D&D 5E Wandering Monster-Touched by a Devil (or demon)

[gyor]

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4wand/20130820

The new Wandering Monster article is up and its about Cambions, Drageloths, and Tieflings.

Some thoughts are sticking Tarrukks and Fey'yri under the tiefling catogory is odd, but interesting and I like it, Alu-Fiends should be a special kind of cambion like Drageloths.

I always thought it interesting that a Choatic Good Goddess like Sharess reached out to Alu-Fiends and tieflings spefically.

Tiefling will be edition inclusive, but leaning towards a plaescape style in that thier is more diveristy.

Not alot of actual details on the tieflings yet, but thier confirmed to be in the next packet already so we'll get detailsvin September.

 

[gyor]

I hope the aasmir is addressed in the next wondering monster article.

 

[Plaguescarred]

I found the Cambion, Draegloth and Tiefling's description hitting the mark.

I like the way the Cambions was reconciled under one name.

I prefer the 2E Planescape Tiefling to the 4E one, but i'm glad they'll make room for other Tiefling outlook as well as the 4E one and be all inclusive.

 

[gyor]

I agree I like the inclusiveness, but if they're going combine cambions and Alu-Fiends they need to have some optional powers and stuff, so if you want a more Alu flavoured Cambion, you take life stealing and shape change as optional powers.

 

[I'm A Banana]

One thing I've always found interesting about the tiefling (one thing that 4e scrapped) was that they were very diverse creatures. There's room for the 4e tiefling without it being THE ONLY ONE.

For me, as a big Planescape fan, the important thing for using tieflings in play is that I can use them with the themes that PS brings to bear. I need the taint to be able to be conceived as a mark of corruption and evil, like a hideous birth defect, something that innately marks them as outcast and marginal. 4e made that more challenging. Not impossible -- "Oh, yeah, I'm sure Asmodeus thinks your real special, he clearly loves you more than the two tiefers we hung yesterday fer stealin' chickens."; "Heir to Bailtowhatnow? Oh, sorry, I should'na asked, cuz' nobody cares." -- but the my idea of a tiefling a la Planescape is so dramatically divergent from "Ancient decadent nobles who swore a pact with Satan" that it can be jarring if that's the only message anyone hears, and then they meet the "untouchables" who reek of brimstone in the Hive. Not always a bad jarring, but still!

I love that they're steering back towards the wide range of appearances and quirks and abilities. If I see a return to the "Tiefling Tables" from the Planewalker's Handbook, life is gonna be good. ; )

 

[gyor]

Actually I think it will be more subraces then the table, although one subrace might use the table. As evidence they plan to include 4e Tieflings (or what I'd call Imperial Tieflings), Planescape tiefling descended from different fiend races, Fey'ri and Turrukks (in other words none himan blooded tieflings).

Maybe even traditonal FR god blooded Tieflings which were mentioned in the article as well.

 

[Kinak]

Tieflings are kind of nice in that they actually justify a proliferation of subraces. For every race we've seen so far, I've wished subraces would just go away, but they can be a strong core to the tiefling race.

I don't particularly like how they're handling cambions, though. Traditional tieflings and cambions have always had a bit of an awkward intersection, where a lot of cool tiefling character concepts should really be cambions instead. Taking cambions and broadening them so they cover all half-fiends just makes that even more obvious.

The concept works much better for me if cambions are explicitly called out as special tieflings, such as those who've fully embraced their fiendish heritage. It adds some options for PCs (like having a fiend parent in backstory or having siblings that have gone full cambion) and also gives a reason other than bigotry to fear tieflings (because they're potentially very dangerous if they fall).

I'll obviously run it that way in any case. It's just a bit jarring to have a race that's like "Your grandparents are fiends? Your ancestors made a deal with the devil? Your bloodline traces back to an evil god? You were cursed at birth? Play a tiefling!" but if you want to play someone with a fiendish parent, that's suddenly off limits.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Shemeska]

I'm pretty much ok with the cambion and draegloth.

