WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Chaosmancer]

Quasi-elemental planes tend to be extra intense, but can still be plenty interesting. Radiance already has a powerful healing location, and you can do so many cool things with light, color, reflection, etc. Ash has a lot of different forms and some interesting interactions with heat and cold. Salt can have so many different forms with giant crystals and salt storms and liquid salt that slows light. Dust has sand and rust monsters/dragons and empires and all kinds of fascinating decay situations. Etc. etc. Also remember that you can have chunks of other things in the elemental planes.

A mountain can be a big dumb rock or it can be Olympus.

Sure, but conservation of story. What can you do with the Quasi-Elemental plane of Dust that can't be done with a lower plane like the Grey Wastes of Hades? I can easily (and have easily) thrown an empire of decay and dust into the Shadowfell, which is a land of decay, dust and rot anyways. Salt can be interesting, but do I need an entire plane of salt or do I just need an area of salt the size of a small country somewhere else?

This extends, for me, into the elemental planes as well. The Elemental Plane of Water is just... the ocean. The only difference is that I can make things bigger, but since most oceans on most settings aren't planned out, and I can have "the ocean but bigger" in the Fey wild and "the ocean but scarier" in the Shadowfell... do I need the Plane of Water really? The only thing I really use it for is for the Marid genies, but that's it.

So, if I barely need the Plane of Water, do I need the Quasi-PAra-Elemental plane of Salt and Ice known as the Stinging Storm? It is a cool weather effect (salt hail) but that seems to get so specific as to be really hard to use.

 

[Remathilis]

What used to be the para-elemental planes are the border regions between the four elemental planes, but AFAICT the quasi-elemental planes are not mentioned at all. Actually, even the positive and negative planes are mentioned at the beginning of the planar chapter of the DMG, but they have no detailed description.

In honesty the positive and negative planes were a waste of space since they are devoid of nearly any life, locations and are instantly fatal without DM magic. They served the purpose of explaining where positive and negative energy came from and that's about it. I much prefer the feywild and shadowfell as the "actually usable" versions of them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Who’s talking about removing anything? As far asI know, there is currently no plane of salt in 5e.

WotC apparently already used their "Wand of Simplification" on the cosmology, and I believe the game is the lesser for it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's why I like the 4e "Elemental Chaos" approach. If you ever do need a quasi-elemental plane of salt then there's probably at least one floating around in the Elemental Chaos, but if you don't need one there's no need to categorize it in advance.

They already categorized it, and then they too it away. That's their right, but I think it affects the richness of the world in a negative way. Just my opinion as a 2e and Planescape fan.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, but conservation of story. What can you do with the Quasi-Elemental plane of Dust that can't be done with a lower plane like the Grey Wastes of Hades? I can easily (and have easily) thrown an empire of decay and dust into the Shadowfell, which is a land of decay, dust and rot anyways. Salt can be interesting, but do I need an entire plane of salt or do I just need an area of salt the size of a small country somewhere else?

This extends, for me, into the elemental planes as well. The Elemental Plane of Water is just... the ocean. The only difference is that I can make things bigger, but since most oceans on most settings aren't planned out, and I can have "the ocean but bigger" in the Fey wild and "the ocean but scarier" in the Shadowfell... do I need the Plane of Water really? The only thing I really use it for is for the Marid genies, but that's it.

So, if I barely need the Plane of Water, do I need the Quasi-PAra-Elemental plane of Salt and Ice known as the Stinging Storm? It is a cool weather effect (salt hail) but that seems to get so specific as to be really hard to use.

Again YOU conserve your story, not WotC.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In honesty the positive and negative planes were a waste of space since they are devoid of nearly any life, locations and are instantly fatal without DM magic. They served the purpose of explaining where positive and negative energy came from and that's about it. I much prefer the feywild and shadowfell as the "actually usable" versions of them.

I prefer both. Not everything in the universe has to cater to the PCs.

 

[Maxperson]

In honesty the positive and negative planes were a waste of space since they are devoid of nearly any life, locations and are instantly fatal without DM magic. They served the purpose of explaining where positive and negative energy came from and that's about it. I much prefer the feywild and shadowfell as the "actually usable" versions of them.

The feywild is interesting, but isn't even close to being what the positive plane is and the plane of Shadow(shadowfell) isn't even close to what the negative plane is. The positive and negative planes serve a function, even if no one ever goes there.

 

[Incenjucar]

Sure, but conservation of story. What can you do with the Quasi-Elemental plane of Dust that can't be done with a lower plane like the Grey Wastes of Hades? I can easily (and have easily) thrown an empire of decay and dust into the Shadowfell, which is a land of decay, dust and rot anyways. Salt can be interesting, but do I need an entire plane of salt or do I just need an area of salt the size of a small country somewhere else?

This extends, for me, into the elemental planes as well. The Elemental Plane of Water is just... the ocean. The only difference is that I can make things bigger, but since most oceans on most settings aren't planned out, and I can have "the ocean but bigger" in the Fey wild and "the ocean but scarier" in the Shadowfell... do I need the Plane of Water really? The only thing I really use it for is for the Marid genies, but that's it.

So, if I barely need the Plane of Water, do I need the Quasi-PAra-Elemental plane of Salt and Ice known as the Stinging Storm? It is a cool weather effect (salt hail) but that seems to get so specific as to be really hard to use.

This is a restriction you place on yourself that has no particular merit outside of your own preferences for scale and which can be extrapolated to any setting location. Your whole campaign can fit inside a single dungeon if you want.

 

[Faolyn]

That's why I like the 4e "Elemental Chaos" approach. If you ever do need a quasi-elemental plane of salt then there's probably at least one floating around in the Elemental Chaos, but if you don't need one there's no need to categorize it in advance.

Personally, I prefer Limbo/Elemental Chaos in place of any of the elemental planes. But that's just me.

Actually, in my own Cosmos, Arcadia (no relation to the Wheel's Arcadia) is sort of a combination of the Feywild, Arborea, Bytopia, the Outlands, the Beastlands, Mechanus, Limbo/Elemental Chaos, Shadowlands, and Pandemonium. The further you get away from "civilized" areas, the wilder and more unfinished the plane becomes. Archfey, genie nobles, beast lords, and clockwork reagents all live together (in their own domains) in Arcadia.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Personally, I prefer Limbo/Elemental Chaos in place of any of the elemental planes. But that's just me.

A plane of endlessly lowering poles and an excellent beat would be better than anything the Great Wheel offers, TBH