Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Nov 21, 2003 13:29:18	I was wondering, does everyone use the changes Manual of the Planes has brought? For example, like no Modrons, no Rilmani, no Para and Quasi planes? Or do you all just adapt the original Planescape material to 3rd edition rules?
#2 sildatorak Nov 21, 2003 13:34:52	I think I speak for most of the bloods here when I say that we stick with adapted material, though the MotP is useful in adapting game mechanics, such as damage/round from the plane of fire, etc.
#3 zombiegleemax Nov 21, 2003 13:44:03	Sigh, there ARE Modrons. There's even a Regulus write-up! And the MotP WE is all about Modrons. The Rilmani were just ignored. They have been mentioned in another WotC product, and as such, exist on the Great Wheel. Oh and, don't worry, most, if not all, of us, think that some of the random cosmological changes are insane, although Shemeska likes the Plane of Shadow, I just don't know what use it is. I still use the Ethereal- Astral methods of PS, because, without that the Ethereal is completely useless.
#4 incenjucar Nov 21, 2003 14:02:21	Frankly, things like the plane of Shadow, Dreams, Mirrors, Spirit, etc, all sound like they should be things that overlap with the prime, with occassional vortexes to the outer and inner planes. They're all essentially reality distortions.
#5 zombiegleemax Nov 21, 2003 14:12:26	Thank you! Now I know Im not alone in my distaste of the 3rd edition changes(not just to the Planes berks) I do have a few ideas regarding the Astral/Ethereal arc and the plane of Shadow Astral-Links to the Outer and Prime, as in 2nd edition Ethereal-Links to the Inner and Prime, also as in 2nd edition Ordial Plane: This would explain the 3rd edition Astral Plane phenomenon The Ordial plane connects the Planes of Thought with the Planes of Subsense(Outer and Inner) Plane of Shadow: In 2nd edition, it was only a Demi-plane if I remember correctly. Now how do you use this Plane that seemingly doesn't fit into the Planescape cosmology? Other than adapting ideas from the "A new look at Planescape" thread, heres my idea The Shadow Plane is just one of the Anti-Elemental planes. They are Inner planes, but unlike the Elemental and its Para and Quasi run-offs, don't connect with the Elemental Planes, but only the energy planes Shadow exists as a weird border plane between the Positive and Negative planes, and also as a dark mirror image to the Plane of Radiance(Dark vs. Light). Other Anti-Elemental Planes exist as well, and are also dark mirrors to their Elemental counterparts in a way. All of these Anti-elemental planes exist between the Positive and Negative energy planes Gravity: Dark twin to Vacuum. This plane is where the force of gravity orginates, all Gravity wells have links to this plane. Magnetism: Dark twin to lightning. In addition to acting as a Neutral Energy plane, this plane represents the force of Magnetism in action. Their are a total of Eight Anti-Elemental planes, each serving as in opposition to their Quasi-Elemental counterparts. While it is possible that counterparts for the Para and Core Elemental planes could exist, they seem to act as their own Antithesis' in one way or another, making it unlikely. As for Sprit, Mirrors and the rest of new planes, they either exist as you pointed out Incenjucar or they represent a third group of planes similiar to the Inner and Outer, which I find intriquing, but unlikely
#6 incenjucar Nov 21, 2003 14:33:01	From what I've seen, most people who have used the original great wheel prefer it to the simplified version of 3e. It's the role of the... let's call them pseudo planes, like Dream, Shadow, etc, that still gets argued over by the majority.
#7 bob_the_efreet Nov 21, 2003 16:36:23	Well, I don't have any older PS material, so I do, indeed, mostly use the MotP. I make some of my own changes as I see fit, but those changes are mostly due to my own personal preferences instead of adherence to original PS material, since I don't have the latter to reference.
#8 Shemeska_the_Marauder Nov 21, 2003 16:46:54	Aye, Planewalker seems to have gone with a set of Pseudoplanes, that encompass Shadow, Time, and Dream. The layout works with the rule of three, I will say that. But those planar mechanics will be released at some point in the future. They're mostly written up far as I know. As well there's brief overviews of the planes, to which I contributed Carceri, Gehenna, and the Waste. Typecasting myself it seems ;) Personally, and getting back to above, I have mixed feelings about the Dream plane being a full plane. I much prefered dreams budding, growing and bursting at the wall of color at the border of the border ethereal and the ethereal deep at the edges of the prime worlds. *shrugs* It was a cool concept.
#9 law Nov 21, 2003 17:26:45	I use all that works (which sorry is more then I can use at once ;) ) which means some one in the game might think one thing and another another thing and both are right and both are not right.
#10 moogle001 Nov 21, 2003 17:37:48	Originally posted by Incenjucar It's the role of the... let's call them psuedo planes, like Dream, Shadow, etc, that still gets argued over by the majority. Yes, funny that you'd group those planes as pseudo planes as well... *throws in Plane of Time* *shakes, wraps, rolls around a bit* *presents the Great Ring* :D
#11 incenjucar Nov 21, 2003 17:46:01	I don't care how Great the Ring is, or how much Time you put in to it, I'm still holding out for Shemmy. :D As for dream, that one's just so hard to place. Dreams are mental constructs, so they'd make sense to go through the astral. But the nature of the ethereal feels so much closer... but the shadow realm would seem where nightmares form... but spirit would seem to be the inspiration for them...
