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Merlin the Tuna
2007-09-24, 09:48 PM
Article (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070924).

My thoughts, in brief, are that this looks good. Real good.

Whoo.

Golthur
2007-09-24, 09:55 PM
I can do without their specific fluff, of course, but overall making the two quite different is, IMHO, a good thing.

I'm hoping they'll be differentiated power-wise, as well.

BardicDuelist
2007-09-24, 09:58 PM
It seems like they are completely changing the planes. That will be fun for my existing world....

Also, as somone who runs devils constantly, the lack of mention of archdevils in 4e (they reference them as they are in 3e), and completely changing things after I incorporated so much of FC2 and FC1 into my games kind of bothers me. I want 4e to be different mechanics wise, but I want my fluff to stay. If I have to create a whole new world and play in a new cosmos, it isn't D&D for me anymore.

That being said, I am one of the people who was looking forward to 4e...until that.

Green Bean
2007-09-24, 10:00 PM
I likes it a lot. I have to admit that the demons/devils thing confused me for a while because they were so similar in some ways.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-09-24, 10:02 PM
I don't hate the new story, or the clear definitions they've got going.

I'll just be sad to see the classics stop being supported is all, because they are clearly going for a complete break with earlier fluff here.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-09-24, 10:10 PM
I don't see much difference from how demons and devils are now... At least how I see them. Devils manipulate, demons destroy; That's how it was, is and always will be. As far as they described it in that it's okay... Though I'm still peeved that they're making succubi devils...:smallmad:

This has been Krimm, your underworld advocate and specialist.

Dhavaer
2007-09-24, 10:13 PM
I like the look of it.

kpenguin
2007-09-24, 10:15 PM
I like it, but am disappointed by the lack of succubus pics.

Talya
2007-09-24, 10:16 PM
This is all fine for a new campaign setting.

it's utterly terrible for the existing ones. You can't just reboot the universe for established settings that have millenia worth of written history...

Xuincherguixe
2007-09-24, 10:16 PM
I can kind of see Succubi as either devils or demons really.

BardicDuelist
2007-09-24, 10:16 PM
I don't see much difference from how demons and devils are now... At least how I see them. Devils manipulate, demons destroy; That's how it was, is and always will be. As far as they described it in that it's okay... Though I'm still peeved that they're making succubi devils...:smallmad:

This has been Krimm, your underworld advocate and specialist.

It's really just the backstory and the implication that the planes will be completely different that peeves me. Everything else I've read seems cool (I like the ice devils thing and all). The succubi, while annoying, does make sense.

Mewtarthio
2007-09-24, 10:21 PM
This is all fine for a new campaign setting.

it's utterly terrible for the existing ones. You can't just reboot the universe for established settings that have millenia worth of written history...

Why not just keep the backstory the same and simply use the stats of the new fiends?

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-09-24, 10:23 PM
I've always seen succubi as chaotic evil, seducing at random for substantial gains right now(souls, mostly). I never once associated 'succubi' with 'plotting' just with random, sexy evil.

Renegade Paladin
2007-09-24, 10:27 PM
It is not even remotely difficult to distinguish between demons and devils in their current forms.

Their idea of making all humanoid evil outsiders into devils (and hence making the succubus lawful evil and eliminating the erinyes for being "redundant," despite the fact that the two fill entirely different roles despite superficially similar appearance) is just perplexing. The idea of a new edition is to make rules improvements, not to turn all the existing settings on their heads. :smallannoyed: All this nonsense is superfluous and unnecessary.

Starsinger
2007-09-24, 10:34 PM
I'm thinking the split might mean the end of the law-chaos axis of alignment...

Merlin the Tuna
2007-09-24, 10:35 PM
It is not even remotely difficult to distinguish between demons and devils in their current forms.No, of course not, you're completely right, the differences are totally obvious. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0062.html)
Their idea of making all humanoid evil outsiders into devils (and hence making the succubus lawful evil and eliminating the erinyes for being "redundant," despite the fact that the two fill entirely different roles despite superficially similar appearance) is just perplexing.The succubus has next to no justification as a demon as opposed to a devil. That she happens to have been a demon is little more than coincidence. Even just working with the 3.5 SRD text, she sounds more devil than demon.
Demons are a race of creatures native to chaotic evil-aligned planes. They are ferocity personified and will attack any creature just for the sheer fun of it—even other demons.
Devils with spell-like abilities use their illusion abilities to delude and confuse foes as much as possible. A favorite trick is to create illusory reinforcements; enemies can never be entirely sure if a threat is only a figment or real summoned devils joining the fray.
Succubi are not warriors. They flee combat whenever they can. If forced to fight, they can attack with their claws, but they prefer to turn foes against one another. Succubi use their change shape ability to assume humanoid guise, and can maintain this deception indefinitely. Their preferred tactic when dealing with heroes is to feign friendship and create an opportunity to be alone with one of them, whereupon the succubus applies her life-draining kiss. Succubi are not above taking on the role of a damsel in distress when encountered within a dungeon. So demons like smashing things and devils like using illusions to confuse and surprise foes, except for Succubi, who have no interest in smashing things and are known to use illusions and enchantment to confuse and surprise foes.

You mistake "It is" for "It is right."
The idea of a new edition is to make rules improvements, not to turn all the existing settings on their heads. :smallannoyed: All this nonsense is superfluous and unnecessary.The Erinyes doesn't even come close to matching her mythological basis and has had flavor bouncing around every edition, finally landing at a fairly generic warrior in 3.5. She has been superfluous and unnecessary, existing only because Devils and Demons have been locked in a ridiculous mirror match for years.

Guy_Whozevl
2007-09-24, 10:36 PM
The thing that peeves me is that all high CR outsiders have a bazillion spell-like abilities, most of which are completely usless in an actual battle with PCs (come on, is the angel really going to waste his standard action casting bless?). Let's hope that stuff gets changed for the new edition of demons, devils, and other outsiders.

Tallis
2007-09-24, 10:41 PM
It seems like they are completely changing the planes. That will be fun for my existing world....

Also, as somone who runs devils constantly, the lack of mention of archdevils in 4e (they reference them as they are in 3e), and completely changing things after I incorporated so much of FC2 and FC1 into my games kind of bothers me. I want 4e to be different mechanics wise, but I want my fluff to stay. If I have to create a whole new world and play in a new cosmos, it isn't D&D for me anymore.

That being said, I am one of the people who was looking forward to 4e...until that.


Why would you have to create a whole new world? If you prefer the old fluff use it, it's just fluff.
I like the changes, don't know if I'll use them as is, but it gives me good ideas and I think it's a definite step in the right direction.

Kyle
2007-09-24, 10:46 PM
Their idea of making all humanoid evil outsiders into devils (and hence making the succubus lawful evil and eliminating the erinyes for being "redundant," despite the fact that the two fill entirely different roles despite superficially similar appearance) is just perplexing. The idea of a new edition is to make rules improvements, not to turn all the existing settings on their heads. :smallannoyed: All this nonsense is superfluous and unnecessary.
Hasn't it already been established that alignment is being thrown out the window?

kpenguin
2007-09-24, 10:46 PM
Why would you have to create a whole new world? If you prefer the old fluff use it, it's just fluff.
I like the changes, don't know if I'll use them as is, but it gives me good ideas and I think it's a definite step in the right direction.

Succubi being devils changes up a lot of fluff and crunch.

