Malebranche now a demon

[Drkfathr1]

There is something about the art for the malebranche that doesn't sit right with me…QUOTE]

+1

I'm hoping that once color is added that it will change the look.

Several of the monsters give me that impression so far. Not digging the "cartoony" vibe.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I find I'm more forgiving of musculature than body shape when it comes to creatures impossible on their very face. If the silhouette barely glimpsed against the clouds as it dives down on the party looks sleek enough, I'm sold. YMMV.

Also, lets remember that supposedly a bee's anatomy makes it impossible for it to fly... and yet they have been flying for millions of years....

It looks good to me, esp. if that's the form a Dryad uses for combat. For my out-of-combat RPG uses, they can still be beautiful females if I need them to be, but since use minis for combat, this shouldn't affect me much.

Agreed, it would be cool if Dryads shapechanged into vengeful antropomorphic trees, or if those were their "true" forms in the feywild.

Yes. I am really not trying to be needlessly inflammatory, but it looks too "cartoon-ey" for my taste. I prefer a more realistic style of drawing, and the Malebranche looks like something out of a Disney cartoon, with exaggerated proportions and few details.

This might be because they need monster concepts that can be easily modeled in 3D without having to spend too many programmer-hours on the textures and details... Of course, I know nothing about 3D modelling, so I may be just embarrasing myself.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Also, lets remember that supposedly a bee's anatomy makes it impossible for it to fly... and yet they have been flying for millions of years....

And lets also remember that like many urban legends, this has been debinked for almost as long as it's been around.

 

[Li Shenron]

Malebranche, Succubi... it's job mobility.

 

[see]

Yes, but what about genies? I don't want archons and demons being the reason to visit the elemental planes; I want genies to be the reason to visit the elemental planes. And not second-class-to-former-Outer-Plane-resident genies, either. Full blown this-is-how-we-do-it-in-my-elemental-neighborhood genies.

Oh, don't worry about that. There aren't any Elemental Planes anymore. You see, they've officially been designated as "boring" and been eliminated. Limbo (complete with the githzerai) under the name Elemental Chaos is going to take over, with a finite ("thousands of miles" in size) Abyss at its heart.

 

[catsclaw227]

Yes, but what about genies? I don't want archons and demons being the reason to visit the elemental planes; I want genies to be the reason to visit the elemental planes. And not second-class-to-former-Outer-Plane-resident genies, either. Full blown this-is-how-we-do-it-in-my-elemental-neighborhood genies.

Oh, don't worry about that. There aren't any Elemental Planes anymore. You see, they've officially been designated as "boring" and been eliminated. Limbo (complete with the githzerai) under the name Elemental Chaos is going to take over, with a finite ("thousands of miles" in size) Abyss at its heart.

Hmmm. I have read this sarcastic argument in another thread already, but it still doesn't apply to Epic Meepo's concerns. It's just an AoO on 4e.

I think the Elemental Chaos will be perfect for elemental Genies. I plan on dropping Necro's City of Brass in the Elemental Chaos and enjoying every minute of it. Big, bad-as-the-moon Effreeti, a serious this-is-how-we-do-it-in-my-elemental-neighborhood genie.

 

[Epic Meepo]

I think the Elemental Chaos will be perfect for elemental Genies. I plan on dropping Necro's City of Brass in the Elemental Chaos and enjoying every minute of it. Big, bad-as-the-moon Effreeti, a serious this-is-how-we-do-it-in-my-elemental-neighborhood genie.

I agree with you that it will be easy to import genies into the Elemental Chaos. I guess what troubles me isn't a lack of room for genies in the cosmos, but a lack of genie-specific home planes. The City of Brass loses something when, instead of being the predominant city on the Elemental Plane of Fire, it's just one of many demon, genie, githzerai, and other planar cities all lumped together on one generic plane.

I guess it just troubles me that the designers chose to ax the elemental planes because "no one was going there." Does this mean that designers are just going to cut things that don't work instead of trying to find ways to make them more interesting? "Oh, no one ever goes to that city, so instead of adding interesting details to it, let's just take it off the map and say that any city can be fit into that region..." That kind of thinking worries me.

 

[Stogoe]

Does this mean that designers are just going to cut things that don't work instead of trying to find ways to make them more interesting?

That's what they did. They found a way to make them more interesting without removing them. It's just you seem to be refusing to see it.

 

[Epic Meepo]

That's what they did. They found a way to make them more interesting without removing them. It's just you seem to be refusing to see it.

If each of the single-element Inner Planes appears as a distinct and interesting plane in 4e, then I stand corrected. I was under the impression that there were no single-element planes in 4e, only an Elemental Chaos that combines half-a-dozen planes, completely abandoning the traditional concept of an elemental plane representing a single element in its purest form.

 

[zoroaster100]

I too am concerned about the "cartoony" vibe to the monster art I've seen so far, also as reflected in the Desert of Desolation "reimagined" look for a number of monsters. The ogre brute from the set, which I presume is the new look for ogres, in and of itself looks fine, but looked too cartoony in execution for my taste.