[Rant] Screw Canon!

[Desdichado]

There's a "lichfiend" template in Libris Mortis? How'd I miss that?

I didn't see it either, but I've not read LM in detail.

I'm surprised that's a point of contention, though especially for Planescape fans--wasn't Orcus (a fiend if there ever was one) being a lich a main plot point of the Planescape setting?

And yes, that is a rhetorical question.

 

[Shade]

The lichfiend is in the variant liches section near the back of the book. A different (and better, IMHO) version appears in Dungeon Magazine #116.

 

[Shemeska]

I didn't see it either, but I've not read LM in detail.

I'm surprised that's a point of contention, though especially for Planescape fans--wasn't Orcus (a fiend if there ever was one) being a lich a main plot point of the Planescape setting?

And yes, that is a rhetorical question.

At least in my mind there's a difference (if at times a tenuous one) between Orcus/Tenebrous and the details surrounding him versus the rather bland and flavorless lichfiend template. Orcus/Tenebrous was some unique undead being, really a fluke of nature and not some standard occurance by any measure. The Visages that Pants cited before are also his creations during that period.

I don't have a big problem with undead fiends, but for a variety of reasons they don't make sense outside of being the products of rare and unique circumstances. Lich fiends make little sense as the fiend's soul and body are the exact same thing with no duality present between the two. How is it going to have a phylactery holding its soul if there isn't one seperate from its body? Secondly, what's the rationale for a fiend to become a lich? It's already immortal, and let's face it, escaping death from old age is the primary reason liches become what they are, it's a product of a mortal's fear of death. A fiend doesn't have that, and they all believe in the utter supremacy of their alignment, and the perfection of their state of being. A lich fiend makes little sense in those ways; it seems silly more than a cool idea.

The approach taken with the 'lichfiend' was less a unique and cool new idea, and more a seeming case of 'undead are evil and kewl. Fiends are evil and kewl. An undead fiend would just be uber kewl then!'. Outside of some bizarre circumstance, which I can't immediately rationalize, it just seems forced and awkward.

Undead elementals are similar, though the ones presented in Libris Mortis are effectively just the negative touched quasielementals given a name change and a different conceptualization. Had they called them negative quasielementals and talked about the nature of those elementals and their relation to negative energy it would have been cool and internally consistant w/ the lore on elementals and negative energy etc. Instead we got something that again seemed forced and ill conceived, though heavily derived from those previous creatures, just lacking the explanations that made them seem plausible.

 

[Shade]

And just so there is no confusion on this matter.

From the Monster Manual 3.5:

"Unlike most other living creatures, an outsider does not have a dual nature--its soul and body form one unit. When an outsider is slain, no soul is set loose. Spells that restore souls to their bodies, such as raise dead, reincarnate, and resurrection, don’t work on an outsider. It takes a different magical effect, such as limited wish, wish, miracle, or true resurrection to restore it to life. An outsider with the native subtype can be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected just as other living creatures can be."

That is not canon...that is a hard, fast rule of the game.

That said, I have no problem with necromentals or lichfiends as long as they have a rational explanation, as Shemeska pointed out.

 

[Turjan]

That is not canon...that is a hard, fast rule of the game.

That's a good point. From this point of view, a lichfiend doesn't make sense. Either, the designers didn't think through what they were doing, or they didn't mind. Both options are not very pleasant. I think it comes from treating the multiverse as just another setting like Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms. The meaning of the existence of the planes gets lost.

This reminds me of the recent discussion about slaadi alignments in a different thread. In addition to being an inseparable unit of body and soul, I always had the opinion that outsiders are quasi part of their home plane. The plane itself is the physical expression of an alignment. This means that its inhabitants as part of the plane should have the same alignment (except if they moved there from a different plane). Everything else strikes me as sloppy design. Or indifference .

 

[der_kluge]

You know what, the Core assumptions of D&D suck. Screw them.

ALL RIGHT! YEA!!

Wooooooooooooooooooooo!!

*grabs pitchfork and torch*

"Lead on to the mountaintop, brother!"

 

[Jdvn1]

You know what I'm really tired of? Canon and Core D&D.

Despite being very, very generic 'Core' D&D still has a nice, vocal following who seem to slam new ideas just because 'Core D&D doesn't work that way.' You know what, the Core assumptions of D&D suck. Screw them. I'd rather have new ideas that push the game in new directions rather than have the designers step back and say 'Whoa, I can't do that! That's not how things work in Core D&D.'

...

Kudos to every company that does something different. They may not always succeed, but at least they try.

Thanks for posting this--it really had to be said.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The approach taken with the 'lichfiend' was less a unique and cool new idea, and more a seeming case of 'undead are evil and kewl. Fiends are evil and kewl. An undead fiend would just be uber kewl then!'. Outside of some bizarre circumstance, which I can't immediately rationalize, it just seems forced and awkward.

I kind of like the idea of undead fiends for the true horror they invoke, like proper zombies. I don't mean those animated husks in 3.x, I mean the rotting, ravenous, virtually mindless but with just a spark of remembering what it was to be alive kind of zombies.

Imagine a Balor, too stubborn to properly die, slowly rotting away through the ages. Feeding on whatever life-force he can get his hands on to stave off the righteous death that awaits when the will finally gives way. Unlike liches the undead fiend should lose memories, skills, and abilities. Do the same thing for celestials and think of the fun caused by ghoul Eladrins desperate to consume the living but not quite willing to become evil.

You want a lich-fiend have a lich's phylactery infused with fiendish essence, possibly by being tossed in the Pit.

 

[Desdichado]

The approach taken with the 'lichfiend' was less a unique and cool new idea, and more a seeming case of 'undead are evil and kewl. Fiends are evil and kewl. An undead fiend would just be uber kewl then!'. Outside of some bizarre circumstance, which I can't immediately rationalize, it just seems forced and awkward.

Now I'm even more confused. The complaint was that it "wasn't possible" conceptually, but your explanation has very solidly wandered into it being the implementation that you didn't like and not the concept.

 

[Shemeska]

Now I'm even more confused. The complaint was that it "wasn't possible" conceptually, but your explanation has very solidly wandered into it being the implementation that you didn't like and not the concept.

I can't stand the concept, don't get me wrong. And it's just sloppy design given what has already been pointed out.

What I was saying above is that the concept being mutually exclusive with both the rules on such, and the flavor of fiends, seemed to not have even entered into the design process for the 'lichfiend' template. It's a guess on my part that it was more a case of 'take two kewl things and mix 'em up and its even cooler' when at least to me, no it doesn't, it seems silly to the point of being absurd.