D&D 5E Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

[Paul Farquhar]

No one here is doing that, it seems pretty clear everyone is discussing the points he is raising. The only people even approaching the "authority" fallacy are those who are discounting his opinion because they don't like him or he's too strident.

That's not how comments read to me: "Now JA says it I've changed my mind", "I'm surprised WotC dropped the ball this hard". And an awful lot of people seem to be "discussing" based entierly on JA's opinions, without reference to the actual adventure at all.

Now I can't comment on the adventure since I haven't read it, it may well be rubbish, but comments like this: "A hydra in a crypt that’s been sealed for centuries" - this has been a feature of D&D since year zero. Now, there are some people who like a higher level of realism in their adventures - and a lot more who don't care and don't worry about such things. If the adventure is not designed with realism as a goal, then "what does the hydra eat (when it can't get adventurers)" is not an issue. I don't remember it troubling Herakles in the original story.

What I have observed of JA is he always rewrites adventures because they are not in tune with his personal preferences. Nothing wrong with that, so do I (I spent most of last week "fixing" The Isle of the Abbey). What I don't do is present my personal preferences as some kind of gold standard.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

That's not how comments read to me: "Now JA says it I've changed my mind". And an awful lot of people seem to be "discussing" based entierly on JA's opinions, without reference to the actual adventure at all.

That's not what they're saying. "He brought up something I didn't realise at first, now I've reevaluated it and changed my opinion." That's normally how the exchange of ideas goes, right?

Now I can't comment on the adventure since I haven't read it, it may well be rubbish, but comments like this: "A hydra in a crypt that’s been sealed for centuries" - this has been a feature of D&D since year zero. Now, there are some people who like a higher level of realism in their adventures - and a lot more who don't care and don't worry about such things. If the adventure is not designed with realism as a goal, then "what does the hydra eat (when it can't get adventurers)" is not an issue. I don't remember it troubling Herakles in the original story.

Yes, and people have been complaining about it as well for some time now, long before theAlexandrian website existed.

What I have observed of JA is he always rewrites adventures because they are not in tune with his personal preferences. Nothing wrong with that, so do I (I spent most of last week "fixing" The Isle of the Abbey). What I don't do is present my personal preferences as some kind of gold standard.

Man believes his own opinions are good.

 

[delericho]

Man believes his own opinions are good.

That's kind of fortunate, really, or this place would be really dull.

 

[TheSword]

Just out of interest. Are we certain that hydra’s actually need to eat to survive? I mean they already break the conservation of energy rules in some pretty substantial ways. I have a feeling hydra are not so bothered by calorie intake.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Man believes his own opinions are good.

A person who doesn't question their own opinions is a fool. And, whist it is true that the world is full of fools, "who is the more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him?"

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Just out of interest. Are we certain that hydra’s actually need to eat to survive? I mean they already break the conservation of energy rules in some pretty substantial ways. I have a feeling hydra are not so bothered by calorie intake.

Indeed. They can grow new heads without any regard to conservation of energy. Maybe a hungry hydra just bites off one of it's own heads?

 

[delericho]

Just out of interest. Are we certain that hydra’s actually need to eat to survive? I mean they already break the conservation of energy rules in some pretty substantial ways. I have a feeling hydra are not so bothered by calorie intake.

One of their defining traits in the MM is "Everlasting Hunger", which talks about how they will deplete all food sources in their region and then move on, and that the beast's heads may even turn on each other in extremis.

That doesn't quite mean that they need to eat, but if there's no food source then that should probably be reflected in the description of the beast (in that it would have a number of self-inflicted wounds).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One of their defining traits in the MM is "Everlasting Hunger", which talks about how they will deplete all food sources in their region and then move on, and that the beast's heads may even turn on each other in extremis.

That doesn't quite mean that they need to eat, but if there's no food source then that should probably be reflected in the description of the beast (in that it would have a number of self-inflicted wounds).

It wouldn't have any wounds, just an infinite number of heads.

Expecting D&D to make sense is a bottomless rabbit-hole.

[NB, in the Theros book, it is mentioned that hydras can hibernate for hundreds of years at at time).

 

[delericho]

It wouldn't have any wounds, just an infinite number of heads.

Hydras don't have regeneration, so there's no reason it wouldn't have wounds.

And it only loses a head (and grows two more) if it suffers 25+ damage in a single round. Even if the heads turned on one another in their hunger, it's not necessarily the case that those battles would turn fatal - it may self-harm without actually maiming itself.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And it only loses a head (and grows two more) if it suffers 25+ damage in a single round.

A hydra averages 10 points of damage per head, so as long as it starts with at least three heads, it's going to bite off one head each round.