http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd%2F4wand%2F20130820

QuoteTiefling

Medium Humanoid
Alignment: Often evil Level: Low Environment: Any

Tieflings, fundamentally, are the descendants of humanoids whose blood was mingled with fiendish influence. The classic tiefling might have demonic, diabolic, or other fiendish ancestry, which might manifest in any of a wide range of physical quirks and magical abilities. That's the tiefling we'll be steering back toward in the future.

A lot has happened with tieflings since the Planescape days, though. For starters, 3rd Edition added some new varieties of tieflings drawn from the lore of the Forgotten Realms: tanarukks (fiend-blooded orcs) and fey'ri (or daemonfey, fiendish gold elves). Fourth Edition introduced a very distinctive look for tieflings, as well as a story that tied them (in the default setting) to the ancient empire of Bael Turath. Thus, 4th Edition tieflings had very specifically devilish, not demonic, ancestry, and they had a devilish look complete with pronounced horns and long tails.

The 4th Edition Forgotten Realms setting had an explanation for this change within the world's history. In the years around the Spellplague, Asmodeus made a successful bid for power, rising from a mere archdevil to an actual deity. As part of that scheme, he put his "blood" (metaphorically speaking) into every tiefling alive in the world at the time. These devilborn tieflings became the dominant form of tiefling, particularly with the disappearance of Mulhorand during the Spellplague. (Mulhorand had once boasted a significant population of tieflings claiming descent from the evil gods of the Mulhorandi pantheon.)

To make a long story short, as with so many other things, we're aiming for as inclusive an approach as possible. As the appearance of Farideh on the cover of Erin M. Evans' forthcoming novel The Adversary demonstrates, the 4th Edition look for tieflings is not going away, but we'll also have room for the variety of devilish and demonic tieflings the game has enjoyed in the past.

Well, I didn't know about that FR retcon (probably because I didn't get to see the last DM's guide to Forgotten Realms) but I guess it wouldn't surprise me.

I'm just glad you are probably gonna have the option to have somebody who could put on a cap and pretend that his forehead was caught in a rice-picking machine or something.  4E Tieflings were too obviously inhuman compared to previous editions, and the fact that they looked so much like Eredar made the Warcraft comparisons that much more inevitable.  

JG

When I played 4th edition, the tiefling was the first thing that caught my eye. The back story seemed kinda cool. At least, way cooler than a half-orc. Then I realized that a Dragonborn Fighter had the best chance of surviving "encounters" so I went with that.

One of the many trends in 4e I didn't like was the whole, "look at all these options! nah, just kidding. it's all pretty much just this way."

Unending stream of lvl 1 STR 18+ fighters despite AEDU promises, all rangers took Twin Strike (IIRC the at-will name), class standardized skill spread, boring magic items, surprising racial homogeneity despite declarations otherwise, art direction lacking variety, etc. It didn't mean to be so, and in fact promised to be different, but somehow the cult of balance really sucked out all the diversity in the final product. At some point you felt penalized for trying to buck the trend; I know my STR 11 fighter (which should be perfectly competent, despite not stellar) was just about unplayable in Encounters.

The more they undo the previous bad advice, the healthier the game will be.

I dunno. I dug the Tieflings' importance and their new origin in PoLand, I'm a little sad to see that go. I guess I'm neutral about their appearance, though I thought the 4e ones were pretty cool-looking.

I hope they won't go back to the late 3.5-era dragonborn fluff, though, I think that was just not very cool.

I wonder what the odds are that we'll eventually see a PoLand supplement for 5e, I gather that even if 4e itself met with a variety of negative opinions the core setting being lame was not among those opinions (except from fans of the Great Wheel).

Quote from: Opaopajr;683954Unending stream of lvl 1 STR 18+ fighters despite AEDU promises

Yup.  For any given class, there are two values for your prime attribute:  18 and 20.

Quote from: Opaopajr;683954all rangers took Twin Strike (IIRC the at-will name)

Yup.  There was very little reason to take anything else.  And the half-elf 'Dilletante' power that let you borrow from another class may as well have been named 'Twin Strike' as well.

Quote from: Opaopajr;683954surprising racial homogeneity despite declarations otherwise

Eh, I did like the fact that they gave races active powers.

Quote from: Opaopajr;683954I know my STR 11 fighter (which should be perfectly competent, despite not stellar) was just about unplayable in Encounters.

Yes, 11 in your primary attribute is going to seriously suck.  I don't know that it's much better in 3.x, though, at least without some kind of feat support to key off of a different attribute.  The way the bonus curve works, that +4 or +5 is *huge* in terms of your chances to hit, and with point-buy stats as the default option, the game has to be designed around the idea that everyone's got them.

I much prefer the more gradual ability bonus curves from B/X and 1e, and actually like random stat generation (in the right type of game).  With that combo, you can actually balance closer around the baseline and let bonuses actually be bonuses, not the presumed level of ability that everyone has.

I'd love to know how you pronounce "fey'ri" and how if at all it is different from how you would pronounce "feyri". Ah, apostrophes in fantasy languages, how do I love thee...

But snarkiness aside Planescape Tieflings were a cool idea (especially the random special features in the Planewalker's Handbook), although I would rather it be emphasised that the demonic ancestry is very old, indicating there is a tiny bit of demonic blood in the tiefling, rather than having a demon father or whatever, as the original Planescape iteration had it. I think a little bit of weirdness goes a long way with these things.

I strongly prefer 2e Tieflings, the way they were back in Planescape.

Hell with the Planewalker's Handbook you could get a bunch of random fun stuff for your Tiefling. Balanced? No, but cool!

