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To clarify, I would almost be surprised if there were no fundamentalist group that latched onto the whole, " We killed God " aspect of the devils background.
It's going to be a fairly small piece of text tucked away in the Monster Manual. Do you really think the D&D haters are going to be that familiar with the books? The mere presence of demons and devils in the game is enough for them.
In any case, WotC are quite rightly not designing to try to appease the anti-D&D crowd - it's a lost cause quite frankly. The people who hate the game will hate the game even if it becomes "My Little Pony: the RPG".
IMO, there is one section of 'religious folk' whom WotC should be concerned about, and that's the segment who are also gamers. As long as they don't drive them (okay, us) away, then they're okay.
As a long-time Planescape fan and recent fan of FCI and FCII, I'm not keen. However, my wife always gets demons and devils muddled up so maybe Rich has a point.....
I'm not sure how much I like this "points of light" concept if it means playing fast and loose with 30 years of extraplanar continuity!
Books used last session Black Horse Parsantium campaign: 4e core rules, Player's Handbook 2 (invoker), Adventurer's Vault, Wrath of the River King. Dulwich Parsantium campaign: 4e core rules, Forgotten Realms Player's Guide (genasi, swordmage), Players' Handbook 2 (barbarian), Dragon (Playing Gnolls), Sellswords of Punjar (the adventure) Lands of Intrigue: 3.5 core rules, Arcana Evolved (unfettered), Ptolus, Spell Compendium, Complete Book of Eldritch Might, The Banewarrens (the adventure), Book of Nine Swords (Desert Wind), Monster Manual V (demons)
I just find it lazy is all. How about stop stealing from known religious and make up your own bs.
Agreed.
Similarly, rather than simply continue with decades of bloated and thoroughly explored canon, I would like the 4e team to make up their own from scratch.
Ditch the Abyss and the Nine Hells and all that jazz. Just give us Hell and go from there.
...hopefully encountering one won't be interchangeable with an encounter with the other kind...
There is another (IMO better) way to ensure that those encounters are not interchangeable - put a usage note in the MM about the two monsters, and lay out different roles for the two. What's more, place Demons and Devils into different niches.
To use the monster categories I saw once in a Design and Development column, Devil should basically be assigned as Masterminds. Therefore, they should be individually more powerful than the corresponding Demon, but should also be much more likely to be encountered alone. By contrast, the Demons basically fit in the Brute category.
Amongst the changes, remove the ability to summon help from Devil write-ups. However, you conversely give them a number of powers/feats that allow them to work better with minions - perhaps an Improved Flank feat, or Aura powers similar to those of the Dragon Shaman. And definately give them a number of non-combat abilities to attract and control minions in the mortal sphere.
Demons, by contrast, are an undisciplined mob, and so have no such ability to coordinate their actions.
As a result of this, and in 3e terms, perhaps an appropriate encounter for a 20th level party would be either a CR 22 Pit Fiend or a CR 18 Balor and his retinue of half a dozen Glabrezu demons.
In addition, you note that the two categories of creatures have different campaign roles - 90% of the time, an encounter with demons is just an encounter with demons; they've probably been summoned by an infernalist to do his evil bidding. By contrast, if you encounter a Devil, it's either because you've just fought your way through several waves of his cultists/minions, or because he's working for some higher devil in a deeper infernal plot... or most likely both.
Now, tell me that those two are not completely different in flavour and usage. And I didn't negate hundreds of pages of published lore to do it, either.
Does seem like they're changing something just to change it, I'd have to agree... and I don't see why the chaos/order conflict is obscure -- it gives some real heft to alignment.
Chaos/Order is absolutely obscure unless you're one of an increasingly aging pool of Elric readers. Given the number of alignment threads here over the years, I'd say it's fair to say a lot of people have trouble wrapping their heads around it, especially when, between devils and demons, they're both bad guys whose primary issue boils down to "you should be MY kind of bad."
Well, then given the sweeping changes that are being enacted, instead of eliminating the Erinyes they could have restored it to its proper role...
Well, by removing it from the roster of evil outsiders, they actually have the opportunity to do this, by designing from scratch a creature that more faithfully matches the original mythology, in a future product. They may or may not end up doing so, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it. The erinyes should fill a role similar to the inevitables, if anything.
I did no such thing. However, there was a very clear distinction between the two evil outsiders in both Planescape and all 3.x books, which to me had to mean that you are unfamiliar with material on the matter.
It was never clear in the MM, in any edition. One shouldn't be required to shell out $30-$100 more just to understand something in the MM. If it's not clear in the base description, that's a failure of execution at that point.
In that case are you sure it's D&D that you really want to be playing?
To be honest, I am pretty sure I saw him post in several threads that he has no interest whatsoever in D&D, but 4E may be to his liking. In other words, he is cheering for WotC to basically kill whatever it is that makes the essence of D&D and publish a totally new RPG under the banner.
Well, if monster creation is really as easy as has been said, I guess I can easily switch the succubus' alignment back to "demon," and create an 'artillery' role devil and name it the erinyes week 1. If I'm able to create monsters in 3.X, that should be easy, no?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammael
Oh, and... if this is what they are doing to devils and demons, imagine what they're doing to the four breeds of celestials. Did I say four? Hmmm... I suspect only aasimon (angels) will survive the cut unchanged.
Considering hat this is apparently a consolidation based on appearances, I imagine that nothing much will change for most celestials, as they alredy have their unique appearances - guardinals with the animal appearance, eladrin with their fey-and-energy dual nature, angels as the archetypical winged humans... archons seem about the only ones that are in much danger, sharing some appearances that are also occupied by the other celestials. I'd expect that the holy light/fire aspect would be the one that would be played up (lantern archon, sword archon, and I believe I heard something about a fire archon?), though an equipment-based aspect may be possible as well (trumpet archon, throne archon, hammer archon).
__________________ Also posts as Knight Otu (here and elsewhere) and as Eques Concordia and Guinea Pig (only elsewhere).
What surpasses Ashardalon, is more despicable than the Great Wyrm?
It was never clear in the MM, in any edition. One shouldn't be required to shell out $30-$100 more just to understand something in the MM. If it's not clear in the base description, that's a failure of execution at that point.
So, instead of adding three sentences for clarification (devils are blah blah blah they fight for blah blah blah and their tactics are usually blah blah blah; demons are blah blah blah, they fight for blah blah blah and they usually don't use any tactics whatsoever) they are "redesigning" the creatures to the point of nonrecognition?
I think I know what the main issue here is: pride. The new designers and developers want to leave their mark on the game NO MATTER THE COST, having seen how Monte Cook gained a near-divine status (from some people) after his work on 3E. They crave recognition, and they figured the best way to get it is to be controversial. It's perfectly understandable, but I don't have to like it.
Re: that mention of the ice devil as a yugoloth race, that's cool plot-wise. But man, I really wish they'd get rid of the word 'yugoloth'. How about just calling the NE guys 'fiends' as long as we're shaking up the terminology!
No, they're not. Gnomes are going to be in the first Monster Manual. The fact that they won't be in the first PH doesn't mean they won't be a playable race. In fact, I am fairly positive they will be presented as a playable race in the FR Player's Guide (due out after the 4E FRCS, probably in September).
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