Comments and dislikes of lore and other changes in the 4th ed MM.

[Moonshade]

Re: Drider: I never knew why Lolth would take the failures of the drow race and make them more like herself (if anything, she should be turning the failures into regular elves, to be tortured and killed by drow). Making Driders the favoured of the goddess makes more sense.

I liked that flavour and thought it was wonderfully humiliating in a way that made sense for the race - a tangible, visible demonstration of Lolth's power that would continue to serve as a warning to all others. I treated the driders as drow who had failed Lolth's plan for the society. They thought they'd worship another deity or defy Lolth's priestesses? Show them that they will never be free of her. Transform them into animal-like form, deny them the pleasures and benefits of the drow body. Everyone who sees them knows their failure and the price they paid for it, and even when they're alone their transformed body reminds them of what happened when they defied Lolth. Death can be easy, but existence in a form that continually reminds you of your moment of helplessness and the supremacy of the Spider Queen? Oh yes. Drow society already has powerful priestesses with spider pets of various sizes, and adding the lower body of an arachnid to a cleric doesn't make her that much more fearsome or memorable. Personally, I find driders more effective as the failures that lurk in the background, reminding other drow of the punishment that will face them if they disobey the goddess and her clerics.

Worshipping spiders is fine, but allowing your body to be mutilated so you become more like one? Not necessarily an upgrade.

 

[DandD]

Meh, I'm with Klaus here. Seeing as there are tons of wizards and clerics who willfully change their body with powerful magic and transmutation or experiment on others to create superpowerful hybrid monster that are more advantagious than the lesser forms, I can't really see driderdom being a punishment, what with a bajillion magicians frolicking around.

 

[hamishspence]

Storm Giant

I looked. They have a swim speed, and Aquatic. They can indeed breathe underwater. Start of MM says there are exceptions to alignments: even in a canon game you could meet a Good storm giant. Annoying that they will be rare now, but, things happen. i'm more annoyed that Stone giants got the boot, and Frost giants, at least Frost will reappear later, but neither Earth titans nor Hil giants have much in common with Stone giants.

 

[pawsplay]

Of course they are. WotC has taken the terrible course of the "word+word" nomenclature. Examples: Shadowfell, Feywild, Bloodspike, Deathjump (spider), Deathrattle (viper), I can go on....

The name change from "dinosaur" to "behemoth" was a wise one though, because inhabitants of a fantasy world wouldn't likely know the word "dinosaur."

But of, course, they are quite familiar witht he word "behemoth," an old Semitic word sometimes rendered in Arabic as Bahamut.

Did it not occur to you they wouldn't know any of our words at all? Take the sword "sword," for instance. Or "dragon," which, like dinosaur, comes from the Greek. I suppose if you want to go with the adjective-noun, noun-noun thing you could always translate dinosaur into Terror Lizard.

Interestingly, Young Earth Creationists sometimes say that the behemoth refers to a dinosaur, according to Wikipedia.

But anyway, apart from the not very helpful name change, I'm flabbergasted that they decided to rename dinosaurs as, essentially, Bahamuts.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Worshipping spiders is fine, but allowing your body to be mutilated so you become more like one? Not necessarily an upgrade.

Specifically, this worked on a few cool levels for me.

#1: "Yet Another Spider!" In any drow adventure, you're going to fight spiders. It's like peanutbutter and chocolate, they go together. The Drider weren't just another spider creature for you to fight with the drow. They were a more ambiguous creature.

#2: "Unexpected Help." Driders, being rejected critters, might offer some limited help and advice to the PC's. They are drow who did not drink the kool-aid, and so, while evil and corrupt, they might also be helpful, at least for now.

#3: "Elven Beauty." Drow specifically have been written as being obsessed with physical perfection, and knowing that Lolth created the drow bodies as "perfect" is a powerful meme in the drow arsenal because it reflects the beauty of the elves in a warped and twisted way. For them to embrace these mutations is to get rid of that in favor of boring old "Drow like spiders hur hur," which is pretty repetitive.

It would be like if normal elves had an "advanced" form that made them half-squirrel or half-eagle or half-deer or something.

Driders can be so much more interesting than drow also-rans. But the 4e MM didn't do much for interesting fluff in general, so meh. It was obviously in the strategy.

 

[pawsplay]

The new drider is a really bad case of Plant of Hats.

 

[Ripzerai]

Re: Drider: I never knew why Lolth would take the failures of the drow race and make them more like herself.

Because Lolth herself was a failure. She failed in her attempt to usurp the throne of Corellon, and was transformed into her present drider shape as a punishment. Thus, the dark elven form hearkens back to the form Lolth herself had before she had been tested and found wanting. If Lolth had to undergo such a test, why shouldn't she inflict it on her chosen race, and force them to face the same punishments she herself suffered?

That said, she survived her punishment, worked her way back up to full divinity, and fully intends one day to have her vengeance, so she knows well that such punishment is not necessarily the end. Drow who show they can thrive despite their banishment can and have earned their way back into her good graces. Many of her greatest servants in the Demonweb either are or resemble driders. Because they have undergone the same trials as the Spider Queen, driders have the potential to become her most cherished children. She will not hold their hands while they walk that path, however; they must prove themselves without her aid, just as she herself had no aid as she strove to build herself a new base of power in the Abyss.

Anyway, I have to agree that "Lolth rewards her favorites by turning them into driders" isn't nearly as interesting.

 

[Klaus]

Because Lolth herself was a failure. She failed in her attempt to usurp the throne of Corellon, and was transformed into her present drider shape as a punishment. Thus, the dark elven form hearkens back to the form Lolth herself had before she had been tested and found wanting. If Lolth had to undergo such a test, why shouldn't she inflict it on her chosen race, and force them to face the same punishments she herself suffered?

That said, she survived her punishment, worked her way back up to full divinity, and fully intends one day to have her vengeance, so she knows well that such punishment is not necessarily the end. Drow who show they can thrive despite their banishment can and have earned their way back into her good graces. Many of her greatest servants in the Demonweb either are or resemble driders. Because they have undergone the same trials as the Spider Queen, driders have the potential to become her most cherished children. She will not hold their hands while they walk that path, however; they must prove themselves without her aid, just as she herself had no aid as she strove to build herself a new base of power in the Abyss.

Anyway, I have to agree that "Lolth rewards her favorites by turning them into driders" isn't nearly as interesting.

I don't think Lolth would punish failing drow by doing what Corellon did to her. If anything, she would wear her spider form as a badge of defiance and spite, and would reward her favored ones with a similar form.

 

[Klaus]

Of course they are. WotC has taken the terrible course of the "word+word" nomenclature. Examples: Shadowfell, Feywild, Bloodspike, Deathjump (spider), Deathrattle (viper), I can go on....

The name change from "dinosaur" to "behemoth" was a wise one though, because inhabitants of a fantasy world wouldn't likely know the word "dinosaur."

Well, if change was desired, "dinosaur" could become "dread lizard".

 

[Ginnel]

I thought people were complaining about not being able to use their old books. EDIT

Well now we have a use for them, on another point I'm quite sure there would have been complaints of why did they include all this fluff, I can invent my own/use my old stuff if they had included full descriptive fluff.

To be honest the new fluff is giving people a new take on old monsters, if you don't like it you can just have the monsters and universes fluff as it was before.