Several thoughts as far as tieflings go:

1) The article mentions fey'ri as a 3e thing, which isn't exactly true. They were introduced in 2e (3e just did a lot more with them).

2) Part of me wants the 4e conception of tieflings to be eaten by Cthulhu because it's that absolutely utterly, bizarrely divergent from the entirety of the 2e and 3e notion of what a tiefling even -is-. The hallmark feature of tieflings was their wildly variable appearance and traits as a result of the interaction of their mortal blood and one (or possibly many) fiendish lines of heritage. And then 4e made them only diabolic and with a monolithic appearance. Faced with two editions of continuity as to what tieflings are, that sort of radical change with 4e 'tieflings' was a horrible idea. It's still a horrible idea.

But... it doesn't need to be expunged (though in all honesty I wouldn't cry if they were). It just can't be the only tiefling there is, just one of many kinds, and preferably a minority of specifically diabolic tieflings.

I've really liked what Pathfinder has done with tieflings in the last few years, with having both the classic 2e-style tiefling coexist with tieflings of more specific fiendish heritage from one type of fiend and a more custom tailored range of modifiers and abilities (and appearance) resulting from that. If 5e wants to include both the classic 2e/3e tieflings and the radically different 4e version, that's an angle they could approach it from.

One final thing: while 3e did a lot with introducing tiefling subraces of orc and other human heritage, it would awesome to see tieflings overtly recognized as not having to be specifically of human stock. That was true in 2e (and before you object, the fey'ri were a true-breeding elven variant, not generic elven descended tieflings), but over the course of 3e the idea that they were only human (and anything else had to get a variant race) crept in. I'd love to see tieflings in D&D* go back to having multiple mortal heritages possible, not an assumed human default. (*PF is doing this already)


Edit: Someone give Kamikaze Midget XP from me. I can't do it myself.

 

[the Jester]

I don't particularly like how they're handling cambions, though. Traditional tieflings and cambions have always had a bit of an awkward intersection, where a lot of cool tiefling character concepts should really be cambions instead. Taking cambions and broadening them so they cover all half-fiends just makes that even more obvious.

The concept works much better for me if cambions are explicitly called out as special tieflings, such as those who've fully embraced their fiendish heritage. It adds some options for PCs (like having a fiend parent in backstory or having siblings that have gone full cambion) and also gives a reason other than bigotry to fear tieflings (because they're potentially very dangerous if they fall).

I've always (well, since 3e) thought of the genealogy of tieflings like this:

Fiend
|
|
Half-Fiend (includes cambion, alu-demon, etc)
|
|
Fiendish Creature
|
|
Tiefling

I don't think the idea of tieflings as fully half-fiendish works; they're far more human (elven, whatever) than they are fiend. At least, that's how I've always perceived them.

 

[gyor]

The big challenge will be to make all these very different types of Tiefling fit under one umbella race, when they don't even reproduce the same.

Fey'ri, Tunnukks, and Imperials (yes I'm trying ti make that a thing), all breed true amoung themselves and thise from thier mortal hertiage, and in the case of Imperials always produce Imperials no matter what they breed with, hence the explosion in Tiefling Population in FR.

Planescape Tieflings and FR Evil God Blood Tieflings are more random and can pop out at unexpecred times.

I will point out that Imperials were not the only lineage of Tiefling that had a consistance look, in FR descendants of Evil Gods usually reflected the evil God in Apppearance. Descendants of Besheba would have a rack of Antlars for example.

Simular challenges face the Aasmir too. You have the Planescape Aasmir, Celadrin, FR God blooded Aasmir, 4e Devas, and who knows what else.

And like Tieflings these can have very different reproduction issues like birth vs. birthless reincarnation.

The only way I can see to do it is in the case of Tieflings make it clear some races of genetically dominate and some are genetically recessive.

Aasmir are tougher, and I'm not sure how to fix mortal aasmir and 4e devas together, maybe the these reincarnated Angels create Aasmir bodies for themselves as no other type of flesh can house thier souls, like they can be reborn as humans, dwarves, or elves as those bodies are too frigile and so they use Mortal Aasmir as a template to create bodies.