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

[pemerton]

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.

Tell me, what sort of being is a 3E Fire Giant with no class levels? And why are there no humans with no class levels? (My players want to know why they can't play such beings.)

Whatever the answer to this question, I now ask: where is the rule that says there can't also be such beings who have (let's say) Cleric spells as if it were a cleric of half its hit dice, for a (I'll guestimate here) +2 CR.

b)Players might well want to know how they can get 'just the cool powers' like the faux-cleric they just fought.

Presumably it can be given an ECL as per the guidelines in Savage Species.

c)It's hard to work out interactions between pseudo-caster powers and adding class levels, which we know WILL be possible in 4e.

My guess is that after you add your Cross-Training feat or your caster levels, you look at the new numbers and abilities and work out a level from that.

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!"

Assuming that I CR the monster properly (or, in 4e, work out its level) this looks like effective design. If it's cheap and lazy, so much the better.

I don't understand why the NPC build rules have to correspond in any way to the PC build rules, nor why either has to correspond to any actual ingame process that a creature goes through between being born and dying.

(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?)

Is this meant to be a good thing about 3E?

 

[Peter LaCara]

Maybe the newbies won't. The experienced players will blink in unison and tell you you're playing it wrong.

You don't really think that experienced gamers don't read the DMG and MM, do you?

Well, unless you're rolling in the open and telling the players exactly what numbers the monster has, it's doubtful that they'll be able to reverse engineer their stats in the middle of the game.

And if by some miracle they do figure it out and complain, then I give them the finger, tell them that I'm the GM and I wear the viking hat.

 

[AllisterH]

Maybe the newbies won't. The experienced players will blink in unison and tell you you're playing it wrong.

You don't really think that experienced gamers don't read the DMG and MM, do you?

Wouldn't experienced players also be the ones most likely to know that the DMG encourages the DM to well, make up stuff on the spot?

 

[Voss]

Does it? As far as I've heard, you're encouraged to use the simple stat blocks as written because its so much easier.

Plus, most experienced players I've gamed with are wildly uncomfortable with GMs making stuff up on the spot. Arbitrarium tends to aimed like a gun, right at their characters...

just like Peter is talking about. GMs that give them the finger and declare 'Because I said so' tend not to make for a fun and enjoyable game.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Does it? As far as I've heard, you're encouraged to use the simple stat blocks as written because its so much easier.

Plus, most experienced players I've gamed with are wildly uncomfortable with GMs making stuff up on the spot. Arbitrarium tends to aimed like a gun, right at their characters...

There are different kinds of Arbitraryness.

If a DM decides that a Dragons lair is protected by undeads, the players won't object just because he doesn't have the spells to create that undead. But they might object if a Dire Bear suddenly casts Fireball at them in the middle of combat. The first thing is not much more than adding a story element, the second looks like trying to screw over the players.

 

[small pumpkin man]

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.

Of course not, there's no reason for a monster to go through that rigamarole, they just need to feel similar.

b)Players might well want to know how they can get 'just the cool powers' like the faux-cleric they just fought.

You can, it's called "Cleric training", of course, being a main character, you have a bunch of other abilities too. If you mean those specific powers, most of them will have analogues, others can just be handwaved as "you don't have access to that", it worked in 2e. The idea in 3.x that most monsters had access to exactly the same arbitrarily chosen effects that any PC could use was a Bad Thing, IMO, one that limited imagination and broke verisimilitude.

c)It's hard to work out interactions between pseudo-caster powers and adding class levels, which we know WILL be possible in 4e.

It is? really? You've seen those rules have you?

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!"

It's not lazy, it's efficient, it gets the same work done for less effort, if you do your work in 7 hours, another guy does pretty much the same in 4 hours, who's your boss going to call lazy? Sure, it's possible to lose details, but we're going to have to see whether or not that ends up the case, aren't we?

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?)

Umn, YES? that would be part of the point, it means as a non-paid GM, if I think up a cool monster ability I can just throw it together, this is a good thing.

Oh yeah, and the outcomes tend to come out more balanced too, since you can just take balanced numbers and throw some abilities on them, as opposed to throw it together and try to figure out it's CR.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

There are different kinds of Arbitraryness.

If a DM decides that a Dragons lair is protected by undeads, the players won't object just because he doesn't have the spells to create that undead. But they might object if a Dire Bear suddenly casts Fireball at them in the middle of combat. The first thing is not much more than adding a story element, the second looks like trying to screw over the players.

