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I was reading the "Ecology of the Fire Archon" over on the WotC site, and noticed this particluar bit:
Out with the Old
The elementals of 3rd Edition have no needs, no clear desires or motivations, and no culture, yet they attain human Intelligence, speak, and can manipulate objects. They exist in limitless numbers on the elemental planes, but they build nothing and make no lasting impression upon the game. Mechanically, they exist as neat creatures to summon or put in a dungeon and nothing more. What do they do on the elemental planes besides attack interlopers? What do they care about? In 3rd Edition, we have only vague ideas that they fight each other. If they were dumb beasts, they would make more sense. If they had a culture and did interesting things like invade the Material Plane, they would be better. But the elementals of 3rd Edition don't do either. Most creatures of the elemental type follow suit, and you have to look at outsiders such as salamanders and genies for interesting creatures with elemental themes.Add to this the fact that the elementals' mechanics are either boring or complex. Most of them simply walk up to a PC and hit the character with a fist. Fire elementals at least do fire damage, but it hardly screams cool to face an elemental and have it act like an ogre without Power Attack. It doesn't even whisper it. The flip side of this includes mechanics such as the air elemental's whirlwind. Any mechanic that makes a person look up weather conditions in the Dungeon Master's Guide is just begging to be "forgotten" by the DM.
We tried to rectify this in the late stages of 3rd Edition. You can see various attempts in Monster Manuals III, IV, and V, the most successful probably being the avatars of elemental evil of Monster Manual IV. Yet such inventions were a band-aid on a scar over thirty years old. The new edition offered a chance to shuffle thing up a bit, give elementals a new hand, and deal in some new players.
In With the New
Of course, elementals -- those beings of the four elements that exist so people can summon them and put them in dungeons -- still exist in 4th Edition. We've given them a new story and some clean but cool mechanics, but this article isn't about them. It's about how else we filled the void for interesting elementally based creatures. The upcoming edition uses an altered list of creature types and uses type quite differently when it comes to mechanics. Thus creatures that seemed like they should be elementals (efreeti, salamanders, and so on) bear that type now. Yet even after reshuffling things, the game still cried out for more elemental baddies.That's where Dreamblade comes in. The Flame Harrower caught the eye of several folks in R&D when it came out, and Bill Slavicsek mentioned that he wanted something like that in 4th Edition. On a purely aesthetic level, the combination of a largely transparent miniature with some metallic parts is pleasing to the eye. It's like looking at jewelry or candy. However, we all agreed that the "metal underpants" were not a positive feature. To fix that, we decided that the future monster would have a lower body of solid elemental material.
So we had a hole to fill and a visual cool concept to fill it. All that remained were the name, flavor, and mechanics. The mechanics evolved over time. In fact, as I write this, we are playtesting, and I can't be sure that the current 4th Edition mechanics will remain. The flavor evolved somewhat, but we knew that we wanted them to see a lot of use, so we always planned on them being a somewhat mercenary force. The name was an easy choice, if a bit controversial to some.
Early on in the process of designing 4th Edition, we had many discussions of the elements of 3rd Edition that we could carry forward. We took a long look at which cows really were sacred and which would make fine rump roast. The animal-headed archons weren't high on anyone's list. They exist to fill out an alignment wheel of outsiders -- a dubious purpose -- and they're an inherently strange concept. In D&D's universe, why do some angelic beings have horse heads? What population besides werebears and normal bears do bear angels serve? Add to their innate weirdness the fact that alignment and the planes work differently in 4th Edition, and there simply wasn't reason enough to preserve them.
Yet the word "archon" is powerful, and we knew we wanted 4th Edition to use it in a cooler way that would be more likely to see play than the angelic furries. Giving it to the new elemental beings we wanted in the game seemed a perfect fit. There could be no confusing them with the old archons, and using a cool word that would be familiar to many players would raise their profile.
I'm not sure if I should be insulted or not. They seem to be saying that they changed the elementals up because they weren't "cool" (at least that's what I get out of it). So if I liked elementals they way they were, I'm not cool now? Ouch, that hurts (rolls sarcasm check).
