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

[steeldragons]

In the immortal words of someone important...

"Meh."

 

[Tovec]

As far as the article goes:
I don't like the write up for Cambion. It seems to lose a lot in translation. Like if I were to say all elves were "tree hugging hippies, who sat around in large grassy huts in the forest and did dances on the solstices." That would seem to ignore all the other (better) interpretations of elf. It would also ignore the whole magical/warrior side that seems very core to DnD elves.

Alu-fiends as the opposite gender of Cambion I don't mind as a sorting effect but they aren't the same creatures in real myth or in DnD lore so that is a misstep. But as long as they get separate write-ups I don't really care.

I don't know the second creature and I skipped over that question on the survey.

Tieflings. The description did absolutely nothing for me. It wasn't even a description. By in large most descriptions of the creatures we've had could be more or less dropped into a MM and be done with. The Tiefling "description" didn't describe them EXCEPT in the controversial terms of what 4e did differently. It is like talking about the Realms by ONLY talking of the spellplague (and similar events), as opposed to what attracts people to the Realms in the first place. Voted that "description" down, but when I checked after it still had 51% "I love this description of them, never change," like anything else ever written in these articles, so whatever.

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.

Genuinely confused... They don't reproduce the same because the first group breeds true and the second group doesn't? Is that it? If it is then that seems fairly simple to justify, and can be easily included in each race's description. It is no more different than elves live a long time and humans don't. The only issue I can see if there are outright contradictions and so far I'm not seeing that here.

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.

Antlers and different (minor) visual changes can be easily incorporated into a sidebar or campaign book. I don't know anything about the imperials but that looks like it could work here. Just like in the 3.5 Monster Manual it mentions that they have fiendish traits, gives a list, but never explicitly says what ones a player would have - something that is a bit annoying but also something that would work well here.

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.

A. I don't know what Celadrin or god blooded aasimars are either.
B. Would this be any different than the stuff from above concerning Tieflings?
C. Why are you lumping Devas in with Aasimar?
D. Don't lump Devas in with Aasimars?
E. If you absolutely must lump Devas in with Aasimars, then include a sidebar that says that they reborn when they die, are truly immortal - and the implications of that. Why are Devas lumped in with Aasimars again?
F. Where is the conflict, except that they're different? Do we have pre-4e devas and post-4e devas? (I mean I guess we did but not in context of aasimars from what I recall.)

Perhaps this is all just my confusion, as with the Tieflings.

 

[MortalPlague]

I'm so happy to see a return to more varied tieflings. I like the idea that someone can have fiendish ancestry and hide it with clothing or masks. It makes for a great reveal. When every single tiefling has 'big horns of evil', that's no longer possible.

 

[Kinak]

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.

I don't disagree per se, and that's how I view most tieflings (especially in Planescape).

But if a player wants her character to be the son or daughter of a fiend, having rules against that seems kind of silly. It's a bit overdone as a character concept, but it's like saying "you can play a dwarf, but if you want to play a gruff dwarf those are actually duergar and you can't play duergar."

Sure, you could ignore that flavor text, and I personally would, but you have to ask why you're banning such an iconic concept when it costs nothing to allow it.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[the Jester]

Sure, you could ignore that flavor text, and I personally would, but you have to ask why you're banning such an iconic concept when it costs nothing to allow it.

Well, that's a matter of opinion and setting; I'd say that a dm is no more obligated to let a pc be the son or daughter of a fiend than he is to let a pc be the child of the king. Both can have major effects on the campaign that may not fit with the kind of game the dm is running.

While I don't have a problem with the idea per se, I definitely wouldn't want the books to imply to the players that either of these things is completely up to them.

 

[gyor]

As far as the article goes:
I don't like the write up for Cambion. It seems to lose a lot in translation. Like if I were to say all elves were "tree hugging hippies, who sat around in large grassy huts in the forest and did dances on the solstices." That would seem to ignore all the other (better) interpretations of elf. It would also ignore the whole magical/warrior side that seems very core to DnD elves.

