4e Cosmology Changes

[The Little Raven]

Wha? If you look at the core books in 1e/2e/3e, which is all we have available for 4e right now, how was there an elf available for every day of the year? That came in supplements, which there will be for 4e, as well.

In the 3e core books (which includes the Monster Manual), there were 6 elven subraces (high, gray, wood, wild, aquatic, drow; 7 if you count half-elf).

While it's not one elf for every day of the year, it is one for every day of the week, in the core rulebooks alone.

 

[thundershot]

What 4E is clearly missing is a little faerie with wings race. Why they didn't kick halflings to the curb in favour of this, I dunno. I'm not kidding about this, either.

I agree 100%. Since 2E, we've used Sylph as a major race, and now I'm not quite sure how to rebuild Sylph as a PC race for 4E because of the flying part....

Definitely need some winged faeries in 4E...



Chris

 

[Zil]

I'm ambivalent about the new cosmology. The Great Wheel made perfect sense to me, maybe from all my years of reading Moorcock and the fact that I love symmetry. The new cosmology is OK, there's a little too much elf love so far in this edition, so much I'm starting to wonder if it was ghost written by Tolkien. I'm not a fan of what I see as arbitrary changes i.e. the loss of the Eryines and the replacement of Succubus as a devil. Maybe that's because I think they screwed the alignment system; either keep the nine, have three or have none. I'm keeping the Succubus a demon, and I'll create an Eryines back as a devil, so that's not hard but it makes me like the Core Cosmology(tm) less at having to fix things to keep them right (imho).

I agree. I liked the Great Wheel and I agree that they've completely nerfed alignment in 4E. I would have liked the 4E cosmology better if they had just oriented it on a law-chaos axis and dropped good and evil completely from the alignment system. As it is now, if feels wrong and it equates good=law and chaos=evil. That said, I liked the old alignment wheel because it allowed for more nuances.

About the only things I do like in the 4E cosmology are the feywild and the shadowfell as echoes of the prime.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Just noticed this.

Sailing the celestial seas is way more in-theme for fantasy than Jumpgates to Sigil.

In a word, no. Doorways that lead somewhere they shouldn't, from BLOODY NARNIA FOR GOD'S SAKE to Neverwhere, to a zillion other fantasy sources are MORE fantasy that "Ships in magicspace!", frankly.

If you had never read Planescape and were going on some sort of bizarre misapprehension (jumpgates what?!), I guess you might believe that, but no, nononono. Back to the earliest fantasy there are doorways that lead to other places under certain conditions, back into Celtic and other mythologies even, you can find them.

You cannot, on the other hand, find ships sailing in godspace much.

You can certainly find ships sailing into bizarre places or off the edge of the world, but if anything, that has MORE in common with Planescape's portals than the Astral Sea does. The Astral Sea is a good idea, and it's very "ultra-high fantasy", but jumpgates? Someone never read Planescape, or is shockingly unaware of fantasy in general.

Thundershot - Exactly. I've never seen any race more consistently requested. I've seen more Windlings and Faen and so on played over the years than I have Halflings or Hobbits.

Maybe I'll do a write-up in house rules for something like that later.

 

[Particle_Man]

I really felt it in 1st/2nd/3rd Ed, where there was an elf for every day of the year.

At least we just have 3, well I guess 4, but that's better than a chartreuse elf.

1st ed core: High, Gray, Wood, Aquatic and Half.
FF: Drow
MM2: Wild, Valley.

2nd ed core: Elf (all variations cosmetic only), Half.

3rd ed core: High, Gray, Wood, Wild, Drow, Aquatic and Half.

4e core: Eladrin, Elf, Half, Drow.

We are at 4e Core. I imagine the subraces will come, in loving detail, in various splat books. The question is will the differences between them be mechanical or cosmetic-only.

 

[The Little Raven]

Doorways that lead somewhere they shouldn't, from BLOODY NARNIA FOR GOD'S SAKE to Neverwhere, to a zillion other fantasy sources are MORE fantasy that "Ships in magicspace!", frankly.

Neither is more science fiction or fantasy than the other. They're both tropes found in both genres (stargates and magic portals; spaceships and airships).

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Back to the earliest fantasy there are doorways that lead to other places under certain conditions, back into Celtic and other mythologies even, you can find them.

To be fair, you're not talking about simple doorways here, you're talking about funeral mounds and caves that lead into the realms of the dead and such. It isn't like you're walking through your bathroom door and bam, you're in fairy land.

 

[Spatula]

I just want to call it utter crap that people are calling this utter crap and then backing off as if that isn't totally dismissive of people who like it.

Why do you feel that someone not liking something that you do like is an attack on you? Because it's not. For example, I feel that most genre books are utter trash (including nearly all D&D books). A lot of people here enjoy such books, and I have nothing at all against them, nor what they choose to do with their spare time.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Neither is more science fiction or fantasy than the other. They're both tropes found in both genres (stargates and magic portals; spaceships and airships).

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

To be fair, you're not talking about simple doorways here, you're talking about funeral mounds and caves that lead into the realms of the dead and such. It isn't like you're walking through your bathroom door and bam, you're in fairy land.

I'm afraid you're getting into the realms of sillybuggers now, Mourn.

I'm talking about "The Astral Sea" vs. "Portals".

You're bringing in all sorts of irrelevant nonsense about airships and stuff. The sufficiently advanced technology quote can shove itself. It's a science-fiction principle that's immaterial in a universe with genuine magic. D&D's magic is explicitly not "supertech", it's actual magic, influencing the fabric of reality with various powers, rituals, and so on.

The Astral Sea has nothing to do with airships and spaceships. It's separate from those concepts, and even, dare I say it, relatively original or at least not much-used.

Portals, on the other hand, go back much further. You say "Oh but it wasn't just step into your bathroom and ping!", but that's merely the logical extension of the concept, and the "step into your wardrobe and ping" has certainly been around for a very long time. Comparing it to "jumpgates" and so on is patently silly. If anything, they derive from it, not vice-versa.

 

[Gentlegamer]

(Plus, how goofy is it that the ultimate organizing principle of the entire multi-verse is alignment?)

Yeah, that goofy Moorcock, what a retarded idea!

 

[Spatula]

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