Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Pitiless_Interfector 06-07-07, 10:35 PM	I believe that the Native Outsider is a contradiction in terms. To support my argument against the biggest mistake of the MM 3.5 revision, I will systematically debunk each and every monster of the native subtype, proving that it should have more appropriately been cast as a member of some other type. (If Star Wars RPG can get rid of AC [or Defense, as they call it], then we shouldn't have any problems redesigning a dozen or so monsters and templates, now, would we?) Aasimar: I'm going to use this opportunity to dash all planetouched and half-whatevers. They should be humanoids, just like changelings. If the offspring of a human and a monstrous humanoid thing which doesn't even have a natural gender are humanoids, then so should that seed you planted in your succubus 'planar ally' (;) :smirk:) If you really feel being immune to charm person is that important, make them monstrous humanoids. But in fact, there's no real need for them to exist at all. What with heritage feats and such classes as the warlock and sorcerer, if you've ever felt like having fire resistance and a chip on your shoulder the size of Rhode Island there's no need for a special race or even a template; prestige classes or bloodlines can fill the role adequately enough. I'm simply stating the obvious: these races are superfluous. Couatl: I have absolutely no idea why this was a native outsider. I get the feeling that the native subtype was created expressly for the planetouched and half-whatevers, then subsequently populated halfheartedly with a few monsters that were sought out to be assigned to the type, rather than designed, then assigned a type in keeping with their concept. Maybe their justification in this case was the fact that the couatl was a divine creature in Aztec mythology (symbolized by its having cleric spells on the sorcerer list), and anything divine must be an outsider. Of course, they completely neglected the obvious fact that this is a dragon. It's even referred to as a dragon in the mythology and folklore from which the creature concept was poached. And turning the couatl into a dragon would require negligible effort. Simply make the following changes to its statistics: -Lose all ranks in Search, changing the modifier to +3 (since the couatl can become ethereal at will and use charm monster and detect thoughts liberally, secret doors and hidden treasures are fair pickings in any event) and Tumble, rendering the skill unusable (again, the couatl can fly and turn ethereal at will, and its main focus is spellcasting, so even the loss of the total defense synergy isn't really a big loss at all.) -Lose proficiency in martial weapons (which only matters when the couatl is in humanoid form and in melee, rather than hurling spells at foes from 50 feet in the air, where it should be.) -Add 18 hp, raising the total to 76 hp. -Add low-light vision. -Grant immunity to magic sleep and paralysis effects. So, you lose skills and weapon proficiencies you'll never really need anyway to gain low-light vision, increase your hp by almost 30%, and gain immunity to hold monster. And the connection between couatls and dragons is so strong that it should be obvious to virtually everyone. There are no monsters in the Monster Manual that cast spells as a sorcerer and can access the cleric list that aren't clearly dragonlike. If you know JACK about Eberron, you'll agree wholeheartedly with me on this. Janni: These have a strong connection to ancient folklore and fairy tales, as well as a strong tie to the elemental planes. The elemental planes are strongly associated with the druid (in fact, the elementals of Eberron mostly come from Lamannia, a.k.a. Druidia), who is in turn strongly associated with the natural world. The natural world includes fey, who are seen as nature spirits: otherwordly creatures, yet born of this world. Which could easily describe the subtype I'm bashing. Janni should be fey; true, this would tank their stats, but then, you don't need a good Fortitude save to stab somebody in the back, do you? And skills would only suffer a tiny bit. Rakshasa: Again with the innate sorcerer casting. This monster is drawn from Hindu folklore, where it is described as a man-tiger hybrid and a shapechanging evil spirit. I have no idea where detect thoughts came from; seems to be treading on the doppelganger's toes [sic] a bit too much. Like most folklore creatures, especially evil spirits, it is better cast as a fey than an outsider. (Of course, this isn't a palatable option in Eberron, but if you're not using the Dragon-Fiend Wars in your campaign it's the sensible way to go). Hey, if the wendigo is a fey, then a rakshasa is a fey. Triton: What the hell is a triton? Oh, right, right. Sorry. (Seriously, it's a CR 2 monster that has only one spell-like ability. Not very interesting. Or memorable.) Basically, my argument is this: The nereid is a fey (extraplanar) native to the Elemental Plane of Water, occasionally finding its way through vortexes to the Material Plane whenever the DM uses the variant encounter charts in Stormwrack. The triton was native to the Elemental Plane of Water, but migrated to the Material Plane long ago. Now, assuming that two very similar monsters (both in folklore and ecological niche) were once the same type, how does migrating from an Inner Plane to the Material Plane turn a fey into an outsider? Further proof: In Eberron, tritons are native to Thelanis (essentially, the Plane of Faerie). Plus their only spell-like ability is a druid spell. Case closed. Dwarf ancestor: Don't make me laugh. First off, it doesn't breathe. Therefore, no cellular respiration. Therefore no metabolism. Therefore no Constitution score. Yet there it is: Con 28. Apparently, the creature lacks the immunities of the construct type. So, apparently, being animated by a dwarf spirit renders a stone statue vulnerable to poison. Yippee. Great job helping us keep our campaign world internally consistent. This is a statue. Being animated by the spirit of a dead dwarf petitioner no more makes it an outsider than binding an earth spirit to a stone golem makes that creature an elemental. When a demon possesses an object and animates it, it uses the statistics for an animated object-a construct. Why should this be any different? Not merely poorly designed, but poorly thought-out and an almost utter waste of time, space, and effort. I understand they need to cram as much into each supplement as possible (after all, I could get a half-dozen classic DVDs at Wal-Mart for less money, and they'd last me a lot longer), but overall, quality is worth more than quantity. Every time.
El_Machinae 06-07-07, 10:56 PM	Is that all the official native outsiders? I was hoping there were more that I didn't know about.
Pitiless_Interfector 06-07-07, 11:32 PM	Is that all the official native outsiders? I was hoping there were more that I didn't know about. Those are all the ones from the MMs. And note that I lumped all the half-whatever templates and planetouched into one entry for convenience. If you list every planetouched and template separately and included all the different campaign settings (I only have Eberron, so the only one I know of is the Radiant Idol), plus environment books like Frostburn and Sandstorm, the list expands quite a bit. Planetouched: Tiefling Aasimar Zenythri Chaond Mechanatrix Wispling Shyft Maeluth Stonechild Earth Genasi Fire Genasi Water Genasi Air Genasi Tanarukk Fey'ri Draegloth Templates: Monster of legend (not specified in the MM II, being 3.0, but obvious from the description that it's [native]) Half-celestial Half-fiend Half-farspawn Unholy scion Half-Janni Monsters: Triton (extraplanar in Eberron) Couatl Rakshasas (base rakshasa, Naityan rakshasa, Ak'chazar rakshasa, Naztharune rakshasa) Midgard dwarf Janni Dwarf Ancestor Night Hags (only in Eberron; extraplanar in core) Radiant Idol [from an Eberron-specific book, City of Towers] Whatever's in Forgotten Realms [don't have the books] In my opinion, the problem of the fiendblooded and whatnot could be solved by the addition of the (planetouched) subtype, which would serve much the same function as the (dragonblood) subtype. [Perhaps it could be further divided, say, into devilblooded, demonblooded, angelblooded, etc., and gained by the heritage feats in PHB2 the same way dragonblood is by Draconic Heritage in RotD)
Shemeska the Marauder 06-07-07, 11:44 PM	Native works as a subtype, but only for beings that possess body/soul duality, beings that are mortal. The 3.5 DMG randomly made Rakshasas native outsiders for instance, despite being Acheron natives and not otherwise meeting any of the general qualities that fit the type. It was a poor decision, and if the native subtype had been reserved for planetouched, high level monks, etc it would have been fine, but 3.5 has made it a muddied mess.
Rerecros 06-08-07, 12:14 AM	The 3.5 DMG randomly made Rakshasas native outsiders for instance, despite being Acheron natives and not otherwise meeting any of the general qualities that fit the type. It was a poor decision, and if the native subtype had been reserved for planetouched, high level monks, etc it would have been fine, but 3.5 has made it a muddied mess. I believe for environment for Rakshasas it says "warm marshes", not A "lawful-aligned plane" ;) If some spat book mentions them as natives of Acheron originaly then aren't natives anymore. Thats the mistake of the planescape spatbook, not the designer of the Rakshasas. Though i do agree that detect thoughts makes them mostly redundant with dopplegangers. Oh, and creature types is something pointless to argue about. Goblins could just as easily have been fey, monstrous humanoids, native outsiders, full outsiders. But they aren't, the designers decided to go in a different direction, if you disagree, then house rule. I ain't buying no 4th addition to accommodate the someone's pet theories.
ArcTan 06-08-07, 12:45 AM	I believe that the Native Outsider is a contradiction in terms. He's fundamentally tied to belief and spirit but he belongs on the Material Plane instead of one of the Outer Planes. How is this a contradiction? Are non-Outsider Extraplanar entities a contradiction? Aasimar: I'm going to use this opportunity to dash all planetouched and half-whatevers. They should be humanoids, just like changelings. If the offspring of a human and a monstrous humanoid thing which doesn't even have a natural gender are humanoids, then so should that seed you planted in your succubus 'planar ally' (;) :smirk:) 1) It is not actually proven that Changelings are descended from Humans and Doppelgangers in the Eberron setting, from which they originate. No one actually knows of any Changeling with a Doppelganger parent -- all Changelings are either children of Changelings or of a Changeling and a Human. Many people *surmise* that the Doppelgangers are the Changelings' ancestors, including a lot of Changelings who, for this reason, choose to live and work with Doppelgangers (not the majority -- mainly the ones who are part of the cult-like Cabinet of Faces). It's certainly thought that the Doppelgangers may have *created* the Changeling race for their purposes, but this may not have been through natural intercourse, and even if it *was* done through mating it was probably magically manipulated mating, as with the mating that created the Half-Dragon Erandis d'Vol (who only exists thanks to a generations-long project of magical breeding). It's just as likely that the Doppelgangers used some kind of arcane magic to force their genetic imprint on a few bloodlines of Humans -- or even that Changelings were created as some kind of weird quirk of the god known as the Traveller. In any case, no, Eberron has not made it a "rule" that descendants of Humans and other races are Humanoids. The two races to whom this applies -- Shifters and Changelings -- are *not* proven to actually be the descendants of Humans and another race in either case -- they're merely spoken of as though they might be. Many, nonetheless, dispute this origin. It's certainly not a rule that Lycanthropes having Shifter kids or Doppelgangers having Changeling kids happens as a matter of course. 2) By the rules, if you had a child with a Succubus, the child would be a Half-Fiend, not a Tiefling, and *very much* not like an ordinary human being, with all kinds of bizarre fiendish traits. If you don't like this, you can change it, but the argument for a Half-Fiend being "just another kind of human" is far weaker than the argument for Tieflings being just another kind of human. If you really feel being immune to charm person is that important, make them monstrous humanoids. But in fact, there's no real need for them to exist at all. What with heritage feats and such classes as the warlock and sorcerer, if you've ever felt like having fire resistance and a chip on your shoulder the size of Rhode Island there's no need for a special race or even a template; prestige classes or bloodlines can fill the role adequately enough. I'm simply stating the obvious: these races are superfluous. They're not superfluous if you felt like having a character who spent her whole life being genetically different rather than someone who "taps into" their heritage through the use of magic and can relinquish it whenever they want. But, whatever. You can argue that *anything* is superfluous if you really want to. You can argue that Elves are superfluous because you can just play a Human with a high Dex score and a ring of sustenance. In any case, nothing prevents you from using Forgotten Realms' rules for Lesser Planetouched, which removes the Outsider type. If you do so, though, remember to knock down the LA to +0, because they really aren't worth LA +1 without the various benefits of being an Outsider. (They're barely worth it as it is.) Couatl: I have absolutely no idea why this was a native outsider. I get the feeling that the native subtype was created expressly for the planetouched and half-whatevers, then subsequently populated halfheartedly with a few monsters that were sought out to be assigned to the type, rather than designed, then assigned a type in keeping with their concept. I would strongly disagree, since, as far as I'm aware, Couatl and Rakshasa have been in D&D as long or longer than Tieflings and Aasimar. Maybe their justification in this case was the fact that the couatl was a divine creature in Aztec mythology (symbolized by its having cleric spells on the sorcerer list), and anything divine must be an outsider. Of course, they completely neglected the obvious fact that this is a dragon. It's even referred to as a dragon in the mythology and folklore from which the creature concept was poached. Well, no, it's not, because they didn't have a word for "dragon". Europeans *called* feathered serpents "dragons" because they look and sound kind of like the monster Europeans called dragons. That's no reason to claim you have to make them the same thing. And turning the couatl into a dragon would require negligible effort. Simply make the following changes to its statistics: -Lose all ranks in Search, changing the modifier to +3 (since the couatl can become ethereal at will and use charm monster and detect thoughts liberally, secret doors and hidden treasures are fair pickings in any event) and Tumble, rendering the skill unusable (again, the couatl can fly and turn ethereal at will, and its main focus is spellcasting, so even the loss of the total defense synergy isn't really a big loss at all.) -Lose proficiency in martial weapons (which only matters when the couatl is in humanoid form and in melee, rather than hurling spells at foes from 50 feet in the air, where it should be.) -Add 18 hp, raising the total to 76 hp. -Add low-light vision. -Grant immunity to magic sleep and paralysis effects. So, you lose skills and weapon proficiencies you'll never really need anyway to gain low-light vision, increase your hp by almost 30%, and gain immunity to hold monster. And the connection between couatls and dragons is so strong that it should be obvious to virtually everyone. There are no monsters in the Monster Manual that cast spells as a sorcerer and can access the cleric list that aren't clearly dragonlike. If you know JACK about Eberron, you'll agree wholeheartedly with me on this. Er, no, I won't. Couatl in Eberron are innately Good and serve as divine spirits and creatures without corruption or sin. They're angelic in a way that Dragons absolutely are not -- Dragons are very old, and very powerful, but still mortal and corruptible. Which is why the loss of the Couatl race to bind the Rakshasa has been such a blow for the forces of Good on Eberron. (Couatl bear the same relationship to Dragons that the humanoid-looking Outsiders like Angels arguably bear to Humans, though this is controversial.) Couatl in Eberron are *supposed* to be Outsiders that look like Dragons just like Angels are Outsiders that look like Humans with wings. Big deal. They aren't Dragons. Of course it's easy to turn them into Dragons by changing their Type line to say "Dragon", but you can do that with anything. You can turn Angels into Monstrous Humanoids this way if you want. It won't make it thematically appropriate or make sense. Janni: These have a strong connection to ancient folklore and fairy tales, as well as a strong tie to the elemental planes. The elemental planes are strongly associated with the druid (in fact, the elementals of Eberron mostly come from Lamannia, a.k.a. Druidia), who is in turn strongly associated with the natural world. The natural world includes fey, who are seen as nature spirits: otherwordly creatures, yet born of this world. Which could easily describe the subtype I'm bashing. Janni should be fey; true, this would tank their stats, but then, you don't need a good Fortitude save to stab somebody in the back, do you? And skills would only suffer a tiny bit. Except they *aren't* Fey and neither look nor act like anything we would historically call "fey". I mean, this is obviously up in the air -- the word "fey" or "faerie" is hard to define when you try to transplant it across cultures -- but the *flavor* of Janni is that they're supposed to be just another subspecies of Genie who are happened to be tied to the Material Plane rather than any specific Elemental Plane. In that regard, it doesn't make sense to make them anything but Native Outsiders -- they're Outsiders just like Efreet or Djinn, but they happen to go with the Material. Rakshasa: Again with the innate sorcerer casting. This monster is drawn from Hindu folklore, where it is described as a man-tiger hybrid and a shapechanging evil spirit. I have no idea where detect thoughts came from; seems to be treading on the doppelganger's toes [sic] a bit too much. Rakshasa are said to be able to see into people's hearts. It's also just an interesting ability for them to have that makes them more useful as manipulators. Like most folklore creatures, especially evil spirits, it is better cast as a fey than an outsider. (Of course, this isn't a palatable option in Eberron, but if you're not using the Dragon-Fiend Wars in your campaign it's the sensible way to go). Hey, if the wendigo is a fey, then a rakshasa is a fey. WHY is it better cast as a Fey than an Outsider? Rakshasa inherently represent the concept of Evil in a way that no Fey does. They're supposed to represent the "black hats" of the Material Plane. I actually think "Wendigo is a Fey" is a much bigger problem than "Rakshasa is a Native Outsider". Triton: What the hell is a triton? Oh, right, right. Sorry. (Seriously, it's a CR 2 monster that has only one spell-like ability. Not very interesting. Or memorable.) Basically, my argument is this: The nereid is a fey (extraplanar) native to the Elemental Plane of Water, occasionally finding its way through vortexes to the Material Plane whenever the DM uses the variant encounter charts in Stormwrack. The triton was native to the Elemental Plane of Water, but migrated to the Material Plane long ago. Now, assuming that two very similar monsters (both in folklore and ecological niche) were once the same type, how does migrating from an Inner Plane to the Material Plane turn a fey into an outsider? Further proof: In Eberron, tritons are native to Thelanis (essentially, the Plane of Faerie). Plus their only spell-like ability is a druid spell. Case closed. I don't actually care much about Tritons, so whatever. Dwarf ancestor: Don't make me laugh. First off, it doesn't breathe. Therefore, no cellular respiration. Therefore no metabolism. Therefore no Constitution score. Yet there it is: Con 28. Plenty of things that don't breathe have Con scores. Angels, for instance. You're basically arguing that the Outsider Type shouldn't exist. I have no idea why you're picking on Native Outsiders, who are just Outsiders who live on the Material Plane. Apparently, the creature lacks the immunities of the construct type. So, apparently, being animated by a dwarf spirit renders a stone statue vulnerable to poison. Yippee. Sure. The stone statue is just a shell the dwarf spirit is wearing. Great job helping us keep our campaign world internally consistent. This is a statue. Being animated by the spirit of a dead dwarf petitioner no more makes it an outsider than binding an earth spirit to a stone golem makes that creature an elemental. When a demon possesses an object and animates it, it uses the statistics for an animated object-a construct. Why should this be any different? Not merely poorly designed, but poorly thought-out and an almost utter waste of time, space, and effort. I understand they need to cram as much into each supplement as possible (after all, I could get a half-dozen classic DVDs at Wal-Mart for less money, and they'd last me a lot longer), but overall, quality is worth more than quantity. Every time. *shrug* I think it's an interesting variation, myself, because I don't actually like having everything that looks the same act the same. I think that's boring and lame. That said, I converted the Dwarf Ancestor into a Deathless for an Eberron campaign. I don't think it should be a Construct, though. (The point of animating a Golem with an Elemental is that the Golem no longer shares the Elemental's personality, psyche or intentions. Hence Elementals having an Int of 3 and Golems having an Int of --. This is clearly not true of Dwarf Ancestors.)
