Today's Unearthed Arcana.

[Unoriginal]

You know, there are much worse threads on this forum, but this thread contains everything that's not to love about the 5e subforum.

[Kuulvheysoon]

You know, there are much worse threads on this forum, but this thread contains everything that's not to love about the 5e subforum.

We haven't had hating on the designers or the Nameless King name-dropped yet, so it's not that bad yet.

[Unoriginal]

We haven't had hating on the designers or the Nameless King name-dropped yet, so it's not that bad yet.

Someone outright called the designers liars, and you just name-dropped him, so...

[Hesh]

How can you name something without a name?

[Arkhios]

Holy crap what a wall of text!

Have you ever heard about thing called sarcastic humour or irony? Maybe try laughing at yourself every once in a while? It is amusing that nearly every thread about UA devolves into endless arguing about Eberron sooner or later.

[Unoriginal]

How can you name something without a name?

The Nameless King's name is Lucius Threvor.

I wish it was a joke.

[Tetrasodium]

Have you ever heard about thing called sarcastic humour? Maybe try laughing at yourself every once in a while? It is amusing that nearly every thread about UA devolves into endless arguing about Eberron.

actually, you seem to have missed all of the not faerun enough folks falling all over themselves to justify why scag is not a faerun book, the hardcover set in faerun adventures are not faerun enough, or just how horribly the inclusion of goliaths as a plauable race screwed with "established" lore of being little more than a spitball you could choose to integrate in one of a few example ways. don't forget about the pages of not faerun enough folks whining among themselves that wotc hasn't done anything with dragonlance, mystara, biurthright, or whatever either.

As to your sarcasm question, if you bothered to read my linked summary of the thread, you'd see quite a bit of it. I'm just getting tired of the "default setting, suck it" & "the core books are totally not faerun because they aren't faerun enough like um... like people aren't god fearing enough or this spitball of an idea with no ties to anything meaningful is very different after fourth edition stfu with your concerns about real harms".. .only to have both of those groups realize their arguments are falling apart turn on the people voicing concerns & blame those people for their own threadjack. so take your complaint about how threads devolve when there is reason to mention concerns about eberron & direct that very well deserved hate at the FR & default setting crowd regularly trolling those concerns where it belongs.

[Millstone85]

No there's not a thread but the default setting is totally not fr crowd can't be bothered to start one themselves & suggests the person asking make one instead

I didn't know that I counted as a crowd.

Anyway, my apologies to Hesh if "Maybe you can start one" came across as dismissive. This would be an interesting thread to make, but I indeed do not want to bother myself with the risk of restarting this same drama all over again.

I did provide two bullets for that hypothetical list, which I already feel are pretty setting-defining though clearly Tetrasodium disagrees. I may have a third one, but it goes straight into another highly flammable material: paladin alignments.

[Tetrasodium]

I didn't know that I counted as a crowd.

Anyway, my apologies to Hesh if "Maybe you can start one" came across as dismissive. This would be an interesting thread to make, but I indeed do not want to bother myself with the risk of restarting this same drama all over again.

I did provide two bullets for that hypothetical list, which I already feel are pretty setting-defining though clearly Tetrasodium disagrees. I may have a third one, but it goes straight into another highly flammable material: paladin alignments.

I was not the one who asked for it, given that you are not the only one to raise complaints about how the default setting it somehow totally different from & wildly incompatible with forgotten realms, I'm not sure how you think that you are alone in that. Also given that the question was asked three days ago & there has been no such thread, mocking their devotion to this oh so dramatic incompatibility is more than justified once scotts dragon was chided into going back to see what goliiaths were before 4e.

[Millstone85]

I was not the one who asked for it

That's why I apologized to Hesh.

given that you are not the only one to raise complaints about how the default setting it somehow totally different from & wildly incompatible with forgotten realms, I'm not sure how you think that you are alone in that.

I was alone in suggesting Hesh made a thread.

And, eh, I did refer to the default setting as FR-lite. I am not claiming it is "totally different & wildly incompatible", just different. And maybe worth a word of warning at FR tables, in case a PHB reader came thinking they can play a chaotic paladin empowered by a philosophy or natural forces.

[Envyus]

Tetrasodium I think you need a break from the thread. You are clearly far too worked up about this, given that I can barely understand what your complaints are about now as your posts are getting too long and incomprehensible.

[Hesh]

The Nameless King's name is Lucius Threvor.

I wish it was a joke.

[Tetrasodium]

That's why I apologized to Hesh.

I was alone in suggesting Hesh made a thread.

