Elemental Planes Killed

[Kobold Avenger]

Elemental Planes are an essential part of D&D, and the statement sounds like they are merely changing those planes into something more habitable.

The first book to present some more "hospital" Inner Planes, was that Dark Sun book on Elemental Clerics. It was sort of a counterpoint of having the Inner Planes there being so hospitable, as Athas itself wasn't hospitable at all.

But anyways I will wait and see what they do about the planes.

But if there's one thing, changing the planes from whatever format they're in with the 4e core, to what they were in Planescape, will be a lot easier than changing the Succubus back into a Demon.

 

[Grog]

"Over the years, we've sold at least a half-dozen books full of fluff that show how the elemental planes can be very interesting places to adventure. Then we realized something: we aren't selling those books. So in the interest of selling these books, we are going to ignore all that fluff that has been written, pretend that there is a problem that most DMs don't actually have, and then tweak that fluff to sell new books. Great plan, huh?"

The only reason that most DMs don't have a problem with the elemental planes is because they ignore them completely.

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

In BXCM D&D, all we had were the Prime Material, the Etherial, and the the Elemental Planes. It would be completely weird to me not to have them.

Those are the Inner Planes in BXCM. Then there is the Astral Plane, in which the Inner Planes "float" and across which are the Outer Planes, i.e. the homeplanes of the various Immortals and other creatures.

 

[Elphilm]

Personally, I think they should go with the Planes of Chemical Elements.

Adventures in pure bromine!

 

[Imp]

Then you can have the Paraelemental Plane of Top Quarks.

Try visualizing that, mister big DM hotshot man!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Well, if they re-imagine elemental planes (or whatever) to make them decent adventuring locations, then everyone who hates that won't have any problem in just saying "elemental plane of water? it is just water". After all, the status quo *is* boring; it would be a handwave just to go back there! It isn't as if they are replacing anything that is *detailed*, is it?

On the other hand, re-imagined planes (like the way that Eberron handled things with Fernia, Syrania(?), the ice plane and so forth) could make for excellent and much-used adventuring locations.

I'm all for it.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I agree that Eberron's planes are much more interesting for adventures - Fernia, the Sea of Fire, is basically exactly like all the actually "habitable" (in the loosest sense of the word) parts of the Elemental Plane of Fire. You can have your City of Brass there, but it's not burdened with the idea that it's meant to mostly be composed of nothing but fire.

One note: the Desert of Desolation set of D&D Miniatures is Fourth Edition-oriented, and the first preview article has this to say:

Meanwhile, the Fire Archon . . . is a servant of Elemental Fire and provides shock troops for the forces of Imix.​

So, is Imix still going to be Prince of Elemental Fire in Fourth Edition? Perhaps elementals will inhabit a single Plane of the Elements where the forces of each element clash.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Also, from an playing standpoint, there's a difference between an entire universe to adventure in with a few remote places of nothing (like the Prime) and an entire universe of nothing with a few remote places to adventure in (like the elemental planes).

I, for one, welcome the change.

 

[Khaalis]

I'm with Plane Sailing on this. I think the revamp is a good idea. If you are going to include a "place" as part of the cosmology and an intended adventuring place, even if epic, it should be more interesting than "You pass through the gate into a mass of {insert plane}. No there is nothing else here, just {X}." to which the response is usually "Ok, so we're here why? Lets go back."

I like the idea of "themed" planes, but I agree they should not be called the "Plane of {Element}". They should be updated in name as well as thematics.

 

[Jer]

"Over the years, we've sold at least a half-dozen books full of fluff that show how the elemental planes can be very interesting places to adventure. Then we realized something: we aren't selling those books. So in the interest of selling these books, we are going to ignore all that fluff that has been written, pretend that there is a problem that most DMs don't actually have, and then tweak that fluff to sell new books. Great plan, huh?"

I don't think that's fair at all. I think it might be more accurate to say:

"Over the years we've sold a half-dozen or so books of fluff and rules to try to shoehorn the basically boring elemental planes into someplace interesting to adventure in. They're not that exciting by themselves, and they were designed more to fill a cosmological niche than the be interesting adventure sites, so some really creative people spent a lot of time coming up with ways to make them interesting. Then we realized something: why are we keeping these things around if they're not interesting? Why not just make something interesting up front and use that instead of trying to shoehorn interesting stuff into a framework that wasn't designed to be interesting in the first place? "

That's how I read Perkins's blog entry anyway.