And efreet are elementals now? WTF! And while I think the name "fire archon" is OK, I think I like the traditional "archons are angels" idea better (not to mention that I thought the fire archon mini sucked nuts, in my humble opinion).
Anyway, thoughts, comments, etc.
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On the one hand, I can see what they mean - elementals are reasonably intelligent but really do nothing more than smack people when summoned, which isn't the best use for their intelligence. On the other hand, that could be fairly easily dealt with by saying their motivations are inscrutable - after all, motivation comes from physiology and an elemental's physiology is completely different to mine, not to mention the environment in which it lives. So this strikes me as a problem that didn't really need fixing, or could be easily tweaked with flavour text, but has been dealt with in the typical fashion of the broader 4E project.
Since we don't know what the mechanical changes are, it is hard to comment whether these are better or not. I was not really bothered that the combat powers of the elementals are variations of being hit with a blunt object, but if they make it more interesting tactically, I won't be complaining. I get slightly uneasy with the idea that a creature is only interesting if it has a cool combat mechanic - to me, the difference between an ogre with a club and an elemental is all about the flavour in the scenario in question and the logic of the "dungeon ecology", for want of a better term. The fact that both do bludgeoning damage is slightly beside the point.
Archons? Well, I can get over that. I liked some of them in 3E, especially the hound archon (though they are right that I have never actually used one in a game) but I'm not really bothered - the Good outsiders have never really been key as they are not usually foes to the PCs.
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On the one hand, I can see what they mean - elementals are reasonably intelligent but really do nothing more than smack people when summoned, which isn't the best use for their intelligence.
I love that they just insulted the crap out of themselves for never actually bothering to develop the elemental types.
"Wow, this thing we made is really kinda lame and stupid, we probably coulda put more thought into it and had fire elementals live in cities of smokeless fire hammered into place by their 'flamesmiths,' and air elementals travel in great floating caravans, endless swirling chaotic parties that never end! Good thing we're here to notice it!"
On the one hand, I can see what they mean - elementals are reasonably intelligent but really do nothing more than smack people when summoned, which isn't the best use for their intelligence.I love that they just insulted the crap out of themselves for never actually bothering to develop the elemental types.
"Wow, this thing we made is really kinda lame and stupid, we probably coulda put more thought into it and had fire elementals live in cities of smokeless fire hammered into place by their 'flamesmiths,' and air elementals travel in great floating caravans, endless swirling chaotic parties that never end! Good thing we're here to notice it!"
A similar though crossed my mind.
The elemental princes have been part of D&D history for some time. It would not have been hard to build on them. I know Planescape referenced them in 2e, but 3.x did very little to flesh out the planes the way 2e did with Planescape.
Sernett needs an editor for this article. Some the writing (word choice, phraseology, redundancy, tone) is... not great.
The various D&D genies have always dwelt on various elemental planes. If you check out Manual of the Planes, you'll fine marids in the Elemental Plane of Water, and dao in the Elemental Plane of Earth. They've always been.
When I'd heard that they were removing "bear-headed angels", I thought they were talking about guardinals. I dont really care if they yank archons and put them in as another kind of angel. The name sounds cool, and Wayne Reynolds did an awesome hound archon, but they really are just a set of angels to fill in an alignment void in the Good spectrum.
Actually, angels exist on all the Good-aligned planers, so I dont understand why they need two sets on Mount Celestia. Just roll in archons with angels, thats really where they belong anyhow.
I think there should be a 5th element: Roy. I mean he has his own Archon. Fire Archon, Roy Archon? Why not?
I don't really mind elementals the way they are. They do whatever you want within reason when you summon them. They don't get used for more than combat because of the duration of summon monster, a failing of the spell not the creature.
Why don't they have huge structure and what not on their plane? Why would they? Aren't they true Neutral? So their movitive are self preservation which is pretty easy when you don't need to eat, sleep and all those other things that drive us as human to industrialize. There are structures on the elemental planes build by creatures with alignments or needs that would require to build such things. Yeah it's difficult to understand an alien concept like would would you do with your life if you didn't need anything.
