D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[Sepulchrave II]

I am perpetuity amused that D&D tries it's darnedest to avoid the fact that a group of well armed mercenaries slaughtering sapient beings would be a war crime in the real world. "No no no, they're really fey/elementals/fiends/etc so it's totally different" is just the latest in the long line of justifying to itself the violence at the heart of the game.

I was about to post something similar before I came across your post.

I understand the urge to treat humanoids differently (these sophonts resemble us too much, and we shouldn't de-personize them), but in a sense that is itself more inherently problematic (i.e. it's ok to de-personize and kill sophonts that don't resemble us too much).

I don't think you can really get away from the fact that it's not ok to kill sophonts.

 

[Mistwell]

Somewhere in the Underdark.

Where apparently they cannot see in the dark and don't speak the language common to the Underdark.

 

[Weiley31]

Where apparently they cannot see in the dark and don't speak the language common to the Underdark.

Now I get why Drizzt left.

 

[Mistwell]

As long as we have "humanoid" opponents to fight such as veterans, toughs (aka thugs), evokers, or whatever, there is absolutely no reason IMO to not have drow and orcs as examples of special creatures instead of just "this is a drow guard*" who is absolutely no different from the human guard, orc guard, or whever.

That drow guard now cannot see in the dark, and cannot speak the language where drow come from.

I mean, you guys have gotta see there is a real conversion issue going on here, right? At some point they did need to have at least a brief note on what elements of a species needs to be added to a generic NPC to convert it properly. Drow see in the dark, no matter what stat block they represent, while humans do not see in the dark, no matter what stat block they represent. They cannot use the identical stats because their vision element is mutually exclusive. There has to be some guideline for variations by species between the two, however brief.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

This is a pretty basic element missing from the MM, or the DMG or SOMEWHERE.

It's in the DMG which the MM points to.

And in the Altering a creature section it includes a list of traits and various things it says you can alter

Senses​

Blindsight, Darkvision, Tremorsense, and Truesight have no bearing on a creature’s Challenge Rating. You can add or remove them freely.

Says a similar thing about languages.

 

[Mistwell]

It's in the DMG which the MM points to.

Yes I can add darkvison without changing challenge rating. I should not have to. It's a basic element of a basic core monster from prior 2024 adventures. If I add the Aggressive trait from 2014 to the 2024 stat block, does that change the CR? There is no guidance in that chapter of the DMG for that kind of alteration. Similarly, if I add Adrenaline Rush from the 2024 PHB or Relentless Endurance also from the 2024 PHB (or both) what does that do to the CR?

This isn't theoretically. This is 100% going to come up for THOUSANDS of DMs over time as they use pretty much any adventure published before 2025.

And in the Altering a creature section it includes a list of traits and various things it says you can alter

None of which are similar to the Orc traits in either the 2014 MM or the 2024 PHB for orc, other than darkvision and languages.

Says a similar thing about languages.

Right now move on to the other unique traits of Orcs.

This is a real issue and I truly don't get why people are acting like this isn't going to be a roadblock. They converted so many tiny details to cover backwards compatibility, but this one is a glaring omission. And it sure seems obvious they literally didn't want to deal, rather than forgot it. Which isn't acceptable: there should be guidelines on core friggen races and monsters which have been in the game since the earliest days and which are still depicted numerous times in this very edition. Someone at WOTC should have dealt with this before going to publication.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes I can add darkvison without changing challenge rating. I should not have to. It's a basic element of a basic core monster from prior 2024 adventures. If I add the Aggressive trait from 2014 to the 2024 stat block, does that change the CR? There is no guidance in that chapter of the DMG for that kind of alteration. Similarly, if I add Adrenaline Rush from the 2024 PHB or Relentless Endurance also from the 2024 PHB (or both) what does that do to the CR?

This isn't theoretically. This is 100% going to come up for THOUSANDS of DMs over time as they use pretty much any adventure published before 2025.


None of which are similar to the Orc traits in either the 2014 MM or the 2024 PHB for orc, other than darkvision and languages.


Right now move on to the other unique traits of Orcs.

This is a real issue and I truly don't get why people are acting like this isn't going to be a roadblock. They converted so many tiny details to cover backwards compatibility, but this one is a glaring omission. And it sure seems obvious they literally didn't want to deal, rather than forgot it. Which isn't acceptable: there should be guidelines on core friggen races and monsters which have been in the game since the earliest days and which are still depicted numerous times in this very edition. Someone at WOTC should have dealt with this before going to publication.

I wonder what creatures are going to be used in future published WotC adventures, and if they use humanoids, are they going to make the species adjustments they're expecting users of the new books to make. Or are they just going to use the generic statblocks, or avoid statblocks for humanoids altogether and just use their newly defined "monsters"?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yes I can add darkvison without changing challenge rating. I should not have to. It's a basic element of a basic core monster from prior 2024 adventures. If I add the Aggressive trait from 2014 to the 2024 stat block, does that change the CR? There is no guidance in that chapter of the DMG for that kind of alteration. Similarly, if I add Adrenaline Rush from the 2024 PHB or Relentless Endurance also from the 2024 PHB (or both) what does that do to the CR?

This isn't theoretically. This is 100% going to come up for THOUSANDS of DMs over time as they use pretty much any adventure published before 2025.


None of which are similar to the Orc traits in either the 2014 MM or the 2024 PHB for orc, other than darkvision and languages.


Right now move on to the other unique traits of Orcs.

This is a real issue and I truly don't get why people are acting like this isn't going to be a roadblock. They converted so many tiny details to cover backwards compatibility, but this one is a glaring omission. And it sure seems obvious they literally didn't want to deal, rather than forgot it. Which isn't acceptable: there should be guidelines on core friggen races and monsters which have been in the game since the earliest days and which are still depicted numerous times in this very edition. Someone at WOTC should have dealt with this before going to publication.

Yes. I agree mostly. It would have been so easy to include that table from them 2014 MM slightly modified: senses, languages, speed, one defining trait.

Or the statblock itself should mention common + 1 other language. And senses: darkvision up to 120ft.

 

[Echohawk]

I'm going to repeat my working theory as to what happened here:

I posit that there was initially a table or list of modifications for NPC stat blocks in the 2024 DMG, similar to the one in Chapter 9 of the 2014 DMG, but with the Ability Modifier column removed, leaving just the features column.

Now imagine that the last sentence of this paragraph...

...instead said. "You can customize the stat block using the following guidelines to better reflect the species of the NPC you have in mind. [insert useful table here]"

Now, fast forward some time, and the DMG is running over its page count and needs to be cut. Someone looks at this section, thinks "Hmmmm... this list of ways to modifying stat blocks is really similar to this other list of ways to modify statblocks in the Creature Traits section. Let's delete this one and point people to that other one instead. What could go wrong?"

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Its perfectly coherent, and it makes obvious that Wizards is just hiding the issue because they dont have the stones to tell the players 'yeah, actually, you are killing other sentient beings, deal with it as its an Elf Game'.

That would require everyone to confront the real "problematic" part of D&D, the huge amounts revolving around violence and the casual reaction to that. Far easier (and safer) to just pretend you've solved the problem by deleting a whole bunch of humanoids from the Monster Manual and draining them of any flavour.