#12 Shemeska_the_Marauder Nov 21, 2003 17:48:02	I was waiting for you to hop into this
#13 zombiegleemax Nov 21, 2003 20:12:32	I think one reason is that there are simply too many planes in 2E (c.f. deity overpopulation). I used to DM planescape, it was too cool. But even after a few years, there are still many planes left completely uncovered (what a waste). IMHO, planescape is about feel. PCs should get a feel of the plane they are on, how different it is, etc. (and of course, bashing monsters). This means they have to stay long enough on 1 plane for a proper plot to hatch or feel to set in. Thus, planescape may be a bit too cluttered, having too many planes. MOTP is cleaner in that sense... but follows up with a host of optional planes for expansion.
#14 zombiegleemax Nov 21, 2003 21:22:04	I like to refer to 3rd edition as "D&D for Dummies" as EVERYTHING is overlysimplified. For example, at the beginning of the 3rd edition Player's Handbook, it even explains what a Role-Playing Game is! It would come to no surprise to me, if they even said "This object you are looking at is called a book". I still hold that 3rd edition was, and still is, a way for Wizards of the Coast to make money, as old players would find their old books obsolete, and would have to spend a great deal of money(those core 3rd edition books are twice as expensive as the 2nd edition ones were, at least when I bought them) to replace them. You dont see Monopoly or Chess getting new editions every ten years, so why cant D&D be the same? Now back to the main topic: So what did everyone think of my ideas regarding the Shadow Plane? Is it workable?
#15 manindarkness Nov 21, 2003 21:48:53	Originally posted by Incenjucar I don't care how Great the Ring is, or how much Time you put in to it, I'm still holding out for Shemmy. :D As for dream, that one's just so hard to place. Dreams are mental constructs, so they'd make sense to go through the astral. But the nature of the ethereal feels so much closer... but the shadow realm would seem where nightmares form... but spirit would seem to be the inspiration for them... In 2E the "Plane" of Dreams was between the Border and the Deep Ethereal. It was just not mentioned in PS...
#16 manindarkness Nov 21, 2003 23:05:03	As to how are the planes distributed, in the old days, when I was a signer, I envisioned them like this: The universe mirrors me (who else). It has four parts (we'll return to the four later): 1) The planes of substance (My body): They are divided in three: the material (air, earth, fire, water), the energy (positive, negative) and spirit (between them, all). 2) The planes of interaction (My emotions): They are divided in three: prime material, the projections (ethereal (desire), shadow (fear), faerie (achivement)) and the far realms. 3) The planes of introspection (My beliefs, ancestors and ideals): (Basically the Great Wheel). 4) The union of it all (the astral). All of the projection planes are divided in border and deep, and all of them connect to the Inner and Outer, albeit they have preferences. As to how the FR fit in it all, I imagined that the Realms' portals mostly connected to a handful of realms and planes, creating the illusion that the cosmology was quite different.
#17 zombiegleemax Nov 22, 2003 1:50:24	In 2nd Edition, the Plane of Dreams was the second "layer" of the Ethereal Plane. The Nightmare Lands boxed set for the Ravenloft setting stated the color curtains which separated the Near Ethereal and the Deep Ethereal were actually and infinitely thin dimension general inaccessable to the waking mind. However, it some places, bubbles formed in this ethereal boundry, giving access to dream-scapes. The Nightmare Lands were a particularly nasty dream-scape bubbles engulfed by Ravenloft. But you never knew that, eh? ;) Chris Nichols [ Edit: ManInDarkness beat me to it, but I did provide a bit more detail. ]
#18 zombiegleemax Nov 22, 2003 2:10:27	MotP has its advantages and disadvantages over the PS books. For one, it provides information about all layers for all planes (except the Abyss, the Para- and Quasi-elemental, and a couple of others) in one book with a little more clarity than any of the PS books I've read have done. That's not to say that PS never had clarity in any of its books on what the planes were like. This clarity came over several books, not just one. It also gives a bit of idea on how to run game rules for certain planar effects, such as gravity traits, magic, etc. There are a couple of things I -don't- like about MotP, though. First off, it seems to be written more for DMs. This is a hindrance, in my opinion. If you've read the 2E PS stuff, most of it (At least the parts on the Great Wheel) had a section for DMs to read and a section for the players. A player reading MotP will find out far more than he really should know as a player. Second, as I've said several times before, MotP lacks character. One of the things that made Planescape so appealing to me was the "in character" tone of virtually all of its sourcebooks. The way the books were written, one could actually hear a person sitting with you in Sigil and telling you how things are. MotP reads like a textbook and while it's a fairly interesting textbook, it's still just a textbook, and I don't like how it took the character out of the planes. I also hate MotP for leaving out the important stuff, like modrons and, most importantly, we rilmani. It's actually very rude. As for your Plane of Shadow idea...I don't think it would fit between the Positive and Negative. First, there are no shadows on Positive, cutter. It's all bright there. Second, the borders for positive and negative are pretty well defined by the quasi-elemental planes. I don't think Shadow would have any room. I don't mind the idea of Shadow being a transitive plane as vast as the Astral or Ethereal, provided that it doesn't overshadow (no pun intended) the nature and value of the latter two planes. The Astral links all of the Outer Planes; the Ethereal, the Inner. Both planes connect to the Prime. The Shadow could be a viable option to help keep the three unified by extending its reach to the Inner, Outer, and Prime planes. The Ordial, on the other hand, would link the Outer and Inner (or the Astral and Ethereal or both) with each other but completely skip the Prime.
