Rich Baker Blog on Monsters

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

In Rich Baker's Blog there is a brief description on how they are revorking faerie

So I spent most of this week continuing my work on the Monster Manual "mission statements" and tactics text. As of Friday, I was up to Unicorn. Whew! Not much more to go on this pass. We had a fun over-the-cube-wall debate about the unicorn's alignment. We'd like to see most fey move from Good to unaligned and somewhat perilous. First of all, it's mythologically apropriate--many creatures such as centaurs, the Sidhe, the little folk, etc., were not necessarily friendly. Secondly, it makes more of the Monster Manual "usable" if you can fight things like dryad briar witches and amok satyrs, at least every now and then. But I got to unicorn, and I couldn't pull the trigger on that. If there's one creature in the Monster Manual (exceptings solars and such) that epitomizes good, it's the unicorn. Besides, millions of kids who have read Harry Potter know that unicorns are pure good. Maybe we shouldn't swim upstream on making unicorns things that might fight heroes... at least in normal forest adventuring.

it's not a real news but give a little insight on the logic behind their choice

 

[Glyfair]

What I find most revealing is that it appears that alignment is in, but that all creatures won't have one. I wonder how that will apply to PCs.

 

[The Merciful]

They could go Nethack and have also grey and black unicorns...

 

[The Merciful]

What I find most revealing is that it appears that alignment is in

Good - Evil axis at least. I wonder if it has mechanical meaning, or just a short hand for what kind of behavior you can expect from a creature.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

as for good/evil unicorn... I replied also on the blog of Baker

I would like to see a GOOOD Unicorn very stringent in his goodness and ready to judge the character as unworthy or polluting the forest.... ^___^

thinking of the general attitude of characters that would be enough to start a fight

 

[Glyfair]

Good - Evil axis at least.

Indeed, it sounds a bit like the new DDM rules set. They are getting rid of "factions" (which are tied to alignment). The only alignments in the game will be good & evil, you can't have both types in the same warband.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I just keeping thinking of the Dwarf-Eating Predator Unicorns from Overlord and I'm very grateful they won't be featured.

 

[Klaus]

"Good" =/= "Friendly"

If the unicorn is CG, it will not see a LG party as kindred spirits, but will see what they differ at. To a CG creature, a LG creature is a tyrant. An enlightened one, true, but still a dictator willing to enforce his own world view on other, freer spirits.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

This is a 4E change I´m really looking forward to

I really like the approach of making Fey more wicked. Maybe they should have a Seelie Court and and UnSeelie Court, or something like that. And there should be a Plane of Fey, and it should be rather easy to accidentally get into it, but rather tricky to get out.

Ken

 

[JoelF]

My impression is that unaligned or not having an alignment is about the same as True Neutral is now. If they only have Good, Evil and unaligned, then it seems like alignment is similar to 3.x but with less emphasis. In some ways it reminds me of alignment from Warhammer Fantasy RP.