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

[Maxperson]

The large number of humanoid stat blocks in the Monster Manual don’t work for dogs. They work just fine for orcs and drow though.

Not really as they don't have racial abilities that orcs and drow do. I shouldn't have to look in 2 or 3 different books to figure out what an orc or drow is.

 

[Maxperson]

You don't get much more "in Nerdspace" than anime elves.

That may be true, but these days anime is pretty solidly in pop culture.

 

[Umbran]

It's Jareth, not Jared, you philistine. Now go perform the Magic Dance^© ten times in repentence, or you'll be banished to the Bog of Eternal Stench.

My auto-correct already comes from the Bog of Eternal Stench.

 

[Maxperson]

What if you think that you're a tough military bruiser carrying a too large to lift gun while wearing a Punisher shirt, and act like you've seen these types of characters act in games and movies? Not in the sense of they will ever, ever get into an actual combat situation, but they take all the toxic masculinity with them? Part of that is fantasy, and now part of it is real.

Why would I do that?

As I said, if they start acting on the fantasies, they are no longer fantasies. That would include acting the macho part out.

I've seen MANY portrayals of macho mercenary/military PC groups over the decades and not once did I see a player start acting that way outside of the game, despite having a great time with the fantasy of being a military macho dude.

A fantasy has no bearing on real world morals. Stopping it from being a fantasy and acting the fantasy(or parts of it) out in the real world does, but then it's no longer a fantasy.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You don't get much more "in Nerdspace" than anime elves.

Anime is definitely less nerdspace than it used to be. For example, I was on the bus a few months ago, and two older teenage girls in front of me, dressed very fashionably, wearing a lot of make-up, were both discussing Jujustu Kaisen* and liking and reposting memes about it (particularly involving Satoru Goju** of course). And I've seen similar with a lot of anime. Admittedly none of it trad fantasy, all pretty much urban fantasy (but that does occasionally involve the tall, good-looking kind of elf).

* = An anime about high school kids fighting quite terrifying demons ("curses" as it calls them).

** = The "Giles" figure to use a Buffy analogue, though it's not very accurate.

 

[Lazybones]

I agree with what's been posted about the uncertainty involved with making species-related changes to the NPC stat blocks. The campaign I'm working on has orcs and various other Humanoid species as both potential adversaries and allies. I haven't decided whether I'm going to convert all of the stat blocks in every situation. For simple encounters like common bandits (which I've already noticed in the flavor text are from various diverse species), I'll probably just use the existing blocks and just add things like Darkvision as needed. For more substantial encounters against prominent foes I'd be more inclined to actually do the full customization bit, for example adding Relentless Endurance and Adrenaline Rush for an orc, adding inherent spellcasting for a tiefling, and so on. I don't see either of those as really being significant enough to warrant adding to the CR, but it possibly could in certain circumstances. I 100% agree that it would be easier if this had been done for me, especially in my VTT of choice, but I don't see it as a major problem either, at least for the species where there are clear rules laid out in the 2024 PH. Doing the ones that they basically chose to skip this time around, like ordinary lizardfolk, will probably require going back to the 2014 MM or MotM.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not really as they don't have racial abilities that orcs and drow do.

And the dog entry doesn’t have stat blocks for Pekingese and Great Dane.

The difference between and orc and a drow is the orc has grey skin and tusks, whilst the drow has purple skin and pointy ears.

 

[Maxperson]

And the dog entry doesn’t have stat blocks for Pekingese and Great Dane.

Cool. I don't need Orcs of the North, Orcs of Cormyr, Orcs of the Dales, and on and on. Simply orcs like we have dogs is fine.

The difference between and orc and a drow is the orc has grey skin and tusks, whilst the drow has purple skin and pointy ears.

And orcs have other racial abilities than drow do and vice versa. It's not just skin color.

5.5e fails completely to inform what those two races are in the 5.5e MM. If we have to go outside the 5.5e MM to find out what a monster is, the game has failed us in that regard.

 

[AlViking]

It was a short paragraph you replied to. It was specific as to what I was saying. Darkvision wasn't mentioned. If you cannot be bothered to care what you're replying to, then don't reply. But please, don't make up a strawman argument and think you're helping.




You're being reckless and rude. Please read what you replied to.



EXACTLY the things I noted in the post you replied to but didn't read.

I don't see how you can interpret what I said as a strawman, I just happened to pick one feature that orcs have that pirates are not assumed to have because I couldn't remember adrenaline rush or relentless endurance off the top of my head. To clarify, about the only thing I would consider a must-have for an orcish pirate would be darkvision because that seems pretty core feature of the race. I'd probably ignore relentless endurance simply because it's kind of annoying to track and being able to bonus action dash once or twice rarely makes a huge difference. I don't see adrenaline rush or relentless endurance as being core features of the species but if I did include them I don't see them adding enough utility to increase CR. But if I do include it I'd add it to my notes.

Not sure why you decided to respond to a simple question with a flamethrower. If you want to have a conversation or not that's fine but there's no need to be rude about it.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Dirty Harry isn't really the first or last movie to applaud vigilantism. (Which the character absolutely is.)

That's a long-simmering, unsolvable tension in the way our society is constructed.

Batman went downhill when they turned him into a vigilante. The 1960s Batman will always be the true Batman.