D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[James Gasik]

It was FAR less than half. The clause was only living creatures with discernible anatomies—undead, constructs, oozes, plants, and incorporeal creatures lack vital areas to attack". All of those are a type (ie ooze, construct, etc) rather than subtype(ie air/fire, lawful/evil etc) so there's no reason to look at the subtypes. The creature types in 3.5 mm are Aberration, Animal, construct, dragon, Elemental, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, Ooze, Outsider, Plant, Undead, Vermin. The underlined ones are able to ignore sneak attack but the vast a good chunk of them are pretty freaking rare to use (ie constructs oozes &plants). Out of that chunk the ones you do tend to see with enough regularity that a phase like "Yea we fought one in a campaign once" is because it was memorable to fight a marut/badass treant/etc. Excluding those one off monsters you are left with a bunch of fairly easy minions (ie most constructs) & spicy monsters with a gimmick (ie the vast majority of level appropriate oozes). The only real sneak/precision immune type that is common to encounter is the undead type & the vast majority of those are mooks likely to be found with a sneak/precision affected necromancer/summoner or are scary badass monsters like the lich & wraith that often extended their scariness through the 4th wall & across the gm screen.

Even if it was a mostly undead campaign for whatever reason there were feats & magic items that could allow sneak/precision against a sneak/precision ignoring creature type If a rogue is encountering sneak/precision immune creatures with any regularity it's probably a sign that A: they are doing something that the GM is negatively reacting to for whatever reason (ie: Bob's incredible CharOp PC at a table of not so optimized PCs bob is still far ahead of), B: In something like an undead heavy campaign sharing a boat with the pyromancer who showed up to a plane of fire campaign, or C: faced with a newer/not so skilled GM who doesn't realize the problem & still has more to learn

You missed the part where Elementals are:

• Not subject to critical hits or flanking.

And where Sneak Attack says:

Any creature that is immune to critical hits is not vulnerable to sneak attacks.

 

[James Gasik]

You missed the part where Elementals are:

• Not subject to critical hits or flanking.

And where Sneak Attack says:

Any creature that is immune to critical hits is not vulnerable to sneak attacks.

Also, flanking is the easiest way to get Sneak Attack, and so creatures immune to flanking should be mentioned, such as Swarms and Beholders.

 

[Hussar]

Funny how people think the way they play is somehow universal.

 

[James Gasik]

I added this edit to my previous post, I'll put it here then.

Ok, it's not half. It's about 1/3, not counting things that are very hard to sneak attack due to being immune to flanking, like Swarms or Beholders, and the existence of the existence of Fortification Armor and Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge. So call it a better than 33% chance of fighting something immune to Sneak Attack.

 

[Hriston]

The Vistani are not your connection, so why would they do this for you just because you asked (which basically is what the feature says, anyone can forge new friendships / alliances, the feature is not needed for that).

Because there are "corrupt caravan masters" known to you among them who are part of the criminal underworld of which, as a criminal, you are a part. .

Apart from that they can cross the mists but they do not know where they end up and they generally just end up in another domain of Ravenloft...

They can pass the message along to someone they meet in their wanderings who can get it where it needs to go.

either it always works, or someone has to decide, and that traditionally is the GM

I'm not sure what you mean by "always works". Do your mean like the criminal is constantly sending messages? That would be weird. My preference, because it's the PC's background, is the player decides when it works. I mean, I'm not sure what you mean by "traditionally", but the DM doesn't get to decide when Action Surge works. That's something the fighter's player gets to decide.

these people are not connections you have, they are strangers, so what does your real life experience tell you about this situation?

That's not what the feature says. It says you know them.

 

[tetrasodium]

You missed the part where Elementals are:

• Not subject to critical hits or flanking.

