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Jayngfet
2008-06-07, 12:49 AM
I was hoping someone could post everything changed with the conversion from 3.5 to 4.0

1.Tieflings are now descendants of lords who dealt with demons rather than descendants of the demons themselves.

2.Half-orcs are not in core at the moment.

3.Two dragon types have been replaced.

4.Angels have been changed from good aligned celestials to servants of various gods.

4.Dryads seem to have hooves

Please note that I don't have the new edition or know if I'm getting it, but this is what I've seen so far.

de-trick
2008-06-07, 09:38 AM
5. they made changes in weapon proficiency's of dwarfs and elves

Devils_Advocate
2008-06-07, 06:41 PM
1.Tieflings are now descendants of lords who dealt with demons rather than descendants of the demons themselves.
No no no. Devils, not demons. 4E demons aren't tempters. They don't do subtlety. They just destroy. DESTROY! Demons and devils aren't related at all in 4E. They're totally different types of creatures with different origins. Devils are "immortal" and demons are "elemental", although "divine" and "primordial" might be better terms. Demons are primal destruction, and devils are unholy tyranny. Demons and devils aren't at war any more, just because they rarely even come into contact with each other. So that's a big change in setting, if not in the races themselves.

The devils are pretty well sealed -- but far from perfectly sealed -- in the Nine Hells. I don't think they explicitly explain who's responsible for this, but I assume that it was done by a bunch of gods who quite sensibly favored confining a bunch of things that had already committed deicide once. Asmodeus, you see, was once a divine servant who led a rebellion against and successfully killed his master. He and his followers were then condemned to yadda yadda yadda ect. Asmodeus is the god of tyranny now, and is allied with Bane, Tiamat, Torog, and Vecna, the deities of war and conquest, greed, imprisonment and torture, and secrecy respectively. They're like five great tastes that taste great together! Power, exploitation, cruelty, vengeance. Evilicious.

(They're not actually presented as a unified coalition or anything; I just can easily see an Evil character worshiping all of them.)


2.Half-orcs are not in core at the moment.
Indeed, they are not. Half-elves are, as are gnomes, though gnomes are in the Monster Manual instead of the PHB.

Elves have been divided into elves and eladrin. Elves are passionate, woods-dwelling, stealthy archers who live in harmony with nature. Eladrin are detached, elegant, and graceful, and live on the boundary between the Feywild and... "the world", which is apparently the new non-name for the Prime Material Plane. It seems odd that the Feywild and Shawowfell should have the same basic shape as the world (They do, right?) and not be called worlds themselves, but I guess there's no reason that the word "world" has to have exactly the same connotations in Common in the game as it does in English out of game, so I guess it works.

Elves, eladrin, and gnomes, like all races originating in the Feywild, are classified as fey. Gnomes are stealthy, unobtrusive little fey with a natural propensity for arcane magic who move between the Feywild and the world. So 4E gnomes are to roughly to 3E gnomes as 4E eladrin are to 3E elves.


4.Angels have been changed from good aligned celestials to servants of various gods.
Indeed. They still fill the basic "holy warrior" role, but they're rather more diverse in their goals and methods.

4E archons are elemental warriors. They aren't a retooling of 3E archons so much as an old name applied to something quite different. Rather like how the name "eladrin" was repurposed to refer to a type of elf instead of a race of Chaotic Good outsiders. Still, they are sort of analogous to angels; they serve as the soldiers of primordials and powerful elemental entities much like angels serve the gods.


4.Dryads seem to have hooves
Wha? They're humanoid plant fey that look kinda like trees and use their illusion magic to disguise themselves as humanoids. Nothing to do with hooves.

shadow_archmagi
2008-06-07, 06:47 PM
I like the clarification about elves. It explains how on one hand we have

"We're masters of arcane lore who have transcended the world and live in magical flying crystal cities and make lighting with our eyes"

and then on the other

"We wear cloaks made of leaves and have gotten so good at sitting in trees sometimes people mistake us for branches oh and when we sing all the little bunnies start well choreographed dances around us"

both being traditional elf things to do. One kind is different than the other.