4e magic items!

[Zherog]

1201293059[/unixtime]]

• ...
  
• The critter has no hit dice.

-Username17

Um... I see hit dice, on what looks like the "back" of the card, top line. It says "HD: 7 (52 hp)" -- which means the front and back of the card have different hit point totals.

[Voss]

thats the 3e card, there for comparison.
Though the 4e D&D miniatures card is up with the other ones from that set on the wizard's site. And its slightly different as well.

[Username17]

1201299096[/unixtime]]

1201293059[/unixtime]]

• ...
  
• The critter has no hit dice.

-Username17

Um... I see hit dice, on what looks like the "back" of the card, top line. It says "HD: 7 (52 hp)" -- which means the front and back of the card have different hit point totals.

That's the 3e/4e comparison. It's supposed to show how much "easier" the 4e monster stats are now that there is no rhyme or reason for why it has any particular number of hit points, attack bonuses, or special abilities.

- hopefully thats 35 + 6*Con modifier. Its still looks a little high, but I suspect thats a reaction to PC hp being higher in the nice circular logic that WotC seems to like.

Its Con Modifier is +5. Remember that it starts counting from 4 = +0 rather than 10 = +0. Why they didn't just do zero equals zero is beyond understanding, but there you go.

So it's 17 + 6*Con Mod (perhaps 10 + 2d6 + Con Mod times Level?); or it's actual Constitution + 5.5 (d10) per level. There are an infinite number of ways to regress that, but they have assured us up and down that monsters do not have hit dice. Which is probably a lie, but they did say that.

-Username17

[Voss]

Read my next bit, after that quote, Frank. From what has been put out, the interpretation that those numbers in the boxes are the stat modifiers has largely been debunked. The stat modifiers stay the same. The numbers in those boxes are likely just the total skill bonuses for skills related to that stat.

The 'logic' is, the stat modifiers don't affect anything independently, so don't need to be explicitly listed on the not-particularly handy reference card.

[Zherog]

Thanks for the clarification that the bottom card is a 3e card. I've never purchased any of their crappy plastic minis, so I don't know what the cards look like.

edit: God damnit, I fucking hate BbBoy and their fucking "our load is too fucking high because we don't give a fucking shit about you" message. Fuckers!

[Voss]

Dun, dun, dun...
The 4e Pit Fiend

Pit Fiend Level 26 Elite Soldier (Leader)
Large immortal humanoid (devil) XP 18,000
Initiative +22 Senses Perception +23; darkvision
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.
HP 350; Bloodied 175
AC 44; Fortitude 42, Reflex 38, Will 40
Resist 30 fire, 15 poison
Saving Throws +2
Speed 12, fly 12 (clumsy), teleport 10
Action Points 1
Melee Flametouched Mace (standard; at-will) • Fire, Weapon
Reach 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) • Fear
Range 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, Fire
Range 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) • Conjuration
The 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:

8 legion devil legionnaires (level 21), or
2 war devils (level 22), or
1 war devil (level 22) and 4 legion devil legionnaires (level 21)
Tactical Teleport (standard; recharge 4 5 6) • Teleportation
The pit fiend can teleport up to 2 allies within 10 squares of it. The targets appear in any other unoccupied squares within 10 squares of the pit fiend.
Alignment Evil
Languages Supernal
Skills Bluff +27, Intimidate +27, Religion +24
Str 32 (+24) Dex 24 (+20) Wis 20 (+18)
Con 27 (+21) Int 22 (+19) Cha 28 (+22)
Equipment flametouched mace, noble signet ring
Pit Fiend Tactics
A pit fiend fights close to its enemies, catching them in its aura of fear and aura of fire. On the first round of combat, it spends an action point to use infernal summons. It then uses point of terror against a tough-looking foe and tactical teleport to place two allies in flanking positions around that foe. With its remaining minor action, the pit fiend uses irresistible command on an ally within range.

