Soldiers of the Blood War

The article was a move in the right direction, and it warms my black, twisted, Planescape-loving heart that it moves back towards the iconic 2e/3e Blood War.

The LE/NE/CE distinction between the fiends is something that is unique and iconic to D&D, and playing it down does it a disservice. It's cool, it's awesome, and I'm happy that it seems to be coming back. I didn't expect it, but I'll take it.

As for the article and the 'loths, they're mentioned briefly. It would have been best to see them treated on equal footing as the demons and devils, otherwise I fear that they'll be back to being second-class fiends as in 3e when they got cut from the MM for space reasons (to appear later scattered across multiple books). The brief mention of gehreleths/demodands though was pretty cool. Someone has been reading 2e.

As for the succubus, this isn't even a question for me: succubi are demons. They're among the iconic, classic demons of D&D and they're been there for almost longer than I've been alive. If you want to change them to something antithetical to that (as in 4e) that's something best reserved for a specific campaign setting change, not a default. Their default should be as CE tempters to mortals primal, lustful desires. To tear them away from the order and structure of family, pledges of love, betrothal, and the laws of society and to surrender to chaotic bliss. The 4e treatment of them always struck me as a needless change, doubly so for the continuity headache when it was forced onto other settings who evolved with a cosmology radically different from PoL.

A return to the days of 2E (and, I suppose, 3E) for the fiends is, to me, a good thing.

Lord I hope they dont start getting all berk on us again. I do not need or want all that planescape business in the core.

The mention of the Marilith using Fighter mechanics intrigues me. This seems like a cool monster:

Traits
Expertise: The marilith has 6d6 expertise dice (each representing one of its six arms). It can spend them on the Parry and Extra Attack maneuvers. These dice recharge at the end of the marilith's turn.

Maneuvers
Parry: When the Marilith is hit with a weapon attack while it wields a weapon, it can spend and roll one or more expertise dice to reduce the damage by the result.
Extra Attack: After the Marilith makes a Tail Whip attack, it can spend any number of expertise dice to make that number of Scimitar attacks (see below).

Actions
Tail Whip: +4 to hit, 2d8 + 4 damage, and the target is grabbed.
Scimitar: +3 to hit, 1d6 + 3 damage.

Shemeska said:

Their default should be as CE tempters to mortals primal, lustful desires. To tear them away from the order and structure of family, pledges of love, betrothal, and the laws of society and to surrender to chaotic bliss.

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Well then, fiends that tempt mortals to violence, greed, sloth, vanity, gluttony or any other human failings should also be demons. The main reason sins are sins are because it does tear people away from family and the laws of society and largely concern themselves with their own desires. Any sin that would cause a soul to be damned causes chaos and disruption.

Lust is no different than greed in this respect (in fact, lust is pretty much greed for sex).

So if all the demons are tempters, then what do we need devils for? Maybe it is time to cut loose Asmodeus and all his Judeo-Christian baggage, and just have the Abyss. Graz'zt and Malcanthet are more fun to say than the thematically identical Mestopheles and Glasya anyway.

The 4e treatment of them always struck me as a needless change, doubly so for the continuity headache when it was forced onto other settings who evolved with a cosmology radically different from PoL.

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Perhaps, but Planescape had the same complaints. Dragonlance and Greyhawk fans had little interest in a Planescape cosmology. Dragonlance in particular already does not have devils, but only the Abyss in their cosmology.

ferratus said:

Perhaps, but Planescape had the same complaints. Dragonlance and Greyhawk fans had little interest in a Planescape cosmology. Dragonlance in particular already does not have devils, but only the Abyss in their cosmology.

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They both had the Great Wheel an entire edition before there was a Planescape (though to be fair, Dragonlance's inclusion in that cosmology in 1e wasn't to Weiss and Hickman's liking). And the inclusion of the Great Wheel wasn't on top of any other previously existing cosmology and multiple editions worth of continuity, which was the case with the 4e PoL World Axis being pushed onto other settings.

I dig the Blood War and am glad to see it return. It should be a part of the lore, but the ferocity of the Blood War should be left to DMs. Demons and devils should not play nicely together though, but it should be left to individual campaigns to determine if it's a Cold War, an active yet secondary war, or the primary goal of fiendish existence.

I'm not a big fan of the 4e attitude towards lore of change for change's sake, where too often it seemed like one person's pet peeve or fun idea was allowed to run roughshod over story matter than had been a part of the game longer than I've been alive.
Every idea or bit of lore was someone's favourite, and every monster is adored by someone. So change should never be done lightly.

That said, I quite liked most of the changes for 4e, the refocusing of demons on destruction and emphasis on the chaotic and elemental. There needs to be a sharp distinction for most demons and devils in M.O. There can be some exception (such as the Succubus being a non-smashy demon or the ice devil being a non-human devil) because they emphasize the default through contrast.

As for spells and odd abilities, a think a simple and small suite of abilities is good... for combat. Side abilities, such as a list of spells, are a great non-combat way of mechanically supporting the creature's place in the world. Monster in general need more of this. You don't need more than a reference and list -as it's something referenced away from the table where time is not a factor- and they might be limited in ritualistic use. For example, demons might have gate abilities usable as a ritual. The hezrou might be able to use darkness or teleport as rituals.

Shemeska said:

The article was a move in the right direction, and it warms my black, twisted, Planescape-loving heart that it moves back towards the iconic 2e/3e Blood War.

The LE/NE/CE distinction between the fiends is something that is unique and iconic to D&D, and playing it down does it a disservice. It's cool, it's awesome, and I'm happy that it seems to be coming back. I didn't expect it, but I'll take it.

As for the article and the 'loths, they're mentioned briefly. It would have been best to see them treated on equal footing as the demons and devils, otherwise I fear that they'll be back to being second-class fiends as in 3e when they got cut from the MM for space reasons (to appear later scattered across multiple books). The brief mention of gehreleths/demodands though was pretty cool. Someone has been reading 2e.

As for the succubus, this isn't even a question for me: succubi are demons. They're among the iconic, classic demons of D&D and they're been there for almost longer than I've been alive. If you want to change them to something antithetical to that (as in 4e) that's something best reserved for a specific campaign setting change, not a default. Their default should be as CE tempters to mortals primal, lustful desires. To tear them away from the order and structure of family, pledges of love, betrothal, and the laws of society and to surrender to chaotic bliss. The 4e treatment of them always struck me as a needless change, doubly so for the continuity headache when it was forced onto other settings who evolved with a cosmology radically different from PoL.

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Word

Morrus said:

I was never fond of the demon/devil distinction, or of the arbitrary straight lines of a "law vs "chaos" war. It all seemed very forced to me.

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I used to think similarly until I read this post from the WotC site.

The guy who wrote it put a lot of time and effort into it and it shows. Plus it really cemented my ideas on what the distinction is and why all that cool history shouldn't be just swept under the rug.

Link: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19558750/The_History_of_the_Lower_Planes,_revised

Tovec said:

I used to think similarly until I read this post from the WotC site.

The guy who wrote it put a lot of time and effort into it and it shows. Plus it really cemented my ideas on what the distinction is and why all that cool history shouldn't be just swept under the rug.

Link: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19558750/The_History_of_the_Lower_Planes,_revised

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Rip is made of crazy awesome talent. I pretty much love anything he has ever written.