ArcTan 06-08-07, 12:47 AM	Native works as a subtype, but only for beings that possess body/soul duality, beings that are mortal. The 3.5 DMG randomly made Rakshasas native outsiders for instance, despite being Acheron natives and not otherwise meeting any of the general qualities that fit the type. It was a poor decision, and if the native subtype had been reserved for planetouched, high level monks, etc it would have been fine, but 3.5 has made it a muddied mess. *shrug* So now Rakshasa have to eat and sleep. Big deal. Eberron is a campaign setting founded on the idea that Rakshasa are native to the Material Plane in every sense of the word, anyway, and Rakshasa are much more important there than they are anywhere else.
sciborg2 06-08-07, 03:40 AM	Really seems "Outsider" is the problematic word, where-as something denoting an affinity with a plane of reality seems more fitting. "Planar" would be perfect save for past distinctions between planars and primes.
Weenie 06-08-07, 04:53 AM	Eberron is a campaign setting founded on the idea that Rakshasa are native to the Material Plane in every sense of the word, anyway, and Rakshasa are much more important there than they are anywhere else. How so? They are the remnants of the original "demonic" invasion from off-plane, how does that make them native? But any talk of Eberron and (sub)types draws us inevitably into the discussion of the "deathless" and "living construct" which IMO have very little reason to exist.
ArcTan 06-08-07, 02:15 PM	How so? They are the remnants of the original "demonic" invasion from off-plane, how does that make them native? It wasn't from off-plane at all. The rakshasa, the aboleths, and their superpowerful fiendish masters, the Overlords/Rakshasa Rajahs/Elder Evils, are all originally native to Eberron, and have lived on Eberron since its creation. This is highly emphasized in the setting and a very big deal. The Age of Demons was the *first* age of Eberron, and, according to the demons, Eberron's natural state. But any talk of Eberron and (sub)types draws us inevitably into the discussion of the "deathless" and "living construct" which IMO have very little reason to exist. Deathless have plenty of reason to exist if you actually *accept* the link between Undead and Evil which a lot of people seem to get snippy about on these boards. (Let's just at least say it's very, very hard for a Negative-Energy-using Undead to be Good-aligned and therefore a "mirror" creature type makes sense, okay?) Living Constructs have plenty of reason to exist because it's the only way to explain a Construct with a Con score, and playing an ordinary Construct without a Con score would require a towering LA for a PC race.
turalisj 06-08-07, 05:08 PM	Khyber created the demons, Rhakashas, etc. Eberron created the 'lesser' races such as the animals, humans, elves, etc. And Syberis created the Dragons, Coutls, and angels. It says that somewhere in the ECS. Living Construct- A construct that has a constitution and intelligence score. Deathless- Undead who are powered by positive energy instead of negative.
ripvanwormer 06-08-07, 07:29 PM	So now Rakshasa have to eat and sleep. Big deal. The issue is that it makes no sense for them to have to do this, or to be capable of being resurrected in the same way mortals are, just because they're native to the Material Plane. The issue is, or ought to be, that an outsider born on Acheron should be functionally the same as an outsider born on the Material Plane. There's no reason for an accident of birth to change the way its body/spirit functions. Is it a "big deal?" Well, I don't stay awake at nights thinking about it. But it'd be just as easy to make a rakshasa just a regular outsider, regardless of what plane you think it comes from. So why not go with the option that makes the most sense? The only reason I can think of is that someone at WotC was a - oh, what's a properly demeaning word? - a glue-sniffing mental invalid? The same goes for jann and tritons. Jann are a genie race, and should be the same as other genie races. The fact that they're native to the Material Plane instead of the Elemental Planes shouldn't change their dietary habits, their need to sleep and dream, or the way their spirits or souls work. Tritons are native to the Elemental Plane of Water, and simply squatting in the Material Plane for a generations shouldn't change their fundamental nature. Sure, they could be fey, but outsider is as good a subtype as any. The native subtype makes sense for creatures with at least as much mortal blood as immortal blood - logically, they gain their souls and their mortal bodies from their mortal parents. The name "native" is a misnomer, of course, since a tiefling who's spent its whole life in the Abyss would be the same as one born on the Material. Calling the subtype "mortal" would make a lot more sense. Half-fiends would be mortal outsiders, then, a term that describes them perfectly. The subtype makes no sense for creatures who are functionally the same as any other outsider except for their postal address. Rakshasas are, and have always been, presented as a race of fiends, and this is as true in Eberron as anywhere else. They should have the same types and subtypes as any other fiendish race. The fact that they don't is so brain-hurtingly stupid that it is kind of a big deal.
turalisj 06-08-07, 07:34 PM	The only reason I can think of is that someone at WotC was a - oh, what's a properly demeaning word? - a glue-sniffing mental invalid? See 'Complete Psionic' and 'Monster Manuel IV'
Shemeska the Marauder 06-08-07, 08:13 PM	The name "native" is a misnomer, of course, since a tiefling who's spent its whole life in the Abyss would be the same as one born on the Material. Exactly. The (native) subtype properly has nothing to do with location or what plane you're native to, but to the nature of a creature's body/soul and metaphysical connection to a plane or abstract concept. During the 3.5 change however, someone seriously confused it and the Extraplanar subtype which has everything to do with being native to a plane or not, and nothing to do with the nature of the soul.
Pitiless_Interfector 06-08-07, 08:40 PM	He's fundamentally tied to belief and spirit but he belongs on the Material Plane instead of one of the Outer Planes. How is this a contradiction? Are non-Outsider Extraplanar entities a contradiction? Neither. See below. 1) It is not actually proven that Changelings are descended from Humans and Doppelgangers in the Eberron setting, from which they originate. No one actually knows of any Changeling with a Doppelganger parent -- all Changelings are either children of Changelings or of a Changeling and a Human. Many people *surmise* that the Doppelgangers are the Changelings' ancestors, including a lot of Changelings who, for this reason, choose to live and work with Doppelgangers (not the majority -- mainly the ones who are part of the cult-like Cabinet of Faces). It's certainly thought that the Doppelgangers may have *created* the Changeling race for their purposes, but this may not have been through natural intercourse, and even if it *was* done through mating it was probably magically manipulated mating, as with the mating that created the Half-Dragon Erandis d'Vol (who only exists thanks to a generations-long project of magical breeding). It's just as likely that the Doppelgangers used some kind of arcane magic to force their genetic imprint on a few bloodlines of Humans -- or even that Changelings were created as some kind of weird quirk of the god known as the Traveller. In any case, no, Eberron has not made it a "rule" that descendants of Humans and other races are Humanoids. The two races to whom this applies -- Shifters and Changelings -- are *not* proven to actually be the descendants of Humans and another race in either case -- they're merely spoken of as though they might be. Many, nonetheless, dispute this origin. It's certainly not a rule that Lycanthropes having Shifter kids or Doppelgangers having Changeling kids happens as a matter of course. Your counterexample is suspiciously convoluted. Therefore, Occam's Razor says you're an idiot. (Besides, everyone who plays Eberron believes the kids thing; it's a biological instinct for humans to associate traits with paternity, because as far as we know, that is the only way to pass on inherent traits. You know, with magic not being REAL.) 2) By the rules, if you had a child with a Succubus, the child would be a Half-Fiend, not a Tiefling, and *very much* not like an ordinary human being, with all kinds of bizarre fiendish traits. If you don't like this, you can change it, but the argument for a Half-Fiend being "just another kind of human" is far weaker than the argument for Tieflings being just another kind of human. I took a few liberties with my example, rather than use a factually correct but clunky and unconvincing one. Don't accuse me of being a sensationalist; you'vge made more cognitive errors and logical fallacies than I ever will. They're not superfluous if you felt like having a character who spent her whole life being genetically different rather than someone who "taps into" their heritage through the use of magic and can relinquish it whenever they want. There are many tieflings whose only physical fiendish trait obvious to an onlooker is a whiff of brimstone. Their social stigma would come from their (thematically inappropriate) deficiently low Charisma, a handicap shared by things besides tieflings. So the only outward signs of their fiendish heritage would be their energy resistances and whatnot; things many classes can achieve regardless of heritage. If you wanted to play a character who was different all their life, play a half-orc. Or a half-elf. Or a club-footed, buck-toothed, one-armed Oreo. It's all good. But, whatever. You can argue that *anything* is superfluous if you really want to. You can argue that Elves are superfluous because you can just play a Human with a high Dex score and a ring of sustenance. Yes, but RAW no baseline human can start play with Dex 20. And a ring of sustenance won't let you trance in the elven fashion. And you're still vulnerable to magic sleep effects. And you can't take Arcane Archer, or Bladesinger, or Champion of Corellon Larethian, or Eternal Blade, or Wildrunner, or Shadow Hunter, or Seeker of the Misty Isle, or any one of several dozen feats, spells, prestige classes, etc. You are using faulty logic. You are taking my argument and applying absurd hyperbole to make me look bad. You are only embarrassing yourself. Please do not quote this block or respond to this paragraph in any way, form, or fashion. Do not ignore its existence, however. Please take it to heart. These are friendly reminders, not the droids you are looking for. Move along. In any case, nothing prevents you from using Forgotten Realms' rules for Lesser Planetouched, which removes the Outsider type. If you do so, though, remember to knock down the LA to +0, because they really aren't worth LA +1 without the various benefits of being an Outsider. (They're barely worth it as it is.) Off topic, but since when has the ability to laugh off a burning hands to the face been par for the course for a ECL 1 character? Similarly, when has darkvision been the defining characteristic of a race's capabilities? I would strongly disagree, since, as far as I'm aware, Couatl and Rakshasa have been in D&D as long or longer than Tieflings and Aasimar. I can't comment, since I'm a Generation Thirdedder Well, no, it's not, because they didn't have a word for "dragon". Europeans *called* feathered serpents "dragons" because they look and sound kind of like the monster Europeans called dragons. That's no reason to claim you have to make them the same thing. Are a puma, a cougar, a catamount, and a mountain lion all different things? Is there a [Dog] subtype for dire wolves, worgs, and yeth hounds? You can debate defunct cultures all you want; it won't change the facts. Er, no, I won't. Couatl in Eberron are innately Good and serve as divine spirits and creatures without corruption or sin. They're angelic in a way that Dragons absolutely are not -- Dragons are very old, and very powerful, but still mortal and corruptible. Which is why the loss of the Couatl race to bind the Rakshasa has been such a blow for the forces of Good on Eberron. (Couatl bear the same relationship to Dragons that the humanoid-looking Outsiders like Angels arguably bear to Humans, though this is controversial.) Couatl in Eberron are *supposed* to be Outsiders that look like Dragons just like Angels are Outsiders that look like Humans with wings. Big deal. They aren't Dragons. Of course it's easy to turn them into Dragons by changing their Type line to say "Dragon", but you can do that with anything. You can turn Angels into Monstrous Humanoids this way if you want. It won't make it thematically appropriate or make sense. Again with the logical fallacies. Don't you have a job or a class or something to get back to, or are you too big of a prick to embarrass yourself on your own time? Except they *aren't* Fey and neither look nor act like anything we would historically call "fey". I mean, this is obviously up in the air -- the word "fey" or "faerie" is hard to define when you try to transplant it across cultures -- but the *flavor* of Janni is that they're supposed to be just another subspecies of Genie who are happened to be tied to the Material Plane rather than any specific Elemental Plane. In that regard, it doesn't make sense to make them anything but Native Outsiders -- they're Outsiders just like Efreet or Djinn, but they happen to go with the Material. Well, then either they're a stupid concept that should be axed, or they only stay on the Material because they can't stomach the Inner Planes for long despite being native to them, and are thus really Inner Plane natives. You could design an undead golem, but that doesn't mean it would make sense. Rakshasa are said to be able to see into people's hearts. It's also just an interesting ability for them to have that makes them more useful as manipulators. [QUOTE=ArcTan;12648975]WHY is it better cast as a Fey than an Outsider? Rakshasa inherently represent the concept of Evil in a way that no Fey does. They're supposed to represent the "black hats" of the Material Plane. Well, they do kill at their whim. I actually think "Wendigo is a Fey" is a much bigger problem than "Rakshasa is a Native Outsider". I don't actually care much about Tritons, so whatever. :mymy: He actually agrees with me, instead of arbitrarily being an a$shole! The scent of victory is sweet. Plenty of things that don't breathe have Con scores. Angels, for instance. Angels breathe. RTFMM! (pg 313) You're basically arguing that the Outsider Type shouldn't exist. I have no idea why you're picking on Native Outsiders, who are just Outsiders who live on the Material Plane. An outsider is a creature composed of the essence (but not necessarily the material) of some plane other than the Material Plane. So, a creature born on the Material, with no connection to extraplanar beings such as demons or devils [this example refers to rakshasas, not half-fiends and such], is composed of the essence of another plane? WTF, man? Sure. The stone statue is just a shell the dwarf spirit is wearing. So, a spirit is insubstantial enough to exist in the same space as a material object, yet can be killed by poison? That makes even less sense than angels not breathing. *shrug* I think it's an interesting variation, myself, because I don't actually like having everything that looks the same act the same. I think that's boring and lame. Acting the same and being the same are two completely different things. But thank you for your opinion. :bored: That said, I converted the Dwarf Ancestor into a Deathless for an Eberron campaign. I don't think it should be a Construct, though. (The point of animating a Golem with an Elemental is that the Golem no longer shares the Elemental's personality, psyche or intentions. Hence Elementals having an Int of 3 and Golems having an Int of --. This is clearly not true of Dwarf Ancestors.) I always thought the point of animating a golem with an elemental was to make it, you know, move. As to the quotes to which I haven't responded, it was due to a lack of time, not lack of effort.