Whether the new version will be better? Eh, it will be different in my mind and that's neither bad nor good to me if the system turns out to be ok.
On the one hand, I can see what they mean - elementals are reasonably intelligent but really do nothing more than smack people when summoned, which isn't the best use for their intelligence.I love that they just insulted the crap out of themselves for never actually bothering to develop the elemental types.
"Wow, this thing we made is really kinda lame and stupid, we probably coulda put more thought into it and had fire elementals live in cities of smokeless fire hammered into place by their 'flamesmiths,' and air elementals travel in great floating caravans, endless swirling chaotic parties that never end! Good thing we're here to notice it!"
I think one of the largest problems with 3rd edition setting is, and has always been, that they didn't bother much about designing or improving the Planes and the cosmology that they inherited from 2nd edition.
What they started with was rubbish, and since WotC never did anything about it, they stayed that way. Even if you include the Planescape setting, the elemental planes has never gotten a fair shake in any version of D&D. Planescape was all about Sigil and the politics of the outerplanes, which were never fleshed out much beyond listing the inhabitants of a plane and who they hated. The most you ever knew about the elemental planes was how quickly they killed you and what kind of motivation-less elementals lived there.
Elementals have forever been summoned monsters lamely used, and perhaps 4th edition will change that by incorperating the kinds of ideas Set has like elemental cities, civilizations, and places to adventure.
The 5th element is Milla Jovovich. End of story. And I want a mini.
As for Wizard's take that all elementals do is get summoned and smack people or whatever - it seems they just insulted themselves. If the problem is a fluffy ecology or whatever, create it! Why can't the good guys have archons to battle the baddies? Why can't werebears and kin have a bear celestial - there are more ridiculous beings out there, as we all can attest. Just attaching a "cool" name to an existing creature doesn't suddenly fix the problem. Are they saying that they thought of a purpose in life for the fire archon, but couldn't just think of one for the fire elementals? Especially after all the work 3.5ing the Elemental Princes? (Though cold isn't an element - as cool as he is - he's gotta go.)
It's a Fire something, but an Archon it certainly isn't.
Someone else called them Imixians, and that's probably closer to the truth.
As usual, the 4e design team couldn't look past the core books and note things like the elementals' role in the battle between the Wind Dukes and the Queen of Chaos, their society as seen in their leaders, the archomentals, the already rich multitude of other elementals from Mystara, and so forth.
Instead, we get "inspired" names like "blazesteel".
<sigh>
Yeah, but if we let there be a Prince of Cold Elementals - we'd have to make them for all the para and quasi too. Oh wait - Wizards already said they aren't calling them para-elementals anymore - it doesn't roll off the tongue or something. (See Large Ice Elemental release info) So, that's a lot of Archomenals! It's easier for me to move/alter Cryonax like I have been.
And I'd prefer to have Milla over any water any day.
As long as the fifth element isn't Heart, and they don't combine to form Captain Planet!
I'd hate to have to visit The Elemental Plane of Heart. Sounds messy.
I agree with Aubrey. I don't think the elementals were all that broken to begin with. They folks at WotC are just trying to hard at this point.
Who cares what elementals are thinking and doing? It's not important to the CORE rules at all! It's a fantasy universe and there's going to be a lot of weird stuff going on. If you try to apply mundane logic to all of it, you will go crazy, which is maybe what's happened to the folks at WotC.
The primary purpose of elementals is to fill a slot on the summoning and encounter tables - why is that such a bad thing? Although the game mechanics of getting hit by an Ogre with a burning club and fire elemental's slam are essentially the same, a Fire Elemental is still cooler. uh, hotter? whatever, more interesting and fantastic.
Now, if you want to eventually fart around with detailing the ecology of the elemental planes, go ahead. That's a great idea for a suplement. But don't f*ck up the core rules because you had too much time on your hands after counting up your profits from splat books and started wondering what elementals do all day.
Calling an efreet or a salamander an elemental instead of an outsider doesn't really bother me. But Archons should be Angels. Whether you stick a bunch of animal heads on them is flavor. It worked for the Egyptians, but the Greeks didn't bother with it as much.
