Comments on the 4th Ed fact thread

[Jester of the FoS]

But other than that, I fail to see how he's a corruptor. And I really think he should have spellcasting abilities. Give him the equivalent of a 18th level wizard with enchantment spells. Not much of a boost against 26th level chars and it adds flavor.

That's exactly what they wanted to avoid.
Currently he can do one or two or three cool things in combat. Give him spells and the DMs choice each round goes from 3 or 4 options to 15 to 20, easy.
The Pit Fiend is going to come out with 2-3 buddies then summon 4+, so the DM will suddenly be running 8+ bad guys. Having to pick from lengthy spells is crazy.
And then there's the question of what power level 18th level spells will be at level 26 or 27. It might be like dragons where they're a good fight for 10th level characters and can cast useless 1st and 2nd level spells. "Gee, should I full attack for five powerful attacks, use my breath weapon, or cast pyrotechnics?"

My point exactly! Breath weapon or melee attack. The spells? If not cast before hand, then they're not useful, they don't bother the DM but They keep the flavor!
NOTE: Mage armor, shield before battle. +8 AC. Not useless at all.

So... why not remove the spells and just up their AC by 8?
It's simpler and the end result is identical.

Also a DM putting a pit fiend in the battle should be prepared for such an event. A pit fiend is not a random encounter, it is meeting one of the few lords of the devils. That's something that doesn't happen every session. The DM could very well put up a list with what the pitfiend will cast, when and under which conditions. Like: "If bob tries to smite his Lieutenant, the Pit fiend dominates bob". Yes, it takes some time. I think its worth it.

Mind control spells aren't going to be in this PHB. So that's just out...

Come on, now. According to the text there are about 100 pit fiends in total! Are they really so weak?

They're generals. There doesn't need to be thousands.

Of course not! But they need to be tough in combat. Not too tough since they're generals but at least keep their own in battle. As far as I can see, their only usefullness in battle is to position allies, give a sting and have many hp. More or less: Like huge, smart, evil bee queens.

And they need to be spellcasters so when someone makes a pact with them, an epic diabolist of some sort, the most powerful lich in the world etc etc to be able to give them something in return.

What's their use in combat?
Well, first they have the summoning. Multiple tough monsters which are better with their general around. And the fiend can tactically teleport them around, placing them where they can do the most damage, say flanking a caster. And when they're damaged, the pit fiend blows them up and hurts their attackers.

Then they have the at-will that knocks a target's defenses down by 5. That's essentially a +9 for their summoned allies to hit the victim including the previous bonus.

Meanwhile it stays within 5 squares continually penalizing the party's to-hit and inflicting fire damage while being protected by their demon buffer.
Damage? Well, if it lands both hits that's 1d12 + 1d6 + 41, for an average damage of 51/round, not factoring in poison . That should be enough to drop a character in 3-4 rounds, unless they have hp like the fiend itself. Keep in mind they have reach, so they can keep a couple devils in front of them as protection and strike over them.

Them, as stated earlier, they're the leader in the bad-guy group. They also have two allies with one likely a defender/tank and the other likely a striker. So the pit fiend hurts the party with Point of Terror followed by a quick tail poisoning (damage and weakens the victim which is probably not good) while his first minions attack doing decent damage while the second keep the party from getting adjacent to the fiend.

As for spells for deals... why would that need to be stated? Combat stats serve one purpose: combat. While pit fiends might have all manner of crazy spell-like abilities and rituals, they can come into play outside of combat and can don't need hard rules. They're story events. Outside of combat monsters can do whatever you need them to do (realistically).
Does having the ability below really add anything?

Grant Wish (ritual; once a century) • spell-like
Range planar; affects one ally of lower level than the pit fiend; the target is granted a wish in exchange for their soul.

It's just some crazy ability that should never see use in a fight and fills up space in a book. Do that for every monster that might have some special ability and you have to cut out 10 or 20 monsters from the book. And you get bad DMs deciding that the one-shot monster the PCs are fighting is going to use his crazy one-a-century ability to smite the PCs w/o a save.