Rowanomicon
2007-09-24, 10:47 PM
I have to say I have had conflicting reaction to it (particularly the succubus thing), but after thinking about it I'm happy with it all and actually looking forward to 4e more now. Of course I'm still waiting for the release to judge it, but at this point I'm thinking they're on the right road to making it rock.

tannish2
2007-09-24, 10:54 PM
ill be looking forward to 4e... until it comes out, ill have pitchforks and torches ready, also pizza and cake. w/e is needed, ill even have extra pitchforks, and a few cushions for when i fall into the fetal position and start crying (if they **** it up really bad)

Renegade Paladin
2007-09-24, 10:57 PM
No, of course not, you're completely right, the differences are totally obvious. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0062.html)
Okay, so Haley's player was either attempting to metagame or having an acute memory deficiency. That does not mean that everyone else must be similarly handicapped.
The succubus has next to no justification as a demon as opposed to a devil. That she happens to have been a demon is little more than coincidence. Even just working with the 3.5 SRD text, she sounds more devil than demon.

So demons like smashing things and devils like using illusions to confuse and surprise foes, except for Succubi, who have no interest in smashing things and are known to use illusions and enchantment to confuse and surprise foes.
Demons are, above all, chaotic evil. Succubi are chaotic to the core; seduction (and thereby inducing other creatures to break their commitments) is the very heart of chaos.

You mistake "It is" for "It is right."The Erinyes doesn't even come close to matching her mythological basis and has had flavor bouncing around every edition, finally landing at a fairly generic warrior in 3.5. She has been superfluous and unnecessary, existing only because Devils and Demons have been locked in a ridiculous mirror match for years.
The erinyes is still a fury. The succubus is a seductress. Those are not even remotely similar roles.

Regardless, you're missing the salient point. This kind of thing is a task for either a new game or a campaign setting. They should not be screwing with the entire basis for the default cosmology in the core rules. This will alter the very core of every existing campaign setting, and make conversion of most existing games that have run into the middle levels or beyond impossible. If they wanted to do that, they should have either written a new campaign setting or made an entirely separate game. There are things that make D&D what it is, and the designers are going about changing them just because they can. To be perfectly frank here, nobody cares that the ice devil doesn't look like other devils, because that's the way it's always been. It isn't hurting anything, and changing it is just going to make life difficult for those who want to carry their existing campaigns into fourth edition. I know my longest-running one will, if the current trends continue, have to stay in 3.5 until it's conclusion, because it has dealt too extensively with both demons and devils to adopt these changes without having to rewrite the entire history of the campaign.
Hasn't it already been established that alignment is being thrown out the window?
No.

themightybiggun
2007-09-24, 10:57 PM
Hmm.

Intriguing.

That is all.

Draz74
2007-09-24, 11:08 PM
I've always seen succubi as chaotic evil, seducing at random for substantial gains right now(souls, mostly). I never once associated 'succubi' with 'plotting' just with random, sexy evil.

Nowhere does the new article say that the "Lawful vs. Chaotic" distinction between the fiends is being preserved in 4E. Devils are no longer devils because they are always lawful; they are devils because they are cunning, conniving, sneaky, tricky, selfish, plotting types, which can, IMHO, land them on either side of the ethical alignment axis, depending on the specific methods they use. So I think you can still play Succubi as chaotic all you want.

Dervag
2007-09-24, 11:17 PM
The thing that peeves me is that all high CR outsiders have a bazillion spell-like abilities, most of which are completely usless in an actual battle with PCs (come on, is the angel really going to waste his standard action casting bless?). Let's hope that stuff gets changed for the new edition of demons, devils, and other outsiders.Of course, the reverse of that seems pretty hard to fathom:

"Yes, this powerful angel can use all manner of devastating spell-like abilities... but they can't do a blessing. That would be too easy."

Mewtarthio
2007-09-24, 11:23 PM
Succubi are chaotic to the core; seduction (and thereby inducing other creatures to break their commitments) is the very heart of chaos.

Really? I'd say that a burning desire to destroy all order and plunge the multiverse into anarchy is the very heart of chaos. Besides, devils may be lawful, but that's only because they want their own particular brand of order imposed on the world. A pit fiend's not going to spare innocents if murder is illegal.

Though I don't see what all the ire's about. Like I said before: You can keep your own campaign setting and just take the new stat blocks if you feel like it. As far as succubi go: I could make them devils right now by simply changing a descriptor and altering the alignment. It shouldn't be difficult to go the other way in 4e if you so desire.

Dhavaer
2007-09-24, 11:23 PM
Of course, the reverse of that seems pretty hard to fathom:

"Yes, this powerful angel can use all manner of devastating spell-like abilities... but they can't do a blessing. That would be too easy."

You can't fry an egg with a nuke, either. It's not entirely unfathomable.

Dausuul
2007-09-24, 11:26 PM
Succubi are chaotic to the core; seduction (and thereby inducing other creatures to break their commitments) is the very heart of chaos.

The erinyes is still a fury. The succubus is a seductress. Those are not even remotely similar roles.

No, they're not. The fury is a violent, brutal, bloodthirsty destroyer, and the succubus is a cruel, subtle, scheming temptress. Frankly, they'd be a lot more consistent with the demon/devil fluff if you swapped the two.

D&D has never had clear definitions for law and chaos. The succubus's behavior is disruptive to society and tradition, which makes it chaotic... but it's also methodical, patient, and carefully planned, which makes it lawful. You can argue either way. It makes more sense to look at the fluff for their respective races; and the succubus is totally consistent with devil fluff and totally inconsistent with demon fluff.


This will alter the very core of every existing campaign setting, and make conversion of most existing games that have run into the middle levels or beyond impossible.

House rule: Succubi are demons.

There ya go. All better. See how easy that was?


There are things that make D&D what it is...

Yeah, like THAC0, and saves versus paralyzation/poison/death magic, and the Elf class, and racial level caps.

I see no reason why the sacred cows of crunch should be slaughtered but the sacred cows of fluff should be untouchable. Especially considering how much easier it is for individual DMs to retool the fluff. I'm quite happy to see all of those superannuated bovines turned into hamburger.

The fluff of D&D has been patched, built on, retconned, and revamped for decades, until the whole thing is a chaotic mess utterly devoid of coherency. 4E is an opportunity to clear away the cruft so it can start accumulating again.


To be perfectly frank here, nobody cares that the ice devil doesn't look like other devils, because that's the way it's always been. It isn't hurting anything, and changing it is just going to make life difficult for those who want to carry their existing campaigns into fourth edition.

I care. I was always annoyed with the weird bug-devils. They seem so bizarre and random. Most of the other devils have a nice, orderly "humanoid with scales and fangs" theme going on... and then you get to Caina, and suddenly there are bugs. With spears. What gives?

And "that's the way it's always been" is a lousy reason to keep something around. Does it add anything to the game to have the bug-devils? You're free to hold onto the fluff of previous editions if you wish, but there's no reason WotC should be obligated to do the same.

Who knows, if they do a good enough job with it, I might even use their new default cosmology, instead of homebrewing my own because the regular one drives me up the wall.

Renegade Paladin
2007-09-24, 11:28 PM
Really? I'd say that a burning desire to destroy all order and plunge the multiverse into anarchy is the very heart of chaos. Besides, devils may be lawful, but that's only because they want their own particular brand of order imposed on the world. A pit fiend's not going to spare innocents if murder is illegal.

Though I don't see what all the ire's about. Like I said before: You can keep your own campaign setting and just take the new stat blocks if you feel like it. As far as succubi go: I could make them devils right now by simply changing a descriptor and altering the alignment. It shouldn't be difficult to go the other way in 4e if you so desire.
No, you can't just keep the campaign setting and take the new stat blocks; they're simply cutting a lot of stuff, which means no conversions. To keep my current games in 4e I'll have to do a lot of work, which means that I'll just keep playing 3.5 and to Baator with all this nonsense.

Mewtarthio
2007-09-24, 11:36 PM
No, you can't just keep the campaign setting and take the new stat blocks; they're simply cutting a lot of stuff, which means no conversions. To keep my current games in 4e I'll have to do a lot of work, which means that I'll just keep playing 3.5 and to Baator with all this nonsense.

Every homebrewer on the internet will have converted 4e-compatible fiends online within months of release. I stake my immortal soul on it.


