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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6256572" data-attributes="member: 37579">I’m going to do some monster review, and think about the design.I’m using the pit fiend for this, because it’s a complicated monster with a stack of spell-like abilities. And it was also released as a 4e preview back in ‘08, so I can just copy the stats into the post.4e Pit Fiend Abilities: Aura of Fear (Fear) aura 5; enemies in the aura take a –2 penalty on attack rolls.Aura of Fire (Fire) aura 5; enemies that enter or start their turns in the aura take 15 fire damage.Melee Flametouched Mace (standard; at-will) • Fire, WeaponReach 2; +31 vs. AC; 1d12+11 fire damage plus ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends).Melee Tail Sting (standard; at-will) • Poison+31 vs. AC; 1d6+11 damage, and the pit fiend may make a free followup attack. Followup: +29 vs. Fortitude; ongoing 15 poison damage, and the target is weakened (save ends both effects).Melee Pit Fiend Frenzy (standard; at-will)The pit fiend makes a flametouched mace attack and a tail sting attack.Ranged Point of Terror (minor; at-will) • FearRange 5; +30 vs. Will; the target takes a –5 penalty to all defenses until the end of the pit fiend’s next turn.Ranged Irresistible Command (minor 1/round; at-will) • Charm, FireRange 10; affects one allied devil of lower level than the pit fiend; the target immediately slides up to 5 squares and explodes, dealing 2d10+5 fire damage to all creatures in a close burst 2. The exploding devil is destroyed.Infernal Summons (standard; encounter) • ConjurationThe pit fiend summons a group of devil allies. Summoned devils roll initiative to determine when they act in the initiative order and gain a +4 bonus to attack rolls as long as the pit fiend is alive. They remain until they are killed, dismissed by the pit fiend (free action), or the encounter ends. PCs do not earn experience points for killing these summoned creatures. The pit fiend chooses to summon one of the following groups of devils:3e Pit Fiend Abilities:Full Attack:    2 claws +30 melee (2d8+13) and 2 wings +28 melee (2d6+6) and bite +28 melee (4d6+6 plus poison plus disease) and tail slap +28 melee (2d8+6)Special Attacks:    Constrict 2d8+26, fear aura, improved grab, spell-like abilities, summon devilDisease (Su) A creature struck by a pit fiend’s bite attack must succeed on a DC 27 Fortitude save or be infected with a vile disease known as devil chills (incubation period 1d4 days, damage 1d4 Str). The save DC is Constitution-based.Fear Aura (Su) A pit fiend can radiate a 20-foot-radius fear aura as a free action. A creature in the area must succeed on a DC 27 Will save or be affected as though by a fear spell (caster level 18th). A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again by the same pit fiend’s aura for 24 hours. Other devils are immune to the aura. The save DC is Charisma-based.Poison (Ex) Injury, Fortitude DC 27, initial damage 1d6 Con, secondary damage death. The save DC is Constitution-based.Spell-Like Abilities At will—blasphemy (DC 25), create undead, fireball (DC 21), greater dispel magic, greater teleport (self plus 50 pounds of objects only), invisibility, magic circle against good, mass hold monster (DC 27), persistent image (DC 23), power word stun, unholy aura (DC 26); 1/day—meteor swarm (DC 27). Caster level 18th. The save DCs are Charisma-based.Once per year a pit fiend can use wish as the spell (caster level 20th).Summon Devil (Sp) Twice per day a pit fiend can automatically summon 2 lemures, bone devils, or bearded devils, or 1 erinyes, horned devil, or ice devil. This ability is the equivalent of an 8th-level spell.2e Pit Fiend Abilities:In 2e they had similar attacks to 3e (claws, bite, tail, wings) and had their fear aura and regeneration. And the “standard baatezu powers”, whatever those are.They could cast detect magic, detect invisible, fireball, hold person, improved invisibility, polymorph self, produce flame, pyrotechnics, and wall of fire. Plus, on a more limited basis, they can cast wish and symbol of pain. 1e Pit Fiend Abilities: Limited to just two attacks and their tail, they can still cast produce flame, pyrotechnics, wall of fire, detect magic, detect invisible, polymorph self, hold person, and symbol of pain. In combat, all pit fiends are pretty similar: they walk up and thump people with claws and slap with the tail. All radiate fear via their aura. All seem to summon summon devils, which is a common devlish ability.So, really, despite their plethora of spells, pit fiends in most editions ran fairly similar in actual combat. Only one spell (symbol of pain) had a lot of reliable combat utility at the level you face a pit fiend; I’m surprised that wasn’t folded into the 4e p-fiend, but I imagine that was the source of its point of terror ability. Other spells are less useful; wall of fire would be interesting for some control, but flying would negate much of its oomf. The 3e p-fiend certainly has a lot of needless spell powers that don’t do much but clutter the monster. And it had a crapton more abilities I edited out for clarity (ones that became Universal Monster Rules in Pathfinder).Thinking about D&D Next now (and purposely avoiding looking at the p-fiend in the Bestiary). They’d have their claw attacks, a bite that poisons, and tail with a special grapple ability. (I’m not sure why they gained scorpion tails in 4e.) They’d also need the ability to summon other devils. All that is pretty standard. They’d likely need the usual ability to make two claw attacks or a claw and bite or something. A good pit fiend would likely have a fear aura that does rely on knowing the fear spell; that is needless. Just give the penalty in the aura. For spells, they’ve had many of same spells for most editions, so changing them feels unneeded. But as only a few have combat use I wouldn’t detail all of them in the statblock. I’d describe what symbol of pain does and - if there was enough room- maybe hold person or wall of fire. A ranged offensive spell might also be nice so they could have fireball. These aren’t signature abilities of the pit fiend, so they work as standard spells. They don’t need to stand out. The rest of the spells (detect magic, detect invisible, polymorph self, produce flame, pyrotechnics and the annual wish) can just be listed and left undetailed. The side spells are bits of flavour. Being able to produce flame isn’t needed in the statblock but it’s nice to know a pit fiend can just emit fire whenever it wants. A pit fiend isn’t going to detect invisible in most fights, but it’s a handy spell for it to have in its arsenal. Ditto detect magic. It’s not likely that a party will invisibly sneak past a pit fiend, but if that situation occurs it’s not going to derail the game while the DM spends 2 minutes checking the details of that spell (if, by 15-20th level they don’t know). A quick spell check is painful in combat when everyone is waiting for the action, but is more forgivable outside of rounds. I had an entire campaign that revolved around a pit fiend manipulating the party while polymorphed, acting as their patron. So the ability to polymorph self was important to my game. I likely would not have even considered the pit fiend as that kind of evil mastermind had the monster entry not included that spell-like ability. The Big Bad of that campaign would have otherwise ended up being an evil wizard or something otherwise. Or, more likely, I wouldn’t have even had that idea if I had not been reading that monster entry and had inspiration strike.Ditto the wish. That’s a pretty darn big story hook right there, and a mechanical justification for deals with the devil. Although a limit should be tacked on so it’s not used on combat, such as being a ritual only.</blockquote>

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