D&D 5E Do you care about setting "canon"?

[Imaro]

But, they didn't since the 4e MM HAS Planescape eladrin.

Are they celestials??

 

[Imaro]

We are. In 5e lore ALL salamanders are slaves to Efreeti. In earlier lore, they could be slaves, they could be free, they could be enslaved by someone else entirely.

No they aren't... and there are still nobles.

IOW, 5e CHANGED the lore. And you're perfectly fine with it. Why? Why is this change perfectly acceptable, when other changes aren't. If lore is important, how do you distinguish between important and unimportant lore? What's the criteria?

No there are Salamanders who are slaves to the Efreet and those who are not... 5e did it correctly by adding to the lore as opposed to replacing it.

 

[Hussar]

Are they celestials??

LOL. You realize that when Eladrin were added to the game, there was no such thing as a "celestial" as a type, right? Celestial means good aligned outsider, IIRC. So, yup, they are celestials, even if the key word isn't really used in 4e.

 

[Shasarak]

But, they didn't since the 4e MM HAS Planescape eladrin.

As I said no one complained about the Planescape Eladrin.

 

[Hussar]

No they aren't... and there are still nobles.



No there are Salamanders who are slaves to the Efreet and those who are not... 5e did it correctly by adding to the lore as opposed to replacing it.

Nope. Reread your 5e Monster Manual please. ALL salamanders are enslaved by Efreeti. And, now, according to Elemental Evil, Efreeti kill all salamanders that don't worship Efreeti. All salamanders hate Azer because they blame the Azer for the efreeti enslavement of salamanders.

Funny how much work you will do to defend changes you happen to like or at least, not disapprove of, since you are so concerned that lore not be changed. Here, we have a clear case of lore being changed. Heck, we no longer even have a stat block for Salamander nobles, something the game has had in core since 2e. And that's perfectly fine.

Would almost seem like "important changes" depends pretty heavily on how much someone likes or dislikes the changes.

 

[Shasarak]

You're basically saying that because it costs you a minor bit of work, I can NEVER have anything that I want. Because I DON'T WANT standard D&D cosmology. I've never liked it and have always been forced to home-brew my own since my 1e days. ALWAYS. Then in 4e, I finally got a cosmology that I could work with and I liked, only to have that shut down and flushed down the toilet because you apparently can't be bothered to do any work.

I keep seeing other people being told that they still have their old books and why can they not still use their old books and why are they forced to use the new stuff, does that not also apply to 4e as well as any other edition?

 

[Imaro]

LOL. You realize that when Eladrin were added to the game, there was no such thing as a "celestial" as a type, right? Celestial means good aligned outsider, IIRC. So, yup, they are celestials, even if the key word isn't really used in 4e.

Now whose playing the pedantry and semantics game? Eladrin in 4e are Fey creatures not Celestials? Oh and for the record part of being a celestial is that you dwell on an upper plane... where do Eladrin in 4e dwell? Feywild...right?

 

[Tony Vargas]

- No... but that's completely missing the point. My old books work just fine, if I'm playing using 2nd edition rules! But if I want to use my old material with 4e, there's a major problem because many monsters have been changed or eliminated, and the cosmology is different. Hell, I might just as well be trying to play Planescape using the rules from Vampire: The Masqurade, it's about as easy.

I used Tremere and Tzimisce from M:tG (and system-native Nera) in a 4-way battle in a D&D game once. Now, saying that V:tM vampires and D&D vampires are 'different' is putting it mildly, but it wasn't exactly hard to bang out D&D stats for 'em. As for differences in setting & cosmology, well, D&D assumes a multiverse, so anything's possible /somewhere/.

Of course, that's monsters. Monsters are easy that way, the DM just make's 'em up in any edition (in 3e it might be a bit of a process, but not /quite/ as hard, nor with nearly the implications of introducing new player options).