...allthough to be honest I always preferred the element-touched guys to the devil-touched ones (...it's kinda a shades of gray area, though, isn't it, what with efreet probably being the most common nonhuman ancestry of Fire Genasi, and efreet ARE devils/demons, pretty much) and think the Genasi were in general the most fun of the planetouched dudes!

(Aasimar are just dull though.)

Quote from: The Ent;683994I strongly prefer 2e Tieflings, the way they were back in Planescape.

Hell with the Planewalker's Handbook you could get a bunch of random fun stuff for your Tiefling. Balanced? No, but cool!

...allthough to be honest I always preferred the element-touched guys to the devil-touched ones (...it's kinda a shades of gray area, though, isn't it, what with efreet probably being the most common nonhuman ancestry of Fire Genasi, and efreet ARE devils/demons, pretty much) and think the Genasi were in general the most fun of the planetouched dudes!

(Aasimar are just dull though.)

Yes! I loved the Genasi. Then again I always thought there was a strange conceptual rift at the heart of Planescape: you had the good/evil/lawful/chaos thing going on and the Blood War...but over there in the corner were the inner planes, which got nothing like as much love and seemed to be altogether a different setting; I think, primarily this was because it was really hard to imagine what an infinite plane of salt looked like or what would live in a place composed entirely of positive energy.

That reminds me. When they decided to fuck up the Forgotten Realms, did Calimshan go nuke because of Genashi parentage? I know they blew up more than a few countries because of slavery. But with the shitfest over Numenera and succubi, you'd think Tieflings and Genasi would throw the rape triggers button and TBP's panic room would open.

Quote from: noisms;683996Yes! I loved the Genasi. Then again I always thought there was a strange conceptual rift at the heart of Planescape: you had the good/evil/lawful/chaos thing going on and the Blood War...but over there in the corner were the inner planes, which got nothing like as much love and seemed to be altogether a different setting; I think, primarily this was because it was really hard to imagine what an infinite plane of salt looked like or what would live in a place composed entirely of positive energy.

Yeah.

Also in more "normal" campaign settings, the PCs probably have way more to do with stuff from the Inner Planes - well certainly in 2e.

The problem, I suppose, is that the Inner Planes are so inimical to mortal life. You can't survive on the Plane of Fire w/o fire resistance, or on the Plane of Water w/o being able to breathe water, the Plane of Air gets depressing fast if you can't fly, etc etc - the Pseudo/Quasi-Elemental Planes seem if anything even worse. :eek:

I suppose one would have to put the weirdness of the Inner Planes front and centre, while also playing up their differences. Like travelling seemingly endless caves/tunnels in the Plane of Earth say, or flying around in the Plane of Air. Whereas the Planes of Magma, Steam, Salt and so forth are probably just plain nasty!

(I think I read somewhere that the Inner Planes will be made more adventurer friendly in Next/5e - or were they improved that way back in 4e? :confused: Can't remember )

Quote from: The Ent;684002(I think I read somewhere that the Inner Planes will be made more adventurer friendly in Next/5e - or were they improved that way back in 4e? :confused: Can't remember )

Sort of both, actually, in different ways. In the 4e cosmology there's just one elemental plane, the Elemental Chaos, which is kind of like the Great Wheel cosmology's Limbo-- you know, constantly in motion and changing, a lava lake here, an ice mountain there, githzerai building monasteries, stuff like that, with some areas having stronger affinity for one element or another, and at the middle of it is a big hole that's the first layer of the Abyss.

Here's Mearls's article about the planar setup in 5e-- in terms of the elemental planes basically there's three layers to the elemental planes: first Border Elemental Planes which are like elementally-dominated reflections of the Material Plane, then the Deep Elemental planes which are the normal "Everything is FIRE!" setup, then the outermost ring is the Elemental Chaos basically like I just described (except presumably no Abyss since the Great Wheel is back).

I have no problem with any version of Tieflings.

For whatever reason, I have always used devils, demons, half demons, half devils, etc...fairly often.





Love the 'head caught in rice picker' reference


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSJ0x8j4uLw

Quote from: Bill;684006I have no problem with any version of Tieflings.

For whatever reason, I have always used devils, demons, half demons, half devils, etc...fairly often.





Love the 'head caught in rice picker' reference


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSJ0x8j4uLw

Between the "toss out the 2e version of Tieflings" and the "let's play Draconia-- er, Dragonborn!", that's my least interesting part of the backstory for 4e.

Quote from: LibraryLass;684005Here's Mearls's article about the planar setup in 5e-- in terms of the elemental planes basically there's three layers to the elemental planes: first Border Elemental Planes which are like elementally-dominated reflections of the Material Plane, then the Deep Elemental planes which are the normal "Everything is FIRE!" setup, then the outermost ring is the Elemental Chaos basically like I just described (except presumably no Abyss since the Great Wheel is back).

Now that does sound pretty awesome imo, I can allready envision mid-to-high level parties off on a quest through the Border Elemental Planes :cool:

Quote from: LibraryLass;683987I dunno. I dug the Tieflings' importance and their new origin in PoLand, I'm a little sad to see that go. I guess I'm neutral about their appearance, though I thought the 4e ones were pretty cool-looking.

I hope they won't go back to the late 3.5-era dragonborn fluff, though, I think that was just not very cool.

I wonder what the odds are that we'll eventually see a PoLand supplement for 5e, I gather that even if 4e itself met with a variety of negative opinions the core setting being lame was not among those opinions (except from fans of the Great Wheel).

Nentir Vale was the only good thing to come out of 4e. I was really saddened when they announced cancelation of the setting book they had planned...

Unfortunately, I doubt we'll see it for 5e either...