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The Cathezar from Bastion of Broken Souls is that hybrid Maxperson mentioned earlier

Ultimately a video game is going to have to define and codify all possible actions or systems. With 5E, that means creating a lot of pre-fab DM rulings, so the game devs have to be RPG designers on top of being CRPG developers. In practice this means they would probably just cut most non-defined...

Yeah, they were dangerous because of what they knew more than what they could do in a fight.

Pathfinder 2E is more explicitly designed so there are fewer gaps for a developer to fill, and has more knobs to work with since it uses typed modifiers instead of advantage. It would be easier to program in a way that feels correct, but you'd have a lot more to program to feel complete to...

My general impression in the 2E era is that the tanar'ri were generally stronger to make up for their less refined tactics compared to baatezu. More of the threat was from the situation than raw power.

Give me a scene where three or four marlith designs are in the same frame and then they can use the behirilith all they want without further criticism from me. I would really enjoy demons being less about being super ogres and more about variety and unpredictability anyways.

I'm only seeing mentions of Type V demons as references or simply listing types of monsters in an adventure in the magazines, so I'm leaning toward their tactician role being added when the Blood War was introduced in '91. Before then they were mostly just associated with other reptilian...

Could be. I know the design was already popular. 1987's obscure indie game Final Fantasy included one as a major boss, so there was time for people to expand on it, but my time in D&D started with 2E and I haven't gone too far back into history.

Thanks for checking! Curiouser and curiouser.

I am now quite curious about the origin of marilith tacticians. Anyone happen to know if they were mentioned in the 1E Manual of the Planes to any significant extent? I wouldn't be surprised if it started in some one-off adventure or video game.

4E is a whole different cosmology, and doesn't really fit in with the lore of the rest of the editions.

There is also no way to determine gender by appearance. Even if they use a lot of gendered signifiers that could just be a fashion thing for them. It's a question that requires text or a literal sign being held up.

Your memory's gaps are more recent, I fear.This is what I said:

I love Tony D's art but he -did- frequently draw in a way nobody else copied. The kobolds in the Humanoids handbook were also different than the dog-faced 1E ones.

The Abyss has no reason to be more chaotic than Arborea. Though it's hilarious to imagine slavering hordes of eladrin stepping all over each other in a fury trying to save the day.

Okay. And? This isn't a frequency of depiction contest. WotC has owned the game for a long time.

2e is perfectly regal. Royals can do war. The crown, the jewelry, the cheek bones, the bored look. As a bonus they look like they're at least in their 50s. 3e: As I noted above, looks like an emo kid. It's when they started to really diverge from the classic design. WotC's been dragging them...

At best they resemble Darkness from Legend, the whiny devil baby. They do have some noble features, but not a regal air because they're too busy catching flies. Open mouth and inward-curled body position suggests a very clumsy hacky combat style that reminds me of a toddler hitting their toys...

The marilith never looked like a genius tactician. It did frequently look regal and elegant.

Classic design has juxtaposition, which is a major tool in art of all kinds, and speaks to the duality of nature and evokes real demon mythology, which is chock full of chimeric beings Classic design evokes a lot of symbolism/semiotics that imply additional information. Mariliths are generally...