Changes to Devils and Demons

[Mighty Veil]

These changes sound fine to me. I really thought the current background for devils and demons was awful. I just wish they'd use the name daemons for the third batch of them.

 

[delericho]

They make up zero percent of the population of people who are new to D&D, which is what we had been talking about.

Sorry, I thought we were discussing how obscure the Order/Chaos dichotomy is. The answer to which, within the gamer community, is "not very". Outwith that community, you're quite right - it is pretty obscure. So, point taken.

Now, if we're eliminating things that are obscure to non-D&D-gamers, then I have to nominate the following: Vancian magic; dragons that breathe anything other than fire; and the use of the d20, d12, d8, d4, and d%. The d10 I'm on the fence about - on one hand, it gets a pass because of Vampire, and because 10 is such an intuitive number to use. On the other, it's really confusing due to that whole '0' = '10' thing.

 

[Voadam]

"... I do think there's room in the game for both a fury and a succubus. "

And while we're at it, add a female-type outsider for daemons and demodands. I have had erinyes, succubi, naelle, and phlenar in my games, as daughters of night hags, since my 1e AD&D campaign "Into the Land of Black Ice". I'd hate to redo the Night Hag Family Tree again.

What are naelle and phlenar and where can I find info on them?

 

[billd91]

Eh, I think this is all more personal taste. I mean, the source of the Law/Chaos stuff in D&D comes from the work of folks like Moorcock and Zelazny. It's been a long time since I read either one, but the various representatives of Chaos never seemed quite as disorganized or unstructured as one might think from the name -- the names seemed to represent two sides of an argument based on degree, not polar opposites. I mean, Elric's people were on the side of Chaos, yet they built a huge empire and maintained it for thousands of years. And the Chaos Lords who showed up rarely seemed like swirling masses of unstructured madness, but instead scheming demons with plots and plans that spanned millenia.

In other words, I don't think that it's been watered down over the years, I think it's always been kind of watery. That's part of why I'm glad that they're looking at de-emphasizing alignment in the new edition - fantasy has moved on in ways that D&D hasn't, and the alignment system is trying to be too many things beyond what it was originally designed for.

I think the terms Lawful and Chaotic should be put to pasture in favor of something more descriptive. Something like Collectivist vs Individualist, Ordered vs Anarchic. Something that is more indicative of the character's chosen or portrayed philosophy in easier to understand terms (though it's true most people wouldn't grok the implications of anarchic either). The terms Lawful and Chaotic tended to be far to ambiguous.

Besides, in Elric, they stood in for Good and Evil as much as the tendency toward order or entropy. The concept was already murky and unclear.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The succubus embodies seduction and luring into carnality and evil.

The erinyes embodies vengeance, and is the punisher of the gods.

If "The problem is, erinyes have rarely been depicted as furies", do a better job depicting the erinyes as furies.

Folding the two monsters together will do nothing to help.

RC

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That is most obviously not true.

You should re-read my post.

Zero percent of new-to-D&D players are longtime D&D players.

 

[Wormwood]

To reiterate: making a succubi a devil is the big warning flag.

*shrug*

I don't see why.

If the 4e Devils are "tempters" and 4e Demons are "monsters", the succubus should be a Devil, right?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Now, if we're eliminating things that are obscure to non-D&D-gamers, then I have to nominate the following: Vancian magic; dragons that breathe anything other than fire; and the use of the d20, d12, d8, d4, and d%. The d10 I'm on the fence about - on one hand, it gets a pass because of Vampire, and because 10 is such an intuitive number to use. On the other, it's really confusing due to that whole '0' = '10' thing.

More than declaring that D&D is dead to me because some monsters have changed, this is what I think is a cause for ... "concern" might be too strong, but maybe "cautious interest."

Coupled with the junking of the standard green dragon looks, I suspect we may be seeing other changes made for new gamers, and hitting a reset button on a lot of things we thought we knew, more than simply streamlining and cleaning up the 3.5E rules.

I'm sure some of it I will like -- probably a lot of it, to be frank -- but others will likely shake me up when I hear about them, just like the demon/devil changes have shaken up some folks here.

 

[Mark Chance]

You should re-read my post.

Perhaps. Or, perhaps, you should be more clear.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

If "The problem is, erinyes have rarely been depicted as furies", do a better job depicting the erinyes as furies.

Or, drop them altogether and create a new, actual Fury monster.