Excerpts: Angels

[med stud]

I wouldn't put that interpretation on either of those stories, personally. For the 10th plauge I believe the blood on the door was to notify the angel to pass over the house in question. Afterall the Angel of Death is not noted for being big on discrimination and may not have had any other way of differentiating hebrew from egyptian.

As for Lot's wife, simply looking at the angel may have been all it took. He may not have taken the feat that allows you to be selective with your gaze attacks.

So really it's more a matter of Angels not having a magic "Good Guy" sense that lets them instantly know sides, rather than having an agenda that may differ from the god they serve. Or in other words, they can't see those blue circles around the PC's feet.

That's also a possibility, and one that I like . I think the Old Testament- angels are much better material for RPG-angels than the popular culture ones. They also acted as independent beings when they carried out God's commands; they got orders, hit lists and symbols that marked the ones who weren't to be killed. In the Lot- case, Lot even had to run away because that angel was about to kill everyone in town, mark or no mark.

If the angels were just the extension of God's own will, that wouldn't have been necessary. They would instinctively know who was good and who was evil. Another example of angels being individuals with their own will was the rebellion, where Lucifer and a third of the angels defied God. That wouldn't have happened if they didn't have a will of their own. The remaining angels obey God, but out of their own will.

I think that's what 4e is aiming at, that angels have their own will. They can chose to go against their god if they want to. In the Judeo/Christian/Islam- religions, angels really have nothing to bargain with, since God is almighty. In a D&D-polyhteistic setting, the angels have a better position against their god since that god can be killed or overthrown. Hence the "mercenary"- (very bad choice of word IMO) angle. The angels serve their god, but they don't put up with anything. An angel of vengeance will do vengeance and it will do it in style. It can't be ordered to do a handslapping or delivierance of veiled threats.

 

[Korgoth]

So really it's more a matter of Angels not having a magic "Good Guy" sense that lets them instantly know sides, rather than having an agenda that may differ from the god they serve. Or in other words, they can't see those blue circles around the PC's feet.

That, or the point is that to avoid smiting the Hebrews have to hold up their end of the covenant.

But, on the "mercenary" point, I see the default 4E cosmology as only one possibility, and I don't see it as having any connection to real world religion besides a few borrowed terms.

 

[Evilhalfling]

just taking a break from all this high minded debate on the nature of good and evil, as well as the relative merits of merenaries and david eddings

I want an Angel of Snuggles !
aura of mercy
an at will snuggle power (causes immobility)
a soothing word
"there, there" pat that either ends an ongoing effect or gants another save.

is it a leader or controller role? and what CR?

I can just see trying to push enemies out of the aura of mercy, while staying inside it yourself. It could be a fun tactical challange.

edit: loved the first 1.5 series by eddings, great for teenagers, even the Elentinum started well. However, like many others abandonded it on the realization that I was reading the 3rd or 4th series on the same blue rock.

 

[KidSnide]

On the other hand, if you allow people to be judged by their actions, and for conflicting views of what good and evil are, you allow for the concepts of good and evil to take hold, instead of the rubber stamp "You're on Team Evil, therefore it's okay for me to kill you and take all your stuff."

Yes, you've removed "good" and "evil" as absolutes and labels, but by making it so that nobody radiates pure goodness, you've reintroduced the concepts of good and evil, and that's a welcome change.

QFT. A welcome change, indeed.

 

[quixoteles]

The new angel concepts are pretty awesome, to me as I think about them they seem almost like what we consider the covalent functions of an atom. Vengeance is a natural occurrence of the DND meta setting, the same way gravity exists in out natural world. What goes around really does come back around. God's have nothing to do with it as much as gravity does not necessarily have anything to do with planets, although large cosmic bodies is where we experience gravity and we live with it every day. That is really really awesome. I love that. I would prefer for them to not be so... art-deco, or rather more art deco, like so many bizarre twenty-first level pieces of divine chicago architecture.