dfarnsworth 06-08-07, 09:43 PM	In my opinion, which should probably be ignored, the Native subtype has been abused and misinterpreted(and on a side note I believe someone mentioned a Planetouched subtype which I agree should exist). I believe, in my original understanding, that an Outsider (Native) was a being of the Material plane that was an outsider but had a seperate body and soul. The part about needing to sleep and eat was an easy out for questions by players concerning whether or not Planetouched and the half-outsider templates needed to eat or sleep. So basically, Wizards screwed the pooch on that one. I do like the idea that outsiders can become Native to the material plane over time (exchanging essence or combining essence with the material without changing an outsiders basic nature) as certain primes have become extraplanar. Not to start an argument with you Shemeska and Rip, but the current incarnation of Rakshasha has no mention about Acheron in their 3.5 MM description. They really have come down in the worlds. As for the triton, Humanoid Extraplanar. Wendigo as Fey, Could have worked except they turned it into an Undead in their description. MMIV stuff is use at your own risk material for me. Their was other stuff but I had my pupils dilated today and the screen is hurting my eyes.
ripvanwormer 06-09-07, 04:40 AM	He's fundamentally tied to belief and spirit but he belongs on the Material Plane instead of one of the Outer Planes. So he should be an outsider, with the extraplanar subtype when he's in the Outer Planes. That's what the extraplanar subtype is for - to clarify what plane a character is native to. The native subtype would be superfluous for this, since it would do a job the extraplanar subtype does perfectly well. I would strongly disagree, since, as far as I'm aware, Couatl and Rakshasa have been in D&D as long or longer than Tieflings and Aasimar. Couatls, tritons, and rakshasas were all in the 1e Monster Manual, which was first published in 1977. They're probably older than that. Tieflings originated in 1994. Aasimar originated in 1996. I do like the idea that outsiders can become Native to the material plane over time (exchanging essence or combining essence with the material without changing an outsiders basic nature) as certain primes have become extraplanar. Become outsiders, you mean? There's so much confusion, still, about these terms. Humanoids and outsiders can both be extraplanar depending on what plane they're on. A human can become an outsider under certain conditions - for example, a high-level monk - but doesn't gain the extraplanar subtype from doing so. But an outsider, doing the same thing in reverse, would logically become a humanoid, not a different kind of outsider. We don't call humanoids native to the Material Plane "native humanoids." We just call them humanoids. Humanoids native to the Outer Planes, like githzerai, are the same kind of humanoids you'll find anywhere. They don't lose any of the traits associated with the native subtype just because they're from the Outer Planes - they don't stop having to eat or sleep, and resurrection still works on them. If it doesn't work that way, than by your own reasoning it shouldn't work that way in the other direction, either. If a githzerai doesn't stop having to eat, why would a triton suddenly start having to eat?
Weenie 06-09-07, 04:58 AM	In response to the OP: I'm OK with planetouched as humanoids, tritons as fey, and dwarf ancestors as constructs, but I disagree about the rakshasa, couatl, and janni. Instead of changing creature types left and right, why not just redefine the native subtype? Restrict it to mean just "not extraplanar on the Material Plane", and resolve all the eat-breathe-sleep issues on a case-by-case basis regardless of type. Some outsiders need to sleep and some don't, big deal; 99% of the time it doesn't affect game play. The extraplanar or not thing, on the other hand, does.
ArcTan 06-09-07, 02:43 PM	Neither. See below. Your counterexample is suspiciously convoluted. Therefore, Occam's Razor says you're an idiot. (Besides, everyone who plays Eberron believes the kids thing; it's a biological instinct for humans to associate traits with paternity, because as far as we know, that is the only way to pass on inherent traits. You know, with magic not being REAL.) It's not a "counterexample", it's a counter*argument*. You were using the Changelings as an example of "Half-breeds get the Humanoid subtype". I was pointing out that Changelings are not, in fact, proven to be halfbreeds. Of course, Eberron isn't real either. In the unreal world of Eberron, the unreal force of magic (being used for things analogous to *real* things like genetic engineering) is very real, and a lot of people *do* believe that Changelings are "Children of the Traveller" rather than literally children of the Doppelgangers. I took a few liberties with my example, rather than use a factually correct but clunky and unconvincing one. Don't accuse me of being a sensationalist; you'vge made more cognitive errors and logical fallacies than I ever will. Er, okay, let me say it simply, then: Half-Fiends are Outsiders, not Humanoids. Half-Dragons are Dragons, not Humanoids. Nearly every Half-X template makes you the *other* type, not a Humanoid. So you're flat-out wrong that "in general" crossbreeding makes you a Humanoid. There are many tieflings whose only physical fiendish trait obvious to an onlooker is a whiff of brimstone. Their social stigma would come from their (thematically inappropriate) deficiently low Charisma, a handicap shared by things besides tieflings. So the only outward signs of their fiendish heritage would be their energy resistances and whatnot; things many classes can achieve regardless of heritage. If you wanted to play a character who was different all their life, play a half-orc. Or a half-elf. Or a club-footed, buck-toothed, one-armed Oreo. It's all good. You know, trying to be intentionally provocative or annoying doesn't actually make your point any better, nor does it make you clever or cool. In any case, of course Tieflings are superfluous if you discard the "I'm descended from fiends!" flavor and consider it irrelevant. *Every* race is. It's about flavor. Yes, but RAW no baseline human can start play with Dex 20. And a ring of sustenance won't let you trance in the elven fashion. And you're still vulnerable to magic sleep effects. And you can't take Arcane Archer, or Bladesinger, or Champion of Corellon Larethian, or Eternal Blade, or Wildrunner, or Shadow Hunter, or Seeker of the Misty Isle, or any one of several dozen feats, spells, prestige classes, etc. There are a lot of mechanics (mostly from things like Planar Handbook) focused around being a Planetouched too, you know. You are using faulty logic. You are taking my argument and applying absurd hyperbole to make me look bad. You are only embarrassing yourself. Please do not quote this block or respond to this paragraph in any way, form, or fashion. Do not ignore its existence, however. Please take it to heart. These are friendly reminders, not the droids you are looking for. Move along. I'm applying absurd hyperbole to point out the problem with your argument. Here's my argument, then, stripped of "absurd hyperbole" -- "Some people like the flavor of being a Planetouched and don't care that you can replace it with different mechanics". Off topic, but since when has the ability to laugh off a burning hands to the face been par for the course for a ECL 1 character? Similarly, when has darkvision been the defining characteristic of a race's capabilities? Er, what? Dwarves have Darkvision, and it's at least as fundamental to the flavor of what they are as the resistances are to a Tiefling. And being able to laugh off a burning hands to the face when cast by a level 1 caster isn't that big a deal, even for an ECL 1 character. I can't comment, since I'm a Generation Thirdedder Are a puma, a cougar, a catamount, and a mountain lion all different things? Is there a [Dog] subtype for dire wolves, worgs, and yeth hounds? You can debate defunct cultures all you want; it won't change the facts. If anything, that's much more an argument for Dragons being a kind of Magical Beast than it is for Outsiders that look like Dragons being a kind of Dragon. The definition of an Outsider is pretty strong -- making Couatl Dragons because they look like Dragons is like making Angels into Monstrous Humanoids because they look like humans with wings, or making Hellcats into Magical Beasts because they look like cats. Like I said, if your argument is "There's no difference between Outsiders and the non-Outsider things they look like", then this is an argument for scrapping the Outsider type completely, not just the Native Outsiders. Again with the logical fallacies. Don't you have a job or a class or something to get back to, or are you too big of a prick to embarrass yourself on your own time? For someone who posts something that's "NOT A RANT", you seem really free with the insults against someone who didn't do anything but disagree with you. How is it a "logical fallacy" to argue against "Couatl are just a kind of Dragon!" with "No they're not, and here's why?" They *look* like Dragons, but Hellcats look like cats (sort of). Asmodeus looks like a creepy Human. The god Apep looks like a big snake. Big deal. They're all still Outsiders. Well, then either they're a stupid concept that should be axed, or they only stay on the Material because they can't stomach the Inner Planes for long despite being native to them, and are thus really Inner Plane natives. You could design an undead golem, but that doesn't mean it would make sense. Maybe some people would think it made sense, and maybe they would've been part of the game for a long time and therefore made sense to a lot of people who played it, and therefore you should be a little more polite about trashing the idea as "stupid". :mymy: He actually agrees with me, instead of arbitrarily being an a$shole! The scent of victory is sweet. Wait, so *not* agreeing with you is the definition of an a$shole? Good to know. Angels breathe. RTFMM! (pg 313) Thanks for the correction. There's still no defined correlation between "doesn't breathe" and "doesn't have a Con score". So, a creature born on the Material, with no connection to extraplanar beings such as demons or devils [this example refers to rakshasas, not half-fiends and such], is composed of the essence of another plane? WTF, man? It's a poorly written description, like many of the general descriptions in the MM. I believe in core, Rakshasa actually originated from the Lower Plane of Acheron and migrated to the Material Plane and lived here long enough to count as "native" to it (i.e. they can't be banished back to Acheron by spells like dismissal). In your own setting you could flavor it so that Rakshasa are made of the combination of Lower Plane energies on the Material Plane, like Jann are flavored to be. (The Material Plane is, after all, a combination of all the others.) So, a spirit is insubstantial enough to exist in the same space as a material object, yet can be killed by poison? That makes even less sense than angels not breathing. Angels not breathing actually does make sense, it just happens not to be true in D&D, which is why I was confused. *shrug* The spirit gives the stone statue the semblance of life. It's magic. It doesn't have to make sense -- or, rather, the sense it makes doesn't have to fit your idea of sense. Like I said, I myself houserule them to be Deathless. Acting the same and being the same are two completely different things. But thank you for your opinion. :bored: I always thought the point of animating a golem with an elemental was to make it, you know, move. I mean that animating a Golem with an Elemental makes the Elemental into a fundamentally different kind of being, a Construct. Elementals have Con scores and Int scores -- Golems have neither. You apparently intentionally misunderstood what I meant by the "point" of animating Golems -- I meant the *important thing to notice* about putting Elementals into Golems, not "why do people do it?" -- but it actually works both ways. Part of the point of the process of making an Iron Golem rather than just getting a pet Earth Elemental is that Iron Golems, *unlike* Earth Elementals, have no will and no real awareness and are completely perfectly obedient.
