A number of higher-level creatures in the MONSTER MANUAL are stated as having at-will abilities. For years it was taken by myself and other members of my various gaming groups, that this meant that such abilities could be used as many times as desired without prior preparation (like spells) or a required period of replenishment (such as "per day" abilities). However, it may also have another meaning in that they could be used in conjunction with regular attacks or movement!
This thought never really occurred to me until I started reading various high-level adventures and read some forum discussions on Dragonsfoot.org. Most of the abilities of said creatures are due to their other-worldly natures or highly magical origins. That being said, such abilities should be as natural to these creatures as breathing or thinking. But should they be usable along with their other attacks?
Let's take an example from the MONSTER MANUAL - one of the creatures that has always intrigued me from the first day I was gifted this book at the tender age of 13 years old - the Horned Devil. This creature is a Greater Devil, meaning that it has abilities and powers of greater strength than a lesser devil, and the ability to reform if slain outside it's home domain of the Nine Hells. Such a creature is able to move freely among the layers of its home plane as well as travel to the planes of Gehenna, Hades and Acheron at will. It is stated that "all devils can direct their attacks against two or more opponents if the means are at hand." I was unaware that creatures could not, for example, strike against multiple opponents within range of their attacks during a round. A dragon, for example, with 2 claws and 1 bite per round, I always envisioned as being able to direct those attacks differently - clawing at a fighter, then chomping down on the thief trying to scuttle behind it, then slashing at the cleric on its other side. However, it does not specifically state that they can do so, and I assume that Gygax envisioned the claw/claw/bite attacking a single target per round. The description of a troll states that it can attack up to three opponents at once (and has three attacks per round - 2 claws and a bite, just like a dragon). I was unaware that other creatures with such attacks (great cats, bears, flesh golems, etc.) might not be able to decide to split their attacks among enemies surrounding them. Then again, a bear's hug makes more sense if it only applies all its attacks on one target per round. The same goes for a mountain lion's rake attack.
In any case, the greater devil, by virtue of its otherworldly qualities and power, can only be struck by magical weapons, or weapons of silver, but ordinary weapons cause no damage. They are also able to perform the following abilities by virtue of simply being a devil (although it is not specifically indicated if these are usable once per day or at will): charm person, suggestion, illusion, infravision, teleportation without error, know alignment, cause fear, and animate dead. Imagine being in a battle with a creature that can teleport around you at will and strike from behind, or grab a weapon and teleport away, or simply teleport out of reach and assault a party with spells at range. How do you stop such an opponent? Add to this the AC -5 and 4 attacks per round of the Horned Devil and you have a potent opponent, even if they only have 5+5 HD. But wait, it gets better! Now one also has to deal with the special powers of the Horned Devil as well!
The passage from the MONSTER MANUAL reads thusly:
Horned Devils can do any one of the following, at will, once per turn or melee round, as applicable: pyrotechnics, produce flame, ESP, detect magic, illusion, or summon another horned devil (50% chance of success). Once per day they can create a wall of fire of triple normal strength with regard to the damage it causes (3-24 hit points).
Furthermore, it is stated that Horned Devils exude fear in a 5' radius (saving throw versus wand applies). So right there, you can see that the powers listed in the generic description of devils, and the powers of the Horned Devil, seem to overlap a bit. Apparently, the illusion ability of all devils is duplicated under the powers of the Horned Devil. Seems a bit of a waste, since the devil already has access to this power (unless it was supposed to be a different power type, like permanent illusion or somesuch). We're more concerned here with the at will powers anyway. So, the Horned Devil can make blinding smoke and fireworks from existing flame sources, produce a flame equal to a torch in its hand that can be thrown at targets and set them afire, read the minds of those in range, see what is magical in the area, create distractions of a visual nature to fool targets or mislead them, or summon in another of its kind! The only prohibition on these abilities is that they can only be used one at a time, once per melee round, but it does not say that these cannot also be done in conjunction with regular attacks, psionic abilities, or other magical abilities that are not at will (such as the wall of fire mentioned in the paragraph above). Most of the at-will abilities of extraplanar creatures seem to be non-combat, or minor combat spells, with the truly powerful abilities being usable only a number of times per day. Only arch-devils or demon princes have access to combat-type spells on an at-will basis.