And where Sneak Attack says:

Any creature that is immune to critical hits is not vulnerable to sneak attacks.

and? Most outsiders were "typeutsider, (extraplanar, [element])". are you trying to claim that fire/air/earth/water/etc elementals make up the significant pool of monsters you need to hit or even come close to "half the monsters in the game"? You can't include all elemental creatures because there are plenty that do have discernable anatomies (ie salamander). It's the difference between the GM being able to use fiat for "yea seems a reasonable & cool exception" vrs "no I'm choosing to nerf you today bob"

 

[Lanefan]

Well yeah, we know that the reaction to 2014 Backgrounds has been lackluster, so they changed gears. And presumably will continue to do so, because the player says "hey wow, I'm a pirate, it says I can do X" and the DM might say either "that's great, I can totally work that into my campaign set in the sands of Anauroch" or "yeah, uh, that's just not going to work, sorry."

And that's just not a workable scenario. My stance on this has been simple since my first post. If you don't want to work with a given background (or can't), then don't let someone take it in the first place. See, the backgrounds are the players telling you what kinds of things they want to see in the game, what directions they hope it goes into, and how they want their character to plug into the game- or, they just wanted certain proficiencies.

If it's the former, the issue comes down to if you're a DM who plans the game around the players, or one who expects the players to plan around the game. If it's the latter, it's on the player if they randomly look at their sheet and remember "oh yeah, I'm a pirate! I can get us a ship!" without preamble- obviously, taking a background should involve a conversation with the DM and the player to set expectations.*

Now if you are a DM who doesn't plan their game around the players, absolutely, the 2014 backgrounds don't work. At which point you tell the players that fact, have them make custom backgrounds, and get on with playing.

Better solution IMO: make backgrounds a random element of char-gen rather than choose-able. That way, neither the player nor the DM has to worry about pre-planning; and everyone just accepts the fact that any given PC's background either will prove (or can be made) useful at some point(s) during the campaign or it won't.

*Someone upthread made a comment to the effect of they didn't see why they should work with the players to give them what they wanted. If you're that kind of DM, again, 2014 backgrounds aren't for you. But my counter to that is, why is this such a bad thing? Is your campaign really that inflexible? Why is it that way?

"What the players want" changes all the time IME, both in the short- and long-terms; even going as far as the wants of the same player can change and flip-flop based on the character(s) they have in play at the moment and-or what they happen to be doing in the fiction.

 

[mamba]

Because there are "corrupt caravan masters" known to you among them who are part of the criminal underworld of which, as a criminal, you are a part. .

no there are not, because you do not know a single Vistani, this is just blatantly you making stuff up with nothing to base it on

They can pass the message along to someone they meet in their wanderings who can get it where it needs to go.

complete nonsense, as I said before, time for you to learn the first thing about Ravenloft

That's not what the feature says. It says you know them.

no, it says you know the couriers, not that strangers are also your couriers and you suddenly know them so you can use them for that. The logical interpretation is that the Vistani are not people you can use to send message to your contact

 

[Lanefan]

Because there are "corrupt caravan masters" known to you among them who are part of the criminal underworld of which, as a criminal, you are a part. .


They can pass the message along to someone they meet in their wanderings who can get it where it needs to go.

Which raises the yet-undiscussed element of in-game time, and how long it takes these messages to get where they're going.

Easy to imagine a situation where a PC sends a message on Day 1; the message arrives via circuitous routes on Day 27, meanwhile the PCs finished the adventure on Day 12 and have been home since Day 15. Confusing for the eventual message recipient...

 

[James Gasik]

and? Most outsiders were "typeutsider, (extraplanar, [element])". are you trying to claim that fire/air/earth/water/etc elementals make up the significant pool of monsters you need to hit or even come close to "half the monsters in the game"? You can't include all elemental creatures because there are plenty that do have discernable anatomies (ie salamander). It's the difference between the GM being able to use fiat for "yea seems a reasonable & cool exception" vrs "no I'm choosing to nerf you today bob"

Salamanders are Outsiders of the Fire subtype, not creatures of the Elemental type. Anyways, I already conceded that the actual amount of things that are largely immune to sneak attack is over a third, not half.

I still don't care for it, nobody should have a large chunk of their class devoted to something that doesn't work against whole monster types, things immune to crits, or things that can't be flanked.