ArcTan 06-09-07, 02:51 PM	The issue is that it makes no sense for them to have to do this, or to be capable of being resurrected in the same way mortals are, just because they're native to the Material Plane. The issue is, or ought to be, that an outsider born on Acheron should be functionally the same as an outsider born on the Material Plane. There's no reason for an accident of birth to change the way its body/spirit functions. I think here, as with a lot of other places, you're confusing "Something that wasn't true in earlier editions" with "Something that inherently makes no sense and should be completely discarded". What's wrong with saying that the way the multiverse now works is that staying too long on the Material Plane confers mortal characteristics on you? We're *not* talking about one Rakshasa hanging out on the Prime for a few hundred years, we're talking about a race that migrated from one plane to another long ago, that's gone through several generations since then, and has thus evolved to match the plane they're on. (Something that's not unknown in D&D or in fantasy literature in general.) Is it a "big deal?" Well, I don't stay awake at nights thinking about it. But it'd be just as easy to make a rakshasa just a regular outsider, regardless of what plane you think it comes from. So why not go with the option that makes the most sense? The only reason I can think of is that someone at WotC was a - oh, what's a properly demeaning word? - a glue-sniffing mental invalid? Or they just had a new fantasy concept they wanted to introduce -- that being too long on the Material makes you partially mortal, as a race. Which might explain Outsiders' reluctance to remain on the Material as a long-term thing. Again, "different from how it used to be" is not the same as "fundamentally makes no sense" or "has no reason to be true". The attitude that anything in 3e that looks like it contradicts 2e is *wrong* -- rather than being a *change* -- is what bothers me. It's irrational and off-putting. It's why the term "grognard" is a disparaging one. The same goes for jann and tritons. Jann are a genie race, and should be the same as other genie races. The fact that they're native to the Material Plane instead of the Elemental Planes shouldn't change their dietary habits, their need to sleep and dream, or the way their spirits or souls work. They explicitly aren't the same as other genies. Other genies look down on them because they are fundamentally weaker and *more mortal* than the other genie races, thanks to their tie to the Material Plane. Tritons are native to the Elemental Plane of Water, and simply squatting in the Material Plane for a generations shouldn't change their fundamental nature. Sure, they could be fey, but outsider is as good a subtype as any. Why *shouldn't* it change their fundamental nature? To me it seems like an interesting variation. The native subtype makes sense for creatures with at least as much mortal blood as immortal blood - logically, they gain their souls and their mortal bodies from their mortal parents. The name "native" is a misnomer, of course, since a tiefling who's spent its whole life in the Abyss would be the same as one born on the Material. The term "Native" actually makes *more* sense if the majority of Native Outsiders are Outsiders who have become mortal-ized through too much time on the Prime and the half-breeds like the Planetouched are the exceptions (or just another kind of Native Outsider). Calling the subtype "mortal" would make a lot more sense. Half-fiends would be mortal outsiders, then, a term that describes them perfectly. The subtype makes no sense for creatures who are functionally the same as any other outsider except for their postal address. Rakshasas are, and have always been, presented as a race of fiends, and this is as true in Eberron as anywhere else. They should have the same types and subtypes as any other fiendish race. The fact that they don't is so brain-hurtingly stupid that it is kind of a big deal. It's not "brain-hurtingly stupid", it's just different. *Especially* on Eberron, where Rakshasa are a race of fiends who are fundamentally distinct from the fiends from Fernia or Risia or Mabar because they really *are* native to Eberron -- created when Siberys, Eberron and Khyber were created -- and fundamentally tied to the future of Eberron and its mortal races.
turalisj 06-09-07, 06:48 PM	I don't get what the big deal here is. Isn't this just someone who used to play 2ed ranting on about how things are diffrent? :confused:
ripvanwormer 06-09-07, 09:45 PM	I don't get what the big deal here is. Isn't this just someone who used to play 2ed ranting on about how things are diffrent? No. This discussion has nothing to do with 2nd edition. It's about a 3rd edition mechanic that's perfectly reasonable when applied to half-outsiders and planetouched, but which has been used in an illogical way. I think here, as with a lot of other places, you're confusing "Something that wasn't true in earlier editions" with "Something that inherently makes no sense and should be completely discarded". Not at all. I'm thinking entirely in 3rd edition terms. What's wrong with saying that the way the multiverse now works is that staying too long on the Material Plane confers mortal characteristics on you? It's wrong because the opposite isn't true. Staying too long on the Outer Planes hasn't conferred immortal characteristics on the githzerai, for example. And why would it? There are plenty of mortal creatures on the Outer Planes, including natives of those planes who've dwelled there since forever (just about anything with a celestial template, for example). Or they just had a new fantasy concept they wanted to introduce -- that being too long on the Material makes you partially mortal, as a race. If they wanted to introduce such a concept, they should have actually introduced it - that is, they should have actually said so somewhere, instead of leaving it for message board apologists to claim based on no evidence. Of course, even if they had claimed somewhere that this was how things worked, I would have been critical of the idea for the reasons I mentioned above. In a practical sense, what would be the purpose of this concept? How does it add color to the game or aid play balance? It doesn't. It's just a senseless and arbitrary idea that contradicts other elements of the game. The sheer stupidity of it makes my brain want to swallow a cyanide tablet.
turalisj 06-09-07, 10:03 PM	No. This discussion has nothing to do with 2nd edition. It's about a 3rd edition mechanic that's perfectly reasonable when applied to half-outsiders and planetouched, but which has been used in an illogical way. Ok. So this is disgruntled players ticked off at the game designers for a busing a subtype, correct? If so, then what can be gained by arguing about it on the boards?
ripvanwormer 06-09-07, 10:06 PM	Ok. So this is disgruntled players ticked off at the game designers for a busing a subtype, correct? If so, then what can be gained by arguing about it on the boards? That's what the boards are for, I thought: pointless arguing. What can be gained? Entertainment, amusement, enjoyment. What can be gained by your last post? You had the same motivations, I'd wager.
turalisj 06-09-07, 10:16 PM	Meh, I got nothing better to do than ask pointless questions. :P
Dunamin 06-10-07, 06:17 AM	Just throwing my lot in with the "disgruntled" - I don't like changes that detract from the consistency of the game world. I have never seen couatls as less "true" outsiders, and I don't see the advantage of assigning them as such. Back in "Guide to Hell" they were about as fundamentally outsiderish as you get, what with their connections to the ancient creation myth of the Serpents of Law.
Nilbog 06-10-07, 12:46 PM	My take on this: The "outsider" type in general was a poor decision that we're stuck with. It would have made more sense to make Angels and Fiends Monstrous Humanoid (Extraplanar), and Tojanida Aberration (Extraplanar) and Genies Fey (Extraplanar) or possibly Monstrous Humanoid (Extraplanar). Before we had the Extraplanar subtype, we had to deal with unholy messes like "Construct Outsider" (Anaxim, ELH) and "Undead Outsider" (Atropal, also ELH). If we have an (Extraplanar) subtype, we really don't need an Outsider type. Now, what's the flavor difference between an Extraplanar Monstrous Humanoid and an Outsider shaped like a human?
ripvanwormer 06-10-07, 01:07 PM	Now, what's the flavor difference between an Extraplanar Monstrous Humanoid and an Outsider shaped like a human? The former is a monstrous humanoid who happens to be on a plane other than the one it's native to. A medusa is an extraplanar monstrous humanoid when she's in Gehenna, for example. The latter is a being who personifies some aspect or theme of another plane. An outsider shaped like a human may be made of goodness, or fire, or shadow, or chaos, or anger or some other abstract material or concept. A humanoid or animal is a combination of four elements and a soul. An outsider is a being of spirit, not elements, because its body and soul are the same thing. A native outsider is a being made partly of spiritual matter, like a true outsider, but which is "mortal" enough to still require food and sleep. It also has a separate mortal soul bound to its body, with is the most jarring and improbable distinction between a triton native to the Plane of Water and one native to the Material Plane. I think it might be a good idea to turn outsiders and fey into the same creature type, but at present fey seem to have separate souls and mortal bodies (though we don't know anything about the lifespan of any creature type).
Vaalingrade Ashland 06-10-07, 02:01 PM	He's fundamentally tied to belief and spirit but he belongs on the Material Plane instead of one of the Outer Planes. I'd call that a fey. And the dwarf ancestor's less a golem and more a ghost inhabiting something other than a meat body. That's undead if I ever saw it.
Nilbog 06-10-07, 02:23 PM	Ok, that does make sense. I'd still like to see outsider as a subtype rather than a type, though.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 06-10-07, 07:05 PM	My take on this: The "outsider" type in general was a poor decision that we're stuck with. It would have made more sense to make Angels and Fiends Monstrous Humanoid (Extraplanar), and Tojanida Aberration (Extraplanar) and Genies Fey (Extraplanar) or possibly Monstrous Humanoid (Extraplanar). Before we had the Extraplanar subtype, we had to deal with unholy messes like "Construct Outsider" (Anaxim, ELH) and "Undead Outsider" (Atropal, also ELH). If we have an (Extraplanar) subtype, we really don't need an Outsider type. Now, what's the flavor difference between an Extraplanar Monstrous Humanoid and an Outsider shaped like a human? It's not the flavor difference that matters. It's the mechanics difference. The Outsider type is far more powerful than Monstrous Humanoid, Aberration, or whatever. Making fiends and celestials Monstrous Humanoids would weaken them enormously.
ripvanwormer 06-10-07, 08:26 PM	It's not the flavor difference that matters. It's the mechanics difference. Both matter, but I'm more concerned with the flavor difference.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 06-10-07, 09:17 PM	...
Bob the Efreet 06-11-07, 02:08 AM	Ok, that does make sense. I'd still like to see outsider as a subtype rather than a type, though. I think of all the types, we need dragon the least. Outsider describes a fundamental and interesting different type of creature. Although it would work for me if the only outsiders were the exemplar races, and all the others got retyped to the existing types.
Phantom Llama 06-11-07, 01:16 PM	I think of all the types, we need dragon the least. Outsider describes a fundamental and interesting different type of creature. I think Giant and possibly Aberration give it a run for its money, with Monstrous Humanoid and Magical Beast bringing up the rear. EDIT: Vermin too, while I'm here.
Bob the Efreet 06-11-07, 02:57 PM	I think Giant and possibly Aberration give it a run for its money, with Monstrous Humanoid and Magical Beast bringing up the rear. EDIT: Vermin too, while I'm here. Ooh, I forgot about giant. We probably don't need that one, either.
Pitiless_Interfector 06-11-07, 03:53 PM	My take on this: The "outsider" type in general was a poor decision that we're stuck with. It would have made more sense to make Angels and Fiends Monstrous Humanoid (Extraplanar), and Tojanida Aberration (Extraplanar) and Genies Fey (Extraplanar) or possibly Monstrous Humanoid (Extraplanar). But that's something I want to avoid. Before we had the Extraplanar subtype, we had to deal with unholy messes like "Construct Outsider" (Anaxim, ELH) and "Undead Outsider" (Atropal, also ELH). I agree. Those sucked. If we have an (Extraplanar) subtype, we really don't need an Outsider type. Now, what's the flavor difference between an Extraplanar Monstrous Humanoid and an Outsider shaped like a human? Um, the trouble we're getting into here is the issue of categorization, which the human brain was evolved for but still doesn't get right half the time, due to the neccessary evil of oversimplification. In real life, the dividing line between one species and another is based on genetic congruency and is percentage-based and essentially arbitrary. The diversity of life on earth forms a continuum, but continuums don't translate well into game mechanics. Hence the distinction of type. And, really, it works out pretty well in most cases. However, that may be because thinking within the bounds of the category system espoused by the game has predisposed you to overlooking its inadequacies. Now, ignoring such disparities as the monstrous humanoid/giant conundrum, let's try and focus on the real issue: the native outsider subtype. Now, I know the following is an opinion, and thus subject to being pisssed on by people like turalisj and ArcTan, but it's what I believe: An outsider is a creature composed of an idea, or essence, rather than matter. I liken it to a living soulmeld: incarnum condensed into an incredibly complex form that can govern itself rather than being shaped and commandeered by an incarnate or soulborn. It is too complex to be destroyed by such effects as unshape soulmeld; it would be akin to unthawing a glacier with a magnifying glass. And just as a soulmeld can affect physical matter while not being bound by all the same rules, so is an outsider. The consciousness that animates an outsider gives its body many structures homologous to its previous form, including a nervous, cardipulmonary, and digestive system [or half of it]. And while it no longer needs them, the ideas of such systems are part and parcel of an outsider's conception of itself, so without them, it dies just as surely as someone unplugged from the Matrix [that was an analogy, not a call to action]. An outsider's organic nature are a vestige of its mortal creation. However, not all outsiders function in such a matter; take the energon [which should be an elemental, but oh, well], for example: it has no structures homologous to living beings [except an eyespot and tentacles], and [likely] never lived on the prime material in a previous incarnation. It was just spawned on an elemental plane [or vergence zone], fully formed. To me, an outsider's need to breathe represents its tie to life; all living things breathe; whether it performs respiration or releases transpiration, a macroscopic organism requires gas exchange to perform cellular respiration. The ancient peoples of the world saw this, and despite not knowing why or how, realized that breathing was a fundamental characteristic of living things, giving rise to beliefs about the "breath of life." From a more pragmatic perspective, this allows for a climactic battle scene to end with an outsider being strangled to death. There are five types of unmortal creatures: deathless, elemental, fey, outsiders, and undead. These may be split into two categories: once-live (deathless, outsiders, and undead) and utterspawned (elementals and fey). These categories are not absolute; some beings were reborn after death as elementals or fey, and some deathless, outsiders, and undead were born fully-formed, never before alive. This is most common with outsiders, however, and is still not the preferred method of birth. Of the utterspawned, the fey represent the consciousness of the prime material; they are the spirits that self-spawn to serve as the incarnation of a geographic place, or an emotion or action. For the most part, they are fleshly creatures, being born of the natural world and thus subject to the same vagaries of any other natural creature. However, their status as otherwordly beings and embodiments of nature brings with it magical powers and near immortality. Elementals are not of the prime material; they are of the inner planes. While the outer planes are not quite real, being heavily dependent on the material, the inner planes are, if anything, more real than the prime material, as they are the source of the fundamental building blocks of all matter (at least according to Aristotlean thought). As the ancients noted the reactivity of the world and interpreted it as proof that all things think and have a soul, they noted that all things are part of one of four states of matter (which they identified as one and the same with the preeminent example of said state in their world, i.e. solid=earth, liquid=water, gas=air, plasma=fire). These two realizations gave rise to the belief that the world's manner of reacting and effecting change came from the fundamental building blocks having a consciousness. Thus, sentient elementals. As for the once-living: Leaving aside the deathless (who are not part of every campaign setting), this category includes outsiders and undead. These two divisions represent what is right and what is wrong (from a certain point of view): The "right" thing for the dead to do is to move on to the spirit world, where consciousness free of physical law finds a home in the halls of the gods and their myriad planes. The "wrong" thing for the dead to do is to remain [or be trapped] in the physical world [or very close by], where they prey upon (or at the very least compete with) the living. The deathless are a special case, serving as a kind of "in-between." They have not permanently moved on and become outsiders, but neither will they remain indefinitely as undead. They always have a set task and a definite purpose [whether it is a specific timeframe or simply a goal sanctioned by the forces of humanity and good], and once it is fulfilled they move on. Some of you may have noticed I refer to the outer planes as "not real." I realize this may rankle at first(, Shemeska), but bear in mind that 'real' isn't quite as set in stone as one would like to believe, at least in the world of D&D. I point out the fact that the outer planes seem inextricably linked with the minds and spirits of humanity; consensus reality may spawn new gods, which then arrange the fabric of the planes to fulfill their divine mandate set by their worshipers (And let's not forget the whole 'astral projection' thing). This post will probably be quoted ad oblivion and dragged through the dirt by people who'll say "But that's not the way things are in D&D!" Need I remind you that I'm not talking about D&D, I'm talking about the game that I have built using D&D as a framework. Each person's campaign is different. It's the difference between your personal computer and the operating system it ran when you pulled it out of the box.
