I'm sick of symmetries

[Tatsukun]

Well, to me, it's a matter of explaining balance. I think it is assumed that in most worlds, there exists some kind of balance between good / evil, law / chaos. There are plenty of worlds where one axis is dominant, but I think the core worlds are supposed to be fairly balanced.

So, if you make a powerful new thing, and make it only usable by good; it begs the question 'Why haven't good people used it to destroy all the evil?'. The answer is that evil has one two.

That's my guess at least.

-Tatsu

 

[Li Shenron]

Plenty of asymetries in the game.

fiends and celestials have DR based on good evil, not law chaos.

Tons of fiends defined by their evil, fewer but still bunches of celestial types defined by their good. Very few defined primarily by their Lawful or Chaotic nature.

Paladin is a core class, blackguard is a prc.

Monks and paladins don't seem a true symmetry to bards and barbarians.

Compare protection from evil from protection from any other alignment for just what they keep out.

Detect evil picks up undead as well.

Black gaurd versus Paladin- Not very symetric (PRC vs Core class)
Demons and Devils versus Angels and Archons- Not symetric...at all.
Good Domain versus Evil Domain- Not quite symetric.
Turn Undead versus Rebuke Undead- Very Symetric

The list goes on and on in D&D. The fact is some things are very symetric and some aren't at all. It's not as if everything is in D&D. In fact I'd say most things aren't.

They don't have to be perfectly mirrored to be symmetric. It's not that because a difference in DR, or because PfE also help against neutrals, then you can say that the symmetry isn't there.

There is also a sort of process of multiplying symmetries like this:
1) start with celestials and fiends; there's already a symmetry but so far it's very good, at least the concept is very strong, and comes from RL legends and beliefs
2) notice you have lawful and chaotic stuff in OD&D, split fiends in two
3) oh my god there's a hole in the middle! Mr.Monk comes in and writes Yugoloths in the NE slot
4) if fiends are split, then the same must be done with celestials
5) notice there can actually be 9 combinations, fill the remaining slot

Spells and abilities that address alignment are very simmetric just because there always exist a similar (albeit not necessarily perfectly identical) counterpart.

With the elements the original sin is that of energy associations. They want elements to be equally powerful (fine), but then why is it so necessary to grant every element the same effectiveness with regards to damage? I prefer the idea of certain settings where fire detroys, water heals, air moves, and earth grows vegetation, and energies are left out of the subject (except fire of course).

BTW, about classes I was never thinking that the 11 PHB classes are symmetrical (that doesn't even make sense to me).

 

[DamionW]

Now the tricky one. Acid corrodes or otherwise breaks down things eventually. Earth does that as well tho technically it would be thru rust, rot / decay or just roots breaking up rocks. Given time, nature aka earth will reclaim anything, returning it back to earth. But by this reasoning, is acid equated with entropy?

Yeah, I'd then make acid associated with Chaos if I was going to make it associated with anything using that logic, not the Earth element.

But with some pondering, electricity could be also associated with fire (both can burn and shed light), cold could be with earth (death), etc. Great. I just muddied the water again.

Yeah, I admitted the lightning - air connection was slightly weak and people could make some decent associations of lightning to the fire element, but the cold - earth thing doesn't work for me either, because then as you removed heat from things they'd get dusty or dirty, not icy.

Several other ways I've found to rationalize these things involve either alignments or the positive/negative energy planes and quasi elements. Fire plus positive gives light, so I can imagine water plus negative energy gives ice/cold. I could in some way imagine water plus positive might be acid: adding ions/energy to water lets it dissolve things.

If we go the alignment route, acid breaks things down so is a force of decay, which is most like chaos. Cold freezes things into crystaline perfect order, so you could call that law. Electricty could be seen as the weapons of mythical gods smiting evil doers with lightning, so that could be argued away as good, and fire is the purview of demons and devils, so that could be described as evil.

Again, this is all pretty weak, forced symmetry which is exactly what we're complaining against here, but I'm just kind of musing to design my elemental campaign world.