New Dragon Article: Ecology of the Fire Archon

[Mirtek]

On the other hand, how many different categories of "good outsider" do we really need?

How many different categories of "evil humanoid" do we really need? So just make orcs and good riddance to all these useless gnolls, bugbears, hobgoblins, and whatever.

And how many different categories of "fiery elemental" do we really need? So since we already have the new fire archons they should immediately stop the developement of any other fiery elemental critter, because we already have one and one is all we ever need

So now angels are no longer good, but apparently also either "unaligned" or even possibly evil.

The new archons are no longer angels at all.

So- we don't like elementals because they're ubiquitous and of human intellect, but don't build or do anything, and only hit things.

Let's replace them, then, with elementals that don't build anything, exist only to hit things, but do so in cool new ways.

Come on, who wants to be hit with a boring slam when he could be hit with an exiting scimitar? slam +10/+5 is sooooo much less cool than scimitar +10/+5 I can literally feel the coolness of my next D&D game rising to 11

 

[IanB]

How many different categories of "evil humanoid" do we really need? So just make orcs and good riddance to all these useless gnolls, bugbears, hobgoblins, and whatever.

And how many different categories of "fiery elemental" do we really need? So since we already have the new fire archons they should immediately stop the developement of any other fiery elemental critter, because we already have one and one is all we ever need

That's not the same thing at all. You can have as many different humanoid, elemental, or good outsider monsters as you want; the point is there's no reason they have to be strictly organized with hierarchical terms like 'archon', 'guardinal', 'angel', 'deva', etc.

Heck, in 3.0's MM, they were all just "celestials". There's no reason that shouldn't be sufficient to cover all of them, especially with the Great Wheel being discarded.

 

[Voss]

That's not a terrible approach to design (I think it's a good one personally), and it certainly doesn't mean the designers made "the wrong choices," but if one of the cows they turned into rump roast (or left out in the pasture for a while) was "sacred" to you, you're probably upset. And apparently, for some, that's what this Archon thing is.

Apparently. I wonder how many people have used Flicker, Good Doggie and Mr. Tootles in an actual game, however. In any capacity. Do they deserve to eat page count in a MM? That strikes me as a significant question.

The new flamey archon, I can use in a game, without even stripping off the fluff. Thats a leg up on all of the old archons. Never even considered using them at all.

@Mirtek- the how many evil humanoids question is a good one actually.

Personally? 3

I know others won't like that number, however. But I do think they should go through the existing MMs and cut a lot of stuff. There are a lot of creatures that are stupid, useless, or thematic duplications of other creatures. A lot of the goofier aberrations (especially the ones introduced in third) need to go. Heck, I don't see much of a need for kobolds, goblins, meenlocks, and everything else around that range. I'll just have goblins, thanks, and everything else is a culture-specific name for the same species. (Ie, the Celtic-ish culture calls the goblins, the Germanic inspired culture calls them kobolds, etc). Saves a lot of space on creatures that are essentially the same.

 

[Mirtek]

How do you pronounce "Chvarog?" I think it's a little absurd to constantly include unpronounceable monsters in the game. Ixitxachitl, anyone?

Let's stick to names that are easily pronounceable in English, please.

Unpronounceable? Like the Ixitxachitl? I oughtta slap you silly for such an absurd hyperbole. If you're more interested in conversation, come on down to the level of rational discussion, and tell me, briefly, how you would pronounce that word?

You just need the right help to pronounce Ixitxachitl

Right, and mythology is treated so well in D&D. Like a race of scaley, half-snake medusa and minotaur instead of a single one. And Gorgons are petrifying-gas breathing metal bulls. But that's valid because it's just always been that way in D&D, right?

The petrifying-gas breathing metal bull Gorgon is from real world myth

Yes, but the point of elementals (IMHO) was that they are not-human, a fire elemental is fire "incarnate" a earth elemental is living earth, etc.they can have 10 int but thier intelligence is not human at all, and I don't even think they have a society,not one comparable to ours at least (and why should have? They are immortal, don't need to eat, or to reproduce, or any other material need, for what we know they don't even have the need, or the ability to learn new things. Why they would need a society for?

I am more in the camp that says that they do have a society and are doing constructive things however being elementals we, as humans, are completly unable to understand it.

Just as an elemental would look at the buys humans doing their daily chores in a busy city and think "wtf? why aren't these stange humans ever doing anything at all? why do they have no jobs to do and build no societies?"

They simply understand our jobs as little as we understand their jobs

 

[JohnSnow]

How many different categories of "evil humanoid" do we really need? So just make orcs and good riddance to all these useless gnolls, bugbears, hobgoblins, and whatever.

And how many different categories of "fiery elemental" do we really need? So since we already have the new fire archons they should immediately stop the developement of any other fiery elemental critter, because we already have one and one is all we ever need.

Well, I honestly think that, sacred cows aside, there's a certain degree of truth to that.

What differentiates one "fiery elemental" from another? That's a good question for the designers to ask, and, quite honestly, the answer should be something quantifiable, or it shouldn't be made. However, if you have one race of elementals that operates like a military regiment, and another that wantonly rampages like destructive animals, and a third that isn't really an elemental but just uses fire as a weapon, you don't really have 3 types.

