by fire resistance.

Cheers

 

[Voss]

You may be making an invalid assumption here though. The mace damage might be considered Fire AND weapon, and only if you are resistant to BOTH those things will you be ignoring the damage.

So Fred with fire resistance still takes the 1d12+11 damage (but doesn't catch fire). Ghosty mcGhost who doesn't take any weapon damage still takes 1d12+11 fire damage from a blow.

That seems a more likely assumption to me than your assumption that the damage is entirely Fire and can be entirely absorbed by fire resistance.

Cheers

Uh. Maybe I'm being obtuse, but there is nothing at all in the mace attack description that even vaguely suggests that it does anything but fire damage.
The mace attack is specifically defined as fire damage. Nothing at all indicates normal weapon damage. And isn't part of the point of these new and simplified 4e stat blocks that all the info you need be available to you immediately?

And... thats really it. It says 'fire damage' and not 'fire and normal damage' (how would that be split up, anyway?). So... it does fire damage. I can't see how Kraydak is making an assumption at all.

 

[GoLu]

Melee Flametouched Mace (standard; at-will) • Fire, Weapon
Reach 2; +31 vs. AC; 1d12+11 fire damage plus ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends).

And... thats really it. It says 'fire damage' and not 'fire and normal damage' (how would that be split up, anyway?). So... it does fire damage. I can't see how Kraydak is making an assumption at all.

While it's true that the weapon does "1d12+11 fire damage", it's tagged as "Fire, Weapon". Whatever that means. Plane Sailing's theory was that it did both types of damage for purposes of resisting it, kinda like how a 3.5e morningstar works with its bludgeoning and piercing damage.

 

[Lizard]

I do not regard adding cleric powers to a Fire Giant to be "ultra-cheesy" in any way whatsoever. It is a hundred time more elegant and less cheesy than the tortured and contrived methods that had to be used in previous editions. I simply cannot forget the various Giant high priests I've seen in 3e adventures with 3-5 levels of cleric, because every time the designer added a cleric level, saving throws, BAB and hitpoints all increased. If you want to somehow feel balance is kept, you could always lower the melee attack bonus and any remove any special melee attacks from the Fire Giant description before you added the cleric levels.

It's cheesy because:
a)If you play a fire giant cleric, you won't be built that way. At all. Ditto any other monster race.
b)Players might well want to know how they can get 'just the cool powers' like the faux-cleric they just fought.
c)It's hard to work out interactions between pseudo-caster powers and adding class levels, which we know WILL be possible in 4e.
d)It's a cheap, lazy, shortcut to design. It's saying, "Well, wizards do what...cast fireballs, right? So we'll give this hobgoblin a few extra hit dice and say he can cast a 5d6 fireball 3/day, and, uh, let's see, mage armor 1/day, on himself. Presto! Hobgoblin wizard!"

I mean, I can see the appeal as a freelancer. I could fill a huge book with all sorts of pseudo-classed monsters while doing very little work besides thinking up the idea and some basic playtesting. (Based on my work on Mongoose's monster book, thinking up a cool (IMHO) monster takes about 1/4th as long as statting it out 3x style. Or is that the point?)

 

[Lizard]

Uh. Maybe I'm being obtuse, but there is nothing at all in the mace attack description that even vaguely suggests that it does anything but fire damage.

Y'know, a mace that's ALL FIRE -- literally fire shaped into a mace-y form -- is really pretty cool.

NPI.

 

[FireLance]

Thats a terrible idea because it takes away the tactical element of using Irresistible Command. Specifically when and where to use it.

There is still an element of tactics involved: using Irresistable Command as an immediate action means that the pit fiend won't have a spare (or additional) minor action to use Point of Terror on its turn. So, whenever a minion dies, the decision will be between blowing it up now, or lowering an(other) opponent's defences on its turn.