It's also really hard to tell just how tough a monster really is. We don't know how tough PCs are. How high their AC is (which tells us how good a +31 to hit is), how high their hp are (so we can see how many times they can be swatted for 51 damage), or how high their attack is (to see how often they'd hit AC 44), or how much damage they can do (to see how long it will take to chip away 350 hp).
Of course, eyeing the paladin article from a while back suggests multiple sites doing 2x weapon damage once/encounter is something a lvl27 paladin can dish out. So with a similar weapon that's 2d12+22 damage, for an average hit of 35 damage. So a pit fiend going 1-on-1 would go down after 10 rounds of smite-type damage. So hopefully the paladin has 500 hp.

[Sorti]

That's exactly what they wanted to avoid.
Currently he can do one or two or three cool things in combat. Give him spells and the DMs choice each round goes from 3 or 4 options to 15 to 20, easy.
The Pit Fiend is going to come out with 2-3 buddies then summon 4+, so the DM will suddenly be running 8+ bad guys. Having to pick from lengthy spells is crazy.
And then there's the question of what power level 18th level spells will be at level 26 or 27. It might be like dragons where they're a good fight for 10th level characters and can cast useless 1st and 2nd level spells. "Gee, should I full attack for five powerful attacks, use my breath weapon, or cast pyrotechnics?"

My point exactly! Breath weapon or melee attack. The spells? If not cast before hand, then they're not useful, they don't bother the DM but They keep the flavor!
NOTE: Mage armor, shield before battle. +8 AC. Not useless at all.

So... why not remove the spells and just up their AC by 8?
It's simpler and the end result is identical.

Not at all; if you're thinking about "just a bunch of stats" then you can raise its AC by 8 (apart from the fact that Mage Armor and Shield can be dispelled, and at 26th level they probably will be), but if you think of the devil as a creature with a life, an environment and so on it's very different.

The pit fiend as written cannot charm anyone, for instance, cannot scry, cannot fill its house of permanent illusions or create undeads, out of combat. It's just a 26th level leader encounter, no more, no less, and that's way, way more boring than what a pit fiend is expected to be, out of a miniature game.

As for spells for deals... why would that need to be stated? Combat stats serve one purpose: combat. While pit fiends might have all manner of crazy spell-like abilities and rituals, they can come into play outside of combat and can don't need hard rules. They're story events. Outside of combat monsters can do whatever you need them to do (realistically).
Does having the ability below really add anything?

Grant Wish (ritual; once a century) • spell-like
Range planar; affects one ally of lower level than the pit fiend; the target is granted a wish in exchange for their soul.

It's just some crazy ability that should never see use in a fight and fills up space in a book. Do that for every monster that might have some special ability and you have to cut out 10 or 20 monsters from the book. And you get bad DMs deciding that the one-shot monster the PCs are fighting is going to use his crazy one-a-century ability to smite the PCs w/o a save.

This is not a wargame, it's (it's supposed to be) a role-playing game. So no, we don't need just its combat statistics and powers; we'd like to know something about how to roleplay a pit fiend, for instance, and what does it do when he's not feeding adventurers XPs by dying.

As for "outside of combat just have it do whatever you want", that makes no sense; if it has other abilities i'd like to see them written there, in the book I paid because it's supposed to describe pit fiends in a role playing game, not in a wargame. So yes, I want to know if it can grant a wish once every 100 years, if it wants your soul in exchange, whether he love puppies or not, and so on. It's known as fluff, and a monster without it is like a PC with no background and personality at all; I seem to remember most of the DMs here expect their PCs to have at least some background.

[Ornum]

I'll admit that I find the lack of SLA's a bit disturbing, but this pit fiend isn't helpless as presented. Well, I'll take that back, it might not be helpless. Without a look at appropriate characters that such a monster is supposed to be a challenge for and a sample combat, it's hard to determine a pit fiends survivability based on the given statblock. And there might be a great deal of details that were not presented in the preview (such as racial SLA's or abilities common to all devils). Besides, if this thing was in any campaign from any edition I've ever run and was one of the main villains, you'd better believe he'd have some abilities tacked on above and beyond the entry. I have never used a monster as a major player in a campaign without making it unique.