I care. I was always annoyed with the weird bug-devils. They seem so bizarre and random. Most of the other devils have a nice, orderly "humanoid with scales and fangs" theme going on... and then you get to Caina, and suddenly there are bugs. With spears. What gives?

Wait, they're cutting ice devils? :smallfrown: Hell's just not Hell if it doesn't have an icy core...

NB That was a joke, by the way.

kpenguin
2007-09-24, 11:37 PM
Wait, they're cutting ice devils? :smallfrown: Hell's just not Hell if it doesn't have an icy core...


Actually, no. Ice devils are still devils, albeit unwilling devils.

Renegade Paladin
2007-09-24, 11:45 PM
No, they're not. The fury is a violent, brutal, bloodthirsty destroyer, and the succubus is a cruel, subtle, scheming temptress. Frankly, they'd be a lot more consistent with the demon/devil fluff if you swapped the two.
You are obviously unfamiliar with the mythology. Allow me to elucidate. The Furies' purpose in Greek mythology was to punish transgressions. In fact, if I were to directly convert their fluff to D&D I'd probably peg them at lawful neutral, but given the role of devils as outlined in Fiendish Codex II, they're just fine there as well. Either way, defining an erinyes as chaotic evil is so inconsistent with their roots as to be totally nonsensical.

D&D has never had clear definitions for law and chaos. The succubus's behavior is disruptive to society and tradition, which makes it chaotic... but it's also methodical, patient, and carefully planned, which makes it lawful. You can argue either way. It makes more sense to look at the fluff for their respective races; and the succubus is totally consistent with devil fluff and totally inconsistent with demon fluff.
No, it's inconsistent with demon fluff as the designers just redefined it for 4e. It was perfectly fine the way it was.

House rule: Succubi are demons.

There ya go. All better. See how easy that was?
Don't patronize me. That's not the issue here. Edition changes should be about improving the rules, not making alterations like this; that's what campaign settings are for.

Yeah, like THAC0, and saves versus paralyzation/poison/death magic, and the Elf class, and racial level caps.
All rules changes, well within the purview of a new core edition. It is not the place of the core rulebooks to wreck the campaign settings.

I see no reason why the sacred cows of crunch should be slaughtered but the sacred cows of fluff should be untouchable. Especially considering how much easier it is for individual DMs to retool the fluff. I'm quite happy to see all of those superannuated bovines turned into hamburger.
Because the crunch is unimportant to the shared stories that are the basis of D&D campaigns. They're the how; the what is all fluff.

The fluff of D&D has been patched, built on, retconned, and revamped for decades, until the whole thing is a chaotic mess utterly devoid of coherency. 4E is an opportunity to clear away the cruft so it can start accumulating again.
I was completely unfamiliar with D&D in general until after the advent of third edition, and that "chaotic mess" was entirely comprehensible to me.

I care. I was always annoyed with the weird bug-devils. They seem so bizarre and random.
And? We're talking about the outer planes; the rules are different there by definition. There are any number of reasons why gelugons might have the body structure that they do.

And "that's the way it's always been" is a lousy reason to keep something around. Does it add anything to the game to have the bug-devils? You're free to hold onto the fluff of previous editions if you wish, but there's no reason WotC should be obligated to do the same.
Yes. It adds continuity and consistency. Change for the sake of change is pointless. They should be fixing balance issues with the rules and updating flawed mechanics; there is no reason to be messing with this kind of thing outside the context of writing a new campaign setting.

Merlin the Tuna
2007-09-24, 11:49 PM
Okay, so Haley's player was either attempting to metagame or having an acute memory deficiency. That does not mean that everyone else must be similarly handicapped.So we're handicapped if we can't tell whether Sabine is a Demon or a Devil? Please submit your proof of her heritage then, Enlightened One, for I wish to experience your wisdom.
Demons are, above all, chaotic evil. Succubi are chaotic to the core; seduction (and thereby inducing other creatures to break their commitments) is the very heart of chaos.Seduction doesn't inherently involve breaking any commitments. A single person can be seduced, and likely will, as the succubus is interested in the stealing of souls, not in raising the divorce rate in Waterdeep. And even that aside, the MM mentions devils as being interested in wrecking civilization as well.

And there's a reason that Law and Chaos are the source of more arguments than anything else in D&D; it's not because there are clear, mutually exclusive descriptions of them.
The erinyes is still a fury. The succubus is a seductress. Those are not even remotely similar roles.I can't help but feel that there's a certain misunderstanding among a lot of people here. I don't really see this as "Succubus kills Erinyes and takes her stuff," as the lingo goes. Because all things considered, the Erinyes has never really had any stuff to take. For all of 2E, she was a seductress that did the exact same thing as the Succubus but somehow made people more lawful instead of making them more chaotic. That drifted into 3.0, and 3.5 only halfhearted took a step away from it.

And they're still not Furies. They're not even close to furies except for the fact that they look like ladies and have wings. Furies were big on things that broke the natural order, and especially looked down on fratricide and patricide. In D&D, Inevitables handle the first, and Devils encourage the second half. Further, the MM mentions nothing about any of this, only that Erinyes are scouts, servants, and concubines, preferring to engage in ranged combat to mixing it up in melee. And "Charm Person" isn't typically a brutal-vengeance-themed ability. Neither of those has anything to do with a creature named after rage and passion. (Typically denoted as Chaotic, though I'm certainly not going to make a claim that alignment makes sense. And Bearded Devils break that rule too, but I find that in general, it's a bad idea to hold up Bearded Devils as an example to support a point.)

The 3.5 Erinyes is not a Fury. She is a chick with a bow and a rope. That's pretty much it.
Regardless, you're missing the salient point. This kind of thing is a task for either a new game or a campaign setting. They should not be screwing with the entire basis for the default cosmology in the core rules. This will alter the very core of every existing campaign setting, and make conversion of most existing games that have run into the middle levels or beyond impossible.Interesting that you suggest that making this a campaign setting would mean it wouldn't have to be related to the core rules, and then immediately turn around and say that changing something in the core changes every campaign setting ever.
There are things that make D&D what it is, and the designers are going about changing them just because they can.The Erinyes have been pretty much completely different in every edition already. You're not standing on any kind of solid ground with this point, and I'm curious to hear what these "things that make D&D what it is" are, and would especially like to hear why extraplanar team rosters are among these things, considering how many D&D games are run that include neither dungeons nor dragons.

And there's been no indication that anything fiendish has been cut but the Erinyes so far, though if I had my way, the Bearded Devil and Yugoloths would be next on the chopping block.

Renegade Paladin
2007-09-24, 11:58 PM
So we're handicapped if we can't tell whether Sabine is a Demon or a Devil? Please submit your proof of her heritage then, Enlightened One, for I wish to experience your wisdom.
Oh, come off it. This has nothing to do with Sabine. Nothing says that outsider types have to be color-coded for your convenience; I'm saying that it isn't difficult to remember the difference between demons and devils, namely chaos and law. In fact, I think that making all demons bestial and all devils humanoid is a bad idea in game design; it encourages metagaming when a player can automatically tell the difference based on even the vaguest description. The erinyes/succubus dichotomy served a practical purpose too; if the PCs have no reason to know which is which, you can just not say and your players might not be sure. Now? Oh, now they'll know. After all, it's humanoid; must be a devil. :smallannoyed:

I'll deal with the rest tomorrow. I've already stayed up late enough that I'll be tired at work; I don't need to make it worse.

Traveling_Angel
2007-09-25, 12:20 AM
I really don't care. Apathy has been my principle tool responding to 4th ed. Wait and see. People can get creative with solutions, and FR has gone through a major upheaval, and Ebberon doesn't have much history. But whatever they do, it will work differently by various means. I'm ready to take the good with the bad, the bad mostly being that the 4th ed may upset my nostalgic sessions. I really like the other changes, like making each weapon unique, per encounter abilities, and hopefully balanced casters. Things change, because they need to.


