Balrogs were changed to “Balors,” I believe after some strong words from the Tolkein estate.
Balor was just the most powerful of the Type VI demons. It was a name and not a type of monster.
We live for pedantry on the SDMB. Nonetheless, I accept your corrections.
I admit I came late to Dungeons and Dragons, starting with the basic set and then AD&D. I missed out on the earliest versions.
OK, I can’t help myself, I just went and checked. I have the original 3 book D&D set and the old single blue book and neither lists Balrogs. Barrow-wights and Hobbits were mentioned but I did not find Nazguls or Ring Wraiths either so I was probably wrong on them. As a bonus Ents were in it.
Me too! Started with the red box with the Erol Otus cover, and then moved on to AD&D.
IIRC the Balrogs were only in the first, or first few editions.
runs off to check Google
OK, found the link I was looking for. This is where I remember reading about the Balrogs (but had forgotten the name of the site)
Scroll down to “sixth edition” and they mention the Balrog-removal (pesky Balrogs).
Ha ha, I guess I’m being pretty pedantic too.
OK, that makes sense.
So did they have wings? Could they fly?
If they were anything like Tolkien’s, yes and no, respectively.
Goodbye thread!
Ah indeed. Did they all have a shadow of wings, or just the Balor?
You misspelt “Jackson’s” 
prize for everyone who came here - great xkcd - LOTR related cartoon
I thought the old D&D (of the 1980 time frame) called them "Pit Fiend"s?
a couple comments before this thread drops off the front page -
agreeing with whoever said previously that leaving much of Middle Earth an eternal mystery is a good thing. I truly think that saturating the market with Star Wars stories (that was the example given in the previous post) made that fictional universe far less intriguing.
also the growth of the characters is very important in the books. Still bugs me when I hear that Tolkien only wrote one-dimensional characters. NOT
Well thank you for clearing something up for me. I always thought that Beleriand was further North, not to the west under the sea. You learn something new every day.
Still, the Elves and Men of Middle Earth were better off with the Valar intervening than they would have been if the Valar had let Morgoth conquer all the Beleriand kingdoms one by one.
OK, I just checked my old Players’ Handbook, and as of 2nd edition, there were still the three subraces of halfling:
Later, it says that Stouts get a couple of bonuses the other two subraces don’t, so in practice, almost all halfling PCs were Stout.
And Pit Fiends are devils, not demons. The emnity between demons and devils, in D&D lore, is nearly as strong, or possibly even stronger, than that between either and celestials.
All righty. I knew Devils (LE) and Demons (CE) didn’t get along (and there is supposed to be eternal battles taking place in some of the lower planes).
I didn’t remember which class of undercritter Pit Fiends were.
It’s known as the Blood War.
Oh, yeah: pit fiends are LE devils (“greater devils” to be precise).
It’s probably also worth mentioning that some demons in the Abyss are busier fighting each other and couldn’t care less about the Blood War.