Recent content by Teemu

I think there's a pretty simple reason why they changed the marilith's art. All the demons in the new MM look bestial or monstrous. None of them have clearly human-like appearances. If the marilith looked more like a person, it wouldn't really match the theme they wanted for demons, from what I...

There's a much bigger inconsistency in the new marilith art that hasn't been addressed yet. The new marilith is depicted as dealing both Piercing and Slashing damage. However! The 2025 marilith can only deal Slashing damage, not Piercing (with their weapons).

Why did you just earlier say that yes, but you would have to replace your current ability? If you can indeed learn all of it, do long lived creatures in your D&D style campaign worlds learn all of that? So some elves for example would have abilities from all classes, possibly all subclass...

So can the fighter also learn both the evoker and the abjurer subclass features? What about necromancer and diviner as well? After all, people in the world learn those abilities, so you should be able to acquire them, right? What if you're an elf and you live for 600 years -- could you learn all...

If I'm an abjurer wizard in 5e 2014 and there's an evoker wizard in the party, can I learn the evoker wizard's Sculpt Spells, Potent Cantrip, Empowered Evocation, and Overchannel abilities? Can the evoker wizard learn my Arcane Ward, Projected Ward, Improved Abjuration, and Spell Resistance...

But they aren’t because you can easily have both a player character and other NPCs who are even better.

Why would it make less sense? Even the 2014 MM describes hobgoblins as incredibly martially oriented people who value martial prowess basically above anything else. Doesn't it make sense that they can use weapons particularly well since it's all they care about? In fact, wouldn't it make less...

I'm sorry but that's intellectually dishonest. The Assassin does not have an action, a bonus action, or a trait that allows it to apply poison to both its weapon attacks. By default applying poison would either be a bonus action or an action, just from baseline rules when interacting with...

I've also brainstormed a drow campaign but the issue I have is that the game would by its nature mostly feature the Underdark, which I think might end up feeling too one note over the course of a long campaign. The Underdark is almost purely a fantastical environment, which means that people...

My point is, you'll never get a satisfactory answer in D&D, and no edition of D&D has provided a satisfactory answer to the question of game rules vs in-world logic. Not even 3.x, which I played and ran extensively, because its core rules do not make a lick of sense if you play them as in-world...

How do races come into play when discussing which traits generic NPC stat blocks have? Why does the 2014 Archmage have Magic Resistance? Where does it come from? Why does it have damage resistance against damage from spells? Why does the 2014 Assassin have proficiency in Dex and Int saves? Why...

D&D is one of the worst possible TTRPGs if you want good in-world explanations for how the rules work. It's horrendous for that, and it's been horrendous since the very beginning. AC, hit points, levels, and many saving throws are some of the worst offenders, and they've been at the core of the...

That's my point: you are applying circular reasoning as to why the NPCs have certain proficiencies or why they can cast spells or why they have certain ability scores. They just do! It's evident. That's your logic. And because you're used to that circular logic, you don't bat an eye at it. But...

Why can a PC cleric pick up a weapon and deal an extra 1d8 fire damage at will? Why can a PC fighter score crits on both a 19 and a 20? That's a learned skill, inherent ability, or other such trait, right? Why does the PC cleric have proficiency in Wisdom and Charisma saves? Learned skill or...

So it's fine to omit all the various traits for X creatures, but not for Y creatures. Again, I argue that it's simply due to change: we didn't get all the possible traits for 2014 stat blocks, and thus we don't even miss them. But now they've omitted a few more? Unacceptable. I see this as...