Alu-fiends as the opposite gender of Cambion I don't mind as a sorting effect but they aren't the same creatures in real myth or in DnD lore so that is a misstep. But as long as they get separate write-ups I don't really care.

I don't know the second creature and I skipped over that question on the survey.

Tieflings. The description did absolutely nothing for me. It wasn't even a description. By in large most descriptions of the creatures we've had could be more or less dropped into a MM and be done with. The Tiefling "description" didn't describe them EXCEPT in the controversial terms of what 4e did differently. It is like talking about the Realms by ONLY talking of the spellplague (and similar events), as opposed to what attracts people to the Realms in the first place. Voted that "description" down, but when I checked after it still had 51% "I love this description of them, never change," like anything else ever written in these articles, so whatever.



Genuinely confused... They don't reproduce the same because the first group breeds true and the second group doesn't? Is that it? If it is then that seems fairly simple to justify, and can be easily included in each race's description. It is no more different than elves live a long time and humans don't. The only issue I can see if there are outright contradictions and so far I'm not seeing that here.


Antlers and different (minor) visual changes can be easily incorporated into a sidebar or campaign book. I don't know anything about the imperials but that looks like it could work here. Just like in the 3.5 Monster Manual it mentions that they have fiendish traits, gives a list, but never explicitly says what ones a player would have - something that is a bit annoying but also something that would work well here.



A. I don't know what Celadrin or god blooded aasimars are either.
B. Would this be any different than the stuff from above concerning Tieflings?
C. Why are you lumping Devas in with Aasimar?
D. Don't lump Devas in with Aasimars?
E. If you absolutely must lump Devas in with Aasimars, then include a sidebar that says that they reborn when they die, are truly immortal - and the implications of that. Why are Devas lumped in with Aasimars again?
F. Where is the conflict, except that they're different? Do we have pre-4e devas and post-4e devas? (I mean I guess we did but not in context of aasimars from what I recall.)

Perhaps this is all just my confusion, as with the Tieflings.

4e Devas are different then previous Devas, 4e Devas are Angels (which are different from pre 4e Angels), and 4e FR calls These new Devas Aasmir.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

The homogenization of Tieflings was the worst thing to come out of 4e, and I'm happy they're putting an end to it. The Turathi Tiefling may have been acceptable for their campaign setting that wasn't a campaign setting, but the problem was how they tried to force it down on everything.

 

[Tovec]

4e Devas are different then previous Devas, 4e Devas are Angels (which are different from pre 4e Angels), and 4e FR calls These new Devas Aasmir.

Well, yeah I knew that devas (pre-4e) were angels. Where can I find the reference to "FR calls these new devas aasimars?" Because that seems to be the issue. Either way, I don't really see the problem - you addressed only 1 of my 5 points about devas as aasimars.

 

[gyor]

To answer the other ones, I'm not lumping Devas in with Aasmir, 4e already did that so its cannon now, its too late to unlump it will mess up the novels.

A side bar might works, but you could also put that info under the Deva subracesl discription.

The conflict is there natures are even more different then different types of tieflings.

 

[steeldragons]

To answer the other ones, I'm not lumping Devas in with Aasmir, 4e already did that so its cannon now, its too late to unlump it will mess up the novels.

A side bar might works, but you could also put that info under the Deva subracesl discription.

The conflict is there natures are even more different then different types of tieflings.

In what way is the design of fluff for a new edition of the game beholden to what was written in a previous novel?

None. That's what way. If it were the case, 4e and probably even 3e would never have contained the fluff it did because of earlier novels. 4e canon is canon...for 4e and it's nice if/when any books are in line with that...if they are written intended to reflect a "4e setting/story". 1e canon is canon for 1e and it's nice if/when any books are in line with that. The appearance of something in a novel has absolutely no weight or baring on dictating fluff for the game. The game dictates fluff for the novels, not the other way around.