Nilbog 06-11-07, 07:24 PM	Pitiless_Interfector, that's really cool.
Warforged Goblin 06-12-07, 10:13 AM	Pitiless, you may come off like an a$$-hat on a few things, but I will say this: you do have some good ideas. I see the Native subtype as an Augmented subtype for outsiders. They still get most of the same stuff outsiders do, but with some changes. Granted, I have no idea where I'd place the couatl, but for now the Outsider (Native) will have to fit. Meh :thinks:
wrecan 06-12-07, 10:54 AM	I think this is just a subset of a larger problem with differences between various bipedal types. The line between Fey, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrous Humanoid, and Outsider (Native) is pretty darn thin. I mean, the transition between Ooze, Vermin, Animal, Magical Beast and Dragon is pretty easy: if it has a skeleton, not an Ooze. If it is warm-blooded or Intelligent, not Vermin. If it has no spell-like or supernatural abilities, it is an Animal. If it lacks distinctive reptilian features, it is Magical Beast. (Although I question the Aranea's inclusion as a Magical Beast -- I think that should have been Fey.) The "soulless" Typoes are also easy: Construct, Undead and Outsider (non-native) are easy to distinguish. Born from planar matter? Outsider. Necromantically animated flesh or bone? Undead. Animated by other magic? Construct. In contrast, how do you distinguish the various bipedal Types? This is what needs to be addressed. Personally, I think all Outsider (Native) should be Fey. Fey are simply creatures made from the essence of the Material Plane. And that includes Coatl, Rakshasa and Janni.
Nilbog 06-12-07, 11:47 AM	I think this is just a subset of a larger problem with differences between various bipedal types. The line between Fey, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrous Humanoid, and Outsider (Native) is pretty darn thin. <snip> Personally, I think all Outsider (Native) should be Fey. Fey are simply creatures made from the essence of the Material Plane. And that includes Coatl, Rakshasa and Janni. Exactly. If I were in charge, I would lump Giant into Humanoid. Anything half-animal/half-human is Monstrous Humanoid instead (ocean giant, I'm looking at you!), as is anything with more than one innate magical ability. Native Outsiders should go to other types as needed. I'd make Coatls Magical Beasts and Janni Fey. Rakshasa I'd rather see as extraplanar fiends, but if they HAVE to be Material Plane natives, maybe Monstrous Humanoid. But I think we're stuck with this. Maybe in 4e (God prevent)...
wrecan 06-12-07, 12:24 PM	Now, I'm stuck thinking of the Types as a Linnaean classification. 1. Does the creature need to eat? Y: Go to Question 5 N: Go to Question 2. 2. Is the creature animated by necromancy? Y: It is Undead. N: Go to Question 3. 3: Is the creature animated by other magic? Y: It is a Construct. N: Go to Question 4. 4: Is the creature from an Elemental Plane and lacks a metabolism vulnerable to poison? Y: It is an Elemental. N: It is an Outsider (non-native). 5: Is the creature made of vegetable matter? Y: It is a Plant. N: Go to Question 6. 6: Is the creature bipedal in its most common form with an Intelligence greater than 2? Y: Go to question 12. N: Go to Question 7. 7: Is the creature a vertebrate? Y: Go to question 10. N: Go to question 8. 8: Is the creature's shape mutable? Y: It is an Ooze. N: Go to question 9. 9: Is the creature's Intelligence 1 or 0? Y: It is Vermin. N: Go to question 15. 10: Does the creature lack an Intelligence over 2 and spell-like and supernatural abilities? Y: It is an Animal. N: Go to question 11. 11: Is the creature a reptile with Intelligence over 2? Y: It is a Dragon. N: It is a Magical Beast. 12: Does the creature have animalistic features and no psionic or quasi-psionic abilities? Y: It is a Monstrous Humanoid. N: Go to question 13. 13: Is the creature composed of planar material? Y: It is an Outsider (Native). N: Go to Question 14. 14: Does the creature have a connection to either nature, a force or a place (whatever this means!)? Y: It is a Fey. N: Go to question 15. 15: Does the creature have either an alien mindset, bizarre anatomy or more than two spell-like or supernatural abilities? Y: It is an Aberration. N: Go to question 16. 16: Does the creature possess either a racial Strength bonus of more than +8 (after accounting for size) or a Size Category of larger than Medium? Y: It is a Giant. N: It is a Humanoid.
ripvanwormer 06-12-07, 02:18 PM	Your key doesn't work, wrecan, since there are lots of breathing races that originate on other planes that aren't outsiders. Everything with a fiendish, celestial, axiomatic or anarchic template, for example. There are planar dragons, planar aberrations, planar magical beasts, and more. Some of them are even fey. It's never been required that fey have any particular tie to the Material Plane - if it was, the Plane of Faerie described in the MotP (or Thelanis in Eberron) wouldn't make much sense.
wrecan 06-12-07, 04:25 PM	Your key doesn't work, wrecan, since there are lots of breathing races that originate on other planes that aren't outsiders. You are correct. I have to fix that. EDIT: I think I fixed it. It's never been required that fey have any particular tie to the Material Plane - if it was, the Plane of Faerie described in the MotP (or Thelanis in Eberron) wouldn't make much sense. Eberron is odd. It changes all sorts of things. Fey are supposed to be nature spirits -- and nature is the stuff of the Material Plane -- but in Eberron they are really a form of Outsider. Heck, I think maybe Fey should be a subtype of Outsider, rather than a Type of its own. At any rate, I changed it.
Dunamin 06-12-07, 05:30 PM	The intent is good, but it still doesn't work. You don't have to be an elemental to be native the Elemental Planes - genies and mephits come to mind as classical examples.
dfarnsworth 06-12-07, 07:48 PM	Good try. The one thing that bugs me is the type pyramid they have in Savage Species. That thing needs overhauled and a different form other than a pyramid. An index would be great for this but as it stands now there are too many contradictions as to what types supercede what. Now the Fey and Giant types were mentioned earlier and according to the pyramid, if a fey gained the half-troll template from FF it would become a Giant. Now given the Feys inherent magical nature, whether seen as strict nature spirits or not, this does not make sense to me. And I know the same rules apply with the Half-fey template turning said troll into a Fey creature. Some rules I've seen people throw around are that it depends which creature type was the mother and such, but that doesn't make sense to me either. That being said I'll have to continue later on as I am at my wifes place of work and it's time to leave.
ripvanwormer 06-13-07, 12:48 AM	Fey are supposed to be nature spirits -- and nature is the stuff of the Material Plane. The Material Plane isn't the only place you'll find nature, though. Many planes have nature in them; not necessarily the same kind of nature, but still "natural." And the actual definition of fey from the MM is "A fey is a creature with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place." So they're not just about nature, and not simply nature spirits. Nature spirits are one class of fey, but you could also have fey connected to forces magic, shadow, or civilization, or places like sewers or demiplanes. So what makes a fey different from a native outsider? Not much. They lack an outsider's automatic darkvision, and they're poorer combatants. That seems a good reason to restrict the "native" subtype to outsiders with actual mortal blood - the concept of an outsider and fey are so close that when you have outsiders who have to eat and breathe, there's hardly any difference at all. It's hard to distinguish a nixie from a triton, but it's easy to distinguish a tiefling from a dryad. Besides that, there does need to be a better "high concept" that explains what fey are. If they're not necessarily tied to nature, perhaps they're related to dreams, somehow, and nature fey are tied to the dreams of nature. That's pretty vague, but it's better than the present situation.
wrecan 06-13-07, 03:18 PM	The intent is good, but it still doesn't work. You don't have to be an elemental to be native the Elemental Planes - genies and mephits come to mind as classical examples. Good point. What the heck is the difference between an elemental and an outsider?! Genies and mephits should be elementals. Heck, maybe we should eliminate elemental and just make them all outsiders with appropriate elemental subtypes! So what makes a fey different from a native outsider? Not much. They lack an outsider's automatic darkvision, and they're poorer combatants. That seems a good reason to restrict the "native" subtype to outsiders with actual mortal blood - the concept of an outsider and fey are so close that when you have outsiders who have to eat and breathe, there's hardly any difference at all. It's hard to distinguish a nixie from a triton, but it's easy to distinguish a tiefling from a dryad. Besides that, there does need to be a better "high concept" that explains what fey are. If they're not necessarily tied to nature, perhaps they're related to dreams, somehow, and nature fey are tied to the dreams of nature. That's pretty vague, but it's better than the present situation. Agreed. So there's no good way to distinguish an Outsider (non-Native) from an Elemental and there's no good way to distinguish an Outsider (Native) from a Fey.
wrecan 06-13-07, 04:40 PM	All right. I think I came up with a new way to distinguish most Outsiders (non-Native) and Elementals. (See question 4.) I think this sufficiently distinguishes salamanders, tritons, tojanida, mephits and genie on the one hand with elementals, invisible stalkers and belkers on the other. (Xorn, thoqqua and magmin, however, mystify me.) I mean is there any visual difference between a magmin and a fire mephit?
Red Dragon 06-13-07, 04:47 PM	Good point. What the heck is the difference between an elemental and an outsider?! Genies and mephits should be elementals. Heck, maybe we should eliminate elemental and just make them all outsiders with appropriate elemental subtypes! Elementals are composed purely or almost purely of an element (Which is why they're called ELEMENTALS). Elemental outsiders can embody an element or be composed of it partially, but not completely. To wit, an outsider [fire] has guts. A fire elemental does not; it has fire instead of flesh, bones, guts, etc, and is nothing but fire throughout. Agreed. So there's no good way to distinguish an Outsider (non-Native) from an Elemental and there's no good way to distinguish an Outsider (Native) from a Fey. Not necessarily. There are good indications between native Outsiders and fey; generally (And I hate to say this, since I love fey) fey are cuter than outsiders, or otherwise resemble fairy tale creatures, while native outsiders have a distinct mythological flavor (Norse, Incan, whatever, but usually fairly clear) that is different from the Euro-Celtic fey flavor. Also, a native outsider is often only semihumanoid or a half-breed of some kind, while fey are almost universally humanoid-shaped. ;) There's still a distinction problem, but it's not quite as big as all that.
wrecan 06-13-07, 05:23 PM	Elementals are composed purely or almost purely of an element (Which is why they're called ELEMENTALS). Elemental outsiders can embody an element or be composed of it partially, but not completely. To wit, an outsider [fire] has guts. A fire elemental does not; it has fire instead of flesh, bones, guts, etc, and is nothing but fire throughout. How is a fire mephit an Outsider but a magmin is a Elemental? Here's a mephit (the fire mephit is on the left). http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG183.jpg Here's a magmin. http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG179.jpg I couldn't tell you which had "guts" without doing a dissection (while wearing asbestos underwear)! Heck, they look pretty much the same to me. There are good indications between native Outsiders and fey; generally (And I hate to say this, since I love fey) fey are cuter than outsiders, or otherwise resemble fairy tale creatures, while native outsiders have a distinct mythological flavor (Norse, Incan, whatever, but usually fairly clear) that is different from the Euro-Celtic fey flavor. Well, I think it's got to be the Euro-Celtic flavor, which is wholly subjective. Is a satyr really more cuddly than a Janni? There's still a distinction problem, but it's not quite as big as all that. Other than satyrs come from Greece and Janni from Arabia, what's the distinction? Also, why aren't merfolk monstrous humanoids? That fish tail has to qualify as an "animalistic feature"
Red Dragon 06-13-07, 05:49 PM	The fire mephit has skin, for one (The dust mephit, slightly off-topic even has hair; another indication); the magmin simply has solidified flame with... looks like coal spots. Another indication would be the fact that the magmin is incinerating the chest; most outsiders don't do that. A satyr more cuddly than a Janni? Yeah, pretty much. For one, satyrs have nice, cuddly fur, horns, they're smaller, get up to amusing hijinks with the opposite sex, etc. The Janni look like superbeautiful men and women in silks (Beautiful, but not cute or cuddly). ;) Otherwise, yeah, the distinction basically boils down to Euro-celtic or otherwise fairy-tale flavor vs. "other part of the world" flavor. A fey is the first, native outsiders are the second, assuming a choice between the two. Mermaid? For me, they're good; I don't particularly mind the type, since it supports my view of "Monstrous humanoid is basically a humanoid not meant to be played by a PC", which falls in with giants. Is that arbitrary? Of course. Do I mind? I'd rather get on with playing the game... Yeah, the types are essentially arbitrary, but with a little thought and maybe some subtle retooling in the flavor department, they work.
ryuspearhead 06-13-07, 06:01 PM	i agree thou i have my disargeement with mindflayers i think they should be monstous humanoids
wrecan 06-13-07, 06:30 PM	The fire mephit has skin, for one The magmin looks like it has skin, too. Really really hot skin. Another indication would be the fact that the magmin is incinerating the chest; most outsiders don't do that. The magmin is lighting the chest on fire. Fire mephits don't light thing on fire? the distinction basically boils down to Euro-celtic or otherwise fairy-tale flavor vs. "other part of the world" flavor. Which I find pretty irrational. Yeah, the types are essentially arbitrary, but with a little thought and maybe some subtle retooling in the flavor department, they work. I think the retooling is exactly what we're discussing. :) There's no reason for the Elemental Type. Outsiders with elemental subtypes pretty much covers it. There's no reason for the Fey type. They should all be Outsider (Native). (Alternately, all Outsiders (Native) should be Fey.) I'm not even sure there's a reason for the Giant type, except that the developers didn't want Giants affected by "Person" spells. On the other hand I like Aberrations. Really, what else is the Aboleth? A Magical Beast? > "Alien" creatures are Aberrations. After that, I think the bipeds should be divided as follows. > Do they have Supernatural Abilities? (Fey) This would now include Dopplegangers, Gargoyles, Medusa, Hags, Harpies, Janni, Rakshasa, as well as all the traditional Fey. I'd have to come up with a way around the Storm Giant's Freedom of Movement ability. Maybe make it a Spell-like Ability. > Are they Small or Medium? (Humanoid) Including Grimlock, Sahuagin, Derro, Tritons and the Planetouched. > Otherwise, they are Monstrous Humanoids. This now includes all Giants. (Coatl would join Dragon Turtles, Wyverns and Psuedodragons as non-True Dragon creatures with the Dragon Type.)
