Changes For Fiends and Rich Baker

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I don't have any strong opinions on Shemeska the poster, I just hate how everyone gets in line to fellate him.

[virgil]

Damn you and your mental images!

[RandomCasualty]

As if the garbage in the tome of fiends II wasn't bad enough, now we've got more of this Christian shit in the game.

While I don't mind the idea of fallen angels in general (or reformed devils for that matter), having all devils be fallen angels sucks.

[virgil]

Amen to that! (ain't irony fun?)

It always feels like attempts to interject RL religious thought outside of names in D&D just leave a bitter taste in my mouth (ignoring dead religions like the Greek Pantheon). Part of it has to do with the fact that I find it hard to notice any attempts other than Christian mythology.

I'm still waiting to see heavy-handed attempts to bring in the Hindu mythos to D&D, which would be a change of pace at the very least.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Hey, Hindu stuff is pretty interesting.

[Catharz]

1189893569[/unixtime]]Now that's just...eww. Besides, if you want Planescape to rape someone, it needs to be Shemsheka the Marauder two-teaming with the Smiling Fiend

Who the hell is Shemsheka?

1189900977[/unixtime]]
Also, it occurred to me that Devils==Fallen Angels means they're stating from the word go that Outsiders can be different from their listed Alignment. That "[Evil] creatures with Alignment: Always Evil" aren't actually Always Evil.

I mean, presumably, getting thrown into another plane and changing in form was due to their punishment for killing gods and rebelling en mass, and no-one would care about individuals changing alignment.

Nah, I'm sure they killed the god in the name of good. It was probably the formerly benign one in that Planescape adventure which was sending all of its worshipers to hell for perceived infringements against its doctrines. Its angelic servants were like 'Ok, this has gotten out of hand, we've got to do something about this guy', and they did. Then all the other good gods were like 'Oh hell no, you don't fuck with the Heavenly Status Quo', and cast all of the dead power's servants into the fiery pits.

[JonSetanta]

Yugoloth cock? The Count will fap.

[virgil]

Shemsheka the Marauder was an NPC they introduced in Planescape. Basically, she was a more or less independent arcanoloth that acted as a mob boss and manipulator, having alot of power through favors and background plots. Standard material for a city-based villain, really. She was one of the more popular NPCs out there, made even more public by one poster that uses her as an avatar when posting.

[Cielingcat]

1189884209[/unixtime]]

1189843072[/unixtime]]Also, anything that pisses of Planescape fans gets my vote.

Yeah, and I hope the Lady of Pain fucks you up the ass with her Bladed Strap-on of Sorrow.

The Lady of Pain is a Dark Eldar?

[Crissa]

Would it even be D&D if we didn't have color-coded dragons and ogre mages?

Still, I've never even been in a campaign that used the lawful/chaotic demon planes anyhow, and they're not in the base book and haven't been in a monsterous manual in two decades, so... Who cares? All this stuff he was talking about is setting and is the opposite of making a more generic game that has settings rather than a Greyhawk game we sometimes play in the Forgotten Realms.

-Crissa

[Koumei]

1189932661[/unixtime]]
The Lady of Pain is a Dark Eldar?

That'd explain a lot. For what it's worth, she wears striped knickers. I read it on 4chan, it must be true.

For dragons, I'd be happy with removing colour-coded Alignments, rather than removing colourful dragons altogether. It has become a fundamental part of D&D these days, and why not keep a few things?

[Voss]

1189933880[/unixtime]]Would it even be D&D if we didn't have color-coded dragons and ogre mages?

Yes

Still, I've never even been in a campaign that used the lawful/chaotic demon planes anyhow, and they're not in the base book and haven't been in a monsterous manual in two decades, so... Who cares? All this stuff he was talking about is setting and is the opposite of making a more generic game that has settings rather than a Greyhawk game we sometimes play in the Forgotten Realms.

-Crissa

Its kinda setting, but not any more then it is now. Its all still just evil outsiders from some random netherplane of 'Evil', so whatever. You can stuff them in the Great Wheel, Eberron's random swirly planar things, or whatever strikes your fancy. Ultimately any given monster is a stat block with a bare taste of flavor.

[Username17]

Nothing wrong with Ogre Magi - they are just a more Chinese-styled Ogre. Their spell list is fucking weird, and should probably be shuffled up a lot (the original was mostly just a sample platter of abilities to make them kind of scary). But there's nothing wrong with them per se.

There is something wrong with having Christian Devils in a pantheistic game. That's just fucked up seven ways. Maybe you could salvage something by having the servants of all gods who turn against their masters turn horned and scaly - but mostly it's just a dumb idea.

-Username17

[Voss]

Uh, surprise? They've been there for a long time now.
That Paladin was in Hell for a reason.

[JonSetanta]

You sure it's a dumb idea?

Maybe if it's unChristianized.

Jewish kabbalah seems more promising though. Some renames, some reworking of the origins, but keep the inter-dynamics and style.

It is fucked up that for decades nearly every pantheon BUT Judeo-Christian-Arabic ones has made its way into some D&D book, and I got some beef with that.
All or nothing. I understand why they stopped, but Pelor isn't quite YHWH and Ilmater sure as fuck ain't Jesus.
Anything printed even coming close to resembling Allah or Mohammed would cause another jihad.
Look what happened to the Dutch cartoonists relatively recently...