Honestly, I used to complain about the planar changes and everything, but I've come to one conclusion. It's coming out. These changes have been made and there's nothing I can do about that. I really do like the mechanical side of things I've seen, so I'll just have to make any fluff changes I find questionable match my own needs.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

If once-a-century Wish rituals are in the book, my guess is such a power would be in the generic "Devil" listing, rather than the individual types' descriptions. Saying "All devils with X or more HD can do Y as a ritual" is a lot more concise than repeating those words for every powerful devil.

If you need a pit fiend who's a spellcaster, it's probably still possible to add class levels to monsters. Eliminating that option altogether would be just plain stupid of the designers: it's one of 3E's biggest pluses over previous editions, and a major reason why drow were such popular baddies in 1E and 2E. But a fiend shouldn't have to be buffed up in that way to be scary, or to fill a useful role in the game.

[Jester of the FoS]

Not at all; if you're thinking about "just a bunch of stats" then you can raise its AC by 8 (apart from the fact that Mage Armor and Shield can be dispelled, and at 26th level they probably will be), but if you think of the devil as a creature with a life, an environment and so on it's very different.

The pit fiend as written cannot charm anyone, for instance, cannot scry, cannot fill its house of permanent illusions or create undeads, out of combat. It's just a 26th level leader encounter, no more, no less, and that's way, way more boring than what a pit fiend is expected to be, out of a miniature game.

Yeah... but when could pit fiends do any of that?
What spell-like abilities can they do right now?
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.

Well, it could use persistent image and create undead. But if a monster can summon demons why would it bother with undead servants? That's flavour that doesn't make sense.
None of those are really useful out of combat either, and most are just a distraction in-combat. Some could be handy but most will just slow down play.

Of course we only saw the pit fiend's stats and write-up. There might be lengthy sections on "deals with a devil" in either the greater devil section or in the planar section of the DMG, or even in the warlock write-up.

This is not a wargame, it's (it's supposed to be) a role-playing game. So no, we don't need just its combat statistics and powers; we'd like to know something about how to roleplay a pit fiend, for instance, and what does it do when he's not feeding adventurers XPs by dying.

Considering the history of the game are you surprised?

As for the other questions, how to roleplay or what it does? Look above the stats:

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.

Each pit fiend is lord of a large domain within one of the layers of the Nine Hells and is vassal to the archdevil who rules that layer. A pit fiend might govern a city, command a fortress, lead a great legion, or serve as a seneschal or counselor for an archdevil. With the exception of Asmodeus, each Lord of the Nine commands no more than a dozen or so pit fiends.

As the lords, barons, viziers, and generals of the Nine Hells, pit fiends rarely confront adventurers in person. They are the progenitors of devilish schemes, and they step in only when important plans go awry or when great plots reach fruition. In the Nine Hells proper, pit fiends command vast numbers of lesser devils. Penetrating the defenses of a pit fiend's castle and destroying the mighty devil in its own demesne is a deed of truly epic proportions.

Firstly, they're all individuals. Why would they even remotely have the same personality? It'd be like assigning role-playing notes to a vampire. Then people would just complain about having their hands held or all pit fiends being identical or not having the desired personality. They tell you what they are and you can customize the individual pit fiend for your game. Or not.
But it gives you the basics. They're military leaders and elities. But they're also the nobles and aristocrats. A combination of upper class and general.
What else do you need?

As for "outside of combat just have it do whatever you want", that makes no sense; if it has other abilities i'd like to see them written there, in the book I paid because it's supposed to describe pit fiends in a role playing game, not in a wargame. So yes, I want to know if it can grant a wish once every 100 years, if it wants your soul in exchange, whether he love puppies or not, and so on. It's known as fluff, and a monster without it is like a PC with no background and personality at all; I seem to remember most of the DMs here expect their PCs to have at least some background.

Again, we're only seeing a partial picture .There could be more. The role-playing section could be tied to the larger devil subsection, a guide to playing devils as a whole not specific ones.