A pit fiend alternates between point of terror and irresistible command, sometimes using both if it has a spare move action it can replace with a minor action. Otherwise, the pit fiend uses pit fiend frenzy, teleporting as needed to gain a better position.

A pit fiend does not sacrifice its life needlessly and makes a tactical retreat if death is imminent.

And... huh. Decent combat abilities, no non-combat abilities whatsoever, which was a worrisome possibility and makes me sad.

Lawful, you'll note, is gone. Alignment has been sent off to die, largely. Only things like the pit fiend and similar make the Good and Evil list. Other things (almost everybody) are unaligned.

Anyway, this guy can do a fair amount of shit, but doesn't do much damage directly. He's also fairly fast, compared to normal human walking speed (6 squares)

Skills are definitely like saga 1/2 level + stat bonus + 5
But other than skills, none of the other numbers add up at all. Even the melee attacks vs. the will based attack are off by a point for reasons i can't account for.

Standard action, move action, minor (formerly free/swift, I suspect) action seems to be the normal set up, with action points allowing you to either get an extra standard action or make an action 'free'.

His auras seem to be huge. 25' radius.

Decent fire resistance means you can ignore everything but his tail. I kinda like the fear effect inflicting defense penalties rather than making characters run away. His really nasty ability is the minion conjuring. +4 bonus to attack for 8 attackers? Yikes. Making them blow up kinda sucks, but it is amusing. Nice way to get a use out of crippled minions.

Not sure how save ends work with static save modifiers. Maybe they are rolled in ensuing rounds against persistent effects?

All, in all, as a combat encounter, it isn't horrible. As an RPG encounter, it sucks ass on toast.

[Crissa]

I think the idea for the monsters to get arbitrarium bonuses from equipment is so that the equipment they drop will be relevant to the players and not specific to the monster. So the GM can hand an item to the players based on who's looting, not who's dying.

While that makes great sense (Why does this wolf have a recipe for wolf kababs?) mechanically... It has other problems.

-Crissa

[Crissa]

Voss, I don't think they're making a role playing game.

-Crissa

[Koumei]

The minion sacrificing is hilarious. That alone improved my opinion of 4E.

But other things in the same post lowered it again. "Haha, that thing is pretty cool" isn't going to cut it - and unfortunately, that's probably what they're hoping for.

"If we cram enough cool stuff in, people will buy it regardless of the problems. Can we fit in the ability for PCs to wield 20' long swords made from sharpened girders?"

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I don't like this.

I don't like teleport being limited to 10 squares.

I don't like the lack of abilties.

[Voss]

Interesting little side note. It has no ability to planeshift, or travel dimensionally at all. Once conjured, its here to stay.

Admittedly, according to the new fluff, Devils want to get out of the planar prison they were trapped in after they betrayed and killed their god. But still. As written, he can't do shit. Build a box with 50' thick walls, and he can't even get out.


The 10 square teleport. Again, its all being aimed at the battlemat. Think of it more as the low level version of dimension door. Leap or hop or skipping or whatever.

Maybe they need to republish the Dungeon boardgame and do a D&D version of Heroquest. Then you can put those, 4e and D&D miniatures side by side and scream at them 'I can't tell the fucking difference between these products'!

[Koumei]

1201325919[/unixtime]]and do a D&D version of Heroquest.

YES!

[Voss]

Admittedly, at this point, I'm seriously not convinced that it isn't what they're currently writing.

[RandomCasualty]

I can see what they're doing with not letting NPCs benefit from magic item bonuses. That actually makes sense. Because in 3E it was a total bitch to assign all kinds of crazy magic crap to your NPCs to make them compete in the christmas tree world.

So it they're keeping the whole item buffs, then it makes sense to just say "Fucking ignore them." If you want the monster to be tougher, it doesn't matter why, that's just flavor. Maybe he's god a magic axe, maybe he's just made out of awesome. Who the hell knows, and to be honest the DM shouldn't really care. It's just all flavor.

Now, I do think NPCs need to be able to use items that actually have uses beyond just bonuses. I mean, most DMs don't want to handle the micromanagement of calculating NPCs dynamically drinking potions of bull's strength and shield and the like, but we do care that the fighter can't even use the boots of levitation. That matters.

