Post/Author/DateTime	Post
chris_s918 04-03-07, 09:12 AM	hi i waas wondering everyone sice we ALWAYS love bovd and codex1-2 and that new book invovivin preparing villians why dont we have a book for the diffrent types other than the boed i mean we have to many books on evil and not enough on good dont u guys agree we should have more books on equal values tell me ur opion and discuss
sciborg2 04-03-07, 09:48 AM	The common story is that DM books don't sell as much as PC type books. And BoVD, and the FC I & II are all DM books. So having a book on celestials like the FCs, which most PC groups are unlikely to face, is not believed to sell as well. As for a player book, a la Complete Goodness...now that has potential but again its unclear how much it would sell. BoED was criticized for its narrow, law-oriented approach to Goodness though that might just be me and some others. I don't know the sale figures. Just not sure how interested people are in a book telling them what good is and how to be good...while most of us can agree on what D&D evil is...
Khael 04-03-07, 10:32 AM	Given good and evil are all relative... no. And even if they weren't evil is far more definable to an extent. Well... you can tell what is evil, even if you can't tell what isn't(When the game tells you you can go slaughter a camp of orcs for being a relatively primitive culture And be good, but if those orcs raid a human town they're evil no matter how many they killed or didn't... Based on that you can see why 'evil' goes for a kill-everyone tactic - more chance of repercussions in a half-assed job.) Even after that what will it be useful for that's not covered in BOED? The BOVD and FCs each cover different stuff (The FCs cover each cover devils or demons, while BOVD covers Evil in general. VERY badly). A book of angels... wow, more angels who will likely never be used outside of an evil campaign. We got quite a lot of good outsiders for use as allies in the BOEDs, thanks.
chris_s918 04-04-07, 06:37 AM	so none of you guys think they should use detials on the history of clestials and there breathern like the demons and devils
Khael 04-04-07, 06:46 AM	Well... why? We know angels are the supposed paragons of goodness. However if you're not going to ever go fight there, why do you need to know the history (Histories of the fiends generally in-game open up myriads of potential allies, backstabbers, fallen lord-seeking-to-regain-power etc. And thats just archdevils.) So basically, the only guys who'll need the book are DMs running full-on evil winning campaign where the PCs go on angel-killing sprees. Of course this probably wouldn't hold our resident experts who might want the thing for the history but... Since the FCs are (so i'm lead to believe, I don't have either. yet(I tend to get hold of books half a year odd after they've been picked to bits by everyone else, mostly due to location.)) written in the style of the beings concerned (Devil book is written as devil propaganda, demon book etc.), we can tell what the angel book will be - Good is perfect, except for the odd snake (Asmodeus for one), and general scraping over histories of non-famous fallen. Evil likes showing off how bad it can be, good tend to hide it.
chris_s918 04-04-07, 06:52 AM	i asked because i play some times the evil guy for evil sake to destory all goddness and if u knwo the hisotry and what the figures are u might be able to take it down peice by peice of u might be a good scholar to understnad and compleatly know the hiostyrs of the skys and the paragons of celeastsals
Khael 04-04-07, 06:55 AM	Paragons of goodness? Try deities and BOEDs. The 'good' guys are some gods, the court, the campanions and the seven angels. Perhaps the only real question seems to be there: Who made them, since when one of those rulers steps down its by choice (or death by evil). Fairly boring in book form i'm afraid.
chris_s918 04-04-07, 07:06 AM	plus id like to see how those planes came into being and the culture of it ect do u see what im saying
Khael 04-04-07, 02:14 PM	Not really, we don't know how any planes came into being. Hell, one theory (though retconned) has it Asmodeus and his sister made the lower planes. As in the abyss, celestia, et al.
Bob the Efreet 04-04-07, 04:33 PM	So basically, the only guys who'll need the book are DMs running full-on evil winning campaign where the PCs go on angel-killing sprees. That is a terrible and narrow-minded view of the Upper Planes.
