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

[kodyboy]

More to the point, if they were trying, don't you think they'd be succeeding at it?

It certainly looks like they are succeeding to me at making D&D into a video game!

I'm glad you're here to play D&D, like we all are. I can't wait to see the heroes that are ready to take this thing on!

10th level adventures?

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I'm surprized no one mentioned that the Point of Terror is a fear affect which gives a -5 to all defenses. I'm having trouble seeing how being scared, even REALLY scared, would affect your fort defense. I get that if you're scared you don't defend against physical attacks and don't dodge as quick, and your mental strength (Will) would be weaker, but how does being scared make your more vulnerable to poison?

All I can manage is that being in an heightened state of awareness (ie, fear) can compromise your immune system, making you more susceptible to a variety of ailments.

 

[Lackhand]

May I take the time to point out that I hate, hate, hate the switch from writing distances in squares instead of feet?

(By the way, major rant warning)

Squares are an artificial game concept in order to enable some order to the combat simulation. They don't actually exist in the game world. Making "squares" the standard distance is equivalent to changing the standard unit for weight from "pound" to "turducken". It's one thing to suggest that DnD is a tactical combat simulator instead of a role playing game, but switching to squares just seems to go too far. Now, instead of knowing that something is, say, 315 feet away, I'm told that something is 63 squares away and have to actually do math to figure out what that means to my character in-game. It's a subtle way to emphasize that 4th edition has made Dungeons and Dragons from a Role Playing Game to a roleplaying GAME.

Having to do mental calculations just to translate "game-y" mechanics into an accurate description of how far away something is as my character sees it is not a move in the right direction IMNSHO.

Fair enough.

Complaint the second: the way they write out the ability scores and then conflate the skill bonus with the ability modifier. There's no real reason to do such instead of just having a separate note that all skill checks have a +13 bonus from level. It's rather like listing the reach of a creature in the "Speed" category. Could it be marginally useful? I guess, but it's not intuitive in the least. Also, a lot of people don't necessarily know that a 32 Str is a +11 bonus, or at least don't know it off the top of their heads. It'd be nice to still write out the actual ability modifier (which is far more important than the ability score, since the score is just a device to tell you what the modifier is).

I really think that this is just inertia, force of habit. I think that if you try to provide some examples where you just want the raw stat, you'll quickly discover you usually will want this 4E score instead. The sole exception I can think of is raw strength checks, and I already posted my guess on that upthread.

Third game mechanic complaint: "saves." Why does every debilitating ongoing effect in the game have a 50% chance of getting thrown off, regardless of level, ability scores, saves, or class? Why does the 1st level wizard with a 6 Con have the exact same chance of throwing off the poison in his veins as the level 30 Fighter with 20 Con? It also greatly reduces the ability of a player to differentiate his weaknesses from everyone else.

Hmm. Fair enough. That first level wizard has a much higher chance of contracting the poison in the first place, of course. It's also possible that there's a difference between the miniatures mechanic and the RPG mechanic, but it doesn't really bother me: Before, the special effect might last for 1d6 rounds, now it lasts for (time it takes to beat the 50% chance). Some might also target fort, but it seems unnecessarily punitive for poison to do that: contracting it is con based, and hit points are con based... it's just cruel!

Another minor quibble: I don't understand the point in keeping in fear effects if the only thing they do is give everyone a -2 to hit? No save, no variable effects based on class/hit dice/ability scores. Just a flat -2 to hit for everyone. Why not just bump up the AC by 2? It's the same effect that's far easier to track and remember.

Betting pool that paladins can gain immunity to fear?

Last complaint of the night: what exactly is the point of "Pit Fiend Frenzy"? You can either spend a standard action attacking with your mace, or a standard action to attack with your stinger... or you could ignore both of those options and just take a standard action to attack with both.

Sorry, that was one big long rant.

Guess: Opportunity Attacks can only be taken with Weapons, or other rules systems that interact only with weapons (such as disarm).

 

[Badkarmaboy]

The pit fiend is yet another bland Mearlsification. It looks and feels NOTHING like a pit fiend should (and, as a great fan of devils in D&D, I've run dozens of pit fiends over the years in my games, as both allies and adversaries, so I feel qualified to comment).

Furthermore, the removal of unique devils/dukes of Hell from the hierarchy, and the fact that retarded legion devils and war devils (just read their entries in FCII) seem to have replaced the traditional cornugons makes me really, really sad.

Looks like I will have to house rule half of the freaking Monster Manual. And if I have to do that, I am not sure I'm going to bother in the first place.

Where are you getting that the unique dukes and devils are gone? They're mentioned in W&M. So are Cornugons (or was it Malebranche?).

 

[Hjorimir]

On the Fire Resistance subject. We know that PCs have at least some access to fire resistance. Remember all the way back in the Red Dragon article? When the beast scoured away the wizard's fire resistance? Yep. In. Or at least it was, some months back.