If they don't, the problems will become more and more apparent and exaggerated, so a good shake up is needed from time to time. For example, when sixth edition Magic came out (which shook up the game quite a bit), people flipped out. They did it again when the card frames changed. Yet, any Magic player will now look back at those changes and say "Ya, we really did the right thing there." While this may screw up the continuity, it really isn't worth crying a river about.

Merlin the Tuna
2007-09-25, 12:24 AM
I'm saying that it isn't difficult to remember the difference between demons and devils, namely chaos and law.That doesn't exactly follow from the sentence "It is not even remotely difficult to distinguish between demons and devils in their current forms."

Here's the thing -- chaos and law mean jack squat, and that's largely why alignment debates exist in the first place. Is it level of organization, making Law explicitly a virtue and Chaos explicitly a flaw? That doesn't tie into the "balance" idea of the wheel or of a 9-pointed alignment at all. Is it a matter of sanity? That doesn't really work, as demons in 3.5 and earlier have some hefty mental scores among them. Is it just following the laws of the land? If so, then you end up with chaotic groups fighting to not follow their own laws, which is dumb. Is it just a matter of following through on what you say? Because then forces of Law don't work well together because of the arbitrary things that they refuse to do, and chaos totally rocks out. Plus the whole lawful evil spy thing doesn't work if they're always telling the truth.

"Law" and "Chaos" were originally just placeholders for the words "good" and "evil," and they've been dragged in about 12 different directions since then. There is no unified system to it, and starting with "These guys are lawful and those guys are chaotic" doesn't provide solid ground to build off of. To borrow a saying, "We are aware that especially if you've been playing this game for a long time, you personally probably have an understanding of what you think Law and Chaos are supposed to mean. You possibly even believe that the rest of your group thinks that Law and Chaos mean the same thing you do. But you're probably wrong."
The erinyes/succubus dichotomy served a practical purpose too; if the PCs have no reason to know which is which, you can just not say and your players might not be sure.I don't look that much like my little brother despite the fact that we came from the same parents. I don't look that much like my predominantly-Irish friends despite the fact that we share a common ethnicity. When you then take creatures - different species - born of the very concept of law and the very concept of chaos, respectively, and add a splash of evil on each side, I expect to see pretty different results if you're trying to sell me on law and chaos being opposites.

TheOOB
2007-09-25, 12:32 AM
Funny, I always though succubi worked perfect as a demon. Unlike devils, succubi typically work alone, spreading widespread chaos and death to feed their unholy existence, they don't work for a greater goal, they don't serve a higher power(unless they are a concubine of sorts, but thats a relationship built on fear or power, not respect and loyalty) they aren't part of some army of the damned, they are cold blooded heartless murderers who happen to use sex instead of violence as their primary weapon.

I see a reason for demons and devils to be separate, but I see very little reason for alignment to exist. Try this, write a list of all the positive ways alignment makes the game funner and easier to play, then write a list of all the negative was alignment makes the game more annoying and complex to play, see which list is bigger.

Dausuul
2007-09-25, 12:40 AM
You are obviously unfamiliar with the mythology. Allow me to elucidate.

I'm quite familiar with the mythology; however, I had not bothered to check the 3E Monster Manual description of erinyes, which was what I was actually talking about. For some reason I had it in mind that 3.5E's erinyes were primarily warriors. Now I've checked it, and I'll concede that erinyes work better as devils than they would as demons... though they're still more warlike than succubi.


No, it's inconsistent with demon fluff as the designers just redefined it for 4e. It was perfectly fine the way it was.

It's inconsistent with the demon fluff of 3E, which describes demons as "ferocity personified" and says that they will "attack any creature just for the sheer fun of it," then goes on to say that succubi "are not warriors" and "flee combat whenever they can."


Edition changes should be about improving the rules, not making alterations like this; that's what campaign settings are for.

Edition changes are about improving the content of the core books. That includes both fluff and crunch, to the extent that each is present. It's silly to create an elegant, well-designed mechanical system while ignoring the inconsistencies and quirks of the setting to which that system is harnessed.


All rules changes, well within the purview of a new core edition.

Okay, then, how about Vecna becoming a god in 3E? Or the sudden appearance of dwarven wizards and magic shops? Or halflings morphing from fat stay-at-home food-lovers into skinny sneaks?


Because the crunch is unimportant to the shared stories that are the basis of D&D campaigns. They're the how; the what is all fluff.

Not even remotely true. Any coherent setting must deal with the logical consequences of the crunch. If people can be raised from the dead, that's going to have a dramatic impact on the world (the whole business about most souls not wanting to come back was an innovation introduced by 3E; before then, if somebody cast raise dead on you, you were bloody well raised). Same with the existence of people who can turn invisible or teleport. A campaign world that was designed without considering these things is likely to be trampled on by PC spellcasters who wander around resurrecting important NPCs, turning invisible and ransacking shops, and teleporting soldiers into enemy castles.


Yes. It adds continuity and consistency.

Or, depending on your point of view, stagnation and irrelevance. Change for the sake of change is pointless, yes, but the designers have put forward entirely valid reasons for most of the changes they're making.

nagora
2007-09-25, 06:25 AM
It is not even remotely difficult to distinguish between demons and devils in their current forms.

Their idea of making all humanoid evil outsiders into devils (and hence making the succubus lawful evil and eliminating the erinyes for being "redundant," despite the fact that the two fill entirely different roles despite superficially similar appearance) is just perplexing. The idea of a new edition is to make rules improvements, not to turn all the existing settings on their heads. :smallannoyed: All this nonsense is superfluous and unnecessary.

You have to remember that the current crop of designers are not very clever and they assume that they are smarter than you. Therefore, since they can't grasp the simple fact that Succubi and Erinyes are different (because, dude, they're both, like, just hot women, yeah?) there's no way in Heck that their customers are going to get it, is there?

It really is that pathetic, IMO. It's no more a valid argument than saying that all humans should be a single alignment because its redundant to have people that look the same but are actually not like each other at all once you talk to them.

If you could cut WotC they would bleed blandness.

AtomicKitKat
2007-09-25, 08:04 AM
Succubi sow discord, take lovers, etc. all for selfish reasons.

I don't see too much trouble distinguishing them, really, except for Belial and Fierna. That being said, there's no chance in the Abyss that I'm going to switch my allegiance to Lawful just because they're gonna lump Succubi there. Devil=Lawful. Chaotic=Tan'ari. Just because a few people have trouble making up mnemonics to remember is no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Edit: That and it looks like they're turning demons into Chaotic Stupid(ie, squander everything).

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-09-25, 12:35 PM
If you could cut WotC they would bleed blandness.

Best line ever.

bosssmiley
2007-09-25, 12:51 PM
You can't fry an egg with a nuke, either.

"Evasion" :smallwink:

As for this Demon/Devil rehash for 4th Ed. It's fine by me. Between official sources and good online homebrew I've seen more takes on the Abyss and the Hells than I can honestly recall. One more is just more grist to the mill.

Shame about the Blood War being retconned away, and about Erinyes getting the chop (those girls were were shamefully underused), but so long as Dread Demogorgon is still thrashing and snarling about the 4th Abyss it's all good.

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-09-25, 12:58 PM
The reason for the change is quite obvious. Demons, despite being the worst and most dangerous creatures in DnD (individually and according to WotC, that is) have gotten a great deal more attention, both as enemies and player characters than Devils. Therefore, the following changes are taking effect:

Asmodeus is "updated" into a full deity.
Devils are turned into the more humanoid and smart fiends thus drawing players and DMs.
Demons are downgraded into the uglier and stupider fiends thus repelling players and DMs.
The cooler demon lords are moving away from the Abyss (see Lolth)

AtomicKitKat
2007-09-25, 01:41 PM
Furies were big on things that broke the natural order, and especially looked down on fratricide and patricide. In D&D, Inevitables handle the first, and Devils encourage the second half.