The dire bear just was a high Level druid using wild shape and natural spell.

The whole Adventure is arbitrary, if not bought. and bought Adventures usually fail if you they don´t allow the DM to adjust encounters on the fly.

But usually they have guidelines for such adjustments and even some to modify the xp. If thats covered with MM and DMG it will be very nice.

And don´t think in 3.5 Monsters were never modified on the fly. (Saving throws too low against that party, swap power attack with iron will etc...)

 

[Intrope]

In 3.5e, Legion Devils are a type of low-level foot soldier (CR 3), but I can see that they have traits of 4e development because they are designed to work together as a group. For instance:

*All the legion devils within 100 feet of each other, combine and share hit points.
*All the legion devils use the highest saving throw if more than one is targeted by an effect.
*They essentially have a hive mind against mind-affecting effects (all fail or all succeed at the saving throw).
*For every legion devil within 60 feet, each legion devils gains a +4 bonus to their attack roll.
*A legion devil can teleport to a space next to another legion devil within 100 feet.

They also have big left arms that provide a shield bonus and bash attack, as well as the ability to summon more legion devils. This makes me wonder what a 4e level 21 version will be like!

Hey, thanks Shroomy!

Man, that's a weird devil. Would the 'hive mind' effect mean the Pit Fiend could blow them all up at once? Ka-Blammo!

And yah, I'm thinking that they'll look rather different in 4e; +4 per devil is nuts!

 

[Lizard]

You can, it's called "Cleric training", of course, being a main character, you have a bunch of other abilities too. If you mean those specific powers, most of them will have analogues, others can just be handwaved as "you don't have access to that", it worked in 2e. The idea in 3.x that most monsters had access to exactly the same arbitrarily chosen effects that any PC could use was a Bad Thing, IMO, one that limited imagination and broke verisimilitude.

Once again, we see things annoy me that don't annoy anyone else, it seems. Going back to the 2e based "Give a monster some random pseudo-powers and call it a new monster" hits all my buttons wrong. To the rest of y'all, it's the pinnacle of Perfect Game Design. No idea why they changed it in 3e...

It is? really? You've seen those rules have you?

Mike Mearls has said that adding class levels to monsters is "too fun not to do", and I've beaten over the head with this quote every time I've complained about the oversimplification of monsters. So, yeah, classed monsters will still be in, and then we've got the fun of dealing with bolting PC classes onto creatures designed using a wholly different system. (As opposed to bolting them on to creatures just designed with weird classes...)

It's not lazy, it's efficient, it gets the same work done for less effort, if you do your work in 7 hours, another guy does pretty much the same in 4 hours, who's your boss going to call lazy? Sure, it's possible to lose details, but we're going to have to see whether or not that ends up the case, aren't we?

It doesn't do the same work. It's handing the fire giant a sign reading "Klerik" and giving him a few scrolls of Cure Serious Wounds. Really, you could do the same mechanically with a few ranks of Use Magic Device and a wand. Does your pseudo-cleric know the PCs are coming? Doesn't matter, he can't pick appropriate spells for the upcoming battle, because he doesn't HAVE spells, he has a handful of 'cleric like' powers.

Umn, YES? that would be part of the point, it means as a non-paid GM, if I think up a cool monster ability I can just throw it together, this is a good thing.

You always good. To reverse the usual whine, there was never anything in 3e which prevented you from saying "This fire giant was blessed by the gods and granted the power to cast CSW 3/day. I decided that made him worth +1 CR."

Which is better: Having a complex system you can choose to ignore, or NOT having a system when you need it?

Oh yeah, and the outcomes tend to come out more balanced too, since you can just take balanced numbers and throw some abilities on them, as opposed to throw it together and try to figure out it's CR.

Uhm...unless those abilities have some kind of balancing factor, the above statement makes no sense. A kobold who breathes fire for 6d6 damage is worth more XP than a kobold who doesn't.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The dire bear just was a high Level druid using wild shape and natural spell.

Fireball is not a Druid spell.

The whole Adventure is arbitrary, if not bought. and bought Adventures usually fail if you they don´t allow the DM to adjust encounters on the fly.

I don't know whether this actually fits to the point adressed here - there are types of arbitrariness that players can accept easily, and some they won't.