[Ornum]

Hmm. Since pit fiends are now only surpassed by the Lords of the Nine, that means the previous nobles (who were in between the Lords and pit fiends) no longer exist, right?

If that's the case, I wonder if that is why Glasya was elevated to a Lord by the writers at WotC in the Fiendish Codex. Meaning, they knew that nobility was going away and didn't want to lose her in the process.

[Jester of the FoS]

Got curious and hit me 3E MM.
There's even less background presented for the pit fiend and devils.
So as sparse as the write-up is, its 3x the info of older edition's core books.

[alhoon]

Damage? Well, if it lands both hits that's 1d12 + 1d6 + 41, for an average damage of 51/round, not factoring in poison.

Hmm? Where did you got that? he has 1d12+1d6+22 by my counting.

Also even if resistance to elements have been downed considerably, 2d10+5 fire damage or 15 from the aura are certainly easy to resist at these levels.
Also they didn't say that mind control will be out of the game, they just mentioned it will be more difficult for the mage. Remember there are those orb wizards that specialize in such spells.

Also as for the lack of abilities, although you have a point about simplicity, I would like more options in combat for such a creature. As a DM I look upon the pit fiend and I don't like him. I'll certainly change him IMC.

[Jester of the FoS]

Damage? Well, if it lands both hits that's 1d12 + 1d6 + 41, for an average damage of 51/round, not factoring in poison.

Hmm? Where did you got that? he has 1d12+1d6+22 by my counting.

Plus the 20-odd fire damage.

Also even if resistance to elements have been downed considerably, 2d10+5 fire damage or 15 from the aura are certainly easy to resist at these levels.

In 3E yes. In 4E it might be less.

Also they didn't say that mind control will be out of the game, they just mentioned it will be more difficult for the mage. Remember there are those orb wizards that specialize in such spells.

They're talking about removing or minimizing metal spells to make psionic effects stand out more in the PHB2 or whenever they decide to add psionics.

Also as for the lack of abilities, although you have a point about simplicity, I would like more options in combat for such a creature. As a DM I look upon the pit fiend and I don't like him. I'll certainly change him IMC.

Yeah, I might like some too. And for long-term campaign Big Bads they should be customized. But you don't include customized, unique monsters in the Monster Manual. You include the base run-of-the-mill creatures.

[Sorti]

Not at all; if you're thinking about "just a bunch of stats" then you can raise its AC by 8 (apart from the fact that Mage Armor and Shield can be dispelled, and at 26th level they probably will be), but if you think of the devil as a creature with a life, an environment and so on it's very different.

The pit fiend as written cannot charm anyone, for instance, cannot scry, cannot fill its house of permanent illusions or create undeads, out of combat. It's just a 26th level leader encounter, no more, no less, and that's way, way more boring than what a pit fiend is expected to be, out of a miniature game.

Yeah... but when could pit fiends do any of that?
What spell-like abilities can they do right now?
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.

Well, it could use persistent image and create undead. But if a monster can summon demons why would it bother with undead servants? That's flavour that doesn't make sense.

I'm sorry? Undead are completely loyal, which is something you'll need a lot at the top of the baatezu society. The demons it summons have the bad habit to last just 1 hour before returning home, while the mohrg and mummies your create last forever, and are intelligent immortal agents.

Also, who told you a devil lord who creates undead "doesn't make sense"? Is there any reason to remove that ability? Did it disrupt the game, ruin fun, fight with the logic and consistency of the setting? If not, why removing it?

Persistent image is a great spell to fill your lair of illusions, and since devils are supposed to be tricksters (even an erynes casts illusions at will), it's again part of their flavour. Remove it, you remove part of their flavour. If you add nothing, it's a loss.

None of those are really useful out of combat either, and most are just a distraction in-combat. Some could be handy but most will just slow down play.

The 3.5 pit fiend casts quickened firaballs, which are not exactly a distraction. Also, casting blasplemy at will means any 17-HD or less creature not immune to strenght damage in 40 ft is dead the moment they see you, full stop. PW:Stun makes sure enemy wizards do not bother you (fighters are not a problem already since you fly, have teleport and turn invisible). Unholy aura and greater dispel magic buff your allies and unbuff enemies; those are a tactician's powers, not "slide an ally 5 squares and make it explode" and "teleport two allies so they flank an unlucky fellow".

