I've glanced at the stats, and talked about this before. From edition to edition, the Angel types, like the Aasimon and the Archons, and even the Eladrins got weaker in each edition since the 1990s. What's going on? Why so much hate for good aligned planar monsters?
shintashi wrote:
I never played with them in 1e, but the 2e versions (in the great diTerlizzi art Planescape book) were... pretty ridiculous? I mean, the Solar was basically one of those monster statblocks that seemed like it was there simply to show off to players what they weren't supposed to piss off/fight, not as something any DM was intended to use in any meaningful encounter.
So from that perspective, I definitely like the idea of a powerful but usable monster block over something that's seemingly there for show. The Solar is by far one of the strongest creatures in the MM, especially since it lacks most of the common MM gripes (it has great saving throws, is highly mobile, has good ranged attacks, etc). That seems to honor it well enough.
(And no, I don't really care about whatever war story someone pops in with about the time they killed 6 Solars while blindfolded. I'm sure groups did kill them with various accumulations of treasure/splatbooks/epic rules/whatever, but that's really not the point.)
dave2008 wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
Shintasi learned everything he knows about hyperbolic thread titles from Zaardnar.
[quote="dave2008"]
Though, i guess the general D&D approach is hordes of evil vs. fewer more powerful good guys.
"Why so much hate for good aligned planar monsters?"
Because WOTC is the thrall of dark and terrible powers who wish only to ensnare and enslave mortal souls, and hate the powers of goodness and light.
ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER THE HASBRO SECTION OF TOYS R US!
shintashi wrote:
ModusPonens wrote:
shintashi wrote:
Admittedly, in 1e, Solars were the good versions of demon lords and archdevils, but Planescape talked about specific non-Solar good versions of archfiends (and I think the Book of Exalted Deeds eventually gave us stats for these beings), so there was no longer a need for Solars to be that powerful, and they ended up filling the same role as balors and pit fiends (but were usually more powerful than their evil counterparts). From 2e on (except for 4e which didn't have Solars) it is no more appropriate to compare Solars to demon lords and proclaim "Solars are being nerfed" than it would be to compare 7th level spells to 9th level spells, and proclaim "7th level spells are being nerfed." Are we going to see stats for the Celestial Hebdomand, the Court of Stars, or the Guardinel Princes? I hope so, but I won't hold my breath as we haven't seen archons, celestial eldarin, or guadinels yet.
Frankly, maknig them stronger than actual unique beings (like Bahamut and Tiamat) seems silly to begin with.
But really, people who are worried that 5e creatures need the exact same relative strengths as 1e creatures... are probably people who should stick to 1e anyway. If any edition is so 'perfect' in your mind that every subsequent one needs to duplicate it, that's obviously the edition you should play.
danyc wrote:
I would assume that if angels are getting "weaker" over editions it is to make them more usable by DMs as helpers for the player helper to assist in the scenario - rather than simply a force of nature that wings and and saves the PCs.
Did you feel "I think Angels should be more powerful" would get fewer replies than "Why does WOTC hate Angels"? Because I think you could have accomplished the same goal without the bombastic over the top exageration you put in your thread title.
On topic, I found that Zak Smith's take on the Angel from the MM (which does power them up by the way) is extremely good and highly usable. In fact, I would buy a Zak Smith monster manual. It's just much better than the existing MM (which I also like - just not as much as his "Redoing the Monster Manual" articles).
shintashi wrote:
WOTC doesn't hate angles, they have just de-emphasized them as part of child-proofing this edition. Or was that too obtuse for you?
Just did a quick check of the MM and of the 5 non-dragon epic monsters (CR21+), two of them are celestials (Solar and Empyrean), and one of those 5 is the Tarrasque which is unique. So, they seem fairly well represented so far. I would say the proportion of good epic monsters is much higher than for lower CR tiers.
dave2008 wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
As a 4th Edition fan, I think I could add some warning when dealing with 4e creatures:
Although I love 4e lore and all, traditionally good-aligned creatures are a weak point of that setting. Almost all of them got retconned to “Unaligned” (aka Neutral). Angels went better: they could be of any alignment and the “Angel of X” thing was really cool, together with the Archangel template in the MM2. But still, the “alignment of any deity it chooses” kinda of bugs me. In the case of Couatls, Metallic Dragons, Fey, Eladrin, Archon, etc.? All of them retconned. Although some of the new versions are good, we should act with caution when referring to these monsters in that edition. Orcs didn’t change, though 
dave2008 wrote:
I like them as they are. In my view, I prefer that good and evil, law and chaos are relatively balanced powers, with the various forces waxing and waning in any given prime material plane. Good is not assured victory, nor are any of the cosmic powers, it's why the mortals, the heroes are so important. It's why the great heroes the legendary heroes can battle Tiamat, and demon lords, and all that. Without them, the scales tip and perhaps are weighed down for an age or utterly destroy a given world. Their victories and their defeats matter.
