Changes to Devils and Demons

[DarthDiablo]

The reason that I don't think it's a good analogy is that I've always been somewhat of the opinion that the specialist wizard rules never worked very well.

I would have no problem, for example, with a conjurer just being a wizard who liked, used often, and studied advanced conjuration-type spells.

Similarly, the Zulkir of Divination would be just the admitted best user of divination-type spells.

Each of those characters would teach his or her apprentices spells in the appropriate vein. In fact, I played a Conjuration-specialist wizard whose master was also a Conjuration-specialist wizard without using any wizard specialist variant rules (including the "Give up 2 other schools, get a bonus spell of your school" present in the PHB).

We did it all with spell selection and flavor.

Specialist Wizards should be Prestige Classes that give more than just generic bonus spells at the cost of 2 other schools.

 

[Aaron L]

From Rich Baker's blog-



http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=906386

I don't think I like the sound of this. It's cutting a bit too close to real religions for me.

Weird. This is the exact reason why I DO like it very much.

Having dragons in a game without using any of the cultural information or details about dragons would be silly.

The exact same thing goes for devils. And angels.

I am extremely glad that now devils are more than just "lawful monster aliens from another plane" and are now, in fact, Devils.

I very much hope that an equal amount of thought is put into demons.

You can keep baatezu in 2E, and let me forget the horribly lame concept of Blood War was ever thought up and finally have real devils and demons after mortal souls instead of fighting each other over metagame alignment issues.

"I gather mortal's souls through temptation, bargaining, and contracts."

"Well, I prefer to obtain souls by ripping them from the bodies of mortals in a mindless rampage!)

"That's SO WRONG! RAWR!!! WAR FOR ALL ETERNITY!!" (Meanwhile, the whole thing about them being monsters after our souls is kinda forgotten about because they are to busy fighting each other to even care about souls.)


And thank goodness (or evilness, as the case may be) that, by this description, devils at least are no longer the "promoted" souls of mortal beings. I despised that idea. Let's get back to having demons and devils (and liches!) devouring souls, and not being recycled from them like aluminum cans.


(Ugh, the "equally shoehorned for all settings" cosmology/mythology of 2E leaves a bad taste in my mouth)

Keep your tanar'ri out of my demons and get your Finnish Mythos out of my Cthulhu Mythos.

 

[Aaron L]

Ack, double post mixup.

 

[blargney the second]

The mechanics don't matter as much as the flavor. People on these boards are playing more than 4 different versions of this game, and the flavor elements are what we have in common. That was the shared experience I was suggesting.

I totally disagree. None of the flavour elements discussed in this thread have any shared experience in Eberron, Dark Sun, or a pile of settings. The mechanics, however, are shared.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

You missed my point then. The mechanics don't matter as much as the flavor. People on these boards are playing more than 4 different versions of this game, and the flavor elements are what we have in common. That was the shared experience I was suggesting.

My most recent games have been in Eberron, a WLD Mashup, and a complete home-brew where reality was itself split between three planes (and there was a single city present on all three).

The Blood War really didn't enter into most of that.

 

[delericho]

I don't think that's a very relevent point, though. I may think that my interpretation of law/chaos is clear to me, but from the various alignment threads that pop up with a startling degree of regularity, I find that not everyone has an interpretation that I can even recognize, much less find common ground with.

I was addressing obscurity, rather than interpretation.

As far as interpretation goes, I would note that the vast majority of the alignment threads I have seen deal with personal alignment, rather than cosmic alignment. Order and Chaos as overarching cosmic constants seem to receive relatively little attention. Of course, that may not be because they're well understood, but rather that the focus is on how things relevant to the individual character.

I do know I broadly grasped the concepts on a first reading of the 2nd Edition PHB, and that was after 2 years of the BD&D Chaotic = Evil interpretation, and despite the lunacy of 2nd Edition's CN = insane stance. I'm inclined to think that it's somewhat dismissive to suggest that today's new players have worse reading comprehension than I did at thirteen.

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

Not sure if someone else has mentioned this upthread, but I just got my copy of Planescape Monstrous Compendium II down to read something and noticed the author was one Rich Baker. Since this guy created the eladrin, guardinals and rilmani, I guess we should give him the benefit of the doubt..... Perhaps it's all going to turn out OK.

Cheers


Richard

 

[Wormwood]

Not sure if someone else has mentioned this upthread, but I just got my copy of Planescape Monstrous Compendium II down to read something and noticed the author was one Rich Baker. Since this guy created the eladrin, guardinals and rilmani, I guess we should give him the benefit of the doubt..... Perhaps it's all going to turn out OK.

And I trust the Rich Baker to follow an important writer's rule: "Kill Your Children. No matter how much you love what you have written, see it as dispensable at the alter of the greater good, and the bigger picture."

 

[frankthedm]

Just out of curiosity, why do many of you want demons and devils to be immediately recognizable for which type they are to your players?

Because they are different styles of being?

 

[Aaron L]

Speaking to the Great Wheel cosmology, for the same reason they're shackled to fireball, lightning bolt, frost brands, Tiamat, Lolth, bulettes, mind flayers, and so on...

That is the D&D experience.

I'll bet you fifty dollars that there are a lot more people who associate magic missiles, fireballs, and Mind Flayers with D&D then who even know what the Great Wheel is.

And that's among active D&D players.

But I personally have no problem with the great wheel. Just get rid of that ugly Blood War tumor growing on it.

And the part about merging Succubi and Erinyes and recreating Erinyes as true demonic Furies instead of "the other teams Succubus", and making Succubi into tempting devils, is an excellent idea. How many D&D players have any idea that Erinyes is the Greek name for the Furies, and isn't just the name for the devil teams Succubus rip-off? My DM sure didn't, when I told him this past weekend.* And he introduced me to D&D.

(*In a discussion that was totally unrelated to 4E or any of this, I just told him because he was talking about Erinyes. It's really bizarre that this whole schmeel comes up right after our discussion.)

Let's take D&D a little bit more back to the source material that it comes from, instead of digging it deeper in the mess of self-referencing "D&Disms" that it's become. Not so much that it wouldn't be recognizably D&D, but enough that the things that aren't necessary to make it D&D aren't kept around for nostalgia's sake. (especially not nostalgia of a sequel edition. If you they need to nix things, lets hope they start with the 2Eisms.) I know of no Earthly mythology where Demon and Devils were locked in eternal war over matters of Law vs Chaos. Let's keep that an entirely Planescape campaign setting matter and not have it be the default of all D&D settings.

Similiarly, Baalzebub, mythologically the Lord of Flies, being presented as a slug-man devil instead of an insectoid being is a lame idea.