Ordbyrht 04-04-07, 04:41 PM	Not really, we don't know how any planes came into being. Hell, one theory (though retconned) has it Asmodeus and his sister made the lower planes. As in the abyss, celestia, et al. Another theory . . . (From Hellbound: The Blood War) Ancient texts claim that in the beginning, there were only five Outer planes, Balance (Outlands), Chaos (Limbo), Evil (Grey Waste), Good (Elysium) and Law (Mechanus). Spawned from these primordial planes were the progenitors of each plane, the ancestors of our modern-day exemplars. We know of only one of the progenitor races, the baernaloths, pure undiluted exemplars of evil. The baernaloths eventually created yugoloths, however the yugoloths were tainted by law and chaos, somehow either introduced to them at their creation or by contact with the planes of Law and Chaos (through exploration or interaction with beings hailing from those planes). The first ultroloth, the being whispered to be the General of Gehenna, created the Heart of Darkness and used it to expunge the yugoloths of their ethical taint, channeling the "leftover" law and chaos into larvae of the Grey Waste. The larvae were then herded to the newly formed planes of Baator and the Abyss where they formed into the baatezu and tanar'ri (their are some who speculate, particularly by ripvanwormer, that the larvae evolved into the Ancient Baatorians and the Obyriths. The baatezu and tanar'ri were not created until later). --This is the first mention of Baator and the Abyss. Presumably, the two planes "split off" from the Grey Waste when the yugoloths became tained with law and chaos. Alternatively, the two planes were formed when enough of the tainted larvae were herded together into the hinterlands of the Grey Waste.-- In an attempt to duplicate the yugoloths, Apomps, a baernoloth, creates the demodands (gehreleths) from the corpse of yugoloths. The other baernoloths are disgusted and outraged by his actions (and possibly the slight chaos-taint that the gehreleths exhibit) and force Apomps into exile. With his creations, he travels to Carceri. --Actually, Apomp's exile is most likely what creates Carceri. This theory is similiar to the early one that stated that the Abyss and Baator budded off from the Grey Waste once enough evil beings tainted with chaos and law were hered into the hinterlands of the Grey Waste.-- The text goes on to cover the history of the Blood War and doesn't cover how the remaining planes were formed (actually no book has continued this "Primordial Planes" theory). For awhile now, I've been researching how the planes came into being and I generally accept the above timeline (Although, recently I've been using Rip's revised timeline (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=786923)). From what I've read, I would assume that Mount Celestia, Arborea and the Beastlands would have formed as a reaction to the formation to Baator, the Abyss and Carceri respectively (For Planescape fans: the early planes are a place of stark duality, good and evil, law and chaos. Until the formation of planes as we currently know them, I believe that the planes were dominated by a Rule of Two, which evolved with the planes into the Rule of Three). How the other planes formed is beyond me for now (though Gehenna and Bytopia may have formed as reactions to Carceri and the Beastlands). Though the introduction of mortal souls, ie petitioners, may have been taken a major role in the further fragmentation of the planes.
Khael 04-05-07, 04:57 AM	That is a terrible and narrow-minded view of the Upper Planes. True, but I wanted something short and snappy rather than a long rant on what I could do with it. As it is though, that is the main thing I see such a book being used for in a game, abeit in a slightly less evil campaign. I do think the main use will either be out of evil campaigns, or at the very least a campaign where no-one is trying to be good, i.e. binding celestials, given most practical in-game history a PCs wants to know (and needs defining by a DM) is liable to be about the enemy, or soon-to-be-slave. Note when I say defining, I'm referring to the fact its very likely for PCs to have knowledge in subjects the palyer will never need to hear anything about (I.e. my wizard may have ranks in arcana, but probably I, the player, don't need to be told the basic principles of magic), while anything concerning things like enemies, in this case celestials, you might well need to be told by the DM, able some of this (I.e. what are they, how they're formed of good, organisation etc.) Point is, in-game I believe the main usage, that isn't covered already be DMG, and BOEDs will be for non-good campaign paths.
sciborg2 04-05-07, 11:23 AM	hey i'm def. interested in such a supplement, but i feel like we won't be seeing due to the likelihood of poor sales...but that might just be prejudice in itself...