This is not a wargame, it's (it's supposed to be) a role-playing game. So no, we don't need just its combat statistics and powers; we'd like to know something about how to roleplay a pit fiend, for instance, and what does it do when he's not feeding adventurers XPs by dying.

Considering the history of the game are you surprised?

What do you mean?

As for the other questions, how to roleplay or what it does? Look above the stats:

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.

Each pit fiend is lord of a large domain within one of the layers of the Nine Hells and is vassal to the archdevil who rules that layer. A pit fiend might govern a city, command a fortress, lead a great legion, or serve as a seneschal or counselor for an archdevil. With the exception of Asmodeus, each Lord of the Nine commands no more than a dozen or so pit fiends.

As the lords, barons, viziers, and generals of the Nine Hells, pit fiends rarely confront adventurers in person. They are the progenitors of devilish schemes, and they step in only when important plans go awry or when great plots reach fruition. In the Nine Hells proper, pit fiends command vast numbers of lesser devils. Penetrating the defenses of a pit fiend's castle and destroying the mighty devil in its own demesne is a deed of truly epic proportions.

Firstly, they're all individuals. Why would they even remotely have the same personality? It'd be like assigning role-playing notes to a vampire. Then people would just complain about having their hands held or all pit fiends being identical or not having the desired personality. They tell you what they are and you can customize the individual pit fiend for your game. Or not.
But it gives you the basics. They're military leaders and elities. But they're also the nobles and aristocrats. A combination of upper class and general.
What else do you need?

Flavour, fluff, call it as you wish, reflected in its game abilities, not just a copy-paste from the previous editions. It's just not enough.
And do not expect to customize pit fiends with class levels and so on; they already clarified that's not the case. No monsters with class levels anymore, it has been told and repeated. An orc shaman does not have adept levels, it's a custom leader monster, with abilities different from a goblin shaman and waaay far from an human wizard. There are "PC races" and "monsters"; the first ones get class levels, the others do not.

As for "outside of combat just have it do whatever you want", that makes no sense; if it has other abilities i'd like to see them written there, in the book I paid because it's supposed to describe pit fiends in a role playing game, not in a wargame. So yes, I want to know if it can grant a wish once every 100 years, if it wants your soul in exchange, whether he love puppies or not, and so on. It's known as fluff, and a monster without it is like a PC with no background and personality at all; I seem to remember most of the DMs here expect their PCs to have at least some background.

Again, we're only seeing a partial picture .There could be more. The role-playing section could be tied to the larger devil subsection, a guide to playing devils as a whole not specific ones.

Yeah, there could be. Or not. But there will be no other combat abilities, and these are the ones of a 26th-level leader enconter, not the ones of a devil lord and general. This we know for sure.

Also even if resistance to elements have been downed considerably, 2d10+5 fire damage or 15 from the aura are certainly easy to resist at these levels.

In 3E yes. In 4E it might be less.

In 4E there are fire resistance spells, we know it from the red dragon playtesting article. And if they are useful against a red dragon's breath, I'm sure they can help against 15 damage.

[Jester of the FoS]

I'm sorry? Undead are completely loyal, which is something you'll need a lot at the top of the baatezu society. The demons it summons have the bad habit to last just 1 hour before returning home, while the mohrg and mummies your create last forever, and are intelligent immortal agents.

Summoned devils vanish. Ones that serve you in hell and drawn from your legions don't.
And devils are lawful, so they're loyal too. And equally immortal.
It's just odd. Why would an undead gate in demonic or devil servants when they can create undead? They wouldn't. So why would a pit fiend with thousands of vassal imps and succubi bother with undead?

If they really want one they can just make a deal with a lich or something.

Also, who told you a devil lord who creates undead "doesn't make sense"? Is there any reason to remove that ability? Did it disrupt the game, ruin fun, fight with the logic and consistency of the setting? If not, why removing it?

