Excerpts: Angels

[proto128]

I like the art, although I would like it if they made angels look like the apocryphical angels, with four heads and seven wings and a hundred eyes .

Angel of Apocalypse, Level 26 Elite Brute
Large aberrant humanoid (angel)

 

[Knight Otu]

Moradin lvl 37 (or 38?) solo and Orcus lvl 26 (or 28?) solo

It was Orcus level 33, and Moradin level 38 (which supposedly means "outside the players' reach, usually"), so that Moradin could take Orcus, but he might not be able to take Orcus and Demigorgon if they work together. No mention whether they are solo or not, but it would make sense.

 

[Irda Ranger]

So sure, both sides should get "attacks." But you'll note they've cut out every other special ability in 4e. None of these angels can heal, or feed, or whatnot, they just kill. They don't have any abilities that cleverly use mercy or self-sacrifice or other Good attributes - they just kill.

They're old testament school.

But seriously, the Angels are the Warriors of God. Not the kind healers of God, the warriors. Warriors kill things. That's why we call them warriors. Even Angels can't be good at everything.

It's not just the stat block, but if the abilities don't differ, the tactics don't differ, and the background doesn't differ, then yeah, devils and angels being largely equated is a very subjectivist stance.

Whoa, where did your mention of devils come from? Devils are very different from angels, both subjectively and in the stat block. I thought your problem was "Angels of Pelor" being the same as "Angels of Bane." Am I wrong?

I'm OK with the Angels of Bane being the same as Angels of Pelor. It's OK because they'll be engaged for different reasons; sent on different missions; have different motives; etc. BUT, even though Pelor and Bane wreak vengeance for different reasons, vengeance gets wreaked in pretty similar ways, and usually with pretty similar results. I'm cool with that because the alternative is having 50 different Angels of Vengeance, ones that avenge with treachery, and ones that avenge with hate, and ones that avenge with love, tulips and sunshine, etc. etc. No thanks.

I'm also cool with that because I like the feeling of saying "PC's, you stand before the inner Sanctum of Pelor, long lost to the ages. Upon a balcony attached to each column of the knave stands an angel, 20' tall and shining with radiance. Their swords are undulled by standing watch for 10,000 years, their attention has not wavered. Anyone who crosses the threshold must swear their life to the service of Pelor, or be destroyed."

Yeah, Pelor is about honor and sunlight, but his tolerance of anything that isn't honorable and sunlit is on par with Eyrnthul's tolerance for lolcats.

 

[AverageCitizen]

I think it's already obvious that the people at WOtC have taken a serious critical look at what "classic" is at this moment in time, and have adjusted the game to reflect that.

I actually disagree. I don't think they're trying to keep up with the times at all. I believe they have two goals here. First, dissolving the traditional allegiances allows the DM to throw a higher percentage of the MM at the players.

Second, they're either trying to make the setting involve as few concepts from actual religion as possible OR they're very strongly over reacting from the problems that arose from hardwiring alignment into the 3e system. (Detect spells, alignment spells, etc.) Throughout 4e they are removing the ideas of good and evil, which is resulting in a very washed-out setting. Very bland, if you ask me.

They're scary amoral heavies, and monsters are fer killin' indeed.

Angels aren't monsters. Or at least, they shouldn't be.

A dark angel wreaking vengeance upon a paragon of good that antagonized an evil god... yes, they would do that in 4e. And that's exciting, really very exciting.

Yes that would be exciting. But you're already changing the proscribed concept. In 4e, there is no 'dark angel'. The angel in question is silver, if I'm not mistaken, and does cold damage. There are no paragons of good, they just got retconned into intraplanar mercenaries. Unless you mean paladins, but no, they're not paragons of good either. Just paragons of the 'divine' because there is no difference between a paladin of a good god and an evil one. Do you see why I have a problem with this?

This is better role playing good.

This is storytelling brilliance good.

Different. This is different, not universally better. And I definitely think 'brilliant' is a strong word for what they've written here. Faulkner was brilliant, this is just... vanilla.