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I think that we all just have to accept 4e for what it is and not what D&D was. I'm not saying that we have to agree. Heck, I'm not even saying that we have to play. But the boyz and girlz at Wizards have their minds set on how much better they will be making the game. This includes not only changes to the rules, but changes to the fabric of D&D as well. They aren't updating, amending, or improving D&D per se. They are REMAKING D&D.
There's some selective memory at work here.
Any sense of "elementals are boring" is frankly a result of 3e having seperated elementals as a type from much of the other natives of the elemental planes, making the various genie-kin and many others as outsiders (outsiders with a major thematic disconnect from outer planes outsiders).
You want interesting, complex, non-standard elemental creatures? You don't have to make new ones. We already had the genies, animentals, mephits, and a lot of other creatures.
Admittedly, the elemental planes have never gotten the spotlight in the same way that the outer planes have, even in Planescape, but that "Out with the Old" bit reads like someone either ignored, or never read the various 2e inner planes sourcebooks, which had much of what they claimed wasn't around and needed to be fixed in 4e (because much of it was never updated or used in 3e).
The 5th element is Milla Jovovich. End of story. And I want a mini.
Damn straight! But I'll take a massive instead.*
I was going to say "maxi," but that just. didn't. sound. right.
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If you're still out there somewhere, frequenting the Paizo boards in cognito, I would very much appreciate it if you could post to explain how this happened please, to clear your good name and set the matter straight.
Uh, isn't the sentence you are referring to about a fire elemental and even you said that they don't have power attack?
Even if it wasn't...is this really name tarnishing and requiring of an explanation? Pretty much on the small scale to me. I dunno, just saying.
Well, I have to admite to agreeing with this article a little. I never really had any interest in the elementals. They never inspired an adventure they never fascinated me. They were always just another one of those rather forgettable monsters that were in the MM (the archons are also on that list of uninteresting monsters as well). As written, the elementals just never caught my imagination, patially because there was no accompanying fluff.
Didn't I read somewhere that they are getting rid of Power Attack because it was unfair to people who couldn't do math or something?
And now they want to change the Fire Elemental because it doesn't have 'anything cool like Power Attack?'
What?!?
Don't want to do the math to figure out damage from Power Attack?
Can't do the math to figure out the damage from Power Attack?GET A F*~~ING CALCULATOR!!!
You don't have remove a perfectly good and quite useful feat because some people can't won't do math. Either use a calculator or just don't use the feat.
but I am getting the hint more and more that cetrtain assumptions and flavor are being forced at us. Strange.
Back when I GMed Exalted, I had a player that would search out the most obscure detail that generalized the culture of such and such a group or race or people or etc. If I choose to play a particular person from the town differently, he'd challence the way I was playing that character. I'd tell him that this is this individual and the book doesn't speak to this individual I made up. He'd keep arguing that until I finally said, "I made my final decision." Even then he'd discuss how I was doing it "wrong" later. (This was also the same player that burned me out of GMing).
I fear for homebrewers that say, "This is how my game is going to be," only to fight the rules lawyers in their group every time they deviate from the book.
At the WotC Headquarters in Washington -
"Uh, sir? Yes, the lawyers for Chan, Zamman Rul, Sunnis, and Ben-Hadar are on line one. They're saying something about a libel suit for "inaccurate and denegrating comments about intelligence and tactics". Yes, apparently the "ogre without Power Attack" comment seemed to offend them. Yes sir, they're serious. Very serious. They have the ACLU on their side, citing "fair treatment no matter the elemental composition". Oh? The noise sir? Apparently Imix, Ogremoch, Yan-C-Bin, and Olhydra, having no plans or thoughts of their own, are attacking the building."
- "LOOK AT ALL THE FUN THINGS OGREMOCH CAN DO NOW THAT HE HAS ALL OF THIS FREE TIME!"
"By the way sir, this is my two weeks notice..."
- "LOOK AT ALL THE FUN THINGS OGREMOCH CAN DO NOW THAT HE HAS ALL OF THIS FREE TIME!"
Sir, you are made of win and awesome. :)