And, eh, I did refer to the default setting as FR-lite. I am not claiming it is "totally different & wildly incompatible", just different. And maybe worth a word of warning at FR tables, in case a PHB reader came thinking they can play a chaotic paladin empowered by a philosophy or natural forces.

kinda like your saying fr defenders are blowing hot air when people from eberron, darksun, etc point out blatant incompatibilities & obvious ties to faerun/greyhawk/etc in core books being problematic for them trying to run settings with very different baselines than the fairly similar greyhawk/faerun baselines eh... or when those same champions of FR do things like claim how 4e eberron planes being replaced in all but name to make them more compatible with those of faerun/greyhawk/etc has nothing to do with faerun even though it was such a horrible thing wotc published an alternate way that changes the stuff being imported instead of the places it was imported to was complete nonsense. I'm not suggesting that you specfically are the most militant of those champions of faerun, but a good number of them won't even allow things like calling salvatore's drizzt & accompanying drow "fr style" even though those books are indeed set in forgotten realms as was displayed around page 2 or 3. Even though with the exception of CoS every 5e book has been set in faerun, or nearly entirely compatible with faerun (especially compared to settings like eberron/darksun/maybe planescape/etc) we have had multiple champions of faerun complaining that they don't cont and are not faerun enough before they decided to start attacking the people who raised concerns about a setting with justifiable reasons for concern that has not had nearly every 5e book set in or devoted to it. So yea, I've had it up to here with eliminster's chosen whining that they don't have it good enough while yelling at anyone who raises concern about things that look like wotc has eleminster's wand of fireballs pointed at $OtherSetting because of things like the goliath shaped hangnail that eliminster's chosen are suffering under. Eberron fans voice concerns about things that seem to indicate history is look at what goliathsdid to poor faerun man & stop trolling.

If the recap was not obvious enough, the point that I'm making is that those attacking people who raised concerns about eberron are attacking the wrong group... which is not surprising given how many were acting as Eliminsters champions trying to attack those concerns in order to defend against slights that had never been made.

[MeeposFire]

Have you ever heard about thing called sarcastic humour or irony? Maybe try laughing at yourself every once in a while? It is amusing that nearly every thread about UA devolves into endless arguing about Eberron sooner or later.

I love Eberron and FR but these FR and Eberron fans complaining about the treatment of the settings is driving me nuts considering that is NOT the topic of thread. It really makes me sad because I think anybody reading this that do not know the settings already will get a really bad impression and that is just unfortunate if you are a fan of these settings.

[War_lord]

If it was, as you're trying to frame it, Eberron fans levelheadedly expressing reasonable concerns about the direction of the product in discussion where such concerns had a solid foundation. But that's not what's happening, is it. Instead Regitnui finds a way to turn every thread into a "what about Eberron" argument, but hey, at least his posts are legible and I could mistake it for good faith if he didn't do it every time. You, on the other hand, post barely legible rants that you clearly have no intention of ever discussing (you know, the point of a forum) the points of in a logical and objective manner.

What was the point of the essay you dropped? Leaving aside the fact that it's full of factual errors (Drow originate in Grayhawk, they were originally an Gygax creation, where they were almost always Chaotic Evil, Eclavdra was a sexy evil Priestess long before Salvatore wrote Crystal Shard). Who are you trying to convince, what new argument are you actually trying to make? When anyone does actually address your points and debunks them you just accuse them of being part of the great FR conspiracy against you and carry on rambling. At this point even if I did want to engage with you in good faith, your posts are nigh on impossible to make sense of because you're pretty clearly foaming at the mouth enraged. What do you actually expect to get out of this interaction?

I love Eberron and FR but these FR and Eberron fans complaining about the treatment of the settings is driving me nuts considering that is NOT the topic of thread. It really makes me sad because I think anybody reading this that do not know the settings already will get a really bad impression and that is just unfortunate if you are a fan of these settings.

What do FR fans have to do with it? Scotsdragon brought up the subject of how FR is treated by WoTC because Regitnui and Tetrasodium kept banging on about how Eberron was being uniquely discriminated against. Given the fact that I don't like FR and have publicly criticized its problems, I don't agree with the attempt to characterize the subforum's problems in this department as a bipartisan war. Tetrasodium would certainly like to characterize it as such, but as someone who had my own thread about MToF hijacked by the "what about Eberron" crowd, I will fight against that imposition.

[Envyus]

or when those same champions of FR do things like claim how 4e eberron planes being replaced in all but name to make them more compatible with those of faerun/greyhawk/etc has nothing to do with faerun even though it was such a horrible thing wotc published an alternate way that changes the stuff being imported instead of the places it was imported to was complete nonsense.

If the recap was not obvious enough, the point that I'm making is that those attacking people who raised concerns about eberron are attacking the wrong group... which is not surprising given how many were acting as Eliminsters champions trying to attack those concerns in order to defend against slights that had never been made.