The different races of evil humanoids fall into two categories. The first is sacred cow aspect. D&D has ALWAYS had kobolds, goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, bugbears, gnolls and ogres. Secondly, all those races have traction of a sort. Thirdly, they all have a pretty distinctive "style" of combat, even if their mechanics haven't always supported it. To whit:

kobolds are the small trap guys with the twisted warrens.
goblins are the small sneaks who ambush people and ride wolves.
orcs are the rampantly destructive race.
hobgoblins are the militaristic tyrants.
gnolls are the savage pack hunters.
ogres are the strong solo monsters.

You'll notice that the race I left out is the bugbear. Which I'm not sure has a distinctive enough niche to BE kept. It's role is basically "kinda like an orc, or a big goblin." I'm not sure if Warhammer didn't get this one right by just making orcs goblinoids and dumping bugbears.

So yeah, I think the evil humanoids could probably use a look too.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Angels AND demons? Hmm. Doesn't sound like a bad fit for creatures created by the Primordials that serve as mercenary armies.

But in the end, this really comes down to opinion. Some people clearly believe that the archons as "animal-headed angels" were a sacred cow worth preserving. The designers obviously felt they'd "make fine rump roast."

Most Archons didn't have animal-heads, in fact most of them looked like, well Angels. They're leaders the Celestial Hebdomad (Domiel, Zaphkiel, Pistis Sophia), are in fact named after Angels from bibical sources. The Trumpet Archon looked like an angel, Sword Archons too, Tome well in 3e they were changed to being angels with scrolls for wings, Lanterns were balls of light, sure there were Hounds, Warden and Owl which did resemble animals, but 3e also introduced Word Archons, Syllibic Guardians, Hammer Archons and Justice Archons, and none of them resembled animals.

Though a few of the new Archons were introduced as things to fill in outsider types for new systems like psionics (Syllibic Guardian) or true names (Word Archon).

Though I do see how many Archons do overlap with Angels, and I'm not adverse to a bunch of the changes they're doing to the Angels, as long as they keep Devas, Planetars and Solars, since those 3 (well 5 counting the 3 types of Deva) fit into most players ideas of what an angel resembles.

In fact I hope they do broaden the types of angels around, I'd certainly nominate the Asuras to be classified as Angels in 4e, since as "Angels of Wrath" they fit right in with that Angel of Vengeance. And they look like slightly monstrous angels with clawed talons and flaming wings, have interesting abilities like unleashing burning winds of fire when flapping their wings together as a group (since "gang" abilities seem to be a thing in 4e), and even had a spell-like abilty to use Discern Lies at will as one that wasn't arbitrary like so many of those creatures. In fact they were likely to be the type of celestial the party would get into fights with, due to their nature as wrathful truth-seeing celestials. But there's the issue of the name "Asuras" which many do associate with Demons, since a simplistic way of describing an Asuras is a Hindu Demon. Though I know they weren't necessarily evil in early Hindu mythology, and the D&D Asuras is based more on the Persian/Zoraostrian interpretation of them.

I hope that they group ToB's Valkyries and MM5's Arcadian Avenger, and that creature composed of floating words introduced in some issue of Dragon as angels, as it would introduce some variety angels, and have them as things that could be either hostile or helpful to different parties of PCs depending on what they did.

 

[Scribble]

Here's something I was wondering after reading through the article...

What exactly is different in the last two builds? (I mean aside from the second two being slightly more powerful...)

It says it's emulating 4e rules with the 3e rules.

Things I noticed:

Per encounter for powers as opposed to 3 times per day.

Terran is a language.

It has a "set a fool on fire" ability...

 

[JohnSnow]

Most Archons didn't have animal-heads, in fact most of them looked like, well Angels. They're leaders the Celestial Hebdomad (Domiel, Zaphkiel, Pistis Sophia), are in fact named after Angels from bibical sources. The Trumpet Archon looked like an angel, Sword Archons too, Tome well in 3e they were changed to being angels with scrolls for wings, Lanterns were balls of light, sure there were Hounds, Warden and Owl which did resemble animals, but 3e also introduced Word Archons, Syllibic Guardians, Hammer Archons and Justice Archons, and none of them resembled animals.

I'm confused. Are you arguing for or against the preservation of 3e's concept of Archons.

'Cuz my argument is that, to me, 3e had no concept of Archons that differentiated them sufficiently from angels. I'm wondering what was "unique" about the old Archon concept that was worth preserving.

And the only real argument I've heard so far is that Archons are the "armies of heaven." Which sorta means that angels can't have a category of "warrior angels," because that would impinge on the Archons' niche. And that's a situation I personally find unacceptable. Are people really arguing for the duplication? And if so, I still want to know what's "cool" enough about the 3e Archons to justify the redundancy?

 

[TwoSix]

Am I the only who hears "Archon" and thinks "Glowing ball of light that shoots lightning, and is formed by merging two templar together?"

Or should I take this to the "I like video games in my D&D" thread?

 

[IanB]

I'm confused. Are you arguing for or against the preservation of 3e's concept of Archons.

'Cuz my argument is that, to me, 3e had no concept of Archons that differentiated them sufficiently from angels. I'm wondering what was "unique" about the old Archon concept that was worth preserving.

And the only real argument I've heard so far is that Archons are the "armies of heaven." Which sorta means that angels can't have a category of "warrior angels," because that would impinge on the Archons' niche. And that's a situation I personally find unacceptable. Are people really arguing for the duplication? And if so, I still want to know what's "cool" enough about the 3e Archons to justify the redundancy?

Angels are any good; Archons are LG only. Angels serve specific deities; Archons serve their Archon leaders (BOED). That's really about it.