What does it add to combat stats?
Adding any spell-like ability adds to the CR of the creature. But with a one-hour casting time a pit fiend will never, ever cast it.
And at lvl 26 a mohrg isn't even going to slow the party down.
Even in 3.5 it's a waste. CR 20 creature with the ability to animate CR 8 critters. You can advance its HD but it's still going to top out at CR 11 or 12.

Does it disrupt the game?
Yes, because it's wasted space in the combat text that adds nothing. At all. And adds to the CR.
Does it fight with the logic and consistency of the setting? Again, yes. Seeing undead servants with a devil lord is like having a vizier or sultan with Spartan footsoldiers. They have their own flavour-fitting minions already.

Persistent image is a great spell to fill your lair of illusions, and since devils are supposed to be tricksters (even an erynes casts illusions at will), it's again part of their flavour. Remove it, you remove part of their flavour. If you add nothing, it's a loss.

Pit fiends are hardly tricksters. Imps are tricksters. Pit fiends and masterminds, puppeteers and manipulators. Having them cast illusions seems beneath them.
Leave the small tricks to imps, seduction to succubi and grand schemes to pit fiends.

The 3.5 pit fiend casts quickened fireballs, which are not exactly a distraction. Also, casting blasphemy at will means any 17-HD or less creature not immune to strength damage in 40 ft is dead the moment they see you, full stop. PW:Stun makes sure enemy wizards do not bother you (fighters are not a problem already since you fly, have teleport and turn invisible). Unholy aura and greater dispel magic buff your allies and unbuff enemies; those are a tactician's powers, not "slide an ally 5 squares and make it explode" and "teleport two allies so they flank an unlucky fellow".

Blasphemy is useless. If you're actually fighting a pit fiend you're likely to be lvl 18 or 19. If you're a lvl17 party fighting a pit fiend you're dead already.
And fireball. The rogues, monks, animals and barbarian likely auto evade. The fighter likely soaks up the halved 10d6 damage with a laugh and the casters have prot energy up and just shrug off the blow.

But it doesn't fit with the monster. It's a general and a martial fighter. Why is it casting spells?
Spells are problematic for monsters and something I can see them getting rid of altogether. Why? Because spells tend to have long, lengthy descriptions you can't fit in a monster's statblock. You suddenly need to have two books open and once and flipping about to refresh your memory what the spells do.

You're making a good case for why a 3E pit fiend is scary in combat but not what it adds to the game, other than being scary in combat in 3E.

In short: what can you do with a spell-like ability that you can't do with a unique ability?
What do spells really add?

And a 3E pit fiend is meant to be a single fight in itself. That's what 3E monsters are designed to be. A party of 4 characters fighting a single creature. So it needs to be able to do more from a design perspective. It needs to cast stun to keep the party's wizard or rogue at bay (the controller's job), it needs to lob fireballs and blasphemies to hurt and weaken fighters (a striker's job) and it needs to have lots of AC and tonnes of hp to stand there and fight (a defender's job) while bolstering its summoned allies with unholy auras and invisibility (a leader's job).

In 4E monsters aren't designed to be able to do everything. More monsters doing the same amount with each doing less.
A 4E pit fiend lobbing fireballs and dishing damage isn't doing what it does best. That's another creature's job.

If they just took the 3E pit fiend and did a direct translation with ever ability replicated they've be doing a poor job as designers. The monster wouldn't fit its role, would confuse DMs with unnecessary abilities that didn't add anything to the mix and generally be inefficient.

They did that quite abit in the transition from 2E to 3E, where they just copied over monsters without actually sitting down and deciding what this monster was designed to be, what it was designed to do and how to make it unique and fitting in that role.
So instead we get ogre magi with useless abilities and beholders with eye spells that never get used.

Flavour, fluff, call it as you wish, reflected in its game abilities, not just a copy-paste from the previous editions. It's just not enough.
And do not expect to customize pit fiends with class levels and so on; they already clarified that's not the case. No monsters with class levels anymore, it has been told and repeated. An orc shaman does not have adept levels, it's a custom leader monster, with abilities different from a goblin shaman and waaay far from an human wizard. There are "PC races" and "monsters"; the first ones get class levels, the others do not.

