4e Cosmology Changes

[malraux]

Yes, and how do you walk out of one infinite space and into another? Each space extends infinitely in all directions.
(see Shemeska's previous posts for the answer)

Only if you assume a sensical geometry. I personally, have no problem with the idea that there can be bounded yet infinite space.

anyway:

Walking the Borders: The first layer of each Outer Plane shares a border with one Outer Plane on each side. In this way, all the Outer Planes are connected. Travelers who know the proper paths can find places where the borders are thin enough that a simple walk is sufficient to transfer the traveler from one outer plane to another.

To me, that says that the Outer Planes are connected.

 

[Staffan]

Edit: Also, something that's becoming more and more clear to me as time passes... I like Planescape, but as a setting of its own, not as a connective meta-setting, or the default cosmology of the game. (The same thing with Spelljammer.)

As an aside, I think this was one of the failings of Spelljammer compared to Planescape. Spelljammer had a big focus on "Hey, now you can take your Forgotten Realms character to Krynn! Through SPACE!", and comparatively little stuff on treating it as its own setting. Planescape instead focused pretty hard on creating its own identity, with Sigil at the center, and using it with other settings was strictly a secondary consideration.

 

[Jhaelen]

Only if you assume a sensical geometry. I personally, have no problem with the idea that there can be bounded yet infinite space.

It isn't a problem really. An infinite plane can easily have _some_ boundaries as long as it's not in every direction.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I like it. I felt the great wheel to be well past its sell-by date. All sorts of planes invented simply to make a plane for each alignment. Simply too many for them to be meaningfully different.

The new cosmology is much simpler and much more focussed on providing adventure opportunities. Adventure opportunities which don't rely on you having an infinite supply of potions of fire resistance or water breathing.

Who needs all those good planes? What were they for? How many times did your characters go there, in all your DMing experience? I've DMed for thirty years now and never had any reason for the PCs to go to a good plane.

I can understand, though, that this is one of the things that people might see as iconic D&D. Well, the developers of 4e disagreed. That doesn't make it, to quote "absolute crap" it makes it a different design decision. What makes it a good or bad design decision is how well it plays.

Not everything has to be a place for you to go to and kill stuff in. If you couldn't find a use for the elemental plane of fire aside from wandering around on it, that's not a fault of the system or the game, it's a fault in your imagination.

I'm not going to make this an edition war, I'll simply state that I greatly perfered the previous cosmology over the new one.

 

[The Little Raven]

I'm not going to make this an edition war, I'll simply state that I greatly perfered the previous cosmology over the new one.

You did a bit more than that by saying the new cosmology is "Absolute crap."

 

[Keldryn]

I'm definitely liking the D&D cosmology as described in 4e. The whole "Great Wheel" setup never really did it for me, as it just seemed like a very artificial construction to cram beings from a couple dozen real-world and fictional mythologies into a defined number of alignment-based realms. It was weird, and I never really cared much for it.

The inner planes, as described with the positive and negative energy planes, para-elemental planes, and quasi-elemental planes also really started to drift into territory that I found unappealing.

But I came to 1e AD&D after playing BECMI D&D for a couple of years. BECMI D&D's cosmology consisted of the prime material plane, the four elemental planes as the "inner" planes connected by the ethereal plane, and the astral plane which contained gateways to an infinite number of outer planes that had no connection to game mechanics such as alignment. Hmm, that last part sounds a lot like the Astral Sea, doesn't it? I've said it a few times, but one thing that really appeals to me about 4e is how it captures a lot of the feel of the BECMI game that I first started playing with.

I love the idea of the Shadowfell and the Feywild as the "darker" and "lighter" echoes of the mortal world. The ethereal plane of previous editions was similarly co-existent with the prime material, but I love the flavour of these two 4e "inner planes." These planes become a lot more accessible and usable as adventure settings when they have such close ties to the prime material and adventurers can find themselves wandering into an echo of the world if they aren't careful. I love the idea of the twilight Eladrin cities existing in the Feywild but crossing over into the "normal" realm at thematically appropriate times.

I actually quite like the Elemental Chaos as well. Planes composed almost entirely of fire, earth, air, or water were always extremely dull, in my opinion. A chaotic realm where the primordial stuff that makes up the world churns endlessly is much more cool and flavourful, in my opinion. And makes for a better place to adventure than "the plane where you spontaneously combust when you enter without the proper spell," "the plane where you appear in the middle of solid rock and suffocate unless you can find an Air pocket," and "the plane where you instantly drown unless you can find an Air pocket." "The plane where you fall infinitely until you hit something at terminal velocity" was slightly more adventure-friendly, but still had a lot of limitations.

I liked it when the 3e Forgotten Realms book dumped the Great Wheel for its own outer-planar cosmology, and I loved how Eberron invented its own cosmology that was completely separate from any of the other settings.

The 4e cosmology just seems so much more useful (in terms of actually using them in adventures) than the stuffy, rigid setup of 1e and early 2e. Planescape made the planes much more accessible in later 2e, and I did like the setting. But as others have mentioned, it was better as a primary campaign setting than as a default cosmology that connected all worlds.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

You did a bit more than that by saying the new cosmology is "Absolute crap."

I was asked my opinion on the new cosmology.

I gave it.

I don't see the crime.

 

[Shadeydm]

I was asked my opinion on the new cosmology.

I gave it.

I don't see the crime.

Clearly the crime was not giving the "right" answer.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Not everything has to be a place for you to go to and kill stuff in. If you couldn't find a use for the elemental plane of fire aside from wandering around on it, that's not a fault of the system or the game, it's a fault in your imagination.

Though it could also be a fault of imagination and not system if someone is unable to use the Elemental Chaos for whatever he wanted the Elemental Plane of Fire.

I liked it when the 3e Forgotten Realms book dumped the Great Wheel for its own outer-planar cosmology, and I loved how Eberron invented its own cosmology that was completely separate from any of the other settings.

This reminds me that I should note that I never saw the Great Wheel as a central conundrum of D&D. It was just fluff heavily based on the mechanical alignments, and any given campaign setting could go with or without it. I don't think things will be different with 4E.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

Not everything has to be a place for you to go to and kill stuff in. If you couldn't find a use for the elemental plane of fire aside from wandering around on it, that's not a fault of the system or the game, it's a fault in your imagination.

No, the fault lies with the lame set up. A "plane" of air? Come on.