Elemental Planes Killed

[SemajTheSilent]

I have never used the elemental planes as an adventuring site... instead I viewed them as sources for the most primal examples of each mystical element. In short, you tap it... you don't travel in it. Each plane would immediately be totally hostile to any mortal visitor not aligned to that particular element (such as an elemental)... so it's never been on my plate to visit there or stage an adventure there.

So, if they kill the elemental planes, alter them or whatever... makes no difference to me.

 

[Scarbonac]

Oh crap. Free-association does me in again....

You've now just put the image of Richard Benjamin as a Dom in my head.

*twitch*

(cue a horde of "huh??" responses, as it's REALLY obscure....)

"Now, we wait for The Bee."

 

[Geron Raveneye]

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.

Who says you can't? Cynosure is Sigil a few thousand years ahead. And I can already imagine a great adventure, starting with the words "The Manx Cat had gone wandering again..."

 

[Kesh]

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?

... okay, you've gone from making a reasonable argument to... hell, I'm not sure what you're talking about here.

 

[Mercule]

Now, I'm confused. Do people care about this sacred cow, or don't they?

I mainly care because I think the elemental planes are cheesy and having really anything in the ruleset that requires or assumes them annoys me to some extent.

When I say that they should make some changes to give us something worth caring about, what you should read is:

I hope WotC purges the elemental planes and magic that relates to them. The planar cosmology should get rid of that usely crap and replace it with things that are more interesting.

Whether or not the PCs are ever able to adventure to most planes is irrelevant to me because frequent planar adventuring isn't something I find to be "in genre".

If the current model of either the inner or outer planes looks even passingly close to the current form, it will be space wasted. Fortunately, they are revamping fiends, the alignment system, and (apparently because eladrins are now elves) the celestials. So the Great Wheel is almost certainly toast.

I can see a certain value in the elemental planes, but hopefully they are given no more stature in 4E than demiplanes and a passing curiousity.

Furthermore, although I once liked the positive and negative energy planes, the linking of turning/rebuking and other clerical abilities to them rather than their deities has rather soured me. I will stop and dance a small jig if the energy planes are struck from the default cosmology.

If the default cosmology continues to look the same in 4E, I can continue to ignore any and all books that focus on the planes. On the other hand, if WotC does some housecleaning, I may have some great ideas to mine.

So, I don't care about the current cosmology one iota, other than how other system elements imply its structure. On the other hand, I care quite a bit about the inclusion of new ideas and the possibility of sourcebooks from which I may get use. The former may impede the latter by just taking up word count.

 

[Celebrim]

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

You can look at it this way, but you don't really have to. You can have 99.9% of the plane composed of one element and still have a very varied plane.

Since we are talking mostly about the plane of fire, consider the Fire elemental. We know that fire elementals don't have the incorporeal subtype. Furthermore, we know that they have a strength score and can directly lift and move solid objects. It's perfectly reasonable to suppose that fire elementals are in some sense 'solid'. This gives us canonical evidence that fire can be arranged in ways that give it different properties. In some the fire 'atoms' join up to make 'molecules of fire' that have gaseous forms, and in others they apparantly make solid forms. Perhaps on the plane of fire, fire atoms can achieve a density that effectively make them a solid substance? Perhaps it's a difference in structure which causes the change in property much as in the real world different structures of carbon give us things as different as graphite, benzene, and diamond. But whatever you decide, there is no canonical reason to assume that the plane of fire is empty, particularly considering how densely inhabited the plane is (Azer, Efreeti, Salamanders, Elementals, etc.). Fire can be assumed to be hot and destructive, and that its never wet, but beyond that it probably varies alot. Additionally, we know that the plane of fire contains relatively large amounts of smoke, ash, light, and lava (even if its just 1 cubic foot of every 1000), and smaller amounts of stone, certain metals (notably brass and its constitutients) and hot air. From this we can conclude that there are all sorts of terrain on the plane of fire. We can also assume that elementals can occur in nearly as widely different forms as living organism occur in the real world. So, there could be living 'fire plants' - trees, flowers, etc. - especially firey variations on those plants on the prime which require fire to distribute thier seeds and other plants with an tangible or mythic affinity for fire (holly, cherries, for example). There would be living fire animals: fire lions, flame lizards, flame snakes, salamanders, etc., as well as the more usual humanoid fire elementals that you typically summon. All of these things are available through application of templates.

So what do we have? A highly 3D world of varying moving dangerous terrain filled with exotic creatures and cultures. If you can't adventure in that its because it doesn't appeal to you, you can't get your head around it, or you think that it ought to be reserved for higher level challenges rather than just gifting the players with planar adaptation items and guides so that they could survive there.

None of this requires changing anything about the existing cosmology. It's just a matter of organizing what's already been said and laying it out.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

Clearly the people writing the 4E core rules disagree.

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.

You've made it very clear that you feel that way. Others disagree.

This is, in fact, something in the realm of opinion, so there's really little likelihood of you changing someone's mind on this, especially without, you know, providing examples of how to make it interesting, especially without spending an additional $70.

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.

Yes, someone will always find any given thing to be a bad idea. I suspect we could find someone who thought changing the Elemental Planes to be a horrifically bad idea, if we looked hard enough.

Ultimately, though, it comes down to the developers and their read on what the majority wants or would most enjoy.

 

[Celebrim]

... okay, you've gone from making a reasonable argument to... hell, I'm not sure what you're talking about here.

First, I'm arguing in responce to the claim that its so unimportant that I shouldn't care whether it changes, by asking, "Well if it is so unimportant to you, why should you care whether it stays."

And second, I'm arguing that if you want something you could care about, "If you don't care about the elemental planes now, what change could be made that would make you care?"

Mercule for example admits that he could never be made to care in a positive way about them, and that he just wants them gone because they annoy him. This puts him entirely in the opposite camp of someone that wants more setting detail (a less empty more usuable fire plane variant were you can adventure). Since you can't make both that want them gone and those that want them more important happy, why change on thier behalf? Why not keep them a background option to be described or ignored as you like?

Essentially, I think this comes down to the designers whim. It's not a matter of the majority of the fan base clamoring for changes, it's more like if Mercule was put in charge of design and said, "Hey, I want these things to go."

 

[Celebrim]

Ultimately, though, it comes down to the developers and their read on what the majority wants or would most enjoy.

Ultimately, it is down to the developers, but I don't think it necessarily has to do with thier read on what the majority wants.

 

[Nifft]

Who says you can't? Cynosure is Sigil a few thousand years ahead. And I can already imagine a great adventure, starting with the words "The Manx Cat had gone wandering again..."

Am I the only one who has considered introducing PRGs?

"Werewolf pills!", -- N