Oh, good memory there! Perhaps all resistances can fail when assaulted? What I mean to say is maybe the failing resistance isn't an aspect of the dragon breath, but an aspect of resistance itself? That would make the pit fiend's low fire damage more understandable. Sure, you ignored the fire...this round; let's see if it hold up next round.

Yes? No?

Edit: The more I think about that idea, the more I like it. It would keep a higher level of drama in the game without the certainty of resistance spells.

 

[Wolfspider]

Where are you getting that the unique dukes and devils are gone? They're mentioned in W&M. So are Cornugons (or was it Malebranche?).

The article states: "Nobles of the Nine Hells, pit fiends form an elite ruling class that oversees vast numbers of lesser devils. Only the archdevils known as the Lords of the Nine stand higher than the pit fiends."

If dukes of the hells do exist, that means that the pit fiends all outrank them, which doesn't make them seem very special to me at all. In this case, they would occupy quite a different niche than the dukes of earlier editions (big surprise there).

So they may be in 4e, but they would be pointless.

 

[Badkarmaboy]

So, basically, he's as good at everything as any other monster of his level is. He has no special powers to help him fulfill his role *in hell*, just his role as an opponent for the PCs. He has a bland, boring, list of a great big THREE skills. He has no mechanical existence outside his combat role. He appears to fight the PCs, then he's done. Everything about him is centered on his existence in the encounter. (I mean, he doesn't even have Planes knowledge!) ("So, Pit-dude...where do you live?" "I dunno. Don't have that skill. Let's rumble!")

His one bit of interesting text -- the once-a-century-wish -- seems to be almost an afterthought. Why once a century? Presumably, he's not going to be granting wishes to PCs, so it's not much of a balancing mechanism. To reduce the total wishes available in the world? I dunno. Further, since there's no way (other than DM fiat) to determine if a particular Pit Fiend has already granted a wish, the century limit is kind of 'Meh'. I suppose it has some kind of mythic resonance, and 4e does need all it can get at this point.

Yes, I can "just make it up". Which leads me to ask why I'm buying a Monster Manual...or a rules set...when the kneejerk response to every complaint about missing or oversimplified information is "Dude, just make it up!"

I can make up the whole game if I had to. But I was under the apparently silly and mistaken impression WOTC wanted my money and was presumably going to sell me more than a blank sheet of paper labeled "Make it up".

(And in the Great Painful Irony department, the part we SHOULD make up -- the world -- is being spoon fed to us. Sigh.)

FWIW, The thing I want out of the MM (or any monster description) is what the damn thing can do in a fight. Any social skills I can give it as I feel appropriate to suit the situation. I dislike the 3.x method of allocating skill points and trying to hook up classes to get the skills I want. I've found that my ability to improvise was hindered in 3.5 due to the rule set. This seems to be more my speed.

Also, I like the detail being fed into the world, it gives me something to work with. Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

 

[Relique du Madde]

"Slide" seems to be five-foot-step on steroids; I think it means "A move that doesn't provoke an AOO". So an exploding devil can move 25 feet (probably in a straight line, i'm guess that's part of a 'slide') and go 'boom'.

Since it already mentions that Pit Fiends can teliport, why not just say the pit fiend teleports a devil up to 5 square (25 feet) away and causes it to explode? As is that power seems almost like its based on telekinesis, and almost Dragon Ball Z ish.

 

[helium3]

Oh, good memory there! Perhaps all resistances can fail when assaulted? What I mean to say is maybe the failing resistance isn't an aspect of the dragon breath, but an aspect of resistance itself? That would make the pit fiend's low fire damage more understandable. Sure, you ignored the fire...this round; let's see if it hold up next round.

Yes? No?

Edit: The more I think about that idea, the more I like it. It would keep a higher level of drama in the game without the certainty of resistance spells.

Well, they could have just combine protection from energy with energy resistance. Essentially, it protects for a certain amount of damager per round that has a maximum and it can only protect your from a certain total amount of damage.

Basically, it's 3.5 stoneskin, only for fire. That would even make the exploding devils make more sense. The devil could start chucking minions and specific PC's he wants to wear down the fire resistance of. You know, like mages that'll start having to make concentration checks once they start getting hit by the fire aura.

 

[Badkarmaboy]

The article states: "Nobles of the Nine Hells, pit fiends form an elite ruling class that oversees vast numbers of lesser devils. Only the archdevils known as the Lords of the Nine stand higher than the pit fiends."

If dukes of the hells do exist, that means that the pit fiends all outrank them, which doesn't make them seem very special to me at all. In this case, they would occupy quite a different niche than the dukes of earlier editions (big surprise there).

So they may be in 4e, but they would be pointless.

Well, given that they are described as "the undisputed lords of the baatezu" in the 3.5 MM and there are unique devils, I think they might make an appearance.

Also, while the mechanics were 3.5, there was an article in D&DI that talked about some unique devils. I recall that those articles were meant to support 3.5 and tie in to 4e when it came out.

I could be wrong.