D&D 5E Do you think they will go back to driders being a curse instead of a blessing?

[JasonZZ]

Up until the previous edition, being turned into a drider was seen as a punishment from Lolth to all drow who didn't receive her favour. Well in 4th edition all of that changed, it was then seen has being in Lolth's favour so it was considered a blessing.

Do you think they will go back to the original lore or will they retain the new?

Chalk me up as another "I hope not" vote. It makes more sense for becoming a drider to be a reward--driders are literally closer to their goddess, even in shape.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I think they'll use the original lore, but I'd prefer they didn't. I've always felt the old drider lore didn't make a lot of sense.

 

[howandwhy99]

I suspect they will try and keep all of the different iterations of the Drider somehow. That may be multiple options or a varied background. Possibly even different builds for DMs to use with it.

 

[billd91]

I very much preferred the curse version and hope they return to it. But I suppose incorporating both ideas as campaign alternatives would be politic on WotC's part.

 

[The Human Target]

Do we need to be so inclusive now as to necessitate multiple drider backgrounds?

Does anyone care much?

Do we need to have variant terrain preferences for blue dragons?

Every book is going to have to be 900 pages long.

 

[mach1.9pants]

It is a bit like the good gods cursing some humanoid to be a Death Knight or whatever. We curse you with eternal life to live in angst and horror at what you have done... at the same time as making you so powerful that you'll be able to lay waste to armies and end up responsible for the slaughter of many more innocents.

 

[n00bdragon]

Perhaps its a little of both. Lloth has this thing about turning her powerful followers into spider creatures. People who don't want that would see it as a curse, people who are drinking the Lloth Koolaid probably think that's awesome and want nothing more than to be turned into a fiendish half-spider half-drow monster.

 

[billd91]

Do we need to be so inclusive now as to necessitate multiple drider backgrounds?

Does anyone care much?

Considering WotC took a lot of heat over lore changes with 4e and there have been numerous articles by James Wyatt polling about lore changes? I'd say they do.

 

[Lanefan]

I took Driders and turned them into Llolth's minions - in effect her version of Norse Valkyries. Having one show up in any given situation is a sure sign of Llolth's direct interest in proceedings.

If you're a typical Drow your career goal is probably to impress Llolth enough that when you die she promotes you to Drider and makes you one of her minions. So, it's a blessing. But if you're not a Drow and somehow get promoted to Drider you're really kinda screwed; in this case it's a curse, and probably very very permanent. It seems that WotC's 4e version sort-of agrees with this.

And as Drow aren't available as player characters in my game this is all just background and dungeon-design stuff anyway.

Lanefan

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I played through 30 levels of 4th Edition and was unaware of this - and I was even more unaware it was a criticism of 4e.

I'm a fan of driders being a blessing rather than a curse. In a game where ability scores of monsters are important (3e, 5e) driders are more powerful. And even in 4e, they're a cool way of widening the drow "roster".

One of the things I liked about MM1 4e were the suggested encounter groups. (MV dropped that, but included far more fluff to make up for it.) Driders could act as a type of cavalry, alongside spider-riding drow and lizard-riding drow. It means if you go into the Underdark and know you'll be facing drow, you still might not know what exactly you're facing.

Clan A might have lots of spider-riders getting combat bonuses from priestesses. Clan B might have drider sorcerers, who spider climb up the wall and fire lightning bolts at you.

In 4e, driders and drow cover the same range of levels, so they can work together pretty well without forcing the DM to create new monsters.