Red Dragon 06-13-07, 06:58 PM	I didn't mean retooling as in eliminating entire types and subtypes, I meant retooling as with flavor, such as my giving fey a society and a role distinct from outsiders of any kind. As for the magmin? That's skin? It's solidified flame! Even Outsider (Fire) skin is less smoky than that; case in point, efreet and hell hounds. Azers are are a slightly blurry line, but they have brass skin, not flaming skin, and thus likely have similarly brassy.... insides. :P Their hair is flaming, true, but that seems to be a standard accessory with fire outsiders. Also, the changes you're suggesting would put an ugly kibosh on all native outsiders, or supercharge the fey, and take a good few days of hard work to finish; In my view, definitely not worth the hassle.
Pitiless_Interfector 06-13-07, 11:38 PM	Pitiless, you may come off like an a$$-hat on a few things, but I will say this: you do have some good ideas. I see the Native subtype as an Augmented subtype for outsiders. They still get most of the same stuff outsiders do, but with some changes. Granted, I have no idea where I'd place the couatl, but for now the Outsider (Native) will have to fit. Meh :thinks: a$$-hat? What's that? Do they have whims? Pitiless_Interfector, that's really cool. Well, it seems to have scared off ArcTan. (I was actually joking, but haven't had enough practice with smilies to pull it off without sounding mean. I have bad memories from my geometry class, and a guy with no avatar and a name like ArcTan really brought it all rushing back. Still no excuse. Apology requested. [my sig probably isn't talking to/about you. Ignore it.]
Pitiless_Interfector 06-13-07, 11:42 PM	1. Does the creature need to eat? Y: Go to Question 5 N: Go to Question 2. 2. Is the creature animated by necromancy? Y: It is Undead. N: Go to Question 3. 3: Is the creature animated by other magic? Y: It is a Construct. N: Go to Question 4. 4: Is the creature from an Elemental Plane and lacks a metabolism vulnerable to poison? Y: It is an Elemental. N: It is an Outsider (non-native). 5: Is the creature made of vegetable matter? Y: It is a Plant. N: Go to Question 6. 6: Is the creature bipedal in its most common form with an Intelligence greater than 2? Y: Go to question 12. N: Go to Question 7. 7: Is the creature a vertebrate? Y: Go to question 10. N: Go to question 8. 8: Is the creature's shape mutable? Y: It is an Ooze. N: Go to question 9. 9: Is the creature's Intelligence 1 or 0? Y: It is Vermin. N: Go to question 12. 10: Does the creature lack an Intelligence over 2 and spell-like and supernatural abilities? Y: It is an Animal. N: Go to question 11. 11: Is the creature a reptile with Intelligence over 2? Y: It is a Dragon. N: It is a Magical Beast. 12: Does the creature have animalistic features and no psionic or quasi-psionic abilities? Y: It is a Monstrous Humanoid. N: Go to question 13. 13: Is the creature composed of planar material? Y: It is an Outsider (Native). N: Go to Question 14. 14: Does the creature have a connection to either nature, a force or a place (whatever this means!)? Y: It is a Fey. N: Go to question 15. 15: Does the creature have either an alien mindset, bizarre anatomy or more than two spell-like or supernatural abilities? Y: It is an Aberration. N: Go to question 16. 16: Does the creature possess either a racial Strength bonus of more than +8 (after accounting for size) or a Size Category of larger than Medium? Y: It is a Giant. N: It is a Humanoid. wrecan, that is an absolute GEM! Bravo! :clap: Now if only there were a magazine to put it in.
wrecan 06-14-07, 08:54 AM	As for the magmin? That's skin? It's solidified flame! How can you tell the difference? It looks like red skin to me. Also, the changes you're suggesting would put an ugly kibosh on all native outsiders, or supercharge the fey, and take a good few days of hard work to finish; In my view, definitely not worth the hassle. Well, it's really only idle thinking. I'm not advocating it be put into the errata.
wrecan 06-14-07, 08:55 AM	wrecan, that is an absolute GEM! Bravo! :clap: Now if only there were a magazine to put it in. Thanks you. I might submit it as a Redgar's article.
Pitiless_Interfector 06-14-07, 01:42 PM	Thanks you. I might submit it as a Redgar's article. More power to you! :w00t:
Red Dragon 06-14-07, 02:54 PM	How can you tell the difference? It looks like red skin to me. It's something about the shade variation; outsider skin doesn't wander from red to orange to yellow to white over a few square inches of skin. Other than that, I really can't quantify it; it's a line I can't quite place in words. Besides DMs would likely mention the difference when you attacked it; An elemental would just draw off flame or water or dust or whatever from the main body, while an outsider would have blood of some kind (Probably thin or superheated, yeah, but still blood). On submitting it as a Redgar's article? Yeah, go ahead; it'd help people that way, and you deserve to be praised for the work you put into it.
wrecan 06-14-07, 03:39 PM	It's something about the shade variation You know there's something wrong with D&D's classification systme when the classification comes down to a minor shading in the monster's illustration! :) On submitting it as a Redgar's article? Yeah, go ahead Great! Thanks!
Hellsbells 06-15-07, 12:00 PM	Is it just me or is this a rant?
Red Dragon 06-15-07, 12:22 PM	Maybe it's a flaw, but again, it works for me, at least. Oh, and Hellbells? Yeah, it's kinda a rant, but at least it's moved on from that. And as someone who lives in the country, I can tell you cows aint cute and fuzzy. Fuzzy they may be, but cute? :P Cows are something like the third ugliest animal in creation, but they taste good.
Hellsbells 06-15-07, 12:28 PM	the cow things a joke...... and their cute when their babys....
Red Dragon 06-15-07, 12:44 PM	Naw, still not cute. :P I know it's a joke, I'm just saying...
Pitiless_Interfector 06-15-07, 01:28 PM	So, we've stopped ranting. Now on to cows. :rolleyes: If you liked my ideas about outsiders, undead, deathless, elementals, and fey, check out my stuff on magic (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=865291)
ArcTan 06-16-07, 04:08 PM	It's wrong because the opposite isn't true. Staying too long on the Outer Planes hasn't conferred immortal characteristics on the githzerai, for example. And why would it? There are plenty of mortal creatures on the Outer Planes, including natives of those planes who've dwelled there since forever (just about anything with a celestial template, for example). Weren't you the one who argued that expecting symmetry in everything was boring and not necessarily the best idea? It's easier for the pure to become impure than the impure to become pure again. The Outer Planes are pure belief and ideal -- the Material Plane is impure matter and contingent existence. Pure belief and ideal can become corrupted into impure matter (an ideal representation of Good can end up becoming merely a Good person) much more easily than vice versa (a Good person transcending his individuality to become an ideal representation of Good). There. I just wrote flavor for it. Sounds good to me. If they wanted to introduce such a concept, they should have actually introduced it - that is, they should have actually said so somewhere, instead of leaving it for message board apologists to claim based on no evidence. Of course, even if they had claimed somewhere that this was how things worked, I would have been critical of the idea for the reasons I mentioned above. Well, they introduced it implicitly by creating the idea of the Native Outsider, didn't they? You're the one claiming on pure supposition that the Native Outsider was just a naive mistake on their part that was originally intended *only* for Planetouched. In a practical sense, what would be the purpose of this concept? How does it add color to the game or aid play balance? It doesn't. It's just a senseless and arbitrary idea that contradicts other elements of the game. The sheer stupidity of it makes my brain want to swallow a cyanide tablet. Again with the "I don't like this idea, therefore it's incredibly stupid and nobody should like it". I think it adds *plenty* of color to the game to have the idea that too much interaction with the Material Plane gives one mortal characteristics -- will corrupt one with mortality. It adds to the reason that the Outsiders in general fight among each other on the Outer Planes and all seem highly reluctant to stay on the Material for any length of time.
ArcTan 06-16-07, 04:12 PM	My take on this: The "outsider" type in general was a poor decision that we're stuck with. It would have made more sense to make Angels and Fiends Monstrous Humanoid (Extraplanar), and Tojanida Aberration (Extraplanar) and Genies Fey (Extraplanar) or possibly Monstrous Humanoid (Extraplanar). Before we had the Extraplanar subtype, we had to deal with unholy messes like "Construct Outsider" (Anaxim, ELH) and "Undead Outsider" (Atropal, also ELH). If we have an (Extraplanar) subtype, we really don't need an Outsider type. Now, what's the flavor difference between an Extraplanar Monstrous Humanoid and an Outsider shaped like a human? Honestly, I think the exact opposite. A game where everyone was either a Humanoid or an Outsider would fit a lot of mythologies' ideas of the normal world and the "spirit world" a lot better -- one where things like Minotaurs and Dragons and Thunderhorses all represented *ideas* rather than just happening to be a big lizard or a man with horns on his head. The idea of there being either regular people, mortals, and "monsters"/"spirits"/"fey" -- that's pretty fundamental to the kind of mythology D&D is based on. The hairsplitting differences trying to create an exact definition of what's a "Fey" and what's a "Monstrous Humanoid" and what's a "Magical Beast" -- *that* is stupid and doesn't, honestly, really need to exist.
ArcTan 06-16-07, 04:15 PM	This post will probably be quoted ad oblivion and dragged through the dirt by people who'll say "But that's not the way things are in D&D!" Need I remind you that I'm not talking about D&D, I'm talking about the game that I have built using D&D as a framework. Each person's campaign is different. It's the difference between your personal computer and the operating system it ran when you pulled it out of the box. Great. You were the one who started hating on other people's D&D -- and, indeed, the D&D most people play -- by presenting your *opinion* as a value judgment about how the Native Outsider is a "stupid idea" that we "don't need" rather than just a way you chose to rewrite the game for your home campaign (in which case I probably wouldn't've even read your post in the first place). I mean, great, you tried to come up with an inherent justification for the D&D Type system on a cosmological basis. It's pretty clunky, because when the D&D designers came up with the Type system they had no such cosmological grand scheme in mind, but whatever. So what? *I* don't think your elevation of Fey to an inherently necessary part of the D&D classification system makes sense; a lot of other people don't; the D&D designers certainly haven't actually written the game in such a way as to take that into account. But if you like it, fine. FWIW, I think it'd make more sense to ditch Fey and make all Fey Native Outsiders. But that's me.
ripvanwormer 06-16-07, 06:22 PM	Weren't you the one who argued that expecting symmetry in everything was boring and not necessarily the best idea? Yes. There's symmetry, however, and then there's common sense. I'm not arguing for the former; I'm arguing for the latter. It's easier for the pure to become impure than the impure to become pure again. No. That would be a good argument for why native outsiders can't become regular outsiders again when they move back to their planes of origin, except we don't know that they can't. It has nothing to do with why a purely humanoid creature like a githzerai doesn't become impure when it moves to the Outer Planes, why it doesn't become contaminated by belief and ideal. It has nothing to do with why the Outer Planes is full of purely humanoid or purely animal creatures who are actually native to those realms - beings like axiomatic and anarchic creatures, or fiendish or celestial ones. The Outer Planes are pure belief and ideal -- the Material Plane is impure matter and contingent existence. I agree, but look at it this way: By analogy, if the Inner Planes are earth and the Outer Planes are water, then Material Planar beings are mixtures of earth and water. A mortal creature traveling to the Outer Planes would be like an object made of mud cast into a pool of "pure" water. You're claiming it wouldn't grow more watery with time? There's also the problem that you've constructed a false dichotomy in what is really a three-part system, because both the Inner and Outer Planes have outsider races. If purely "earthy" creatures and purely "watery" creatures can both be regular outsiders, why can't spiritual creatures who are a mix of the two be regular outsiders? Your theory doesn't account for that. The dichotomy isn't between the Material Plane and the Outer Planes; it's between the Inner Planes and the Outer Planes. The Material Plane is the plane that reconciles the two, but there's nothing about reconciliation that implies mortality. The conflict isn't between mortality and immortality, but between two different kinds of immortality. There are, on the other hand, many non-outsider creatures on all three levels of existence. There are non-outsiders in the Inner Planes, non-outsiders in the Outer Planes, and of course non-outsiders on the Material Plane. And there are outsiders on all three levels. The difference between an outsider and other creature types clearly must not have anything to do with their plane of origin, then. The difference is far more fundamental than where they happen to live. Well, they introduced it implicitly by creating the idea of the Native Outsider, didn't they? You're the one claiming on pure supposition that the Native Outsider was just a naive mistake on their part that was originally intended *only* for Planetouched. Well, we know for a fact that it was originally intended only for planetouched, since that's how the native subtype was used where it originally appeared, in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Tritons, rakshasas, couatls, and janni were presented in 3.0 as extraplanar beings, since that was part of the definition of outsiders at the time. In 3.5, I'm not claiming that giving the native subtype to tritons and the like was a freak accident. I know perfectly well they did it on purpose. However, we weren't given an in-game explanation for why native outsiders are different from their extraplanar relatives. You invented one, and you seem to be insisting that your theory has some validity outside your own head. It doesn't. WotC hasn't given us a theory, just an incoherency. If your theory was actually something they wanted to present, they would have presented it. In 2e, by the way, the outsider type didn't exist, and nearly all the beings now called outsiders had to eat and sleep. So if I were arguing based on the way things were in 2e, I would be wanting all outsiders to have the native subtype. Again with the "I don't like this idea, therefore it's incredibly stupid and nobody should like it". That's more of your amateur pop-psychology, which has served you so poorly elsewhere in this thread. I don't like it because it screws up what would otherwise be a perfectly coherent system. The extraplanar subtype efficiently tells us what plane an outsider comes from. The native subtype efficiently identifies outsiders with mortal blood. There's no reason to mix the two. We don't need for the native subtype to do what the extraplanar subtype already does. In short, you've got the causality reversed; I don't like it because it's incredibly stupid. I don't care if you or anyone else likes it; I'm speaking for myself here. Everyone else is welcome to like it. However, I won't respect you for it. I'll assume, in fact, that you're the kind of person who automatically defends every official rule out of an inherently servile nature. I might well be wrong, but that's what I'll assume. I'll enjoy assuming it, too. I think it adds *plenty* of color to the game It suggests that Material Plane outsiders are inferior versions of Outer Plane outsiders. It suggests that rakshasas aren't as important as other fiends and that couatls aren't as important as other celestials. For a person who bases some of his arguments on what's good for Eberron, it's strange that you would defend a rule that's so self-evidently bad for Eberron, where the couatls and rakshasas are so much more important than races like archons and tanar'ri, who were kind of clumsily shoehorned into the setting's corners. I don't care so much about how much the rule damages the Eberron setting, although it does - unlike you, I don't want D&D to be redesigned based on Eberron's premises - but I don't like rules that are incoherent and illogical. Why do outsiders avoid the Material Plane? They don't, not any more than other creature types avoid the Outer Planes. They fight each other on the Outer Planes because that's where most of them live, but more than one Material world has been destroyed by the Blood War or by fiendish machinations.