But Ogre Magi are pretty weak, even if they have Gaseous Form and Cone of Cold. In my experience they tend to last maybe.. oh.. 1 round longer than normal ogres?
I wouldn't really miss them if they were gone. They didn't stand out in any campaign as a 'special encounter', and could easily be duplicated with a feat for Ogres that gives SLAs.

A race that I would miss (if it were to go missing) would be Gnolls.
Count Arioch might love them, but I hate those bastards, and it's an easy excuse to kill them since I always have a twinge of guilt slaying orcs.
Gnolls don't just rape and loot your home village, Gnolls will eat your babies and shit on your Dwarven rug.
They are animals with hands, and I love to kill em.

[Koumei]

The leader of Al-Quaeda put a $100,000US bounty on the murder of the Swedish cartoonist who recently did a similar piece to the one of Mohammed. I'm not sure these people actually understand what jokes are - even when I was a Christian, I can't think of any joke that would make me actually want to kill someone (aside from loose definitions of joke, such as "Wouldn't it be funny if we burned her house down!").

Ogre-mage would probably be better as a feat an Ogre could take. As it is their CR is too high. Heck, I'd fear a small group of regular ogres more than a single ogre mage.

I want kobolds to stay. Only because they're ideal for slaughtering. The same reason sigma wants gnolls to stay.

[JonSetanta]

Yeah but jihad against WOTC or one of us, even, would just be too funny for anyone to believe...

I just might have to go with that and make a Mohammed-figure and matching pantheon for d20.
And then draw cartoons of it.
In Dutch.
Cuz that's how I roll.

Trying to think of other can-not-miss races but I stayed up too late, with insomnia/illness (ironic, eh? tired but can't sleep.) and probably won't make sense. Start failing my Speak English checks or something.

I'd also miss Pit Fiends. Not as they are, but just the name. Actually I want Pit Fiends to be remade.

My beef with the announcement was mostly about Succubus and Erinyes being folded into one devil (scrapping Erinyes role as... whatever it was they did.), which is OK I guess but it's the change aspect that I don't like, since it retroactively fucks stuff up for reasons mentioned above.

Other dumber fiends like the "Bone Devil" really need a remake, possibly something more Pinhead-ish or maybe just Hellraiser in general.
As for Demons, I really hate babau, dretch, manes, those demon-orangutans, and other random shit like that.
Rutterkin, however, I strangely enjoy; I'd like them to be the new 'base Tanar'ri', although some new fiend 'clans' would be prefered over changing the old.

There were some in new ones the Abyss book fairly recently, like Obyrith and Loumorah or some stupid shit like that (bloated unique forgotten overlords and ghostly possessors respectively) but nothing on the scale of Baatezu vs. Tanar'ri, and that IMHO is what made and continues to make every splat on fiends outright suck.

[RandomCasualty]

1190017890[/unixtime]]
It is fucked up that for decades nearly every pantheon BUT Judeo-Christian-Arabic ones has made its way into some D&D book,

Not really. They're monotheistic and feature an all-powerful god, That just doesn't fit at all with the idea in D&D that there are multiple gods, and that gods don't know everything and aren't omnipotent.

[Cielingcat]

1190022827[/unixtime]]Yeah but jihad against WOTC or one of us, even, would just be too funny for anyone to believe...

I just might have to go with that and make a Mohammed-figure and matching pantheon for d20.
And then draw cartoons of it.
In Dutch.
Cuz that's how I roll.

Yes, let the hate flow through you!

I'd also miss Pit Fiends. Not as they are, but just the name. Actually I want Pit Fiends to be remade.

Magic: the Gathering Lord of the Pit?

[Koumei]

Erinyes originally were there to tempt people into doing dumb shit, convincing them that their greed is giving them the best advice and all that. The kind that makes people go out and do Evil stuff, and tries to make them successful for a while, then get them to overextend and topple. I think.

Or maybe they're the cheerleaders and postergirls for Team Devil, making the other Baatezu want to fight. Heck, maybe fiends have their own pr0n, and Erinyes all feature in it for the Devils and degenerate Demons.

IIRC, Bone Devils were more hardcore pre-3rd. They were very high-ranking, and had a wide range of powerful abilities. Or am I thinking of Gelugons?

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Heh, the irony of a quest against WoTC...

[Username17]

The Erinyes were based on the characters of the same name from Dante's nferno who wandered around the level where you were stuck in a metal coffin that was on fire to periodically stab dudes with knives. That's why the Erinyes from the AD&D Monster Manual came equipped with a magic dagger.

Beyond that of course, there is no rhyme or reason to anything that they do or have done. Once defined as being a tall, mostly naked woman with feathery wings and cute little horns they have really done wildly different shit in the different editions. Hell, in 3.5 they were redefined as an Archer fiend (because the name comes from the old Greek furies, some of which had bows). And honestly, noone really cared.

So the "look" and "name" of the D&D Erinyes is established canon. Nothing else about them is though.

-Username17

[Koumei]

In Fiendish Codex II, they evolve* into Pleasure Devils, but as far as I can tell that's the first time that's ever been the case.

*Yes, I can see it as a Pokemon thing. Srsly.

[Cielingcat]

So WotC has basically just decided not to press "B" here?

[Koumei]

Yeah, that's pretty much it.