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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 6368182" data-attributes="member: 30022">[everything below is prefaced with "in my opinion"...] [also: SPOILER for a decades-old Planescape module]Like the OP, I love the 5e succubus... regardless of the threat to my energy levels / maximum hp. And here's why...1e/2e got it WRONG. That's all there is to it. Not everything in 1e was the right decision. Weapon speed factors, the original rules for the bard, the original monk, the original rules for psionics, the decision to make Odin a winnable fight for high-level characters, the entire concept/design/development of the H-series of Bloodstone modules (you know... the ones which had the tarrasque in a random dungeon room, with text saying: "This room has the tarrasque in it.").In the classic 1e Monster Manual, both demons and devils had their respective highly-intelligent naked winged women (cf. 1e MM artwork) with charm powers who could disguise themselves as a mortal and charm foolish adventurers. One had feathered wings, one had bat wings. And that was about that. It was redundant design. The similarity of the succubus and erinyes was ridiculous. This is hardly a unique observation. Order of the Stick has commented on it multiple times, with the heroes constantly confused about whether one of the villains is a demon or a devil, and whether she is vulnerable to iron or silver. Other than that, they're virtually the same monster. Yes, yes... some minor differences in spell-like powers, AC, HD, etc. The rope of entanglement and the dagger of venom. Whatever. You know what I mean, fellow grognards.2e Planescape made the situation worse, and I say that as a huge Planescape fan who owns just as much Planescape material as Shemeska (assuming Todd owns all of it...) and loves the setting with a passion. Planescape blurred the motivations and capabilities of the baatezu and the tanar'ri to the point that they were very close to the same race wearing different colored hats. The erinyes was the busty lingerie-wearing diTerlizzi red-head, and the succubus was the busty lingerie-wearing diTerlizzi blonde. Even in the modules... Chiryn's fatal love affair with Kas'rarlin really wouldn't be that much different if you swapped the "families" completely. It's a cambion longing for an erinyes who dwells in her own tower on Avernus, and tortures her prisoners for her own amusement. Wow. Big change, there. In fact, virtually every succubus or erinyes that appears in every Planescape module could be reasonably interchanged... as long as you change their motivations from "Because Chaos" to "Because Law", and vice versa.3e started to get it right by doing something different with the erinyes, and they also corrected another thing that 1e got wrong. 3e changed the erinyes to (gasp) a warrior / fury / fallen angel of vengeance. Most of them were still wearing lingerie, because (heavy sigh). But at least they were now depicted as badass fighters wielding blades, flaming bows, and bringing the pain. Artwork began to show erinyes returning from the Blood War carrying demon heads. Much more in line with the ACTUAL erinyes, i.e. the FURY of Greek myth. If there's any proof that the Olympian pantheon has been long absent from this world, it's because the actual Furies didn't start calling for the heads of the 1e design/art team for depicting them as feathered seductresses.So, the erinyes is now fixed. We've got a warrior fury that is closer to the mythical ideal, and we've reduced the design redundancy. We no longer have two virtually-identical races of artistically-objectionable eye candy....But now we have a problem. There are two races of fiends. One is Lawful Evil and heavily predicated on the concepts of subtlety, temptation, guile and intelligence. According to 2e, they're outnumbered by their foes by a margin of approximately infinity. Their intellect, discipline and cunning is their edge. Their leaders are mostly human-looking, and many of them are attractive (Dispater, Fierna, Belial, Glasya, Mephistopheles, Asmodeus). In real myth and D&D lore, they're after souls. They want domination and control, not destruction.The other race is Chaotic Evil. They are a random force of destruction, taking vastly more shapes than their enemies. Virtually all of these shapes are beyond monstrous in human terms. Many barely even qualify as humanoid. Their leaders are almost never human-looking (Graz'zt being the notable exception, but that's another whole argument). They are out for annihilation. They win their battles, usually, with sheer numbers and ferocity. They don't have the patience or discipline for long-term plans, for the most part.So... which of those two sides do you think should get the succubus? The intellectual, subtle schemer. With little or no combat capability. Almost always encountered alone, working with great subtlety, to gather souls.Also note that if you picked race #2 (for tradition!), then who the heck is the classic seducer/tempter for race #1? The spinagon? The barbazu? The frickin' gelugon?!? (spined, bearded, ice devils respectively, for those of you who aren't in the know)....For my money, 4e got it "mostly" right. If the erinyes is now a warrior (and she should be, because of real myth, design redundancy, and to reduce the amount of cheesecake pandering), then it's a no-brainer that the succubus should be a devil from a story and design perspective.However, 5e got it EVEN MORE right. There's no reason that a succubus cannot also be a demon. Or a yugoloth! Or a slaad, for that matter. I'm not sure what a slaad succubus would actually look like. Something that a frog would find incredibly attractive. Possibly an anthropomorphized pig in a blonde wig, perhaps....So, in summary: 5e succubus rules. And also the incubus. They can now be all things to all people... as they should have been, from the very first version.Next topic: gorgons in D&D. Snake-haired ladies cursed by the gods, or giant metallic bulls? We need an immediate re-think on the role of the medusa in 5e....</blockquote>

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