That second part is pure BS. Devils actively discourage Patricide. Note how Asmodeus pretty much screwed over everyone who ever rebelled against him. I might buy into the 4th Edition fluff on Demons and Devils, but Asmodeus as boss? Nuh-uh. Old hat. Get rid of his wrinkled, arrogant ass.

my_evil_twin
2007-09-25, 01:58 PM
The degree to which Demons and Devils mirror each other in organization, fill the same roles in the universe, and wouldn't be at each other's throats except for their perpetual war, ultimately springs (in my opinion) from the lack of coherent thought that has gone into the meaning of the law-chaos axis.

Law-chaos is twice as dysfunctional as good-evil because, depending on your worldview, they are just shades of a certain sort of good or evil: If you are inclined to see law and order as helpful to humanity, then LG is the goodest good, and CE is the evilest evil; if you think law and order are oppressive, then LG is still good but not as good as CG, and CE is a shade more palatable (think, perhaps, of Milton's Satan) than LE.

In 3.5, most Devils wheel and deal while most Demons burn and pillage. That's the idea, but about half of fiends occupy some sort of crossover role. Hezrous and Bearded Devils come to mind. Succubi also occupy that unpleasant grey area between law and chaos.

A succubus lures mortals into illicit and corruptive liaisons. Inasmuch as this tears apart the fabric of society, it's CE. They also well suited to scheming and bringing mortals into agreeing to things that they later regret. In scheming and manipulating, they are more in line with the usual LE fluff: they are orderly in their conduct, if not their goals. If we didn't have this rule that all fiends had to be either lawful or chaotic, I think succubi (and a lot of others) would be NE.

For my own part, I've had a succubus/incubus as the mastermind of one campaign's villiany and, looking back, I played it more LE than CE. It felt more in line with what the monster was capable of.

Rex Blunder
2007-09-25, 02:06 PM
You know, now that I think of it, it's kind of weird to elevate Asmodeus to the default pantheon. I mean, he's sort of from the Judeo-Christian tradition, which, previously, d&d designers have consciously shied away from for their deities. [although not devils and demons - that was always all miltonian and whatnot].

It's not quite as bad as having, say, Jesus, God of the Sun (http://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/61565.html) in there, but there are probably still some people who believe in demons mentioned in apocryphal books of the bible.

Merlin the Tuna
2007-09-25, 02:15 PM
That second part is pure BS. Devils actively discourage Patricide. Note how Asmodeus pretty much screwed over everyone who ever rebelled against him.Notice how the entire hierarchy is built around backstabbing the guy above you and taking his place? Notice how people keep rebelling against Asmodeus even though he pretty much screwed over everyone so far?

LeeMon
2007-09-25, 02:18 PM
I was homebrewing a campaign world where the overgod was betrayed and murdered, causing those that stood against him to be cursed and cast out, leading to devils. Demons, in turn, were a byproduct of a primal force of destruction from the dawn of creation.

It's good to know I was working in the right direction. :)

Kioran
2007-09-25, 02:30 PM
I think I´m not the only one to miss the 3.5 Erynies, mangled though it might have been - they´re still badass chicks from (the nine) hell(s), and, frankly, a lot cooler than Succubi. If they wanted these to be more distinct, they might have just increased their combat utility, making them even more of a ranged fighter, or support chars. They´re, at least to me, more liky evil Valkyries than Succubi, or, at that, original furies.

AtomicKitKat
2007-09-25, 02:36 PM
Notice how the entire hierarchy is built around backstabbing the guy above you and taking his place? Notice how people keep rebelling against Asmodeus even though he pretty much screwed over everyone so far?

Notice how they never overtly backstab the guy above them(Reckoning excepted. That was full-out coup de'etat)? They manipulate.

Check here. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=915330&page=2&p=13656540)

This sums up what I feel best about the whole Corruption/Destruction line.


The difference is not the fact of corruption, but the way they corrupt. Devils corrupt through laws and formal contracts - Faustian bargains. Demons simply appeal to greed and lust - they get their hooks into their victim's ids and gently pull, offering them little inducements and treats, until they've damned themselves willingly, without ever signing anything or getting any promises the demons won't immediately break. Devils get out of their contracts using loopholes, while demons simply lie.

Caxton
2007-09-25, 02:45 PM
I think the largest part of the law-chaos confusion comes from the various differences in how we view evil , as stated before. I remember somewhere in a 2e book it stated that CE villains could have minions, but ruled them through fear. So what, LE rules through a complex plan of emloyee benefits?

The way I ultimately view the difference between LE and CE is that a CE's minions serve out of fear, whereas an LE's minions might fear (probably do) ther leader, but serve out of loyalty (whether to an organization, a religion, the leader himself, or whatever).

Thus, loyalty to the organization of Devils (Baatezu) should be the primary factor for a LE Devil. They might seek to gain status and betray their leader, but will serve the organization in doing so. Demons (Tanar 'ri) should be perfectly free to pursue any goal they want. The idea that Devil's are manipulative and have long reaching goals whereas Demons are shortsighted and destructive is inconsistent with the alignment system. Otherwise DM's would penalize chaotic characters for planning. So the alignment system in 4th ed is either broken or gone. Either way it's dead.

Dausuul
2007-09-25, 02:46 PM
That second part is pure BS. Devils actively discourage Patricide. Note how Asmodeus pretty much screwed over everyone who ever rebelled against him. I might buy into the 4th Edition fluff on Demons and Devils, but Asmodeus as boss? Nuh-uh. Old hat. Get rid of his wrinkled, arrogant ass.

Asmodeus doesn't discourage patricide at all. He encourages it, along with every other sin that might bring more souls into his clutches. What Asmodeus discourages is Asmodeicide.


Notice how they never overtly backstab the guy above them(Reckoning excepted. That was full-out coup de'etat)? They manipulate.

Devils are cautious, patient, and subtle. Open rebellion against their overlords is generally far too risky for their tastes, especially given the rigid hierarchy of the Hells. Far safer to manipulate, scheme, and betray your way to the top.

Person_Man
2007-09-25, 02:54 PM
It's interesting that 4th ed has no qualms about adopting blatantly Christian mythology into its game world. After 1st ed became popular, D&D faced accusations (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp) that it supported cult like behavior.


http://www.chick.com/tractimages87738/0046/0046_03.gif
http://www.chick.com/tractimages87738/0046/0046_04.gif
http://www.chick.com/tractimages87738/0046/0046_05.gif
http://www.chick.com/tractimages87738/0046/0046_11.gif
http://www.chick.com/tractimages87738/0046/0046_12.gif
http://www.chick.com/tractimages87738/0046/0046_14.gif


In response, D&D editions since then have avoided anything that even resembled real world religions. But its almost impossible for fantasy writers to not borrow from well known myths.

Its nice to see that WotC has grown a pair (for now). Hopefully, other major mythologies will also get source books as well, so that DMs who didn't enjoy Dante's Inferno can have alternate underworld cosmologies.

Also, has anyone else noticed that the comic I posted makes a strong case for character optimization?

Rex Blunder
2007-09-25, 02:58 PM
Also, no wonder clerics, druids, and wizards are optimizers' favorite classes. You learn real-life magic at 8th level!

Hzurr
2007-09-25, 02:58 PM
You can't fry an egg with a nuke, either.

Actually, I did that once. It was tasty.


Overall, I like the clarification, because I could never keep track of which ones were devils and demons.

And I've always played my succubi as "cunning, conniving, sneaky, tricky, selfish, plotting [and sexy] types," so Devils works just fine for me.

my_evil_twin
2007-09-25, 03:34 PM
It's interesting that 4th ed has no qualms about adopting blatantly Christian mythology into its game world. After 1st ed became popular, D&D faced accusations that it supported cult like behavior.