Bob the Efreet 04-08-07, 10:55 PM	True, but I wanted something short and snappy rather than a long rant on what I could do with it. As it is though, that is the main thing I see such a book being used for in a game, abeit in a slightly less evil campaign. I do think the main use will either be out of evil campaigns, or at the very least a campaign where no-one is trying to be good, i.e. binding celestials, given most practical in-game history a PCs wants to know (and needs defining by a DM) is liable to be about the enemy, or soon-to-be-slave. Note when I say defining, I'm referring to the fact its very likely for PCs to have knowledge in subjects the palyer will never need to hear anything about (I.e. my wizard may have ranks in arcana, but probably I, the player, don't need to be told the basic principles of magic), while anything concerning things like enemies, in this case celestials, you might well need to be told by the DM, able some of this (I.e. what are they, how they're formed of good, organisation etc.) Point is, in-game I believe the main usage, that isn't covered already be DMG, and BOEDs will be for non-good campaign paths. I do agree that this is probably (and unfortunately) the most popular view on these planes and their inhabitants, but I don't really feel that it's true. My first disagreement is with the idea that interesting adventures in an area require having somebody to fight; my second is with the idea that good characters cannot have serious (and sometimes violent) conflict with other good characters. As an example, I recently ran an adventure set on Elysium. There was one combat, and it was with invading yugoloths. However, there was almost another combat, as the players were nearly jumped by a lupinal (the PCs had "the scent of the Waste" on them). This lead to further storylines of interest, as the players (and the local guardinals) were rather curious as to why a yugoloth contingent was in Elysium razing towns.
Khael 04-09-07, 09:07 AM	I do agree that this is probably (and unfortunately) the most popular view on these planes and their inhabitants, but I don't really feel that it's true. My first disagreement is with the idea that interesting adventures in an area require having somebody to fight; my second is with the idea that good characters cannot have serious (and sometimes violent) conflict with other good characters. As an example, I recently ran an adventure set on Elysium. There was one combat, and it was with invading yugoloths. However, there was almost another combat, as the players were nearly jumped by a lupinal (the PCs had "the scent of the Waste" on them). This lead to further storylines of interest, as the players (and the local guardinals) were rather curious as to why a yugoloth contingent was in Elysium razing towns. I should say I agree with your arguments here and all, but I do feel this raises one question: Does this debate thus far raise any real need for a celestial version of the FCs? I know all this is valid and all but it does feel like we're running into another argument of 'what can you do with celestial resources in a normal game', to which the answer is of course whatever you can successfully imagine and pull off, but doesn't seem to call up 'a 'tome of goodness' would be really useful for X', whuich was of course another argument against there being a celestial codex for now at least: What can it gives us not covered in some way by BOED (since the BOEDs is 3.5, while BOVDs was 3.0), that we, as a group would be willing to pay out money for? (I know it sounded like I just blew your side of the debate off, but it was breaking into an endless 'you can do anything if you can imagine it' answer, which is of course totally right, but not really working out why do we need theorical suppliment X.)
Bob the Efreet 04-10-07, 05:08 PM	I should say I agree with your arguments here and all, but I do feel this raises one question: Does this debate thus far raise any real need for a celestial version of the FCs? It depends on what they would contain. We probably don't need a whole lot in the way of new celestial stats. Depending on how you feel about BoED we don't necessarily need new prestige classes or feats for good characters. What could be very useful, though, are more detailed descriptions of the Upper Planes; locations, plot seeds, and prominent NPCs thereof. Maybe some advice on how to use the Upper Planes and the forces of good in a campaign, in various kinds of campaigns. But then again, maybe a lot of people don't think they need or want that information in a book. In that case, it wouldn't make a very successful supplement.
Doom_Linnorm 04-11-07, 02:44 PM	Well, I think I might actualy might use a Heavenly Codex I "Saviors of Celestia" my party, though overal good does sometimes brush, in perhaps even a violent manner with the (lawfull) upperplanes, becouse the avarage adventuring party (lets face it, even the ones with paladins) are far from lawfull and some of their actions might spark enmity between them and the Angels and Archons. Even a good adventuring party could have reason to infiltrate Celestia (especialy if they're CG). It might be important documents and scrolls on a certain erinyes (provided they are fallen angels in the setting) in order to combat her. The book could make itself usefull by having a paragraph or two on why non-evil parties would end up adventuring in the upper planes. I have to admit though, I'd much rather have Fiendish Codex III Masterminds of Gehenna becouse fieds are just so damned much more interesting and amusing. Angels, Archons, Guardinals and Eladrin just can't be as funny as the lazy Aminzu bureucrat. Well maybe Eledrin can have a decent stab at it, but Graz'zt and his family relations are just comedy gold, he thinks its cute his kids want to kill him and steal his realm.