Now as for the stuff Frank is saying about static bonuses versus one encounter/day bonuses, yeah. Mearls is in tunnel vision. I don't think he really understands the problem as a whole. He thinks it's just about math, like adding up new strength bonuses and remodifying stuff, but it goes deeper than that. The basic "push off the RNG" concept is one that Mearls doesn't get.

[RandomCasualty]

About the pit fiend... My god... what the hell? Is it just me or can the thing deal like no damage. 1d12+11 and it has 350 hp?

About the only decent offensive ability it has is the poison attack, and that relies on the target being vulnerable to poison.

Wtf?

Imagine two pit fiends fighting each other. The battle would take forever. Like on the scale of 10-16 rounds.

And the thing seems like it's a bitch to keep track of. So many ongoing effects and damage over time, aura penalties... this is supposed to be somehow easier to play? So I'm burning, poisoned and weakened, plus I take 15 damage and a -2 penalty at the start of my turn from the pit fiend's auras.

And what's the deal with pit fiends having action points and so many minor actions?

[Voss]

Actually, RC. Look again, because its even worse than that, when it comes to damage. His mace damage is entirely fire. A fight between two pit fiends its totally dependent on the physical tail strike and minions. A party with fire resistance is negating over half of what he can do to them.

I suspect the action point is a nod to its position and theoretical awesomeness. Its a top tier devil, not just a chump.

The minor actions... I think its a factor of being elite and/or high level. Supposedly, elites are a challenge for 2 PCs. So, extra actions help it not be totally swamped when people start tag-teaming. The boatload of fucking minions help more. Since those legion devils at level 21, should have attacks at around +24 or 25 if I'm guessing at the background system correctly. The +4 puts them up near the point that they actually threaten level 26 PCs. Probably too much, just from the sheer number of attacks being thrown around.

Its actually kind of frightening, altogether. 2 Pit Fiends would, supposedly, be a level appropriate challenge to six 26th level PCs. First round, 16 fucking minions appear, all attacking at an additional +4 to hit. Since the power level isn't doubling every two levels anymore, (like the 3e conceit), these guys aren't going to be complete pushovers to begin with. Throw in the pit fiends lowering 2 party members defenses by *5* each round, and all those minions are at an effective extra +9 if they have attacks that target For, Ref or Wil. Thats fucking crazy ass shit right there. Even with lower damage, its going to be a crazy bug-fuck fight.

And yeah, a hell of a lot to keep track of.

[Username17]

It is immune to its own fire and poison (but only barely). It dishes out a d6 + 11 on a hit, and it hits itself on a 15+ (remember the -2 penalty for being in its aura). It seriously will take 15 hits to take itself down - which works out to about fifty combat rounds.

Ugh. Every time they show something, they show something worse than the last thing. Which means that every release is the worst 4e news yet.

So really, it seems that they actually were cherry picking their coolest shit to release earlier, and their Order of the Golden Wyvern was seriously the coolest thing that the entire design team had come up with.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Wow I somehow overlooked the fire/poison resistance... damn...
And yeah, Frank's right.. if the PC party has fire resistance, then the pit fiend is a pushover. All it can do to hurt you is poke you with its tail and summon stuff.

Which makes it less of a credible threat and more of just a walking planar gateway.

Also I noticed there's no DR or anything on this thing. It seems they're really dumbing down the creatures. Not just removing the non-combat abilities, but they're actually making them relatively tactically simple to fight, so your strategy will most likely be to just pick your biggest damaging attack and start hitting it. Then when it gets bloodied, you fire out the save or dies (which are supposed to only affect bloodied stuff I think). And you pretty much do that all the time.

[virgil]

I just realized something, they're going back to 2nd Edition's flat experience system for monsters. The pit fiend is worth 18,000xp.