But let's take a closer look at this Horned Devil example. Assuming that the generic devil abilities are, in fact, at will abilities, then these creatures can charm person every round, or make suggestions each round, teleport around the battle field every round, or animate dead creatures every round. As a horned Devil, it can continuously throw flame from its hands every round, create illusions every round, or even summon in a fellow devil just like it every round (with a 50% chance of actually working)! This could get out of hand very quickly! Now, let's consider some other aspects of what a Horned Devil could do. The creature has psionics, something that most campaigns don't really deal with very much. It has attack modes of Mind Thrust and Ego Whip (which, if I'm not mistaken, can only be used against psionically endowed characters), and defense modes of Mind Blank, Thought Shield, and Mental Barrier, which are only useful when being attacked psionically (again, if I'm not mistaken). But having psionics means that the creature also has access to Psionic Disciplines which are randomly determined by d% roll. Or, the at will powers of the Horned Devil could be developed from their psionic abilities (in which case, these powers, although at will, would have a psionic strength cost associated with them). In either case, this adds another pool of powers from which the Horned Devil can choose to attack, and some of these powers do not get saving throws!
I can't seem to find anything in the rules that prohibits at-will powers from being used in conjunction with normal attacks. However, this negative evidence is not necessarily in the spirit of the rules. Most, if not all, monster abilities seem to work exactly like similar character spells and abilities - that is, generally only one use of an ability per round is permitted and never in conjunction with another ability type. For example, a thief can Hide in Shadows or Move Silently, but not both at the same time. A magic-user's spells can only be cast one per round regardless of casting time and never in conjunction with an attack (although one could argue that touch spells requiring a "to hit" roll break this rule). Still, a spellcaster either attacks with a weapon or casts a spell, almost never in the same round (again, there are exceptions to every rule). Some magic items allow their use while performing other actions (for example, the Dancing Sword which can attack opponents while the user is free to perform other actions at the same time), but these are not inherent abilities of the user. The closest evidence I can find is in the MONSTER MANUAL page 5 under the description of NUMBER OF ATTACKS. Here it is stated that the number of attacks "does not usually consider unusual or special attack forms." I'm not sure what that means, exactly, but it does not explicitly state anywhere that at-will abilities can be used in conjunction with other attack forms during the round; on the other hand, it doesn't forbid it either.
I suppose that, just like all the rules in the game, the DM has final say on how such abilities function in their campaign. However, to be fair, the DM should make it abundantly clear which way the rules are to work, and if it works one way for the monsters, it should also work the same way for the players. I don't remember seeing many at-will abilities listed for players, but if there are, then they should also be able to use these along with their normal attacks.
One final thing to consider is that the MONSTER MANUAL was written as an interim compilation of monsters for Original D&D with Advanced D&D rules being written at the same time. It could be that the peculiar wording of the entries in the MONSTER MANUAL represents the forward thinking and trial-testing of the game as Gygax was developing those rules into a cohesive format. At-will abilities might be just a peculiar wording for abilities that Gygax deemed usable whenever the creature wanted to but at the restriction of only being usable like other abilities that were more limited to how many times they could be used per day. Again, it seems to me that at-will abilities, although not restricted by number of times they could be used, should be used only once per round and as the only action the creature can perform that round. It seems that most of the abilities of creatures function in that manner unless otherwise stated in the creature description.
For instance, a beholder can seemingly only use 1-4 of its eye stalks at the same time along with its central eye assuming that all attacks are coming from a front 90-degree arc. If attacks come from 180 degrees, then up to double these numbers of attacks can be made in a single round; if 270 or 360-degrees, then triple to quadruple the number of eyestalks (but keep in mind that a beholder only has 10 stalks to begin with). Even so, the number of attacks listed for a beholder do not consider the eye-stalks since these are SPECIAL ATTACKS, not normal attacks. It's only attack listed (the bite) is usable once per round. If the beholder is biting a target within melee range, can it also use its eyestalks? Again, that's up to the DM to decide, but I would assume no, and a beholder resorting to a bite attack must be in desperate trouble or has been crippled by the removal of all its eye-stalks (not likely, but possible). Or, one could say that the eye stalks could be used on targets that it is not biting. Again, the key here is to be consistent with how monster abilities work. Generally speaking, unless the at-will ability has no combat application, I see no reason why it could not be used in conjunction with an attack or movement, but if the at-will ability causes damage or affects others negatively, then it would be best to consider it the only thing the creature can do in the round to make it more in line with what the characters can do by attacking or casting spells.
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