D&D 5E Bone Devil

[Sitara]

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Thoughts?

It's not bad, and the throwback to the hooked polearm is cute, though not necessary IMO. Devilsight can be nasty for any Warlock's trying their own Devilsight cheeze and could even get the rest of the party slaughtered.

What does bother me though is the constant 'Immune to blah blah weapons that are not magical and not silvered' I thought this edition had it built in that magic weapons were not required, so why is that that every creature is immune to non magical weapons, that may or may not be silvered?

I would far prefer if such creatures could only be hurt by silvered weapons, and no other martial weapon, magical or not.

 

[Lord Belias]

What does bother me though is the constant 'Immune to blah blah weapons that are not magical and not silvered' I thought this edition had it built in that magic weapons were not required, so why is that that every creature is immune to non magical weapons, that may or may not be silvered?

I would far prefer if such creatures could only be hurt by silvered weapons, and no other martial weapon, magical or not.

You may have misunderstood the resistance part..
The bone devil is resistant to damage from weapons that are not either magical or silvered, i.e. any silvered weapon (be it magical or not) will deal full damage.
So yeah, magic weapons are not required, though a magic weapon will work even if it is not silvered.

 

[Desdichado]

Thoughts?

That's curious; I had either forgotten, or never noticed, the dragonfly like wings on the 1e illustration. When they were missing in 3e, I didn't think twice about it. Now seeing them restored makes the critter look really, really different to me, though.

I would far prefer if such creatures could only be hurt by silvered weapons, and no other martial weapon, magical or not.

Ugh, not me. A few cases like this is OK from a flavor standpoint, the the "golf bag" full of weapons trope so you could successfully fight all kinds of creatures was never one I liked. I'd greatly prefer a modest damage reduction to any kind of immunity.

 

[Gadget]

What does bother me though is the constant 'Immune to blah blah weapons that are not magical and not silvered' I thought this edition had it built in that magic weapons were not required, so why is that that every creature is immune to non magical weapons, that may or may not be silvered?

I would far prefer if such creatures could only be hurt by silvered weapons, and no other martial weapon, magical or not.

I think you're misunderstanding the mechanics. It is not immune to mundane weapons, merely resistant to them. This is no doubt factored into the CR, so having a magical/silvered weapon makes the encounter substantially easier, yet it can still be beaten down by regular old weapons.

 

[Boarstorm]

Didn't they already spoil this once?

Edit: Ah, yes. The article is dated 8/19, not 9/19. I thought I was going crazy there for a bit.

 

[timbannock]

Indeed, Resistance = half damage while Immune = no damage. This creature has Resistance, and as long as the weapon is silvered or magical, the Resistance doesn't apply. At CR 9, we're talking about Player Characters who've theoretically been adventuring for close to half-a-year's worth of weekly sessions, so I'm going to go ahead and guess that they've got spells and items that will ignore this resistance pretty readily. Maybe not every single character in the party, but enough of them. No golf bag needed.

If you've got a party of 6th level+ characters fighting this thing that don't have *any* silvered or magical weapons, you're already in the realm of house rule territory (Lost Mine of Phandelver features a whole setup for making +1 weapons, nevermind the 2-5 magical weapons or spell-slinging staves available, and that's levels 1-5), so it's negligible to simply house rule away the Resistance if that's what you want to do.

 

[Eejit]

In addition to the points raised above about silvered weapons a magical weapon does not need to be one with +X to proficiency. That's the type of weapon the game math doesn't assume as needed to progress.
You could have other magical weapons with more niche bonuses, or even no bonus other than being able to hit all monsters with resistance to normal weapons.

 

[Garrand]

That's curious; I had either forgotten, or never noticed, the dragonfly like wings on the 1e illustration. When they were missing in 3e, I didn't think twice about it. Now seeing them restored makes the critter look really, really different to me, though.

Well I'll be... I also never noticed it, despite owning the 1e MM since 1985 or thereabouts...for almost 30 years!

Also Otherworld Minis missed the wings on theirs as well, despite allegedly being based on 1e art. Looks like I'm going to have to come up with some wings now for my mini...

Damon.

 

[Desdichado]

Well I'll be... I also never noticed it, despite owning the 1e MM since 1985 or thereabouts...for almost 30 years!

It's odd, isn't it? And the bone devils have fly as a spell-like ability, so I'm not sure why they have the wings, either.

In 1e, I mean. I just double-checked. It looks like in the 3.5 srd, they don't anymore.

 

[Sonny]

Well I'll be... I also never noticed it, despite owning the 1e MM since 1985 or thereabouts...for almost 30 years!

Also Otherworld Minis missed the wings on theirs as well, despite allegedly being based on 1e art. Looks like I'm going to have to come up with some wings now for my mini...

Damon.

Yeah, I never noticed that either. How strange.

I do like the wings and look of this edition's Bone Devils though. Simply because I can imagine them crawling across a large cavern's ceiling in the dark, stalking the unaware PCs. Of course once the PCs do notice, it's time to swoop down and make with the staby-stabs.