Savage Wombat
Hero
Personally, I'd say what you call "continuity" is at least 51% "brand identity". Much more important to WotC than you suggest.
D&D 5E New Wandering Monsters - Hulking Out
Hussar
Legend
Meh, I really don't think that tieflings as demonspawn or not is all that linked to brand identity. I mean, they managed to change classic creatures quite considerably (dragons in 1e compared to 3e are completely different creatures, basically only sharing a similar outline) without too much trouble.
Like I said before, 3e ejected most of the 2e material completely and seemed to be pretty successful for doing so. All the 2e setting stuff that bloated 2e never made it into 3e. It wasn't until latter era 3.5 that they started mining 2e material again.
the Jester
Legend
Some of it, but I'm mostly talking about things like the inconsistencies between one edition and the next in terms of the 'story' behind the mechanics.
Example: Who rules the first Hell? In 1e, it was Tiamat.
Now, these changes are often easy enough to deal with (e.g. "Bel kicked Tiamat out and took over"), but not always. You can also just ignore the changes sometimes, but like I said, I rarely (if ever) see any actual improvement put in place, just change for the sake of change.
Basically, if the designers are making changes to established lore, those changes should not exclude things that individual dms or groups may have built based on that established lore. It should supplement and expand, not cut off options and contract.
Hussar
Legend
Are you trying to claim that 3e wasn't successful?
And, virtually all 2e material is ejected from 3e. Go back and reread your 3e PHB and MM. Virtually nothing from 2e survives. Demons and devils are added back in, dragons gain massive spell casting abilities, orcs change alignment, etc etc. We go from one page per monster back to several monsters per page. Every class is dramatically reworked and changed. Greyhawk becomes the default campaign setting.
What from 2e actually survives INTO 3e?
Lots of lore.
I have to agree and be a bit perplexed; 3E includes the manual of the planes for instance. And it followed Planescape a lot. it only mentions the factions in passing but then again it is post faction-war and focused on the planes themselves, not Sigil (the boxed sets from Planescape dealing with those areas never put the factions on the forefront either).
Dragons had fairly massive spellcasting abilities in AD&D as well. A great gold wyrm casts wizard spells of up to 8th level and priest spells of up to 4th. Sure 3e made him an even stronger caster, but the change is by no means massive. My AD&D MM has baatezu and tanar'ri as well. The earlier one did not but that was not because D&D decided to decrease their importance; it was a marketing decision to deal against MADD (that's what they were called right)
Hussar
Legend
That 2e Monstrous Compendium that you reference Nymrod came out several years after the release of 2e. 2e, in core, didn't have demons or devils until MC 8 which, IIRC, was three years after release.
So, no, 2e didn't have demons and devils for quite some time. But, reread your 3e Monster Manual. There are no references to the Blood War. None. No references whatsoever that demons and devils didn't get along. No references at all to anything remotely Planescape in nature. All of that was relegated to supplements although it did filter back in in 3.5.
Look at the section on Archons in 3e. Again, completely different than what you see in 2e. All of them are lumped together with LG, NG and CG all being the same critter type. Look at the flavour text. Again, nothing 2e in nature.
Yes, later on, a lot of 2e lore starts to get filtered back into 3e. But, at the outset? In core? Virtually nothing 2e survives into 3e. Heck, compare clerics. A 2e cleric gains Druid spells up to 2nd level - a 3e cleric can cast all "druid" spells up to 9th. A 2e cleric tops out casting at 14th with 7th level spells. A 3e cleric tops out at 17th with 9th level spells. The spell lists are completely changed with 3e clerics gaining all sorts of combat spells. 3e clerics out of the gate can use edged weapons if they choose to. 3e clerics gain spontaneous casting of healing spells. 3e clerics, in core, use Greyhawk dieties as the default. 3e clerics can craft magic items at 1st level and can craft virtually any magic item given time.
On and on and on.
There are easily as many differences between 2e and 3e as there are between 3e and 4e. 3e rejects virtually all things 2e and retains almost nothing of its flavour.
So, no, 2e didn't have demons and devils for quite some time. But, reread your 3e Monster Manual. There are no references to the Blood War. None. No references whatsoever that demons and devils didn't get along. No references at all to anything remotely Planescape in nature. All of that was relegated to supplements although it did filter back in in 3.5.
Look at the section on Archons in 3e. Again, completely different than what you see in 2e. All of them are lumped together with LG, NG and CG all being the same critter type. Look at the flavour text. Again, nothing 2e in nature.
Yes, later on, a lot of 2e lore starts to get filtered back into 3e. But, at the outset? In core? Virtually nothing 2e survives into 3e. Heck, compare clerics. A 2e cleric gains Druid spells up to 2nd level - a 3e cleric can cast all "druid" spells up to 9th. A 2e cleric tops out casting at 14th with 7th level spells. A 3e cleric tops out at 17th with 9th level spells. The spell lists are completely changed with 3e clerics gaining all sorts of combat spells. 3e clerics out of the gate can use edged weapons if they choose to. 3e clerics gain spontaneous casting of healing spells. 3e clerics, in core, use Greyhawk dieties as the default. 3e clerics can craft magic items at 1st level and can craft virtually any magic item given time.
On and on and on.
There are easily as many differences between 2e and 3e as there are between 3e and 4e. 3e rejects virtually all things 2e and retains almost nothing of its flavour.
Not at all, there is a commonality between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Ed; 4th Ed is an Advanced version of the Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures game, has little to do with D&D.