In response, D&D editions since then have avoided anything that even resembled real world religions. But its almost impossible for fantasy writers to not borrow from well known myths.

Its nice to see that WotC has grown a pair (for now). Hopefully, other major mythologies will also get source books as well, so that DMs who didn't enjoy Dante's Inferno can have alternate underworld cosmologies.I think that D&D has gotten mainstream enough, and people like Jack Chick have gotten marginal enough, that WotC can start letting good taste govern what goes into and what stays out of their cosmology.

I think WotC should still keep away from identifiable elements of currently practiced religions. Asmodeus, conveniently, appears only in the Book of Tobit, which to my knowledge is not considered canon by any church. I also think people who take their religion seriously are unlikely to be offended by irreverent portrayals of the forces of evil.

Citizen Joe
2007-09-25, 03:35 PM
The funny thing about the not sure if it is a Succubus or an Erinyes thing regarding whether to use silver or iron weapons is that Erinyes aren't vulnerable to silver, just good weapons.

Erinyes: DR 5/good
Succubus: DR 10/Cold Iron OR good

Yakk
2007-09-25, 04:25 PM
I like the fluff.

Demons as a corruption of creation into destruction, and Devils as an imprisioned kingdom of god-killing beings who want to become the lords and masters of creation.

Note that Demons need not be the only CE option -- just because they are beings who destroy for destructions sake, does not mean all CE beings share this belief.

Just as not all LE beings need follow the rules of Devils.

...

And I like the tieing of Devil and Demon motivations to Prime Material actions, Sure, this will cause problems in a pre-existing plane-hopping game, but at the same time it will provide lots of material for a "in the prime material" game.

...

Do note that the cosmology of D&D changed significantly from AD&D to D&D 3.0. Adaptation was pretty easy: you could continue to use the old fluff, or use the new fluff. Reproducing the old fluff is actually a bad idea: it is, in essence, a waste of paper. People who like the old fluff and own the old material can continue to use it as much as they want.

...

This brings up another thought. Maybe they'll push a bit harder on "what animates undead". I think it would be interesting if undead where animated by minor devils or demons (including the intelligent undead) -- it would explain why they are built-in evil.

Tor the Fallen
2007-09-25, 07:56 PM
This'll be great.
**** all those metagaming ****s. Ahahahaha!

Kyeudo
2007-09-25, 08:14 PM
I personaly want them to make Zombies and Skeletons actualy evil. I like playing Neutral Necromancers, but the fact is, current Z&S arn't evil. If freed, they do the last thing they were ordered to do until the end of time.

Citizen Joe
2007-09-25, 09:16 PM
I'd like to see Moe move out and then all the Gen X children of the Devils seize control, ousting their parents in a big coup d'etat.

Matthew
2007-09-26, 08:06 AM
It's not quite as bad as having, say, Jesus, God of the Sun (http://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/61565.html) in there, but there are probably still some people who believe in demons mentioned in apocryphal books of the bible.

Heh, that was a very amusing link.

BardicDuelist
2007-09-26, 08:24 AM
The thing that bothers me: Graz'zt is humanoid and can think. So is Malchatet (or however you spell it). Some archdevils are beastial (generally due to Asmodeous's whim).

What I'm hoping will happen is this: They change the cosmos (which seems to be done), but FR still uses it's cosmology, which is similar enough to the 3e core to just use it for most campaign worlds which rely on that and just file off a few of the serial numbers.

If they change FR's cosmos, or most of FR for that matter, I will be upset. I know some people who don't like FR, but those who do and use that setting should not have to go "Well, we are still in the Realms, but nothing is the same, ok?"

Renegade Paladin
2007-09-26, 04:11 PM
That doesn't exactly follow from the sentence "It is not even remotely difficult to distinguish between demons and devils in their current forms."
It isn't remotely difficult to remember the alignment difference. That several demons and devils look similar is a good thing. If a player can tell from a monster's description exactly what it is and what all it's strengths and weaknesses are then metagaming runs rampant. If outsiders start being grouped strictly according to body type, then all a player needs to know from a devil's description is "That's a humanoid outsider. Okay, immune to fire and poison, resistant to acid 10 and cold 10, can see in magical darkness, and is telepathic. Okay, bust out the chain lightning and don't bother with the deathblade this time around." This is a bad thing.

By the by, since erinyes have feathered wings and succubi have batlike ones, Sabine is obviously a succubus demon. :smalltongue:

Here's the thing -- chaos and law mean jack squat, and that's largely why alignment debates exist in the first place. Is it level of organization, making Law explicitly a virtue and Chaos explicitly a flaw? That doesn't tie into the "balance" idea of the wheel or of a 9-pointed alignment at all. Is it a matter of sanity? That doesn't really work, as demons in 3.5 and earlier have some hefty mental scores among them. Is it just following the laws of the land? If so, then you end up with chaotic groups fighting to not follow their own laws, which is dumb. Is it just a matter of following through on what you say? Because then forces of Law don't work well together because of the arbitrary things that they refuse to do, and chaos totally rocks out. Plus the whole lawful evil spy thing doesn't work if they're always telling the truth.
None of those are mutually exclusive and no lawful or chaotic creature has to hold to all of them. Any or all of the traits you named, along with several others, could determine lawful or chaotic alignment; it's a matter of which are present and if there's a mix, which are stronger traits. There isn't one monolithic characteristic that defines law or chaos, and there isn't one that defines good or evil either for that matter.

"Law" and "Chaos" were originally just placeholders for the words "good" and "evil," and they've been dragged in about 12 different directions since then. There is no unified system to it, and starting with "These guys are lawful and those guys are chaotic" doesn't provide solid ground to build off of. To borrow a saying, "We are aware that especially if you've been playing this game for a long time, you personally probably have an understanding of what you think Law and Chaos are supposed to mean. You possibly even believe that the rest of your group thinks that Law and Chaos mean the same thing you do. But you're probably wrong."
Law and chaos are broad concepts; the problem is that people like to narrow them down. The same goes for good and evil; the reason this causes fewer problems is that more people agree on what good and evil are supposed to be anyway. Actually, this narrowing is what causes most of the dislike of alignment; people perceive it as more restrictive than it actually is.

I don't look that much like my little brother despite the fact that we came from the same parents. I don't look that much like my predominantly-Irish friends despite the fact that we share a common ethnicity. When you then take creatures - different species - born of the very concept of law and the very concept of chaos, respectively, and add a splash of evil on each side, I expect to see pretty different results if you're trying to sell me on law and chaos being opposites.
If you don't look all that much like your brother or other predominantly Irish-descended acquaintances, then why should entirely different species of devils all share similar physical traits? QED.

Seduction doesn't inherently involve breaking any commitments. A single person can be seduced, and likely will, as the succubus is interested in the stealing of souls, not in raising the divorce rate in Waterdeep. And even that aside, the MM mentions devils as being interested in wrecking civilization as well.
Merriam-Webster (http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/seduce)

Main Entry: se·duce 1 : to persuade to disobedience or disloyalty
You were saying?

And there's a reason that Law and Chaos are the source of more arguments than anything else in D&D; it's not because there are clear, mutually exclusive descriptions of them.I can't help but feel that there's a certain misunderstanding among a lot of people here. I don't really see this as "Succubus kills Erinyes and takes her stuff," as the lingo goes. Because all things considered, the Erinyes has never really had any stuff to take. For all of 2E, she was a seductress that did the exact same thing as the Succubus but somehow made people more lawful instead of making them more chaotic. That drifted into 3.0, and 3.5 only halfhearted took a step away from it.

And they're still not Furies. They're not even close to furies except for the fact that they look like ladies and have wings. Furies were big on things that broke the natural order, and especially looked down on fratricide and patricide. In D&D, Inevitables handle the first, and Devils encourage the second half. Further, the MM mentions nothing about any of this, only that Erinyes are scouts, servants, and concubines, preferring to engage in ranged combat to mixing it up in melee. And "Charm Person" isn't typically a brutal-vengeance-themed ability. Neither of those has anything to do with a creature named after rage and passion. (Typically denoted as Chaotic, though I'm certainly not going to make a claim that alignment makes sense. And Bearded Devils break that rule too, but I find that in general, it's a bad idea to hold up Bearded Devils as an example to support a point.)