Orethalion wrote:
shintashi wrote:
good has to be be more powerful than evil because evil does actually cheat. If their stats were equal and their armies similar in number, Evil would still win 18 out of 20 times. Good would win on those rare occassions they got really lucky, or on occassions where Evil botched. Put another way,
The marvel's comics of Ghost Riders showed me how celestial beings could be "evil" or antagonists, but I don't want a D&D version of Legion movie/Dominion teleserie.
In my games if use alegiance and aligment system, and that is the reason I can allow evil celestial.
* Fay eladrins and primal guardinals could be antagonist in some settin because they are ruled by a divine pantheon who fight againts another deities.
* If want a low level celestial ally, I would use a deva/aasimar, or a celadrin (planetouched race from Dragon magazine #350) with levels of favored soul class.
D&D angels are just boringly designed, honestly
They lack sufficient eyes and wings. Artists should take a page from Kill Six Billion Demons
dave2008 wrote:
Mecheon wrote:
shintashi wrote:
I disagree that the main reason we see fewer celestials in the MM is because things are more "player focused." The reason we have fewer celestials is that there are fewer spells that make use of them. Seriously, what else are you going to fill up summon monster IX with? Conjure celestial is a great utility spell and not lacking as a combat spell (as long as you cast before combat), but it caps at CR 5. While it isn't true that making it CR 9 wouldn't mean there were a bunch of CR 6-9 celestials (I'm still waiting for the CR 8-9 elementals), it would open up the likelihood of celestials in that CR range. If there was a cleric version of conjure minor elementals that conjured minor celestials, almost certainly there would be lantern archons, coures, etc. to fill it.
The other spell that could bring celestials into play is planar ally. Since all the conjure spells are RAI "DM picks the critter" now and Magic Mart is closed as far as WotC is concerned (thus giving PC's a lot of gp's to spend), you would think it would get some more love.
actually the average alignment in every game ive played in 5e edition was Neutral Evil. Similar alignment shifts happened with my last AD&D games. I walked into the adventure with my Lawful good Wizard and was introduced to 4 characters. 2 of them were slaves of the other characters. When i made my first 5e character, we had about 10 or 12 people playing. 3 were Warlocks of Clthulhu. Half the party were tieflings. The first open (people i dont know) DMing session Ive had, people are playing evil characters with traditionally evil races. One of them actually named his character "El Diablo". Another is just plain evil, and those are the 'good race' characters.
So, no. The argument that "only evil needs to be powerful because the players are supposed to fight them' isn't working. My players would probably see these evil powerful beings as good job opportunities and ask for letters of recommendation or pointers on how to really make life miserable in the universe.
Unique being doesn't mean anything special. Just because there's only one Tiamat or Bahamut doesn't mean they don't both go into the Dragon or God lumped box. Think about it. Bahamut, Tiamat, Takhisis, Paladine, Godzilla, Falkor, King Ghidorah, Shenron... you see one giant godlike lizard monster, you've seen them all. Come to think of it, Zeus is unique, but he's just a god like Ares, Hades, etc. Ra, Set, Osirus, etc.
There's all sorts of unique beings that aren't as powerful as godzilla. There's many that are way weaker than Unicorns. But being a special snow flake doesn't mean you get Super Saiyajin 4 powers.
Solar Aasimon are supposed to be godlike. They have different names. And there's 24 of their kind. Here, let me list 24 of some other kind of named things of an identical non unique category:
- Auril
- Azuth
- Bane
- Besheba
- Bhaal
- Chauntea
- Cyric
- Deneir
- Eldath
- Gond
- Helm
- Ilmater
- Kelemvor
- Lathandor
- Liera
- Lliira
- Loviator
- Malar
- Mask
- Mielikki
- Milil
- Myrkul
- Mystra
- Oghma
Zadkiel, from marvel comics, and one of the most dangerouns ghots-riders' enemies, is perfect to be a example of evil angel. Or Ruth, who doesn´t worry about collateral damages when she is in a mission. Or the Redeemer, from Spawn's comics.
In my settins "evil angels" are minions of the "false prophets": Musaylimah, Aswad Ansi, Sajah and Iban Sayyad
danyc wrote:
Well put, Mistwell.
Mistwell wrote:
danyc wrote:
Mistwell wrote:
When I'm talking about angel appearances, like, say.. Kill Six Billion demons! Like White Chain and Vigilent Gaze here, or the elder angels awaiting reincarnation
Well, you want an evil angel? Here's Juggernaut Star Scours the Universe.
At the base level, who is going to kill an angel? The DM or players? They are mainly used for story, so they recieve an initial look and more attention is paid to the other types of creatures.