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.

 

[NaturalZero]

THIS. I get people are frustrated the game is changing, in a way they don't like. But this changes make character creation so much more fun for me... I'm running Tomb of Anihilation, and made my players create back-up characters because that tomb MURDERS PCs. I used the tasha's rules for this characters, and the character concepts they created, being free from Ability Scores bonus optimizations were great!

This is what happened in 4e when my group started letting players just pick whatever ability score bonuses fit their character instead of the hard-coded racial ones. Suddenly, we had a range of builds and concepts instead of the same race+class combos over and over. This is change is all upside because it doesn't effect the world or traditional builds but facilitates a broader range of viable concepts on an individual level.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The thing all of us people here on ENWorld have to remember is that these changes aren't for us.

We can and do anything we want. If we don't like something, we will change it. If something in 5E is different than how it was in a previous edition that we prefered, we can just swap back the old version instead of using the new. If we already own the original 5E books... we can just use those instead of the Revised ones. None of these changes to these new books should impact any of us whatsoever.

The only people for who these changes impact are the people who are reading these Revised books for the first time. Because they are going to learn the game using those books and how WotC wishes to present the game to the public (with all of the cultural changes / mores / emphasis that go along with it.) If they want to make the change that orcs are not default Chaotic Evil (excluding one tiny passage in the front part of the MM that most people probably have never read, especially if you were a player)... and instead make it clear that Orcs in the MM and more especially Orc PCs do not have that alignment by default anymore and can easily be any alignment whatsoever, then they will print it that way so that those who are not beholden to the history of the game (like we are) can see it more representative of how society now sees things regarding race. Because those of us who ARE beholden to the history of the game or who just have our own ideas of how we think things should be based on our own experiences with D&D... can and will play the game any which way we wish regardless of what the books say.

We know that, and WotC knows that. And since since the defining trait of 5E is "Rulings, Not Rules"... WotC has no problems not making the game a RAW requirement for every single player out there. They WANT us to change rules we don't like. So even if you are one of those people who just has that mental lock that says "I HAVE to play RAW!"... they aren't making the game for you anymore. And you either learn to live with the changes to RAW, or you find a different game whose RAW you agree with 100%.

 

[dave2008]

There are many things I like here, and other things I think are awful. I really dislike this push towards every species just being a human with a hat, rather than their own unique things. Diversity is good, but this is just turning everything into some giant, amorphous grey blob with no identity at all.

Perhaps there are things unique about a race besides its height, weight, and age? I mean they are simply stating what has always been true, just in a different way. An orc, elf, dwarf, etc, all fall within the range of human height and weight. Dwarves and Elves live longer, but they are not taking that away - they are just not giving a definite time period. Per the post it will be "centuries," which I prefer as it is more flexible.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

• 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.)

"We decided Always Chaotic Evil orcs were problematic, so we're assigning orcs the humanoid race so they can be Sometimes Lawful Good. Fortunately, these Always Chaotic Evil gnolls are monstrosities, so you can murder with abandon."

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I'm just waiting for a few years down the line, when they inevitably decide that racial traits and abilities are racist, and so it all goes into a grab bag for anyone to pick out of.

There will be only one race to pick from, and that is custom lineage.

 

[Bolares]

"We decided Always Chaotic Evil orcs were problematic, so we're assigning orcs the humanoid race so they can be Sometimes Lawful Good. Fortunately, these Always Chaotic Evil gnolls are monstrosities, so you can murder with abandon."

Gnolls will be Tipically Chaotic Evil...

 

[TwoSix]

We know that, and WotC knows that. And since since the defining trait of 5E is "Rulings, Not Rules"... WotC has no problems not making the game a RAW requirement for every single player out there. They WANT us to change rules we don't like. So even if you are one of those people who just has that mental lock that says "I HAVE to play RAW!"... they aren't making the game for you anymore. And you either learn to live with the changes to RAW, or you find a different game whose RAW you agree with 100%.

Yep. Functionally, it mean WotC is pushing the game more into a toolbox/adventure design direction and away from explicit setting design and worldbuilding in the core, which I'm totally on-board with.

I mean, if you've got someone in your group who wants to play a 7 ft tall halfling because the "rules don't tell me I can't", then don't play with that person. You shouldn't need to enforce setting tropes like elf height or dwarf age with rules text; you set it up by DM declaration or group consensus as you do with most aspects of the social contract.

 

[Bolares]

I'm just waiting for a few years down the line, when they inevitably decide that racial traits and abilities are racist, and so it all goes into a grab bag for anyone to pick out of.

There will be only one race to pick from, and that is custom lineage.

That's a stretch....

 

[HammerMan]

Being born knowing a language is pretty rare. Languages are learned. So who does the teaching matters more than who your parents are.
This change is related to the changes on weapon proficiencies and skills. Having every adventurer from a certain race have all of the same learned skills (tools, languages, etc) makes absolutely zero sense.

think of Worf in Next Gen (Star trek) I know at least once there was a joke about him having an accent

 

[Frozen_Heart]

That's a stretch....

I mean I've seen threads saying that it should happen on other DnD forums. It's something that some people do want.