#19 zombiegleemax Nov 22, 2003 2:30:01	Originally posted by ManinDarkness In 2E the "Plane" of Dreams was between the Border and the Deep Ethereal. It was just not mentioned in PS... Actually, it was mentioned in 2E Guide to the Ethereal Plane. Even the sample entry on dreamscape, about a girl with a dragon, was ripped off from that PS book. On a separate note, how many people actually do play campaigns that travel extensively to the quasi-elemental planes? I think that's why those planes were scrapped.
#20 Shemeska_the_Marauder Nov 22, 2003 8:27:10	Well, I'll be hitting the quasiplanes soon, in fact I've got some major material written for them once my players are done with their current outer plane travels.
#21 primemover003 Nov 22, 2003 11:03:06	Originally posted by Sword_Of_Geddon I like to refer to 3rd edition as "D&D for Dummies" as EVERYTHING is overlysimplified. For example, at the beginning of the 3rd edition Player's Handbook, it even explains what a Role-Playing Game is! [snip] Now back to the main topic: So what did everyone think of my ideas regarding the Shadow Plane? Is it workable? Firstly I don't think it's D&D for dummies. It's a system designed to get new player's started more easily. Even though it may be a ploy to garner maximum cash for WotC doesn't mean it's a bad game. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) is a sound concept. 3E is a vast improvement over 2E (just look at part II of my sig). As for the Shadow, I actually prefer it's new status. The whole "Transitive" concept of labling the Astral, Ethereal, and Shadow as something other than just in between planes is cool. I also think it is great as a connection to alternate primes. Another thing the MotP is good at, even sans flavor, is streamlining the Planar traits. Even as organized a DM as I am after 10 years the old planar traits gave me a headache and I forgot most of them in play anyway. Going KISS makes applying mechanics of a whole new reality quite easy. Considering that Jeff Grubb wrote the MotP, I'm not surprised it was a little bland... have you ever read the 1e MotP? It was like bad stereo instructions!
#22 zombiegleemax Nov 22, 2003 11:19:56	I'm with you on this one primemover003. About 5 or 6 years ago, I tried to start playing AD&D (was very young back) and while nowdays I have read many 2E books and stuff, and understand many of it's rules, back then I coudn't, it was just too complicated, not beacase the rules themselves were (wich wasen't the case) but because everything and I reamark it EVERYTHING already asumed you as a veteran Rolplayer and D&D fan... I mean I really hated D&D back then, no clear explanations, many, MANY rules dumped all over the manual many of them regarding other ones from OTHER manuals... WotC has done a GREAT WORK, now, I play D&D, y DM D&D, and I love the game, something TSR never achived, and my case is not the only one. Sure... their books are more oriented to sole porpouse of earning cash... but hey... they ARE a company... it's their job. By the way, I also discovered Planescape with 3E already running, so I mostly use all the oficial crap that pops out in this and that manuals... kinda confusing at first... I'm thinking of compiling it all.
#23 zombiegleemax Nov 23, 2003 14:18:53	If 3rd edition in that case was created to appeal to new players, than I suppose it did do its job well in that case. However, I find the 2nd edition Players Handbook, and DM's Guide ALOT easier to understand than their 3rd edition counterparts, but then again, thats just me. But then again, 2nd edition was considered ADVANCED Dungeons and Dragons, and that could explain why new people couldn't get into it at first. On that note I will say that there is no 3rd edition AD&D. There were previously two editions of D&D(Not AD&D), and the 3rd edition we see now is the 3rd edition of that game. ........................................................................................................
#24 zombiegleemax Nov 24, 2003 1:11:29	I'll have to admit that I started with 3e, but I've looked at 2e more than a few times and I get the impression that it was needlessly complex in comparison. There's a mathematical elegance to 3e that 2e was lacking. If you're quick at multiplication and division you can actually work out base stats. 2e uses inconsistent tables that don't let you do this. If you aren't quick with numbers you probably don't care, but it's just an example of how they really streamlined (and I would dare to say improved) the mechanics. On the other hand, I'd say the major difference between Planescape and the MotP is that the first was a setting that talked a lot about tone and took pains to accomodate lower-level adventuring parties, while the second is basically aimed at providing new challenges for higher-level parties. WotC themselves have put out at least three planar adventure modules that are all aimed at parties in the high teens. Myself, I kind of like the new layout's adherance to the rule of threes. Most of their transitive planes aren't useful unless you're spending a lot of time on the prime, though, so they're a poor setup for planewalkers. The inner planes? I like to think of them as being a good starting point for introducing entropes.