The 3.5 Erinyes is not a Fury. She is a chick with a bow and a rope. That's pretty much it.
I can't speak for 2e, having never played that putrid trash heap they called a ruleset. Per Fiendish Codex II, the entirety of Baator exists to punish transgressions; the problem is simply that the Pact Primeval allowed the devils to become transgressors while doing so. Erinyes serve their mythological function by proxy through that.

Interesting that you suggest that making this a campaign setting would mean it wouldn't have to be related to the core rules, and then immediately turn around and say that changing something in the core changes every campaign setting ever.
Suggest? That's exactly what I'm saying. Now every existing campaign setting will have to either have a large list of published setting-only rules to differ it from core, or they will have to ruin continuity for all of them. If they wanted all of this, they should have published a new campaign setting so that only that setting would have to do the massive list of exceptions instead of all the others.
The Erinyes have been pretty much completely different in every edition already. You're not standing on any kind of solid ground with this point, and I'm curious to hear what these "things that make D&D what it is" are, and would especially like to hear why extraplanar team rosters are among these things, considering how many D&D games are run that include neither dungeons nor dragons.
What makes D&D what it is? Well, where to start? How about all the fluff? Without that, all you have is the d20 system, not Dungeons & Dragons. Conversion of a ruleset is already hard enough without forcing everyone to retcon the entire history of their game worlds. There's no need to change anything but the mechanics. That is the entire point of the exercise.

And there's been no indication that anything fiendish has been cut but the Erinyes so far, though if I had my way, the Bearded Devil and Yugoloths would be next on the chopping block.
All devils will be humanoid and all demons will be bestial. That doesn't scream of chopping pit fiends, imps, cornugons, abishai, malebranches, Bel, Mammon, and Baalzebul (at the minimum, depending on how strict they are about humanoid appearance) to you?

AtomicKitKat
2007-09-26, 09:09 PM
Well, all I can say is, if they want to set a prescedent of ignoring previous editions, I hope the next edition tells them "Pitchfork off" and goes back to the Great Wheel.:smallamused:

Azerian Kelimon
2007-09-26, 10:01 PM
To kill off the L and C debate, let's go for the pure Lawfulness, LN, and pure chaoticness, CN. If you check them, L is playing by the rules, C is kicking the board. A devil will NEVER go into combat if it can make a deal. EVER. It becomes a demon by definition. A demon will try to rampage and rape your loved one just to torture you. If it were to agree on more than a hostage exchange for a more pleasurable torturee, it would be a devil.

Neon Knight
2007-09-26, 10:03 PM
To kill off the L and C debate, let's go for the pure Lawfulness, LN, and pure chaoticness, CN. If you check them, L is playing by the rules, C is kicking the board. A devil will NEVER go into combat if it can make a deal. EVER. It becomes a demon by definition. A demon will try to rampage and rape your loved one just to torture you. If it were to agree on more than a hostage exchange for a more pleasurable torturee, it would be a devil.

What if the rules are rampage, defile, destroy?

Azerian Kelimon
2007-09-26, 10:06 PM
Then you get a paradox. Plain 'n simple, the rules override the rules override the rules. Et cetera letera metera.

Neon Knight
2007-09-26, 10:21 PM
Then you get a paradox. Plain 'n simple, the rules override the rules override the rules. Et cetera letera metera.

So the entire hobgoblin race is a paradox? Although technically only usually Lawful Evil, hobgoblins are classic examples of Lawful Evil.

And what are they known for? Being disciplined, hardy, exceptional soldiers. Possessing great skill in the art of war. Being far more aggressive and organized than their smaller relatives and waging a perpetual war against other humanoids, particularly elves. That last line is straight from the MM.

If a hobgoblin patrol encounters someone, he will most probably die swiftly and painfully. There will be no negotiation. He will be run down and his corpse thrown to the worgs. There is a very simple reason for this. Most humanoids hate hobgoblins. Hobgoblins hate them. Even if a successful deal was struck, it would be too risky to let him go alive. He might be a spy, with information that the foe could use to harm the tribe.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-09-26, 10:24 PM
And you forget hobglobings are not embodiments of evil lawfulness. A truely well RP'ed devil will even try to negotiate as arrows zing around him, but once a blow is struck, he'll go judge dredd and show no mercy.

Neon Knight
2007-09-26, 10:25 PM
And you forget hobglobings are not embodiments of evil lawfulness. A truely well RP'ed devil will even try to negotiate as arrows zing around him, but once a blow is struck, he'll go judge dredd and show no mercy.

Or shouldn't he just follow orders and kill the bugger in the quickest and most efficient way possible?

Azerian Kelimon
2007-09-26, 10:27 PM
Shouldn't he tergiverse orders and leave the killing for later, showing genius and skill, and looking smartie, all while playing with the rules, yet bending them?

Neon Knight
2007-09-26, 10:32 PM
Shouldn't he tergiverse orders and leave the killing for later, showing genius and skill, and looking smartie, all while playing with the rules, yet bending them?

Could he not show equal genius and skill with a clever ambush killing his foe before he can even react?

Seriously, Lawful is obeying the rules. Bending them is heading towards neutral territory. A Lawful follows the rules if possible, bends them only if absolutely necessary, and breaks them only in the most dire of straits. Also, creating new rules and amending old ones is done only after serious consideration.

Starsinger
2007-09-26, 10:35 PM
Could he not show equal genius and skill with a clever ambush killing his foe before he can even react?

Seriously, Lawful is obeying the rules. bending them is heading towards neutral territory. A Lawful follows the rules if possible, bends them only is absolutely necessary, and breaks them only in the most dire of straits. Also, creating new rules and amending old ones is done only after serious consideration.

See! This is the beauty of the new definitions of demons and devils in 4E! No longer will it spark ridiculous arguments about alignment that have been done to death on a daily basis! The Law-Chaos axis of alignment needs to go, and quickly. It's passing shall not be missed.

Tallis
2007-09-26, 10:44 PM
Succubi being devils changes up a lot of fluff and crunch.

Fluff is what the DM says it is, so that shouldn't matter. It's hard to address the crunch issue since we really don't know how the crunch will work for the new system. It might not change things as much as you think, we'll have to wait and see.

Bosh
2007-09-27, 12:10 AM
Basically the lawful and chaotic alignments come from Gary Gygax or somebody thinking that Michael Moorecock's writing (Elric etc.) were cool and ripping it off, dumbing it down and then mashing it together with whatever else was popular in the 70's. There's really not much more to it than that.


Conversion of a ruleset is already hard enough without forcing everyone to retcon the entire history of their game worlds. There's no need to change anything but the mechanics. That is the entire point of the exercise.

Well there are a lot of people (including me) who didn't like the great wheel stuff and never used it in their games. For us its great since the canon is becoming a hell of a lot closer to our homebrew, which is great. Again and again I see stuff in 4e that I either homebrewed myself or was planning to get around to homebrewing when 4ed was announced. And as far as the 3ed settings, I never much cared for any of them so no real loss if they have a hard time dealing with 4e...

Renegade Paladin
2007-09-27, 12:35 AM
Basically the lawful and chaotic alignments come from Gary Gygax or somebody thinking that Michael Moorecock's writing (Elric etc.) were cool and ripping it off, dumbing it down and then mashing it together with whatever else was popular in the 70's. There's really not much more to it than that.



