Revisionist game publishing

[MrMyth]

I take it this means you are writing the "Winning Races: Goblins" article just now?

Possibly not, but he well may have seen this quote:

The Monster Manual racial descriptions were never intended to be the canonical mechanics for those races. As the MM itself states, those stats are for DMs to create NPCs. You can use them as PCs, but a DM allows them at his own peril.

Thus, you'll see things like giving monsters oversized weapons and not giving them to official PC races. As others have pointed out, oversized weapons in PC hands are simply too good. It makes those races strictly better with weapons. If a PC race somehow gets it, expect it to be errata'd as soon as I see it.
__________________
Mike Mearls - Lead Designer, RPG R&D

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Possibly not, but he well may have seen this quote:

Meh, I was just hoping he had something in the pipeline on DDI. The quote is old news to me.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I take it this means you are writing the "Winning Races: Goblins" article just now?

Heh. I don't have the motivation to start writing articles. Maybe someday.

No, I just mean that the people from R&D have stated that PCs won't have Oversized Weapons ever. So, if Bugbears get remade, they won't have them. And given that they've been released as an NPC race in the MM, they are high on the list of possible races to see in future articles.

 

[pawsplay]

Yes.


As long as you can wield it.

All equipment that the monster carries is listed at the bottom on the monster's sheet. If they are wielding a longsword that is appropriate for a medium-sized character (and again, like Phaezen said, minotaurs wield weapons appropriate for medium-sized characters and not large despite their ability to use large weapons. They are underachievers, I guess, and don't utilize this) the PCs can use it.

That takes a little sting out of it, but doesn't really address the basic problem. I care less about game balance, a lot less actually, than about PC minotaurs being able to pick weapons off of fallen NPC minotaurs, or PC kobolds having darkvision to see in the caverns where they grew up.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That takes a little sting out of it, but doesn't really address the basic problem. I care less about game balance, a lot less actually, than about PC minotaurs being able to pick weapons off of fallen NPC minotaurs, or PC kobolds having darkvision to see in the caverns where they grew up.

Minotaurs can pick up weapons of their fallen comrades. The equipment list in the stat block does not indicate the weapons are large.

PC Kobolds have just been too much on the outside, exposed to regular daylight. Their darkvision has simply been lost to them. It's a little like pigmentation for human skin...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

PC Kobolds have just been too much on the outside, exposed to regular daylight. Their darkvision has simply been lost to them. It's a little like pigmentation for human skin...

Speaking as a caramelized-American, that's just silly.

By that analogy, they should get their darkvison back after a while.

Permanent loss of darkvison would be more likely to be the result of permanent retinal damage, like a surface native who stared at the sun.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Speaking as a caramelized-American, that's just silly.

By that analogy, they should get their darkvison back after a while.

Permanent loss of darkvison would be more likely to be the result of permanent retinal damage, like a surface native who stared at the sun.

Hmm. Maybe that's it? Too long exposure to normal daylight and your Kobold goes blind low-light.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Speaking as a caramelized-American, that's just silly.

By that analogy, they should get their darkvison back after a while.

Permanent loss of darkvison would be more likely to be the result of permanent retinal damage, like a surface native who stared at the sun.

Yeah this sounds ridiculous. A race that evolved into having darkvision as a survival trait should have darkvision. In earlier editions certain races with the best night/underground vision also took penalties when operating in bright light which would kind of self balance for a PC who operated in both environments.

In this case being above ground too long might reduce the vision to low light but negate any penalties for bright light.

Either way "being a PC " is an insufficient excuse to recode the genome.

 

[JPL]

I don't need a reason why every possible kobold PC lacks darkvision . . . I just need an explanation for the particular kobold PC that comes to my game table.

So for that character, it could be a birth defect, the result of an injury, a variant bloodline, or too much daylight over the years. And any of those is also a half decent explanation as to why this particular kobold isn't just living in a hole waiting to be killed by 1st level adventurers like everyone else.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yeah this sounds ridiculous. A race that evolved into having darkvision as a survival trait should have darkvision. In earlier editions certain races with the best night/underground vision also took penalties when operating in bright light which would kind of self balance for a PC who operated in both environments.

In this case being above ground too long might reduce the vision to low light but negate any penalties for bright light.

Either way "being a PC " is an insufficient excuse to recode the genome.

Evolution? Genome?

That's 21st century common sense. It has nothing to do with pseudo-medieval settings.