ArcTan 06-16-07, 06:40 PM	No. That would be a good argument for why native outsiders can't become regular outsiders again when they move back to their planes of origin, except we don't know that they can't. It has nothing to do with why a purely humanoid creature like a githzerai doesn't become impure when it moves to the Outer Planes, why it doesn't become contaminated by belief and ideal. *All* Material beings are "contaminated by belief and ideal". The nature of the Material is being an impure admixture of everything. (Can Githzerai be Lawful? Yes. Indeed, most of them are. They've been "contaminated" by Law.) It has nothing to do with why the Outer Planes is full of purely humanoid or purely animal creatures who are actually native to those realms - beings like axiomatic and anarchic creatures, or fiendish or celestial ones. We don't actually know how or why Fiendish Animals got to the Lower Planes -- migration is as plausible as native generation. Though it's not totally relevant, because if Fiendish Animals can totally originate from the Lower Planes and still not actually be Outsiders but be Animals who eat, sleep and breathe, then we've just opened the door for Rakshasa to be some kind of natural midpoint between ordinary Fiends and Fiendish Humanoids and Animals. Now we don't need the "polluted by the Material Plane" explanation -- Rakshasa are just naturally more mortal than other Fiends and may have migrated to the Material Plane for that reason. I agree, but look at it this way: By analogy, if the Inner Planes are earth and the Outer Planes are water, then Material Planar beings are mixtures of earth and water. A mortal creature traveling to the Outer Planes would be like an object made of mud cast into a pool of "pure" water. You're claiming it wouldn't grow more watery with time? Maybe not. Who knows? There's no "real" logic here, only what makes sense in a completely arbitrary fantasy world (since none of this is analogous to how things work in real life, at all). I think you can argue that it's always easier to add than to subtract -- that if a mud creature went to the Plane of Water, it'd be hard to make the earth in it just disappear to nowhere. Whereas it makes sense to say that a purely watery creature who went to the Plane of the Earth could get some earth inside it that would be hard to get out afterwards. Well, we know for a fact that it was originally intended only for planetouched, since that's how it the native subtype was used where it originally appeared, in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Tritons, rakshasas, couatls, and janni were presented in 3.0 as extraplanar beings, since that was part of the definition of outsiders at the time. In 3.5, I'm not claiming that giving the native subtype to tritons and the like was a freak accident. I know perfectly well they did it on purpose. However, we weren't given an in-game explanation for why native outsiders are different from their extraplanar relatives. You invented one, and you seem to be insisting that your theory has some validity outside your own head. It doesn't. WotC hasn't given us a theory, just an incoherency. If your theory was actually something they wanted to present, they would have presented it. *shrug* That's what half the game is, presenting justifications for things that are only vaguely justified mechanics in your own campaign. I mean, Vancian spellcasting doesn't make any sense and there haven't even been anything more than very halfhearted attempts to try to explain what it actually is until Complete Mage. That by itself isn't a reason to claim it shouldn't exist, though it might be a reason for one person to dislike it and want to change it in his game. In 2e, by the way, the outsider type didn't exist, and nearly all the beings now called outsiders had to eat and sleep. So if I were arguing based on the way things were in 2e, I would be wanting all outsiders to have the native subtype. That's more of your amateur pop-psychology, which has served you so poorly elsewhere in this thread. I don't like it because it screws up what would otherwise be a perfectly coherent system. The extraplanar subtype efficiently tells us what plane an outsider comes from. The native subtype efficiently identifies outsiders with mortal blood. There's no reason to mix the two. We don't need for the native subtype to do what the extraplanar subtype already does. Except it *doesn't*. The Native subtype points out Outsiders who are more mortal than other Outsiders, *whether or not* they have mortal blood. It makes just as much sense that way as to claim that the only way an Outsider can ever be more mortal than other Outsiders is to have mortal blood. (Okay, how about this -- Jann are "more mortal" than other Genies simply because they're impure mixtures of different elemental Genie bloodlines, and the impure mixture of elements leads to mortality. It has nothing to do with having moved to the Material Plane -- they live on the Material Plane because they're impure and mortal, not vice versa. Does that make enough sense for you?) In short, you've got the causality reversed; I don't like it because it's incredibly stupid. I don't care if you or anyone else likes it; I'm speaking for myself here. Everyone else is welcome to like it. However, I won't respect you for it. I'll assume, in fact, that you're the kind of person who automatically defends every official rule out of an inherently servile nature. I might well be wrong, but that's what I'll assume. I'll enjoy assuming it, too. I defend the idea that any official rule can be used well by someone who wants to use it well. Mainly I attack the idea that there's one rule for what "makes sense" or is a "coherent cosmology" in D&D and that anything that violates that should be held in contempt. It suggests that Material Plane outsiders are inferior versions of Outer Plane outsiders. It suggests that rakshasas aren't as important as other fiends and that couatls aren't as important as other celestials. For a person who bases some of his arguments on what's good for Eberron, it's strange that you would defend a rule that's so self-evidently bad for Eberron, where the couatls and rakshasas are so much more important than races like archons and tanar'ri, who were kind of clumsily shoehorned into the setting's corners. It suggests those things to you. It doesn't suggest those things to me. To me, the only thing it *says* is that because Rakshasa live on the Material Plane, they need to eat and sleep, and they can be resurrected if they are killed because their bodies and souls are capable of separation. That's all it actually says. If, to you, that implies that Rakshasa are less significant or important than other Fiends, that's really your problem. It doesn't imply that to me. Eating and sleeping is an inconvenience, but not that huge of one, and certainly doesn't mean anything regarding cosmological hierarchy. (Humanoids need to sleep, and Oozes don't. Does that make Oozes "more significant" than Humanoids in most campaign worlds?) I think Rakshasa are more significant and important than, say, Dretches, largely because the campaign setting (whichever one) says they are, and because the Raksahsa on paper is significantly more powerful than the Dretch, even if the Rakshasa has to eat and sleep to live, and even if the Rakshasa can be immediately resurrected by a friendly Cleric if killed as opposed to fading away into the substance of the plane (which is apparently now an advantage for a character). I don't care so much about how much the rule damages the Eberron setting, although it does - unlike you, I don't want D&D to be redesigned based on Eberron's premises - but I don't like rules that are incoherent and illogical. Why do outsiders avoid the Material Plane? They don't, not any more than other creature types avoid the Outer Planes. They fight each other on the Outer Planes because that's where most of them live, but more than one Material world has been destroyed by the Blood War or by fiendish machinations. Oh, come now, there's a whole bucketload of flavor about how summoning Outsiders is a really really big favor and how they will immediately return home as soon as the spell stops compelling them. Sure, part of that is just "I have my own business to take care of", but there's plenty of reasons to reinforce that with metaphysical aversions to being summoned if you want (as most non-D&D fantasy about summoning demons actually does).
ripvanwormer 06-16-07, 07:25 PM	We don't actually know how or why Fiendish Animals got to the Lower Planes -- migration is as plausible as native generation. The description in the Monster Manual implies parallel evolution, not migration (it says they merely "resemble" beings found on the Material Plane). This is supported by the fact that axiomatic and anarchic creatures are described as natives of their respective planes. Anarchic creatures are the crude "first drafts" while axiomatic creatures are the ideal templates upon which their Material equivalents are based. Though it's not totally relevant, because if Fiendish Animals can totally originate from the Lower Planes and still not actually be Outsiders but be Animals who eat, sleep and breathe, then we've just opened the door for Rakshasa to be some kind of natural midpoint between ordinary Fiends and Fiendish Humanoids and Animals. Because there are non-outsiders on the Outer Planes, therefore there could be a kind of half-outsider, half-humanoid on the Outer Planes? Of course they could, who said there couldn't? Is that what you want rakshasas to be? Why? How would that make rakshasas better? Rakshasas are, by their flavor, fiends. They are creatures of pure and utter evil. This is what makes them interesting. If they were somehow more humanoid, less outsider-y than other fiends, they would be less fiendish, and therefore less evil. They would be more like orcs and less like baatezu. They would serve their function more poorly, especially in Eberron, where they are the setting's primary incarnations of pure evil. Where tanar'ri, yugoloths, and baatezu are incarnations of war, the daelkyr beings of madness, and the quori beings of dreams; only rakshasas represent unadulterated evil in the campaign. They need to be outsiders. I think you can argue that it's always easier to add than to subtract The problem is, there's no natural reason to argue that. It's not something that would occur to someone who wasn't being an apologist for the 3.5 Monster Manual. I'd rather think in ways that follow logically from basic premises than twist things into knots to justify a rule that's so easily ignored. Any potter knows that clay can be made more watery or it can be made more dry, and it's pretty much equally easy to do either. That's what half the game is, presenting justifications for things that are only vaguely justified mechanics in your own campaign. The way you play the game doesn't sound like very much fun. Except it *doesn't*. Yes, it does. A subtype applied to any creature when it is on a plane other than its native plane. A creature that travels the planes can gain or lose this subtype as it goes from plane to plane. Monster entries assume that encounters with creatures take place on the Material Plane, and every creature whose native plane is not the Material Plane has the extraplanar subtype (but would not have when on its home plane). Every extraplanar creature in this book has a home plane mentioned in its description. Creatures not labeled as extraplanar are natives of the Material Plane, and they gain the extraplanar subtype if they leave the Material Plane. No creature has the extraplanar subtype when it is on a transitive plane, such as the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, and the Plane of Shadow. This applies equally to every creature type. It's all we need. We don't need a special subtype whose purpose is to make members of one creature type into watered-down reflections of themselves for no given reason, or for some arbitrary reason that you concocted to justify a senseless rule because for you that's half the game. I'd rather play with good rules than waste time rationalizing bad ones. the impure mixture of elements leads to mortality. That's obnoxiously arbitrary. It physically pains me. God will punish you for this; there is a special circle of Hell for people like you. I defend the idea that any official rule can be used well by someone who wants to use it well. I think you've amply proven yourself wrong. You obviously want to use this rule well, but all you've done is construct abominations. Oh, come now, there's a whole bucketload of flavor about how summoning Outsiders is a really really big favor and how they will immediately return home as soon as the spell stops compelling them. Um, no. Quite the opposite. Fiends love being summoned, because it gives them an opportunity to corrupt their summoners. Celestials do have their own business to attend to; they certainly wouldn't avoid doing good on the Material Plane simply because it would somehow cause their soul to separate. Would somehow cause their soul to separate. I can't believe I typed those words. I feel stupider just for having read them, let alone having typed them. How the hell would it cause their soul to separate? Please, please, I beg of you; do not try to answer that. Unlike an outsider, I am only mortal, and I fear that much more of this would cause my soul to separate from my own body, never to return. You are killing me.
ArcTan 06-16-07, 07:38 PM	Because there are non-outsiders on the Outer Planes, therefore there could be a kind of half-outsider, half-humanoid on the Outer Planes? Of course they could, who said there couldn't? Is that what you want rakshasas to be? Why? How would that make rakshasas better? Because it's interesting? It ties to the idea that Rakshasa are intrinsically linked to the Material Plane? Rakshasas are, by their flavor, fiends. They are creatures of pure and utter evil. This is what makes them interesting. If they were somehow more humanoid, less outsider-y than other fiends, they would be less fiendish, and therefore less evil. They would be redundant, because they'd just be another kind of Baatezu that lives on the Material Plane. You're basically arguing that to be more interesting they have to be more like every other Devil. They would be more like orcs and less like baatezu. They would serve their function more poorly, especially in Eberron, where they are the setting's primary incarnations of pure evil. Where tanar'ri, yugoloths, and baatezu are incarnations of war, the daelkyr beings of madness, and the quori beings of dreams; only rakshasas represent unadulterated evil in the campaign. They need to be outsiders. They *are* Outsiders. And in Eberron, unadulterated Evil is intrinsically linked to the mortal world and the functions of mortal life (eating, sleeping, breathing). You are the one with the preconception that being more mortal means being less evil. The problem is, there's no natural reason to argue that. It's not something that would occur to someone who wasn't being an apologist for the 3.5 Monster Manual. I'd rather think in ways that follow logically from basic premises than twist things into knots to justify a rule that's so easily ignored. Any potter knows that clay can be made more watery or it can be made more dry, and it's pretty much equally easy to do either. Oh, bah. Fine. Even if I got it from the Monster Manual, I think it's interesting *now*. And I don't think it's completely illogical to argue that it's easier to add than to subtract, or that this is a concept entirely foreign to fantasy. How many damn fantasy works have used the trope of an angel or faerie or something "choosing to become mortal", and not being able to go back to their original state afterwards? The way you play the game doesn't sound like very much fun. It means that if someone wants to use the Erudite class I might say "Well, let's think of a way to make these mechanics make sense" rather than "You are SO STUPID I want to kill you and your entire family!!!" This applies equally to every creature type. It's all we need. We don't need a special subtype whose purpose is to make members of one creature type into watered-down reflections of themselves for no given reason, or for some arbitrary reason that you concocted to justify a senseless rule because for you that's half the game. Dude, Outsiders who are sort of like mortals but otherwise still Outsiders is interesting to me. If it's not interesting to you, fine, but what's so intrinsically stupid about it? That's obnoxiously arbitrary. It physically pains me. God will punish you for this; there is a special circle of Hell for people like you. The hyperbole isn't actually all that funny. Um, no. Quite the opposite. Fiends love being summoned, because it gives them an opportunity to corrupt their summoners. Celestials do have their own business to attend to; they certainly wouldn't avoid doing good on the Material Plane simply because it would somehow cause their soul to separate. ...says you. I wonder why they do things like charge for their services and force you to make opposed Charisma checks to bind them, then. Would somehow cause their soul to separate. I can't believe I typed those words. I feel stupider just for having read them, let alone having typed them. How the hell would it cause their soul to separate? Please, please, I beg of you; do not try to answer that. Unlike an outsider, I am only mortal, and I fear that much more of this would cause my soul to separate from my own body, never to return. You are killing me. Yeah, whatever.
