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

[italianranma]

Well, it's certainly simpler, but if that's the whole entry I don't like it.

1. As has already been noted, after his big first round he has nothing new to pull out.

2. He has no depth. He really has only one viable course of action: Get into aura range (or at least Teleport range) and fling mooks around.

3. Apparently energy resistance is much harder to come by in 4th, but if his fire attacks get negated he's got no backup plan. Mace, Aura, and Command all do fire damage.

4. No ranged attack. Unless "slides" turns out to be a poor choice of words, he's got nothing that can deal damage to enemies with elevation on him.

Can't say to much about the other points, but as far as no ranged attack goes he does fly and teleport, so I don't think he's necessarily helpless in that region.

As far as no non-combat mechanics, I too wondered why exactly Pit-fiends do what they do. Their power should be reflected somewhere right? But then again maybe the DMG will tell us to do what I finally learned the hard way: just make it up. I used to sweat these things when I prepared an adventure: If the mastermind villain needed a particular mechanic, I'd pour through books until I found the right combination of classes and items that allowed him to function as I wanted. But finally I learned not to sweat it and just make up what I needed. If the big bad guy lived in a flying castle, I didn't worry about where he got his food and water: he just did. It was magic. And if the players really needed to know a reason why something was the way it was, I had them offer a suggestion, and then I'd make a secret roll (against a DV of 0) and say that they were right.

 

[Khaim]

4. No ranged attack. Unless "slides" turns out to be a poor choice of words, he's got nothing that can deal damage to enemies with elevation on him.

He can still fly. And teleport as a move action, it seems. But I have to agree, the lack of anything other that melee attacks and a minor (okay, major, but short-term) debuff is a bit disappointing.

Then again, 15 dmg/round just by standing there is pretty nasty.

Edit: Oops, a bit late. What's the slang for that around here?

 

[Rechan]

To those saying "No non-combat abilities", the article mentions pit fiends having a ritual to grant a Wish.

 

[Lizard]

Wait a minute.

Atrribute bonuses go up with level???

So a Str 10 wizard is stronger at level 10 than at level 1, despite being still Str 10?

That makes hellacious amounts of No Sense. Someone tell me I'm misinterpreting the other posters.

 

[Lackhand]

Any idea what "Saving Throws +2" refers to? If saves are passive and not rolls, calling them saving throws makes little sense. And +2 to what?

Conjectures?

The conjecture seems to be (I appeal to popular authority!) that instead of "duration: 10 rounds", most abilities of that sort are "duration: until you pass a save" -- so he throws off effects with a 10% greater chance each round than others do.

We need to see some other high level folks, stat: It might be that his damage is a little low, but only by 10 points, giving us nice long combats with many participants.

 

[HeinorNY]

I'll bet dollars to donuts that it has to do with him being 1) a Soldier and 2) Elite.

Probably. The spined devil is a lvl 6 skirmirher and he gains +3 to his defenses, and +2 to his attacks.

21, 20, and 18 aren't ability score modifiers, they're skill check bonuses. Those should be 8, 7, and 5 respectively.

They are effectively skill check modifiers in SWSE, but I think in 4E there is only one progression for everything, skills, BAB and defenses = 1/2 level. It's also lot easier to generate characters this way.
Then you just add some bonuses based on the character class or monster type, like those Defense bonuses each class get at 1st level in SWSE (Defense progresion in SWSE equals level, but in 4E it's almost certain 1/2 level.
The same might work for BAB. 1/2 level + ability modifier + class/type bonuses. The Pit Fiend clearly doesn't have a full BAB progression, since his melee attack is 31. 31 - 11(STR) = 20 - 13(LVL) = 7(monster bonus + weapon bonus)

 

[Khaim]

Any idea what "Saving Throws +2" refers to? If saves are passive and not rolls, calling them saving throws makes little sense. And +2 to what?

Discussed above, but I'll recap:

The minis rules have a system for ending persistent effects. It's basically a 50/50 shot each round (i.e. 11+ ends). Presumably the +2 is for that roll. Note that this is only for ending effects that are hurting you- on fire, paralyzed, etc. Attacks and spells that would have you make a saving throw to negate (in 3e) now just target your Defense score, just like you said.

 

[Lackhand]

Wait a minute.

Atrribute bonuses go up with level???

So a Str 10 wizard is stronger at level 10 than at level 1, despite being still Str 10?

That makes hellacious amounts of No Sense. Someone tell me I'm misinterpreting the other posters.

You are

Raw stat checks are exceeding rare, the strength check bend bars/lift gates check being the only common exception. So the current guess is that all stats are presented (for monsters & such, at least) as untrained skill modifiers, to reflect the benefits that advanced experience grant.

It does mean that raw strength checks have to be "back-figured", if such things are even used that frequently anymore.

It's just easier, or so Current Speculative Wisdom holds.

Edit: Further speculation, completely off topic: It may be that even things that were classically strength checks -- lifting boulders, toppling pillars, busting chains (or doors), and so on... are now binary, you are strong enough to do this unassisted, or you are not.
Certainly solves the "party wizard rolls a 20/party barbarian rolls a 1" conundrum. Anything skill related can be rolled for, anything that would have been a straight stat check is really more of a "compare" than a check.
There's always hacking the door down, you see; or perhaps it's just a strength modified attack (ahah! there's that 1/2 again!).

 

[Voss]

Yeah, his HP, damage, and of course how much he can do all seem sort of limited for a 26th level monster, but then again as some people mentioned, he is only an Elite, and will probably only be 2/5ths of an encounter. His lack of actions is probably how 4th edition tries to make things simpler and combats faster. And he does look pretty fun.

I think most of his damage comes from his summoned minions: +4 to 8 or more attacks each round is pretty big. He's a virtual octopus.

Things I noticed:
- No spell resistance, or damage resistance

Spell resistance would be rather silly with static target numbers and rolled magic attacks. I think the +2 saves is factored in, partially to replace that.
No DR is somewhat surprising. Makes me think they jettisoned the concept rather than trying to fix it (again).

- Teleport as a speed, low fly speed, high ground speed relative to 3rd ed.

They spined devil's fly speed was also pretty low by 3e standards. I think thats going to be normal. The speed is going to be based more on the battlemat than overland travel.
Anyway, 60' +50' plus potentially spending the action point on the attack routine is pretty nasty.

 

[Khaim]

Wait a minute.

Atrribute bonuses go up with level???

So a Str 10 wizard is stronger at level 10 than at level 1, despite being still Str 10?

That makes hellacious amounts of No Sense. Someone tell me I'm misinterpreting the other posters.

Well, yes and no. PCs (and monsters) get a flat 1/2 level bonus to, well, everything. Skills, Fort/Ref/Will defense, attacks, and I think AC as well. Probably initiative too, although the Pit Fiend's initiative is a bit off by my numbers, but it's still in the approximate range of (3e Dex bonus + 1/2 level).

On the other hand, damage does not seem to increase. The Pit Fiend has 32 Str, which is normally a +11 bonus, and his attacks are doing 1d12+11 and 1d6+11.

So it's not that the wizard is stronger, exactly. It's that he's better at doing things that require strength plus skill. He's better able to punch things and have the blow land, but only because he has more experience. His punch still does the same measly damage.


Edit: All right, Lackland. You win. Now would you kindly stop preempting my posts?