By WoTC
The Nine Hells has a rigid hierarchy that defines every aspect of its society. Asmodeus is the supreme ruler of all devils, and the only creature in the Nine Hells with the powers of a lesser god. In today’s excerpt, we examine one of the many lesser devils in his command: the bone devil.
Talk about this article here.
It's got no flavour attached to it whatsoever. That's disconcerting and worrying. If there isn't adequate information on bone devils elsewhere in the book (not devils in general but bone devils specifically) then their entry has dramatically dropped in usefulness. I'd rather half as many devils and detailed information on the ones there them several pages of nothing but stat blocks and pictures.
I see the xenomorphs have invaded the nine hells. That is a nice looking (in a scary way) bone devil. It sure looks like a large critter too. I am now very curious as to what the other fiends will look like.
I would like them to have a few more magic powers (even in 4e, they had fear aura) unless we are supposed to add class levels to them or there is a "pick one or two" list of devil powers like in 13th Age.
I do agree with JohnLynch that it would be nice to have some flavor, although I could see them consolidating the devils' flavor on one page of the devil entry.
So Asmodeus has been demoted to lesser deity power and the other eight have less than him.
I've never understood D&Ds differentiation between devils and demons. Can anyone help me understand?
As an aside, the article seems fine.
OrwellianHaggis wrote:
Mirtek wrote:
Love the art. Since they didn't show us the actual MM page, we don't know what flavor text will be there or not. It's nice they teased the picture, but I want the MM page, dammit 
What little PHB art I've seen is mixed, but I've liked every monster illustration so far.
Check out the enworld link below, scroll down and click on the links to images (planetar, pit fiend, rakshasa, half-dragon, others).
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?358381-Does-anyone-who-got-an-mm-at-Gencon-want-to-offer-up-spoilers-to-us/page6
That's still a demotion, since he gained full major deity status during the Spellplague in the Realms. This is why Tieflings exist as they are from 4e in the Realms, too.
Even if 4e isn't mentioned that much, it doesn't mean that it never happened. So the question is, what happened that weakened Asmodeus during the Sundering?
Brock_Landers wrote:
Marandahir wrote:
Mirtek wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
Mirtek wrote:
Mirtek wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
Going back to the previews revealed in the Enworld thread, and also the Red Dragon preview given to us for 600 likes on the FB page, anyone else notice that the Empyrean and the Ancient Red Dragon both underfund our XP totals for their CRs?
If you compare them to the XP vs CR table, ALL other monsters (revealed thus far, whether in Previews, the Basic Rules, or the HotDQ Supplement 1) follow that table to the letter. Both the Empyrean and the Ancient Red Dragon give tens of thousands less XP for their CR.
This Player is NOT pleased.
I want a Larger Higher quality version of that bone devil image.
Marandahir wrote:
That picture is awesome. I have never imagined Bone Devils with wings, and I have also never really liked how they have been depicted. The spikiness combined with the vaguely dragonfly-esque wings really works for me.
Also, it doesn't matter to me what they say about Asmodeus. I don't care, and neither should anyone else. In MY world, he is a god. What is he in your world?
Also, there is a link on the bottom of the article: Monster Manual: The Bone Devil. It will let you download the MM entry! The best part is that in my current game my players might encounter one soon. I was worried I was going to have to homebrew it. Good times!
Am I correct to assume the bone devil can still use his polearm against the creature he grabbed?
MightyZehir wrote:
Arithezoo wrote:
MightyZehir wrote:
OrwellianHaggis wrote:
Nifty art, but not what i think of a Bone Devil.
The claw attack is something of a joke, you should never not use the variant. Even with the halberd it doesn't seem to be as threatening as the other CR 9 monster we have, the Fire Giant which gets two attacks at +11 for 28 and can do ranged damage, although can't fly. Balance please.