Drow

josha

First Post
Drow are now my favorite D&D monster, and I'm upset to see that they didn't even get their own entry in the Monster Vault (just a small section in the elf entry). There weren't even stats for priestesses, which are really a must if you are going to run an adventure involving the dark elves.

Why doesn't WotC like drow?
 

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Drow are now my favorite D&D monster, and I'm upset to see that they didn't even get their own entry in the Monster Vault (just a small section in the elf entry). There weren't even stats for priestesses, which are really a must if you are going to run an adventure involving the dark elves.

Why doesn't WotC like drow?

Check Monster Vault: Threats of Nentir Vale, nice drow in there.
 

Are you serious?

There are PLENTY of Drow in 4e; they appear in MM, MM2, MM3, MV and MV2, not to mention all over the place elsewhere. Monster Vault only had so much room. Personally, I cannot express how glad I am that there weren't more Drow in it.
 

Are you serious?

There are PLENTY of Drow in 4e; they appear in MM, MM2, MM3, MV and MV2, not to mention all over the place elsewhere. Monster Vault only had so much room. Personally, I cannot express how glad I am that there weren't more Drow in it.

Yes, but many D&D players (including me) don't have a lot of those books. The Monster Vault should contain all of the iconic monsters and they should all be usable.

Drow are included, but there are not enough for them to be usable in any way other than a single encounter.
 
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Why doesn't WotC like drow?
Because (almost) everyone is sick of them still?

(Seriously, there was about a 25 year period where they were everywhere. The evil mastermind behind a completely unrelated race's evil plot -- and not just the trope originator -- drow. Sinister evil overlord threatening the lands of light? Drow. Every "misunderstood" loner PC who will continually go off alone? Drow. The tavern barmaid? Drow. The creators of the kender? Drow.)
 
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Yes, but many D&D players (including me) don't have many of those books. The Monster Vault should contain all of the iconic monsters and they should all be usable.

Drow are included, but there are not enough for them to be usable in any way other than a single encounter.

And this is why DDI subscriptions are worth it. You get access to the WotC published (books, adventures, and magazines) monsters via Adventure Tools and the Compendium, full statblocks.

You can then turn around and export those statblocks to fun programs like Masterplan or Power2ool.com. These are good times to be a DM because so much content is available without owning just the books (though I get a lot of the books for the fluff content that doesn't get put up on the online tools).

My two coppers,
 

It'd be nice if drow could fight their way past the two major obstacles that keep them from capturing the hearts and minds of many players: over-saturation and overspecialization. They're everywhere, and at the same time they haven't done a lot to go beyond their original "spiders, poisons and stealth" niche. Trouble is, these two things... clash. If you want to showcase the variety that drow should theoretically be capable of and do something people haven't seen before, you need more stat blocks. If you want to cut down on the over-saturation... you need less space devoted to them. (Particularly when said space elbows out things like wights or elementals of the 8, 10 or 12 HD variety.)

That said, whenever paucity of stat blocks is an issue, reskinning is a DM's best friend. For instance, reskin githyanki and you're partway there; swap out their telekinetic leaps for drow darkness, reskin things like telekinesis to become lassos or webbing, maybe change psychic damage for poison and you can have some drow that are a brand new surprise for PCs. Having seen people reskin dragons as Very Angry Librarians, you can get away with a lot.
 


If you were to start a thread here or in the house rules forum on "lets make a drow priestess", you probably would get some responses.
 

I'll be honest tho.

Drow priestesses kinda suck.

High murder rates X low birth rates = a terrible platform for government. At least 4th edition gave them the twist of trying to put together a society -despite- their priestesses, rather than under them. Makes a lot more sense, giving the race a vague undercurrent of rebellion and defiance and fear which fits the chaotic evil race more than 'Lolth says so and thus we all fall in line within this strict tradtional matriarchy' which is a lawful evil thing.
 

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