Well there are a lot of people (including me) who didn't like the great wheel stuff and never used it in their games. For us its great since the canon is becoming a hell of a lot closer to our homebrew, which is great. Again and again I see stuff in 4e that I either homebrewed myself or was planning to get around to homebrewing when 4ed was announced. And as far as the 3ed settings, I never much cared for any of them so no real loss if they have a hard time dealing with 4e...
Well bully for you. :smallannoyed: That doesn't change the fact that they're hanging what I'd bet is a majority of the gaming groups out there out to dry.

TheOOB
2007-09-27, 12:42 AM
New fluff is great, but I hope they don't devote too much time, energy, and book space into it. It's nice to see their cosmology, their devils and demons, and it gives them a great way to showcase their rules, but really I'm going to use devils and demons however the heck I want to in my game. I will continue to use erynis (spelling?) in my game because I do believe there is a niche they fill the sucubi don't(I have a fantasy worldview that allows for more then one beautiful female fiend who uses seduction).

Bosh
2007-09-27, 01:05 AM
Well bully for you. :smallannoyed: That doesn't change the fact that they're hanging what I'd bet is a majority of the gaming groups out there out to dry.

I don't think so. There's a lot of Eberron gaming groups and Eberron does have its own cosmology. Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk aren't really focused very much on the planes so they should be fine. Planescape will have a hard time dealing with the changes, which is too bad since 2ed Sigil was very cool, but on the other hand on threads in different forums I keep seeing people all over the place saying that this cosmology was much more similar to what they've been homebrewing than the great wheel.

Dausuul
2007-09-27, 07:23 AM
I don't think so. There's a lot of Eberron gaming groups and Eberron does have its own cosmology. Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk aren't really focused very much on the planes so they should be fine. Planescape will have a hard time dealing with the changes, which is too bad since 2ed Sigil was very cool, but on the other hand on threads in different forums I keep seeing people all over the place saying that this cosmology was much more similar to what they've been homebrewing than the great wheel.

Well spoken. None of us is equipped to judge whether a "majority of gaming groups" want the Great Wheel or not; you'd need to do a comprehensive survey, not extrapolate from the preferences of your particular group. If I were to judge from the groups I've played in... well, let me see. Out of 12 gamers I can think of whom I personally know well enough to assess their preferences, there is exactly one who actively likes the Great Wheel/Planescape, and even he is quite interested in the new system. The rest either don't care about the Wheel or don't like it.

And Forgotten Realms has its own cosmology, too. They split it off from the old Wheel when they brought it into 3E.

Renegade Paladin
2007-09-27, 11:00 AM
The cosmology changing isn't really the problem; it's all the monsters. The changes to elves will really alter the entire face of the Realms.

And I'd bet it's a majority of gaming groups using the Great Wheel because that's what's been presented and most gamers don't bother to do extensive homebrewing of settings. The demographic of this board in that regard is not at all typical.

Dausuul
2007-09-27, 01:23 PM
The cosmology changing isn't really the problem; it's all the monsters. The changes to elves will really alter the entire face of the Realms.

The changes to elves? As far as I can tell, the elves have not been substantially changed; they just merged wild and wood elves and gave the "elf" moniker to them, while high elves and grey elves are likewise merging into "eladrin." Use elf stats for the wild and wood elves (or whatever they call them in the Realms), use eladrin stats for high and grey elves, and use drow stats for drow.

Of course, it hardly matters; the Realms will get their own 4E sourcebook, just as they always do.


And I'd bet it's a majority of gaming groups using the Great Wheel because that's what's been presented and most gamers don't bother to do extensive homebrewing of settings. The demographic of this board in that regard is not at all typical.

Or they don't even bother with the planes. My experience (backed up by everything I've heard both on these boards and elsewhere) is that campaigns tend to peter out around 10th-12th level, which is right about the time you'd normally start to get into planar adventures.

Renx
2007-09-27, 01:27 PM
Dragon articles require that you sign-in to D&D Insider to view the content.

*sigh*

Dausuul
2007-09-27, 01:28 PM
Dragon articles require that you sign-in to D&D Insider to view the content.

*sigh*

Just make an account on the Wizards forums and you'll be able to log in. If I recall correctly, they don't plan to charge for Insider accounts until 4E goes live.

Caxton
2007-09-27, 01:28 PM
I simply hope that converting to old cosmology won't be too difficult. If it is difficult, 4e is as dead as a doornail in my group already. That said, for some reason the new cosmology clicks something in my head about the two-odd times I have ever played werewolf. Doesn't that game have a remarkably similar cosmology?

Green Bean
2007-09-27, 01:34 PM
Dragon articles require that you sign-in to D&D Insider to view the content.

*sigh*

Actually, for some reason clicking on the 'printer friendly version' button makes the whole thing visible for me, even though I don't have an account...

Renx
2007-09-27, 01:45 PM
Actually, for some reason clicking on the 'printer friendly version' button makes the whole thing visible for me, even though I don't have an account...

ROFL, thanks mate.

jamroar
2007-09-27, 01:45 PM
The cosmology changing isn't really the problem; it's all the monsters. The changes to elves will really alter the entire face of the Realms.



Or they could write the Sun and Moon Elves as completely different animals from the generic D&D (High?) elf in the 4th Ed. FRCS.

On another note, I loathe the practice of having cheesey OMG world-shattering events (ToT, Fate of Istus, Fifth Age, Spellplague et. al) simply to account for crunchy rule system changes in new editions (as opposed to simple retconning or discreet handwaving in a few paragraphs like the Thunder Blessing). Hopefully, they don't inflict too much of this nonsense on the Realms to satisfy their stated desire to justify the changes.

bosssmiley
2007-09-27, 02:13 PM
Have you guys read the revised cosmology (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070926a) article yet? Looks like the Abyss is being changed to the chaotic sump of the Inner Planes, with lashings of Limbo (eeeeeeevil Limbo) thrown in. More than anything else it reminds me of the old Ethereal rifts to 'somewhere else' that the 2nd Ed. Planescape "Guide to the Ethereal Plane" talked about.

Oh, and all the divine realms? Floating about in the Astral like overblown demiplanes. No mention of a Great Wheel. Sounds more like Eberron's orbiting planes than the 3rd Ed. core cosmology.

Looks like the Feywild has been written as a (positive energy?) counterpart to the revised Plane of Shadow (which itself sounds more Birthright-ish than in 3rd Ed.).

Interesting, and cleverly poses as many questions as it pretends to answer. :smallconfused:

puppyavenger
2007-09-27, 02:17 PM
So all demons are now dumb musderes monsters with no forthought
my villans are upgrading.

Merlin the Tuna
2007-09-27, 02:39 PM
So all demons are now dumb musderes monsters with no forthoughtMaybe there's sarcasm here, but just in case, Chris Sims (the writer of the article) had this to say in one of the WotC boards threads on it.
In this short article, I couldn't do much more than make generalities.

Demons are anything but cut-and-dry killers, but they come off that way overall. Of course, as 4e develops, all the fiends will get more treatment.So there's that, if you believe it. Either way, I imagine unmaking the universe is a tricky task, and if they're going to make a good stab at it they'll need a few schemers. I'd be surprised to see Demons devolve into a bunch of meatheads.

Renegade Paladin
2007-09-27, 04:36 PM
Or they could write the Sun and Moon Elves as completely different animals from the generic D&D (High?) elf in the 4th Ed. FRCS.

On another note, I loathe the practice of having cheesey OMG world-shattering events (ToT, Fate of Istus, Fifth Age, Spellplague et. al) simply to account for crunchy rule system changes in new editions (as opposed to simple retconning or discreet handwaving in a few paragraphs like the Thunder Blessing). Hopefully, they don't inflict too much of this nonsense on the Realms to satisfy their stated desire to justify the changes.
I'm afraid they will. The third book in their trilogy of Realms mega-adventures is entitled "Anauroch: The Sundering of the World." If you look at the site now, it'll say that the subtitle is "The Empire of Shade," but it was originally billed as the former and I think they're trying to hide that now to avoid spoiling what they're about to do.