Of course, player options are an issue, but the 4e Elf/Eladrin/Drow trichotomy was just a simplified take on the same old even sub-races, Wood Elf, High/Grey Elf & Drow... Swap Feywild for Arborea if you want to use the MM versions of Eladrin.

A new edition of a game - any game - should not put up roadblocks making it difficult to continue your game from a previous edition. That's just bad customer service and PR.

That's being terribly unfair to 5e. Didn't it have enough impossible goals already?

 

[Imaro]

Nope. Reread your 5e Monster Manual please. ALL salamanders are enslaved by Efreeti. And, now, according to Elemental Evil, Efreeti kill all salamanders that don't worship Efreeti. All salamanders hate Azer because they blame the Azer for the efreeti enslavement of salamanders.

I am reading it right now and you are flat out wrong... Read the Domineering Nobles section where they discuss both free salamanders and the fact that they have nobles. They also state that the Efreet don't suffer Salamanders who serve other masters (not sure where you got the worship stuff from but I don't think they would mention other masters if every Salamander was enslaved under the Efreet)... which means there are Salamanders that serve other masters and there are free Salamanders (As well as Nobles who rule them). What Monster Manual are you reading from? Here I'll put the exact passages I am speaking too...

Domineering Nobles.
Although salamanders follow the destructive impulses of their fiery nature, slavery under the efreet has impacted the culture of free salamanders. They rule their own societies according to the efreet model, in which larger and stronger salamanders claim dominion over their lesser kin.
As salamanders age, they increase in size and status, rising to positions of power as cruel nobles among their kind. Nobles rule wandering bands of salamanders,which move across the Elemental Plane of Fire like desert nomads, raiding other communities for treasure.

...The efreet suffer salamanders to serve no other master; when efreet encounter salamanders dedicated to the cults of Elemental Evil, they slay them rather than taking them as slaves...

Funny how much work you will do to defend changes you happen to like or at least, not disapprove of, since you are so concerned that lore not be changed. Here, we have a clear case of lore being changed. Heck, we no longer even have a stat block for Salamander nobles, something the game has had in core since 2e. And that's perfectly fine.

It's not much work to actually read the monster manual... really it isn't. I'm wondering why you seem to be selectively excluding and or changing what's in the MM to fit your own agenda?

Would almost seem like "important changes" depends pretty heavily on how much someone likes or dislikes the changes.

Or whether they invalidate as opposed to adding too whats come before...

 

[Remathilis]

IOW, 5e CHANGED the lore. And you're perfectly fine with it. Why? Why is this change perfectly acceptable, when other changes aren't. If lore is important, how do you distinguish between important and unimportant lore? What's the criteria?

Here is my criteria.

* Ease of ignoring. Salamanders, gnolls, and mind-flayers work mechanically and fill the same general niche regardless of their new backstory. A gnoll in a module generally fills the same role regardless if they are demonic bred or not.
* Ease of re-fluffing. The tieflling stats work for tieflings regardless if they are the myriad of Planescape style tieflings of the mono-Baal Turath style ones. You can use the same rules regardless of the origin you choose.
* Ease of Explanation: Making Succubi work for both demons and devils can explain both the pre-4e days of succubi in the Abyss and post 4e succubi in Hell without having to do mental gymnastics to explain why in one adventure, they were with a vrock and the next a chain devil.
* Consistency Criteria: The Eladrin gave a major, central new ability to the race formerly known as "high elves", which caused major changes to how that race works in the world. It makes them inconsistent with how the race worked before 4e.
* The "Blank slate" Criteria: Quick, tell me the origin story of the 2nd edition gnolls. Or 1st edition kobolds. You probably can't because they were generic and unremarkable. The 5e versions, love or hate them, at least stick out and make them more than "hynea orcs" or "scaly goblins".

Basically, a good lore change shouldn't change the role of the thing in the campaign. A gnoll with a demonic origin doesn't really change the gnoll from its primary role as a savage monster foe. Whereas saying the formerly good-aligned storm giants are now evil sea-creatures does.