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.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I don't think it'll be Charm Person bad a 3.5e's version, where it couldn't effect Minotaurs and Centaurs because they were Monstrous Humanoids.

 

[Professor Murder]

"We’ve also gotten strict about which monsters get the Humanoid creature type. This type is now reserved for creatures who are humanlike in their moral and cultural range. As we update older books, we’ll reassign some Humanoids to other creature types. When Monsters of the Multiverse is released, you’ll see that some former Humanoids are now Monstrosities, Fey, and other types."

My take: Non-humanoids can more be seen as alien or other.

 

[humble minion]

I'm still grumpy about what they did to gnolls. They were much more evocative as independent beings rather than mindless demonspawn. Especially in a world where orcs/goblinoids weren't a major feature.

Pour one out for the great Krote Word-Maker.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Sure. But Grimlocks are clearly a nod to the Morlocks, who are degenerate subteranian humans of the distant future from The Time Machine twisted without the intervention of magic.

And that changes what, exactly? Sure, they were "inspired" by/stolen from the Morlocks, but D&D's equivalent was explicitely warped by Squidfaced Aliens, so it makes sense that they could be a different creature type.

I'm not saying I can't accept that they could be classed as something else, I'm just saying that a player who hasn't memorized the Monster Manual but knows their Hold Person spell requires a "humanoid" is, based on any lore in universe they might be told after a knowledge check and on the larger sci-fi fantasy context, likely to expect it to work on a Grimlock.

I don't get the complaint here. I just listed a few humanoids that they might change to different creature types.

 

[Remathilis]

Not all PC races are going to be humanoid:

CREATURE TYPE​

In the past, a character race was presumed to have the Humanoid creature type. In the new races, the character’s creature type is specified. For example, the fairy has the Fey creature type.

Over/under Warforged become constructs?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Make is simple. It is Humanoid if Humans can cross-breed with it.

 

[Scribe]

Over/under Warforged become constructs?

How is it not already? lol

 

[Ibrandul]

Has anyone seen anything from WotC addressing the issue that PC's can't use Counterpell against non-spell former spells by monsters?

This line in the new article leapt out at me: "A magic-using monster’s most potent firepower is now usually represented by a special magical action, rather than relying on spells."

That distinction confirms that these actions are not spells. Unless they revise the wording on Counterspell, RAW for these revised monsters/NPCs seems pretty clear to me. What's surprising to me is that the change appears also to be a change to RAI.

I'll be houseruling this distinction out of existence, of course, because I think it's preposterous to tell my players they can counterspell most of an enemy spellcaster's spells, but not its most potent firepower because that's not technically a spell anymore despite it obviously actually being a spell from an in-world perspective. In this case, the cure WotC concocted seems much worse than the disease. (And I say that as someone who thinks at least two-thirds of the changes outlined in the article are improvements.)

 

[pukunui]

Over/under Warforged become constructs?

How is it not already? lol

I think that one depends on whether or not you want warforged to be able to receive healing via cure wounds and the like.

 

[dave2008]

And I mean that, in the sense they are removing themselves from the equation of being the ones to declare what a race is, so they wont take the heat anymore.

Or if could be to empower people to make the characters they want to. It really depends on your point of view.