ripvanwormer 06-16-07, 08:22 PM	Because it's interesting? How is it interesting? Rakshasas aren't as good at being fiends than other fiends; that's interesting to you? You're basically arguing that to be more interesting they have to be more like every other Devil. Kind of. I'm saying that there's a minimum level of similarity that all fiends share if they're to deserve that name. Except for their alignment, rakshasas are no more like baatezu than any other outsider; they don't have the baatezu trait, and they're not part of the baatezu hierarchy. They're no more like baatezu than howlers are like tanar'ri. They do often dwell in Baator, according to the 3e Manual of the Planes and elsewhere. You are the one with the preconception that being more mortal means being less evil. It does. An outsider is made of evil. A native outsider is made partly of matter, and therefore is not pure evil. And in Eberron, unadulterated Evil is intrinsically linked to the mortal world and the functions of mortal life (eating, sleeping, breathing). Oh, stop it. You're not even trying to be coherent. How many damn fantasy works have used the trope of an angel or faerie or something "choosing to become mortal", and not being able to go back to their original state afterwards? I can't think of any. Um, The Little Mermaid, maybe? Except the whole point of that story is that she wasn't able to become mortal; she ends up dissolving into seafoam. She does develop a soul, however, through her goodness, so that's something. You can't argue that rakshasas are like the Little Mermaid, though, because that would require them earning their souls by being more evil, which would make us wonder why other fiends don't manage that. It really requires explicitly Christian premises that D&D can't support. Most legends of a faerie or selkie or mermaid wife have the woman promise her mortal husband to not break a taboo, and then when he inevitably breaks it she goes back to her people. Um, what else. Could you be thinking of Terry Pratchett's Small Gods, where a god takes turtle form and isn't able to change back because he only has one remaining worshiper? I've seen a few other examples of gods who dwindle to mortality through lack of worshipers, for example Ishtar in The Sandman. And there's the elderly angel in Neil Gaiman's "Murder Mysteries." And all these beings are dwindled for various reasons. It's a point that you keep trying to make that native outsiders aren't necessarily lesser or dwindled forms of regular outsiders. The literature would seem to say otherwise. It means that if someone wants to use the Erudite class This is a poor analogy. Dropping the native subtype from a few creatures is simplicity itself. It's painless and doesn't require recalculating anything or removing a character from the game. You can still use tritons whether they have the subtype or not. Dropping the erudite class means... not using the erudite class. what's so intrinsically stupid about it? Because it's inconsistent, unnecessary, and because it turns a number of interesting races (especially rakshasas and jann) into inferior beings. Because it's ugly replication of the same purpose in two different subtypes. Because it uses the same rule to represent two different things, one of them sensible and the other clumsily hacked in there as an afterthought. I think that covers the arguments I've repeatedly made in this thread, but I may have missed some. It is for these reasons it's illogical and insulting. It insults my intelligence that the rule even exists; I find it more insulting that you're trying to defend it. The hyperbole isn't actually all that funny. I'm just warning you of the fate that awaits you if you stay on the path you're on. It is not too late to repent, sinner. Remember, God doesn't hate you; he only hates your posts to this message board. I wouldn't dream of joking about these grave matters. I am deadly serious. Says you. Well, yes, that was me. A cunning observation. It's not just me, however. Read Fiendish Codex I and II, for example. Let's try page 10 of the FCI, "Demons On the Material Plane": "As natives of the Abyss, most demons remain prisoners there for eternity. In addition to the innate horrors of the Abyss itself, most demons are enslaved and tormented by more powerful demons. The only relief they have is the suffering of others - lesser demons, or rare visitors to the Abyss, whom they can fight or torment. "That is, unless they find a way out." I wonder why they do things like charge for their services Why would a fiend want to make a profit? Because they're fiends, perhaps? Just because they like coming to the Material Plane doesn't mean they'll do anything you ask for free. They tend to be greedy, you know. and force you to make opposed Charisma checks to bind them, then. Because they have self-respect. Binding is a separate act from summoning. They like to be summoned; they just don't like to be told what to do when they get here.
ArcTan 06-16-07, 09:11 PM	How is it interesting? Rakshasas aren't as good at being fiends than other fiends; that's interesting to you? What, because they have to eat and sleep? Kind of. I'm saying that there's a minimum level of similarity that all fiends share if they're to deserve that name. Except for their alignment, rakshasas are no more like baatezu than any other outsider; they don't have the baatezu trait, and they're not part of the baatezu hierarchy. They're no more like baatezu than howlers are like tanar'ri. They do often dwell in Baator, according to the 3e Manual of the Planes and elsewhere. Well, Rakshasa are Native Fiends. It does. An outsider is made of evil. A native outsider is made partly of matter, and therefore is not pure evil. ...That's sort of a setting-specific assumption to make, isn't it? (I'm being totally serious -- a lot of this stuff ends up people saying that setting-specific assumptions about alignment or the planes or whatever that were established in Planescape or older editions' Manual of the Planes or whatever must be true everywhere.) Oh, stop it. You're not even trying to be coherent. Whatever. I can't think of any. Um, The Little Mermaid, maybe? Except the whole point of that story is that she wasn't able to become mortal; she ends up dissolving into seafoam. She does develop a soul, however, through her goodness, so that's something. You can't argue that rakshasas are like the Little Mermaid, though, because that would require them earning their souls by being more evil, which would make us wonder why other fiends don't manage that. It really requires explicitly Christian premises that D&D can't support. Most legends of a faerie or selkie or mermaid wife have the woman promise her mortal husband to not break a taboo, and then when he inevitably breaks it she goes back to her people. Um, what else. Could you be thinking of Terry Pratchett's Small Gods, where a god takes turtle form and isn't able to change back because he only has one remaining worshiper? I've seen a few other examples of gods who dwindle to mortality through lack of worshipers, for example Ishtar in The Sandman. And there's the elderly angel in Neil Gaiman's "Murder Mysteries." And all these beings are dwindled for various reasons. It's a point that you keep trying to make that native outsiders aren't necessarily lesser or dwindled forms of regular outsiders. The literature would seem to say otherwise. Well, to throw out a random example, there's Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's other book Good Omens, with Aziraphale and Crowley having "gone native" to a great degree during their time on Earth, and because of that state both *understand* good and evil much more than their otherworldly counterparts (Crowley's little rant about the nature of temptation when he causes the cell phone outage, for instance). I was thinking more like the capacity for Elves like Arwen to become mortal in LotR, though. This is a poor analogy. Dropping the native subtype from a few creatures is simplicity itself. It's painless and doesn't require recalculating anything or removing a character from the game. You can still use tritons whether they have the subtype or not. Dropping the erudite class means... not using the erudite class. You still see what I mean. I see a rule and I see a potentially interesting idea come out of it. I at least try not to feel the need to talk about how horribly stupid something is because it breaks an earlier expectation of mine (like Dwarf Ancestors being Outsiders rather than Constructs). I don't think that kind of chauvinism does anyone any favors. Because it's inconsistent, unnecessary, and because it turns a number of interesting races (especially rakshasas and jann) into inferior beings. Because it's ugly replication of the same purpose in two different subtypes. Because it uses the same rule to represent two different things, one of them sensible and the other clumsily hacked in there as an afterthought. I think that covers the arguments I've repeatedly made in this thread, but I may have missed some. It is for these reasons it's illogical and insulting. It insults my intelligence that the rule even exists; I find it more insulting that you're trying to defend it. But that's just it -- "Native Outsider" is *not* the opposite of "Extraplanar Outsider". If it's not Extraplanar it just doesn't have the Extraplanar subtype (relative to you). "Native", yes, means "semi-mortal", and my point is that there's nothing wrong with saying that some Outsiders can be semi-mortal without actually being descended from a mortal. FWIW, the *point* of Jann in the first place was to be weaker and less powerful than the other Genies because they are "impure", so that particular example doesn't work for you. (Their stats reflect this, as does their flavor paragraph.) Even if I were to say "Okay, Rakshasa are too badass to be Native Outsiders", that doesn't mean that only half-mortal descendants can be Native Outsiders. It would still make sense for things that are supposed to be partially mortal (but not descended from mortals) to exist. Well, yes, that was me. A cunning observation. It's not just me, however. Read Fiendish Codex I and II, for example. Let's try page 10 of the FCI, "Demons On the Material Plane": "As natives of the Abyss, most demons remain prisoners there for eternity. In addition to the innate horrors of the Abyss itself, most demons are enslaved and tormented by more powerful demons. The only relief they have is the suffering of others - lesser demons, or rare visitors to the Abyss, whom they can fight or torment. "That is, unless they find a way out." Why would a fiend want to make a profit? Because they're fiends, perhaps? Just because they like coming to the Material Plane doesn't mean they'll do anything you ask for free. They tend to be greedy, you know. Because they have self-respect. Binding is a separate act from summoning. They like to be summoned; they just don't like to be told what to do when they get here. *shrug* Flavor is mutable. If we were to accept the "You can become mortal by staying on the Material" thing we'd be talking about timescales of millennia, anyway. The fiend wouldn't be worried about coming here so much as being *trapped* here (which summoning as opposed to calling spells inherently can't do).
Pitiless_Interfector 06-16-07, 09:19 PM	Maybe not. Who knows? There's no "real" logic here, only what makes sense in a completely arbitrary fantasy world (since none of this is analogous to how things work in real life, at all). Of course, Eberron isn't real either. In the unreal world of Eberron, the unreal force of magic (being used for things analogous to *real* things like genetic engineering) is very real, and a lot of people *do* believe that Changelings are "Children of the Traveller" rather than literally children of the Doppelgangers. If you smack your forehead, and nobody cares, does it make a sound? Dude, you're getting your ass handed to you on a mutha-f***in' platter, just like supernerd222. Turalisj, THIS is what the boards are for. Damn, with you people around, I don't even need cable!
WizO_Sith 06-20-07, 09:47 AM	Flaming violates the Wizards Online Community Code of Conduct (http://www.wizards.com/coc). Let's have an end to it.
Pitiless_Interfector 06-20-07, 10:01 PM	Flaming violates the Wizards Online Community Code of Conduct (http://www.wizards.com/coc). Let's have an end to it. Funny, the Miss Multiverse Competition didn't get a warning. Am I to take it that the fact this thread hasn't already been locked despite its unwieldy title is because this argument is not pointless?
yrogerg 06-21-07, 08:16 AM	Funny, the Miss Multiverse Competition didn't get a warning. Am I to take it that the fact this thread hasn't already been locked despite its unwieldy title is because this argument is not pointless? Unless I'm mistaken, questioning Boards policy outside of the Boards Business forum also constitutes a CoC violation. There be danger down this path. Turn back.
DreadArchon 06-21-07, 01:17 PM	Wow, touchy subject. For the record: In my game, I just created a Humanoid (Planar) category, as advised on the quasi-official download here (http://www.planewalker.com/index.php). I hope my players don't become as touchy about this as you guys. :embarrass
yrogerg 06-21-07, 08:07 PM	Personally, I'm rather glad they moved the Rakshasa out of Acheron and to the Material plane. Rakshasa tend to be strongly associated with *this* world, rather than any divine realm, or spirit realm, or any alternate realm of existence, at least in every folkloric and pop-cultural reference I've ever seen. And, while I'll leave it to people better (and worse) than me to argue over this over and over and over again, Rakshasa *are* typically portrayed as *very* worldly; eating (they are typically portrayed as extremely predatory, and specifically as man-eaters and cannibals in the original folklore) and sleeping (one, at the very least, Kumbhakarna, is depicted as sleeping through most of the momentous battle between Rama and Ravanna) if not breathing. And yet, making them Fey or some such hardly does that original flavor any justice, either. Even in Lord of Light , which admittedly depicts them as "energy"creatures, they are extremely carnal, often possessing humans to partake in worldly pleasures. If these are all changes that have been made in recent editions, and if some of these things (bodily functions, taking up residence in the Material plane, whatever) are included in the definition of the (native) subtype, then great. For the Rakshasa, it sounds like a considerable improvement over previous flavor.
ArcTan 06-22-07, 01:21 AM	Personally, I'm rather glad they moved the Rakshasa out of Acheron and to the Material plane. Rakshasa tend to be strongly associated with *this* world, rather than any divine realm, or spirit realm, or any alternate realm of existence, at least in every folkloric and pop-cultural reference I've ever seen. And, while I'll leave it to people better (and worse) than me to argue over this over and over and over again, Rakshasa *are* typically portrayed as *very* worldly; eating (they are typically portrayed as extremely predatory, and specifically as man-eaters and cannibals in the original folklore) and sleeping (one, at the very least, Kumbhakarna, is depicted as sleeping through most of the momentous battle between Rama and Ravanna) if not breathing. And yet, making them Fey or some such hardly does that original flavor any justice, either. Yeah. The Hindu flavor of the Rakshasa is that they are powerful beings who remain "demons" and shut out from the great wheel of continual improvement that all spirits pass along because of their attachment to the material world, and material life. This is in sharp contrast to the dualist worldview that Christian demonology is based on that informs the D&D Demons and Devils, who are wholly pledged to some abstract notion of Evil and see all material goals as a means to an end -- being themselves spirits and utterly uncaring of material things in and of themselves. (At least that's what the Jesuits told me.) The fact that Demons and Devils are based on this flavor in D&D is fine, of course, but that's no reason to say that Rakshasa shouldn't be obviously different. This whole attitude that Rakshasa have no reason to exist if they're not different from other Fiends because it would make them "less Evil" and therefore less cool is stupid. If everything is as Evil as Evil can be, that tends to force everything towards a very limited definition of Evil, and would make it dumb to have yet another stupid variety of Fiend when we already have Demons and Devils. Why *not* have Rakshasa be dedicated to the Hindu idea of what Evil is, and be Evil because of a perverse attachment to the material rather than the spiritual? Similarly, the *point* of the Jann is that they are a weaker, more mortal race than regular Genies. They're the bastard offspring of Genies who unwisely mixed their blood and created a shameful offshoot, something weak and vulgar and almost human. This makes the Jann *interesting*. If Jann's flavor were that they were just like all the other Genies but lived on the Material Plane, then they would be *stupid* and *boring* and yet another example of "fill-in-the-blank" flavor that plagues D&D. What is interesting about the Jann is *precisely* that they are more like humans than Genies are supposed to be and therefore outcast and looked down upon by the Genie races, which in turn makes them embittered and have a love-hate relationship toward the actual Humanoids they're forced to share the Material Plane with. Oozing with flavor. Flavor *reinforced* by making Jann eat and sleep the way Humanoids do. Flavor *also* reinforced by making them be the result of breeding among Genies rather than yet another bleeding Human-Outsider hybrid. The more I think about it, the more rip's arguments sound like arguments for making the D&D cosmology more homogeneous and boring and calling it "consistency". (Yeah, you *have* to have all Outsider traits if you're an Outsider, and if you're mortal at all you're just the result of an Outsider having sex with a mortal and you should really be a mortal in the first place. In-betweens don't exist. Being in-between makes you less extreme and less extreme makes you lame. Screw that.)