Man, that is frustrating to remember all the times of them wanting to speed up combat and all that jazz (one way by reducing actions). The pit fiend, just by being there, makes you have to keep track of three things every round; then it performs at least three actions per round.

[shau]

1201329955[/unixtime]]It is immune to its own fire and poison (but only barely). It dishes out a d6 + 11 on a hit, and it hits itself on a 15+ (remember the -2 penalty for being in its aura). It seriously will take 15 hits to take itself down - which works out to about fifty combat rounds.

Is this necessarily that bad though? It seems almost like the discussion of boss monsters in the other thread. You really want something with a ton of hitpoints and interesting options but not a whole lot of direct damage output.

Or maybe I am just mistaking idiocy for design intent.

[Voss]

And it is only part of an encounter. With a four person party, there need to be 2 more level appropriate creatures. And all its little minions.
Who all have their own abilities.

The DM could easily be juggling 24 different abilities/states/things in the encounter, which isn't a cake walk for a lot of people.

On the upside, Blasphemy is gone. On the downside, it can barely scratch its own ass outside of combat. It has roughly the same skill set that anyone of the same level and roughly the same stats would have, and... nothing else.

[Voss]

1201331946[/unixtime]]

Is this necessarily that bad though? It seems almost like the discussion of boss monsters in the other thread. You really want something with a ton of hitpoints and interesting options but not a whole lot of direct damage output.

Or maybe I am just mistaking idiocy for design intent.

It isn't actually that tough though. The paladin smites we've seen are going to be doing a minimum of around 40 points of damage at 26th level.

Assuming 16s in str, wisdom and charisma (which is low at 26th level, especially if they do the two stats go up every four levels like Saga does). the damage calculation for a smite looks like this:

[d8+13+3]x2 +3 =44.5 ([weapon damage, level based damage, str bonus]x2 + wisdom bonus)

Thats without anything like power attack, damage from magic weapons, other random bonuses or anything else. Thats 1/8 of his hit points gone at the low end of a single attack.
If all 4 party members can reach him, he can be half dead in a single round. By that level they'll almost assuredly have a second per encounter strike, so Boom. Dead in round 2. (yeah, yeah, assuming they all hit). Odds may make it round 3, since that was minimum damage.

[RandomCasualty]

1201332386[/unixtime]]
[d8+13+3]x2 +3 =44.5 ([weapon damage, level based damage, str bonus]x2 + wisdom bonus)

I don't know if level based damage exists. The pit fiend is only doing +11 to his damage, which seems to just be his strength bonus at 32 strength.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Thematically, the part where it takes a long time for two Pit Fiends to kill each other is fine...you just don't want to play through that many rounds.

What irks me about the low damage is comparing the Pit Fiend to weaker monsters. The Level 26 Elite Soldier Pit Fiend can do what, 14 damage a round to a level 6 Skirmisher Spined Devil? It takes four rounds for the Pit Fiend to kill the Spined Devil? Am I reading this right?

Pit Fiend: "Yeah, it only takes me four rounds to kill a Skirmisher that is twenty levels lower than me. I am hot shit."

???

[Voss]

1201334589[/unixtime]]

1201332386[/unixtime]]
[d8+13+3]x2 +3 =44.5 ([weapon damage, level based damage, str bonus]x2 + wisdom bonus)

I don't know if level based damage exists. The pit fiend is only doing +11 to his damage, which seems to just be his strength bonus at 32 strength.

Ah. Heh. Level based damage exists for the PCs (It was referenced in the paladin smite article). It doesn't (as this writeup shows) exist for monsters. Its another instance where monsters and PCs aren't playing the same game.


Sphere- 2 rounds, with the poison.

Though, on that subject, getting rid of continuing effects has some weird ass speculation about it. Basically that it works the way it does in the new D&D miniatures rules: Roll a d20, on 11+, it goes away. Supposedly that 'Saving Throws +2' bit in the Pit Fiends line affects only that roll.
But... I'm not sure it will actually work that way in 4e Heroquest.

Or, if the spined devil is an ally of the Pit Fiend, he can just make it blow up.