D&D General the elemental planes are trash

[overgeeked]

Yep. The planes are mostly bad and hard to deal with, one note and boring.

The World Axis cosmology from 4E fixed that. It’s was designed around the idea of making the cosmos suitable for adventure, so no weird spells or magic items required just to survive on a given plane.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Apparently you haven't read the DMG like everyone else.

Details are in Chapter 2, Creating the Planes. But basically there's a plane for the elements Air, Earth, Fire, Water. So for example the plane of air "...is an open expanse with constant winds of varying strength. Here and there, chunks of earth drift in the openness — the remnants of failed invasions by denizens of the Plane of Earth. These earth motes serve as homes for the creatures of elemental air, and many motes are covered with lush vegetation. Other creatures live on cloud banks infused with enough magic to become solid surfaces, strong enough to support towns and castles."

So the earth is dominated by mountains, fire is hot, water is all ocean.

It honestly never made a lot of sense to me so I've always ignored it although some realms (or sections of realms) do take inspiration from them.

oh i was aware of that much, i was more asking about what elements the para-elemental planes tempest was referring to were, and alas i don't have a DMG so i'm unable to neglect reading it properly.

 

[Corinnguard]

If the Elemental Planes were another echo of the Material Plane in the World Axis Cosmology, what would they be echoing?

 

[overgeeked]

For those curious about the World Axis cosmology, you can read about it here.

World Axis cosmology

The World Axis was a cosmological model created after the dramatic changes to the nature of the multiverse caused by the Spellplague of 1385 DR,[1] and quickly became the most widely accepted model during the late years of the 14th century DR and for most of the 15th century.[2] This structure...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

 

[Mind of tempest]

while i am aware of the elemental planes in concept i know little of their actual execution, would someone mind elaborating?

a nice soothing voice version as I am terrible over text and my writing leave much to be desired.

What? How do you figure that?


What law does this? More importantly, what does the law have to do with the Elemental Planes as presented in a game where we pretend to be elves and dragon-people?

thematically they are both cold elements one being wet and the other dry thus double cold is ice, also earth is solid crystalline and inflexible much like ice, when water becomes a solid it becomes ice it is the rational merger also ooze is just nothing it has no real idea in myth, folklore or media nor does it offer much in new ideas.
it was a fun fact, by all of our measurements it is a mineral thus it being part of earth makes sense.

Lightning, in D&D lore, is where the Plane of Air and the Positive Energy Plane intersect. This is a much better match than air + fire = lightning, at least in my mind.

given pe plane barely has a description of what its base material is I do not think the qusi elemental plane are good idea.
secondly my point goes back towards myth and legend lighting was described as the fires of the heavenly gods thus to me it works really well and is more evocative than smoke which is burning material not air itself.
also have 16 elemental planes and two energy planes feels excessive

 

[bloodtide]

oh i was aware of that much, i was more asking about what elements the para-elemental planes tempest was referring to were, and alas i don't have a DMG so i'm unable to neglect reading it properly.

Think of the Elemental planes as metaphysically being a sphere with Fire-Earth-Water-Air, so Earth and Air and Fire and Water are on opposing sides. Where each plane meets, you get a mix of the two elements in a para plane. Fire+Earth= Magma, Earth + Water =Ooze, Water + Air = Ice and Air + Fire = Smoke.

The Elemental Planes are based on the idea from many myths that the multiverse is built on the four classic elements. And the pure form of each element exists somewhere.

While some of them are very extreme places to visit, the rest just fall under 'hard'. But mostly they are no harder then anything on a normal game world. Though you will need some magic in most of them....but you would need magic to go underwater in a game world too.

And they can be great alien places to explore and adventure.

 

[Incenjucar]

The elemental planes are underdeveloped and much of the development that does exist is not terribly creative. As usual, the best resource is the 2E Planescape books, but even they only scratch the surface of potential.

Also 5E using Half Damage instead of Damage Resistance seriously kills a lot of flexibility.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Bah, I think they're pretty fun - you just have to think of them as having pockets of locations that are more sane than the roiling chaos that is usually described of them. I'm 100% sure that we'll see WotC develop them over time in this way. Also, they definitely border on each other, so that BOTH the "individual planes" idea and the "one elemental chaos" idea work, depending on your PC's & NPCs' perspective and understanding of what they're looking at.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

You can freely adventure here. They are not innately hostile like the 2e Elemental Planes. It's only if you go beyond the borders of this map that they become too hostile to survive.

 

[nevin]

I do not hate them as ideas but they are all boring and toxic to explore or filled with just boring one-note guys
the para elemental planes are just built wrong and some are just wrong, water and earth equals ice from a thematic level also ice is legally a mineral.
Air and fire is lighting the celestial fire also way more useful than smoke.
Magma and air water I got nothing for yet but better replacements are likely out there.

The middle overlapping area seemingly does nothing and seems to serve no purpose.
it lacks real plots it just seems to be the land of elemental summons which seems a waste it needs factions with goals beyond genies enslaving people for some reason.

Is there some better elemental plane to steal ideas from?

I don't think the elemental planes were ever anything but an attempt to justify where summoned creatures come from. All they really are are the sources of materials for the worlds that creator deities make. They are useful if you arent' going with science based worlds. go deep enough into the earth and you end up in the elemental plane of earth, fly high enough and you end up in the elemental plane of air, follow the biggest rivers on your world to thier source and you'll swim into the elemental plane of water. I mostly ignore the para-elemental planes and silly but if you like the whole creative destruction thing it's where the elements clash and their melding creates other things. I prefer to think of electricity as air and ice as water etc.