Ok I feel the need to point out these two points. 4e Eberron's planes being replaced had nothing to do with FR/Greyhawk. Because FR had it's planes changed too. The Entire cosmology for the edition was changed. Both of them had their planes changed to match the default of 4e. (I can't make out the rest of your post.)

One no one is attacking Eberron. No one here is acting as Elminsters champions. And you are the one attacking in order to defend against slights that have not been made.

[Regitnui]

Have you ever heard about thing called sarcastic humour or irony? Maybe try laughing at yourself every once in a while? It is amusing that nearly every thread about UA devolves into endless arguing about Eberron sooner or later.

I'd like to point out to War_lord and the rest of the users on this thread that I didn't start the Eberron derailment, I was arguing in good faith about absolutist flavour in the PHB description of drow and how Drizzt and Drizzt-style characters were the only method for non-Evil drow PCs presented even though every other writeup uses words like "usually" and/or offers alternatives, even with the other "Evil" PC race, the tieflings.

Then the fact that I might be arguing from a biased standpoint (that of the Setting That Shall Not Be Named For Fear Of Attracting Users Who Have No Other Purpose In Life) was brought up, and I agreed as that Setting has the most prominent non-Drizzt drow. That's when the derailment happened and the vultures descended. I take no responsibility for Tetrasodium, his posting style or his views, so please do not lump me in with him.

[Scots Dragon]

I'd like to point out to War_lord and the rest of the users on this thread that I didn't start the Eberron derailment, I was arguing in good faith about absolutist flavour in the PHB description of drow and how Drizzt and Drizzt-style characters were the only method for non-Evil drow PCs presented even though every other writeup uses words like "usually" and/or offers alternatives, even with the other "Evil" PC race, the tieflings.

Honestly the tieflings bother me way more even speaking as a huge and unyielding fan of Eilistraee, since they were never portrayed as evil-by-default in their original appearance, and in fact their lower-planar origins were always left vague and sketchy so as to give them more internal variety, with the idea that basically any evil outsider could have spawned them. Accordingly, their bloodlines were unpredictable and no two tieflings looked precisely alike, with their fiendish appearances ranging from very subtle and almost indistinguishable from any other human to extremely obvious and inhuman in a variety of ways. More often than not their heritage was specified as being from demons as a result of interbreeding involving the preexisting part-fiendish races, cambions and alu-fiends, both qualifying as demons. The only alignment the tieflings were restricted from was lawful good, and they're listed as 'Any Neutral or Evil' in their alignment bar in their Monstrous Compendium entry, and good tieflings are specifically mentioned in their ecology section.

The recent transformation of tieflings into a race which is usually some kind of lawful evil, always looks like exactly the same horned-and-tailed humanoid, and is always descended specifically from devils usually with influence from Asmodeus is a contradiction of the original lore on every single possible level aside from 'fiendish-blooded human'. And given that things were only just walked back from them being descended from humans who made a diabolical pact and were transformed into another race en masse, I'm tempted to discount even that potential similarity.

[Regitnui]

The recent transformation of tieflings into a race which is usually some kind of lawful evil, always looks like exactly the same horned-and-tailed humanoid, and is always descended specifically from devils usually with influence from Asmodeus is a contradiction of the original lore on every single possible level aside from 'fiendish-blooded human'.

To be entirely fair to Wizards, they have made some attempt with the tiefling variants. Tieflings and Aasimar are both more deserving of the amount of attention and variants WotC seems to want to give to elves. If you have any fiend or celestial in your bloodline, why not have a hairy simian tiefling (demogorgon influence) or a feathery, rainbow-skinned aasimar (coatl influence)?

[Unoriginal]

Honestly the tieflings bother me way more even speaking as a huge and unyielding fan of Eilistraee, since they were never portrayed as evil-by-default in their original appearance, and in fact their lower-planar origins were always left vague and sketchy so as to give them more internal variety, with the idea that basically any evil outsider could have spawned them. Accordingly, their bloodlines were unpredictable and no two tieflings looked precisely alike, with their fiendish appearances ranging from very subtle and almost indistinguishable from any other human to extremely obvious and inhuman in a variety of ways. More often than not their heritage was specified as being from demons as a result of interbreeding involving the preexisting part-fiendish races, cambions and alu-fiends, both qualifying as demons. The only alignment the tieflings were restricted from was lawful good, and they're listed as 'Any Neutral or Evil' in their alignment bar in their Monstrous Compendium entry, and good tieflings are specifically mentioned in their ecology section.

The recent transformation of tieflings into a race which is usually some kind of lawful evil, always looks like exactly the same horned-and-tailed humanoid, and is always descended specifically from devils usually with influence from Asmodeus is a contradiction of the original lore on every single possible level aside from 'fiendish-blooded human'. And given that things were only just walked back from them being descended from humans who made a diabolical pact and were transformed into another race en masse, I'm tempted to discount even that potential similarity.

