D&D 5E D&D Studio Blog - Sage Advice - Creature Evolutions

There's a new D&D Studio Blog - Jeremy's posted about "Creature Evolutions": Creature Evolutions | Dungeons & Dragons

Some quick takeaways:

• Some creatures that were formerly humanoids will, going forward, be monstrosities, fey, or something else. ("Humanoid" is reserved for creatures with similar "moral and cultural range" to humans.)
• Alignment got put in a "time out".
• They've started using class tags so that DMs know that a particular NPC can attune to magic items limited to a particular class.
• Bonus actions get their own section in the stat block now.
• They've merged the Innate Spellcasting and Spellcasting traits and have gotten rid of spell slots.

Also some stuff we've already guessed based on the stat blocks and playable races in Wild Beyond the Witchlight.

There's also some Sage Advice on "rabbit hops" for harengon PCs.

 

[J.Quondam]

I'm cool with most of these changes, but there are a few that rub me the wrong way:

• A PC races' Age and Size. Did a suggested age range need or height/weight range really need to be dropped?

Yeah, honestly I feel it's swung swung a bit too far in the "anything goes!" direction on race. Some physiological norms would be nice at least for the GM to know for NPCs, even if it's clear that players' characters don't have to adhere to them.

• The "not-spells" in the action section should be tagged as spells with a level, for the sake of Counterspell and such.

I agree. But there's a sentence in the blog post that led me to understand that the designer intent is for those powers not to be considered spells:

A magic-using monster’s most potent firepower is now usually represented by a special magical action, rather than relying on spells.​

That sounds to me like they're differentiating a "magical action" from a "spell." I hope I'm misreading that, to be honest; or that they at least clear it up in coming days.

 

[Scribe]

I think that one depends on whether or not you want warforged to be able to receive healing via cure wounds and the like.

I wouldnt.

 

[Tonguez]

So from Witchlight we see that Bullywugs and Harengon still count as Humanoids, so Animal-traits isnt a factor, thus its going to be interesting to see where thet draw the line between Humanoid and Monstrosity.

Demonspawn Gnolls are going to be an interesting specimen, in a world where other Animal races are present.

 

[Scribe]

Or if could be to empower people to make the characters they want to. It really depends on your point of view.

Which, they could already do.

 

[SkidAce]

I'm still grumpy about what they did to gnolls. They were much more evocative as independent beings rather than mindless demonspawn. Especially in a world where orcs/goblinoids weren't a major feature.

Pour one out for the great Krote Word-Maker.

See, my gnolls are intelligent, clever, ....demonspawn.

 

[JEB]

Looking forward to the opportunity to provide feedback on these changes.

Thoughts on creatures:

• Creature Type: I'm largely OK with this, though I suspect in practice this means only creatures intended as PCs will get the Humanoid label. (Though we'll see more PCs outside the Humanoid label, on a case-by-case basis.)
• Alignment: Despite the claims that the removal of alignment was always intended as a temporary "time-out", I'd bet that if they hadn't gotten enough negative responses, it would have stayed gone. (Side question: Will we see alignments for Candlekeep and Ravenloft monsters and NPCs in errata for those books?) I applaud their attempt to thread the needle in the current approach, though I imagine a fair number of folks will still be unsatisfied one way or the other.
• Tags: Tags to identify a creature's intended character class could be pretty useful for reverse-engineering. But I hope they don't go too crazy with new ones.
• Bonus Actions: Good call.
• Spellcasting: The intent is good, and I very much like having (former?) spells described in the stat block for convenience. But I'm not happy about something that obscures the effective level of a NPC's spellcasting, or the complete removal of spell slots, both of which make modifying NPCs tougher.

Thoughts on races:

• Creature Type: No issues here.
• Ability Score Increases: I'm disappointed they're still sticking with "optimize for your class" as the quick build option, since I think that will discourage ability score diversity as much as floating ASI would otherwise encourage it. Keeping the old-school default ASIs as a quick-build option would be a nice olive branch to fans who liked that, as well. Certainly makes character race design easier, though!
• Age: Don't like this. Maybe they were uncomfortable with character races that became mature at a younger age than humans, but tossing out suggested age ranges entirely is massively overcompensating. Of course, this also means even less work...
• Alignment: As long as they still describe default cultures (ideally more than one), the loss of alignment here is fine.
• Size: Having multiple size options is interesting, though I hope we don't see it on every single race. Dropping suggested heights and weights isn't as bad as dropping age ranges (though again, not lost on me that this means less design work); but having different tables for small and medium characters would have been nice, just to avoid the bizarre potential scenario of a Small seven-foot character. (Dare I hope we might finally see Tiny or Large races?)
• Languages: Was this a common complaint, that dwarves usually know Dwarvish or elves usually know Elvish? I don't understand why a default here is a no-go, as long as you make it clear you can pick whatever.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Make is simple. It is Humanoid if Humans can cross-breed with it.

And thus it was that some poor WotC designer was forced to consult the Book of Erotic Fantasy.

 

[Hussar]

I agree and it seems they missed the boat on this one. At this point I think we have two options for an official correction:

1. The revise Counterspell to target "magic" and not just spells.
2. They add your suggestion to the updated MM in 2024 (they say they are going to have surveys) and just have the books before then be outdated.

Or, as an alternative idea, not bother and make Counterspell a lot less effective so that your party of five casters basically cake walks any enemy caster because of the action economy.

I, for one, have zero problems with removing the ability of players to completely shut down the most effective baddies in the encounter with a single reaction.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Or, as an alternative idea, not bother and make Counterspell a lot less effective so that your party of five casters basically cake walks any enemy caster because of the action economy.

I, for one, have zero problems with removing the ability of players to completely shut down the most effective baddies in the encounter with a single reaction.

Well then maybe you want to ban Counterspell from your tables, and there is nothing wrong with that. But if you're a DM WotC is doing you no favors by setting you up to have to argue with players (and based on how you seem to characterize Counterspell it sounds like players you play with are pretty attached to Counterspell) about things that function like spells and that they can't tell aren't spells not being spells for the purpose of Counterspell.

Even if Counterspell is some sort of problem that needs to be fixed, nerfing it by making it just arbritrarily not work on lots of enemies, largely by oversight, with no clear guidance to the player trying to use it on when it can still be used can't possibly be a good solution.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Now these are changes I can work with! This new monster stat block is much improved.