Angels spend more time kicking human butt than devil butt in the old King James Bible.

You're forgetting the war in heaven. You know, the part where the angels fight the demons? But I digress. I think it would be a lot more compelling for the players to fight angels sent against humanity by a good god wreaking vengeance than an evil god hiring mercenaries to do his dirty work.

Actually my classic, BoED angel's in my games involved something like this but I couldn't articulate it quite as well. So Average Citizen, they SAVED me work ironically.

I'm not familiar with that acronym. I think I get the idea though. And it's good that this works for you. That's really cool. Anyway, I think this guy hits it on the head:

I understand the "no one uses angels" problem, but I don't like the "mercenary" angle either. And the generic-ness of these angels is likely to be a problem - I want angels that are more distinctly an extension of a given deity. A lot of people do too I think, so later splatbooks will publish a mess of them, and these generic angels won't get used much anyway.

It is probably a good idea for DDM to have a generic angel race, but not so much for a RPG.

From a moral POV I also frankly don't like the merging of good and evil I'm seeing in 4e. No holy or unholy, it's just "radiant." Angels serve everyone. Leads to reductive subjectivism, which if that's your thing fine... But my D&D has had meaningful Good versus Evil for a long time.

I agree. My D&D is almost always about meaningful Good vs. Evil. Its why I like the game.

 

[RangerWickett]

I do not like this artist's work. He seems to be getting tons of air time in the previews, but he is my least favorite of the artists for 4e.

 

[drjones]

I wonder, what would it mena in a 4e setting if you call someone an angel. Certainly isn't a nickname you want to use with your girlfriend.

Well I suppose that depends, Angels in Judeo-Christianity were not always particularly cuddly. I mean we have been talking abut the angel of death for quite a while.

I would think in fantasy land things would be similar, most people never meet an angel that they know of and the stories they hear are probably in keeping with the faith of the populous so most would probably think of angels as heavenly beings who do their good gods will.

The faceless/bodyless thing might make the term less endearing though.

So there is my pedantic unfunny answer to your joke. Welcome to the internet!

 

[Voss]

Fair enough. So Polymorph Self is a ritual, then? From what I've heard about rituals, it seems like their employment will be pretty flexible (from a story point of view).

Not necessarily. Its just the current defense of the Monster Stat blocks. Anything left out is automatically a ritual, regardless of the lack of basis for the claim.

 

[I'm A Banana]

They'll do okay.

I still need me some devil-killin' warriors from the heavens, and some guardian-like creatures of protective power, and some good Seraphim and Cherubim and Burning Wheels and four-headed six-winged bibical insanity, but I can accept that those are more....specialized...needs than most games.

The need for a specific "divine champion of cause X" has been in the game, and these guys will fill it okay.

Not a huge fan of the artwork, though I oddly do enjoy the description of them as faceless creatures composed of astral energy, almost like people who have been subsumed into their ideals.

 

[drjones]

They're old testament school.

But seriously, the Angels are the Warriors of God. Not the kind healers of God, the warriors. Warriors kill things. That's why we call them warriors. Even Angels can't be good at everything.

I think we are also seeing only soldiers/brutes at this time. I would bet within a year we will see other flavors of angels who fill controller/leader roles as the captains and lieutenants of a gods forces who will have more subtlety and complexity.

But even then, they are in the MONSTER Manual, they are monsters who exist to be enemies in the game. I am sure healing/feeding agents of god exist but putting them in the MM is a waste of ink.

 

[FadedC]

Not necessarily. Its just the current defense of the Monster Stat blocks. Anything left out is automatically a ritual, regardless of the lack of basis for the claim.

Haha yeah pretty much....though in all fairness there was nothing left out here. No mention was made of angels having any ability to polymorph at all, people are just speculating on how to give it to them.

And of course the ritual thing isn't all that different from other editions. How does a storm giant create his cloud castle or how does a wizard create an owlbear? With a arbitrary ritual that doesn't exist in any book.