Tiefling aren't automatically lawful evil, though, nor portrayed as such. WotC just decided to tie their bloodline to Hell in particular.

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes will have several Tiefling variants depending on which Duke messed with their bloodline, so at least they will be less homogenised.

[Tetrasodium]

Honestly the tieflings bother me way more even speaking as a huge and unyielding fan of Eilistraee, since they were never portrayed as evil-by-default in their original appearance, and in fact their lower-planar origins were always left vague and sketchy so as to give them more internal variety, with the idea that basically any evil outsider could have spawned them. Accordingly, their bloodlines were unpredictable and no two tieflings looked precisely alike, with their fiendish appearances ranging from very subtle and almost indistinguishable from any other human to extremely obvious and inhuman in a variety of ways. More often than not their heritage was specified as being from demons as a result of interbreeding involving the preexisting part-fiendish races, cambions and alu-fiends, both qualifying as demons. The only alignment the tieflings were restricted from was lawful good, and they're listed as 'Any Neutral or Evil' in their alignment bar in their Monstrous Compendium entry, and good tieflings are specifically mentioned in their ecology section.

The recent transformation of tieflings into a race which is usually some kind of lawful evil, always looks like exactly the same horned-and-tailed humanoid, and is always descended specifically from devils usually with influence from Asmodeus is a contradiction of the original lore on every single possible level aside from 'fiendish-blooded human'. And given that things were only just walked back from them being descended from humans who made a diabolical pact and were transformed into another race en masse, I'm tempted to discount even that potential similarity.

agreed, the phb42ish thing about tieflings & ties to asmodious has a similar but less dramatic slant as the drow entry. I think that perhaps whatever corner of slashfic hell gave us the 4e planar changes involving asmodious & his whole crappy metaplot had not been thoroughly chastised enough when that section was written. Going by the tiefling video done by Mearls a couple months back, it looks like someone at WotC cracked open the planeswalkers handbook & beat that person bloody with it because it seems like they are shifting gears to simply "plane touched" as he notes. The tiefling unearthed arcana is very obviously likely to be tied to stuff to be better explained in mtof, but looks like it might have been a start towards leaning down that path that way given the names I recognize.

[Millstone85]

or when those same champions of FR do things like claim how 4e eberron planes being replaced in all but name to make them more compatible with those of faerun/greyhawk/etc has nothing to do with faerun

4e Eberron's planes being replaced had nothing to do with FR/Greyhawk. Because FR had it's planes changed too. The Entire cosmology for the edition was changed. Both of them had their planes changed to match the default of 4e.

I first played D&D in 4e FR. I was utterly confused by the lore until I finally put two and two together and realized that the PHB, the MotP, etc., were all written for another setting (called Nentir Vale, not that the books told you that) that was not only another planet but had a "totally different & wildly incompatible" (for 4e, I do see it that way) canon at the cosmic level. For example, was the Abyss thrown into the Elemental Chaos by Asmodeus, or was it created there by Tharizdun? FR and NV had different answers on that, and on many other things.

The NV cosmology was pushed on FR, Eberron and Dark Sun, but without the idea that those could coexist within the same canon. They were made to have identical cosmologies, rather than share the same cosmology. Was it worse than what is currently going on with the 5e Great Wheel? I am tempted to say yes.

[Consensus]

The NV cosmology was pushed on FR, Eberron and Dark Sun, but without the idea that those could coexist within the same canon. They were made to have identical cosmologies, rather than share the same cosmology. Was it worse than what is currently going on with the 5e Great Wheel? I am tempted to say yes.

I would say its about the same, except 5e does it much more quietly because it doesn't have any support for non-generic and non-fr (not trying restart that argument, those are just the only settings material has been released for.) Then again, I wasn't around for 4e, since I only came to D&D in 2016.

[Scots Dragon]

I would say its about the same, except 5e does it much more quietly because it doesn't have any support for non-generic and non-fr (not trying restart that argument, those are just the only settings material has been released for.) Then again, I wasn't around for 4e, since I only came to D&D in 2016.

Spoiler: On the other hand...

Show

As for how bad D&D 4E was... basically all of the problems people raise with D&D 5E here are pretty much just the after-effects of nonsense imposed on the game's lore and worlds by D&D 4E, with pretty much all of the settings undergoing at least mild alteration. This ranged from a few retcons to explain new races, as with Eberron, to more extensive retcons to insert new races as with Dark Sun, to outright radically reshaping the setting entirely with the Forgotten Realms. There was also technically Greyhawk, which was pulped and strip-mined for material that was inserted into the Nentir Vale generic setting.