Again, why must fluff be reflected in the crunch?
Why?
Why must a monster be able to do in round-by-round combat what a story dictates it should be able to do.
It's bad game design to let the story dictate the abilities.

Also even if resistance to elements have been downed considerably, 2d10+5 fire damage or 15 from the aura are certainly easy to resist at these levels.

In 3E yes. In 4E it might be less.

In 4E there are fire resistance spells, we know it from the red dragon playtesting article. And if they are useful against a red dragon's breath, I'm sure they can help against 15 damage.

Then why is a quickened fireball useful?

[Jester of the FoS]

Basic Monster Design Rule 1:
Monsters are not players.
They are around only for 1-10 rounds, with an average of 5. They need to be able to do their A-material right away. If they have more than 3 or 4 abilities the less interesting ones won't be used.
Monster need to show up, use their cool identifying powers, be killed, and have their treasure looted.

Monsters do not need to have any ability that is not used during their 5 rounds in the spotlight.

Monsters do not need any rule-based justification for out-of-combat actions or activities. If an ability only sees use in situations where there are no rules then it doesn't need a full write-up.

[Ornum]

Basic Monster Design Rule 1:
Monsters are not players.
They are around only for 1-10 rounds, with an average of 5. They need to be able to do their A-material right away. If they have more than 3 or 4 abilities the less interesting ones won't be used.
Monster need to show up, use their cool identifying powers, be killed, and have their treasure looted.

Monsters do not need to have any ability that is not used during their 5 rounds in the spotlight.

Monsters do not need any rule-based justification for out-of-combat actions or activities. If an ability only sees use in situations where there are no rules then it doesn't need a full write-up.

Agreed. As a DM, I get so tired of having an NPC or important monster do something that may not be within their statblock, only to hear a rules lawyer player complain because it was something above and beyond what was on paper and shouldn't have happened. DMs will now be free of the constraints previously imposed in other editions outside of combat by not requiring a mechanical justification , while giving a clear definition of what can be done during a fight. If you need it to be stronger for combat, then make it stronger.

[Jester of the FoS]

Rule 2
Combat information and statblocks should only contain information used in combat.

***

Let's review the two big out-of-combat powers: undead and illusions.
Undead are always created between combats. So if a devil wants undead he has them. They shouldn't add to his level or combat abilities; as extra foes they add the the EL or the 4E equivalent.
Why they're there is academic.

The same applies to illusions. Source does not matter, only their impact.

[alhoon]

Basic Monster Design Rule 1:
Monsters are not players.
They are around only for 1-10 rounds, with an average of 5. They need to be able to do their A-material right away. If they have more than 3 or 4 abilities the less interesting ones won't be used.
Monster need to show up, use their cool identifying powers, be killed, and have their treasure looted.

Monsters do not need to have any ability that is not used during their 5 rounds in the spotlight.

Monsters do not need any rule-based justification for out-of-combat actions or activities. If an ability only sees use in situations where there are no rules then it doesn't need a full write-up.

Personal opinion: BLEAH! ! ! I don't lke this approach for a monster. I want to know what it does in its free time etc etc.

Rule 2
Combat information and statblocks should only contain information used in combat.

***

Let's review the two big out-of-combat powers: undead and illusions.
Undead are always created between combats. So if a devil wants undead he has them. They shouldn't add to his level or combat abilities; as extra foes they add the the EL or the 4E equivalent.
Why they're there is academic.

The same applies to illusions. Source does not matter, only their impact.

Then let's pray that they have included that somewhere clearly stated in the Monstrous Manual. Saying with bold letters: The stats you see are only for the few rounds of combat; Monsters have more abilities for out of combat use that we haven't included.

Because contrary to what Omum says, the Rules lawyers and actually anyone not familiar with pre-4th edition will say: "Whaaa?! How can the pit fiend create undead and illusions?! He can only move around or blow up his subordinates! ! !"

Also when I run a campaign with the evil PCs, I would like to have at least a better idea what their Pit fiend patron could do. Yes, "Anything you need him too" may sound easy, but at least I would like some guidance.