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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 3748015" data-attributes="member: 22424">The designers absolutely have the right to make whatever changes they feel are appropriate. I absolutely have the right not to like them. Furthermore, subject to the forbearance of the moderators, I have the right to say as much.The first time a new monster is met without context, it should not be possible to determine whether it is a Demon or a Devil, short of using Knowledge(the planes). However, an expert player should, upon repeated encounters, and with context, be able to make the distinction with a reasonable degree of accuracy. My definition of "expert player" does not equate to "is able to see weapons", however.One is lawful and the other chaotic. As such, the DM should be using different tactics to show this point. Moreover, in the build-up to the combat, those differences should be emphasised - the Cornugon should be operating in a disciplined manner through various levels of underlings (probably with a militaristic bent, as befits its place in the heirarchy of the Hells), while the Glabrezu should be working in a manner better suited to breaking down social orders and heirarchies (focussing on subterfuge, for the same reason).It is absolutely true that the current rules do a fairly poor job of distinguishing between the two, and that improvements can be made. However, the problems have nothing to do with the relative appearances of the two groups. Rather than force them into these two camps (and then have to re-assign the Succubus, presumably redesign the Balor to no longer be humanoid or use weapons, and eliminate the Hellcat, for three), and make meta-gaming easier, they should be changing the mechanics, and providing guidance on the usage of these monsters to emphasise the differences.IMO, of course.In any case, I think I've said all I have to say on this topic, so I'm going to step out of the thread rather than test that forbearance of the moderators. To recap: I don't like the change to the cosmology, because it seems like change for the sake of change. I don't like the shoe-horning of Devils to be humanoid and use weapons, and Demons to be non-humanoid and not use weapons, because I feel it makes metagaming easier, does nothing to actually differentiate the encounters, and requires changes to several creatures that otherwise wouldn't be necessary. The merging of the succubus and the erinyes I actually don't mind... except that the succubus still fits the CE alignment better, and so should be a Demon.</blockquote>

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