ok so i've been playing rpg games since ad&d. I still haven't learned what the differnce is between celestials? outsiders? infernels? and what ever other typr of creature type I forgot.
now that I have internet access at work, i think its time i stopped being stupid and learned what the differences are.
thanks.
this is because we don't use minis, or bestairy. its always in the mind.
you can have a plastic mini on the board, but if you remove it and an awesome description. the monster is more bad ass than any mini can ever do it justice.
Outsiders are creatures not native to the Material Plane.
Celestials and Infernals are outsiders, celestials come from the good aligned planes, while infernals from the evil ones (or even just the LE one in that case?).
Theres alot more outsiders than that and celestials and infernals can both be broken down in dozens of races.
Insider? Never heard that before but I guess following the Outsider logic those are all the creatures native to the material plane like humans and goblins etc?
I guessed inside was one, i mean outsider was.
what about the planes. could someone explain the differences of those?
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This should help with the Planes.
If you don't use the Bestiaries/Monster Manuals did you just make up your own statistics for monsters or have no stats at all? How did Knowledge: The Planes work in your games?
Well I would like to refer you to the PFSRD, it has pretty much all the informations of all the books there. Just type something into the search field to find info about something. It works surprisingly well. :)
Here's the direct link to the page about planes.
Reading through this, Insider might also refer to denizens of the Inner Planes, like Elementals etc. As I said never heard that term before.
Hey! Welcome, and it's better that you ask than go on not knowing!
Okay, so let's look at this.
: "outsider" is a creature that is partially composed of the essence of (if not the material substance of) some plane other than the material. This is a creature type. In other words, in the same way that humanoid is a creature type, an outsider is a creature type. Some spells affect humanoids that don't affect outsiders and vice verse (although the reverse is less common). Rules for outsiders are associated with the link I've provided.
: Well, this is a bit tricky in terms of game-rules, because there's the Celestial template, the half-celestial template, the Celestial Bloodline (for sorcerers), and even things like the Celestial-Blessed template. The one thing all of those have in common, though, is that they all are related to outsiders (see the above) with a good alignment - or more specifically, a good subtype.
Subtypes are... well: here, follow this link. The short version are that sub-types are what defines a creature more than it's general type. Humans are humanoids, for example, but so are elves. Obviously, they're not the same! So humans are "humanoid (human)" while elves are "humanoid (elf)" and half elves (being both human and elf) are "humanoid (elf, human)". Subtypes get a little more complicated than that, because if a creature is composed of fire, they can have the fire subtype (although usually this is relegated to outsiders), or if they're inherently good or bad or lawful or chaotic, they can have that subtype as well.
So the short version is, a "Celestial" is just a short hand way of talking about a creature with the type "Outsider (good)". A celestial could have more subtypes than that, but it doesn't matter: "Oustider (chaotic, good, fire)" is just as much a "Celestial" creature as one that is "Outsider (air, good, law, native)". It doesn't matter what the other subtypes are, so long as the outsider has the good subtype.
: Well, much like celestials, this basically revolves around outsiders with a subtype. It is, in fact, a short-hand way of talking about outsiders with the evil subtype.
There are Fiendish and half-fiendish templates, as well as a Fiendish Heritage feat, but they all deal with having ancestors be outsiders with the (evil) subtype.
: "Insiders" isn't an actual game term, at all. I could mean someone who knows stuff, though! Generally anything that's not an outsider can be (mostly) presumed to come from the material plane. That's not an absolute, however, as fey technically come from another plane... but then again that's a whole different can of worms that doesn't bear on this conversation. Outsiders with a "native" subtype are actually from the material plane, but part of their essence comes from elsewhere. So, for example, if a celestial (an outsider with the good subtype, let's call it an angel) has children with, say, a human, they give birth to a half-celestial. If that half-celestial has children with another human, they (probably) give birth to an aasimar. An aasimar the "Outsider (native)" type and subtype, because it's two generations of humans, lived on the material plane for it's whole life, and is part of the material plane. But part of it (it's soul) is still touched by that divine grace from the angel, it's grandfather.
(and also ):
Okay, so we know that "Celestial" is basically "good outsider" and "Fiendish" is basically "evil outsider", so what's the deal with infernal and abyssal? Aren't those the same as fiendish? Well... not quite.
"Infernal" is a fiend (an evil outsider) with the lawful subtype. Think of this as the devils of hell - an undeniably evil, but well-ordered system of cruelty and malice. Generally, when someone talks about infernal stuff, they mean devils - lawful evil outsiders. Devils are not the only lawful evil outsiders, though, and if you want to specify more than infernal, when talking about devils you can use the word "diabolic", which refers only to devils.
"Abyssal" is a fiend (an evil outsider) with the chaotic sybtype. Think of this as the demons of the abyss - an undeniably evil, and completely arbitrary and chaotic group filled with spite and wickedness. Generally when someone talks about abyssal stuff, they mean demons - chaotic evil outsiders. Demons aren't the only chaotic evil outsider, though, and when talking about demons in specific, you can use the word "demonic", which refers only to demons.
Then there's "daemonic" (which looks like "demonic" only with an added "a" after the "d"), which are a specific type of neutral evil outsiders.
Generally, chaotic evil outsiders (abyssal creatures) hate lawful evil outsiders (infernal creatures) and neither are fond of neutral evil outsiders (which have no particular designation to encompass them).
That's a lot of information. Does that help, though?
EDIT: heh, ninja'd.
How do you not play with a bestiary?
you truly are a scholar and gentleman. thanks.
We've always just gone with it. We're pretty mature besides one guy, and he's new to the table. Knowledge checks? I'm a cleric. I have 1 knowledge. Religon.
The only plane that ever comes up is the ethereal plane. Ghost right?!
Looking back over the years, I wonder sometimes. But, things are only as complicated as you let and make them to be.
Think of the term Outsider like Foreigner, and then Celestials, Infernals, etc are specific types of Foreigners.
Or you could call a French and English guy "European" or you could specify that one is French and the other is English.
How do you not play with a bestiary?
Ever fought a bearsharktapus or a squirelbearadon?
not a real man until ;)
So you've always been a player? Never a DM/GM? I think people are just curious what systems were used at your table.
Did the Game Master just make up stats for his own creatures? Or make up stats for pre-existing creatures? No stats?
Did you play modules or was this all homebrew?
You mentioned you're a Cleric with just Knowledge: Religion. Have you always just played Clerics? What did you do for Knowledge Skills in previous games?
So you've always been a player? Never a DM/GM? I think people are just curious what systems were used at your table.
Did the Game Master just make up stats for his own creatures? Or make up stats for pre-existing creatures? No stats?
Did you play modules or was this all homebrew?
You mentioned you're a Cleric with just Knowledge: Religion. Have you always just played Clerics? What did you do for Knowledge Skills in previous games?
no i've not alway been a player.
we never use stats or a bestairy at our table. we own them (just ordered pathfinders, best i've ever seen by the way. i've only seen one opened at the table once or twice.
we've played ad&d, 3,3.5, pathfinder,and multiple palladium games.
The Dms in our game (myself included) describe what the PCs are fighting. If one rolls the approprate check to identify it then they discover what it is.
I usually dont use stats, i can't vouch for my other friends who DM. I let the PCs fight until they don't think they can win. Without maps, using tatics are that much stronger. Esp when you can just put guys where you feel like.
The PCs feellike they are n a fight if they are having a hard time winning. I am jusst now looking at the CR stuff. Going to be using and asking a lot of questions about it soon.
Also, we don't do PFS stuff, we're all homebrew guys. I may not be a stickler for the rulesbut i got imagination and im old now.