Elemental Planes Killed

[Celebrim]

What I'm failing to see is why this should be the sacred cow that anyone would care about.

Depending on your attitude, this sort of statement could support both sides. If no one cares, why spend the effort changing it?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Go to town.

No one should have to spend an additional $70 to make something in the core books worth using.

If you don't like this change don't use it. You're in good company with all the people playing in OOP settings. The classic planes/Planescape are now part of that club.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Depending on your attitude, this sort of statement could support both sides. If no one cares, why spend the effort changing it?

Because the goal is to have three core books PACKED with stuff people want to use. Pages full of useless crap are better left for the Internet.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

I'm another of those gamers who never got anything interesting out of the Elemental Planes as they stand, either as the DM or as a player. So, if they're going to make them more interesting and feasible to adventure in, great!

 

[megamania]

Well, if the goal is to make them usable places for PCs to have adventures, they need some change.

Especially Earth. "You're embedded in solid rock. Have fun!"

I have always looked at the elemental planes as 85% of said elemental. The other 15% is a means to enhance the elemtals.

Examples-

Earth- Wind blown sand and grit on rock and earth with mountains of bare rock with volcanos creating new rock formations

Fire- HOT winds that burn. exposed rock / solidish surface that occationally bubbles or leaves footprints in its molten surface.

Water- Pillars of floating rock / coral with steam vents. Bubbles = air to breath.



You get the idea. And as suggested... we'll do whatever we want anyway.

 

[Mercule]

Depending on your attitude, this sort of statement could support both sides. If no one cares, why spend the effort changing it?

Erm... to have something worth caring about?

 

[Celebrim]

No one should have to spend an additional $70 to make something in the core books worth using.

I believe that people are principally complaining that the Elemental planes don't have enough content. The heart of the complaint is that 'there is nothing there'. I don't think that it is the responcibility of the core rules to create that sort of content. There are no detailed Kingdoms in the core rules either. There are no detailed dungeons in the core rules either. Hense, it is not surprising that there aren't detailed planes in the core rules. You don't need to spend $70 to make the elemental planes usable. You just have to make up the content yourself. You don't need to buy an adventure module to make the core rules usable, you just have to make up the adventure yourself.

 

[Celebrim]

Because the goal is to have three core books PACKED with stuff people want to use. Pages full of useless crap are better left for the Internet.

Do you want pages and pages of content and setting information in the core books or don't you? The Elemental Plane of Fire is already an interesting place. That fact is simply not expressed in the core rules, because proving it requires an extensive setting description. And it should not be in the core rules, because no matter how interesting it is someone will find all that fluff 'useless crap' better left 'for the Internet' or a specific Planar handbook.

 

[wingsandsword]

Then what's the point of having them?

I don't mean it to be flip - I mean it seriously. If they're not good for adventuring then what's the point of having them in the game at all?

Because they are there as parts of the setting, as a way to explain in-game where elementals come from, and because it makes sense as part of a medieval look at the universe.

Not every place in the setting has to be suitable as an adventure site, some are good just as background or exposition.

Look at it this way, in a typical modern setting Heaven and Hell are alternate planes of existence, but the adventure will never go there, characters might make reference to them, in a low-magic modern fantasy type game you might even have a demon or angel appear who has been there, but you'd never expect the game to go there. Does this mean that in a modern day RPG, that Heaven and Hell should be excluded because adventures probably won't go there because it's not suitable for mortal PC's?

The Elemental Planes are one of those implied setting elements of D&D that is a sacred cow, and when they remove them the game becomes less D&D, when they remove them and replace them with something with a completely different concept it moves the game further from what people expect as D&D.

Should The Demiplane of Cynosure be removed from Forgotten Realms 4e because it's a place Mortals can never enter and only Gods may walk in? You can't adventure there, so by this logic it shouldn't exist in the setting.

 

[Celebrim]

Erm... to have something worth caring about?

Now, I'm confused. Do people care about this sacred cow, or don't they? Obviously, people think we already have something worth caring about or this thread wouldn't exist. If someone says, "In 30 years I've never adventured on the Elemental Planes...", it suggests to me that they don't have a reason to care. So why should their interests trump those that do? More to the point, if those that do care can show that in fact there is content and the possibility of content on the elemental planes, what theoretical change are we talking about that would actually make you care if you don't now?