Evil Drow Statblocks to Return in Forgotten Realms Rulebooks Later This Year

Drow-specific NPC statblocks will be included in the upcoming Forgotten Realms Adventurer's Guide set for release later this year. Over the past several weeks, much hullabaloo has been made over the Monster Manual, specifically that the D&D design team replaced specific drow and orc statblocks with generic NPC statblocks that can be used for any kind of humanoids. In a video released today, D&D lead designer Jeremy Crawford confirmed that more specific statblocks tied to specific humanoid sects or characters would return in future rulebooks, with evil drow given as an example.

"Also for anyone who's eager to see more species-tailored humanoid statblocks, people are going to see more of that in our setting books," Crawford said. "You're going to see that in our Forgotten Realms products, for example. The malevolent drow of Menzoberranzan are an important part of that setting and so they get their own statblocks. This is really true of all the creatures in the Monster Manual. This is your massive starting toy box of monsters that are usable anywhere in the multiverse. The bestiaries in our setting products, that's where we can provide you versions of things tailored to the cultures and histories of our different worlds."

 

[Michael Blackett]

Had a suspicion they would do something like this. Even though, think the Drow may be sanitised for 2024e

 

[Paul Farquhar]

CS Lewis was doing kitchen sink fantasy before kitchen sink fantasy was a thing.

And Edith Nesbit was doing it before CS Lewis was a thing.

 

[Parmandur]

CS Lewis is the most interesting, in that he is conspicuously absent from Appendix N, but got there earlier (The Magicians Nephew 1955), and introduced the idea of the a "transitive" plane that connected many worlds. The Wood Between Worlds looks like a prototype of the D&D Astral Plane. The novel also visits a dying world with a "Dark Sun".

That book in particular was actually quite the surprise when revisiting it with my own children as an adult. As a child it was like, sure, this is how books are. In my 30s, I was kind of shocked at how gonzo and heavy metal it was for a book aimed at children written by a Victorian gentleman.

 

[Parmandur]

And Edith Nesbit was doing it before CS Lewis was a thing.

Well, from the beginof Magician's Nephew: "At the time this story took place, Sherlock Holmes lived on Baker Street, and the Bastables were searching for treasure."

 

[Teemu]

"more overall statblocks" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that assertion. If it has fewer statblocks that I need in my campaign then it is of less utility, is it not? If I gave you a Monster Manual with 10,000 statblocks that are say, all varieties of pirates, would you say that has more or less utility than the current Monster Manual?

Like was mentioned, had they removed, say, most plant creatures and replaced them with 15 different versions of pirates, yes, sure. But they didn’t. In fact they did the opposite by replacing a number of very specific stat blocks that aren’t usable in all games with a larger selection of more adaptable creatures, and then they added higher and lower CR versions of creatures to make the total number of stat blocks greater than the previous version of the book.

There’s more stat blocks and there’s a greater variety of them in the new MM. That means more utility, it’s really simple.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well, from the beginof Magician's Nephew: "At the time this story took place, Sherlock Holmes lived on Baker Street, and the Bastables were searching for treasure."

But what was the psammead up to?

 

[Remathilis]

I've been going off of what the designers have been releasing and the snippets posted here. There have been no judgements by me that were not based on the books. That's why I asked you those questions instead of jumping to judgment.

That's fair. I forgot about Fizban's having them in it.

Yeah, sorry. Just after two years, a dozen UAs, countless arguments, reviews, and arguments about the reviews, it feels like it would be very difficult for something like "goliaths got powers based on their giant type" or "mountain and hill dwarves have no mechanical differences" would have gone unnoticed. So sometimes it's hard to tell if a person is begging a question or genuinely unaware.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, sorry. Just after two years, a dozen UAs, countless arguments, reviews, and arguments about the reviews, it feels like it would be very difficult for something like "goliaths got powers based on their giant type" or "mountain and hill dwarves have no mechanical differences" would have gone unnoticed. So sometimes it's hard to tell if a person is begging a question or genuinely unaware.

I have the books and I hadn't noticed it because neither I or any of my player have played one.

 

[SkidAce]

Actually this is how I prefer to think about the dnd multiverse. A Infinite strings of universes that are similar but not exactly the same.
This fits well with every table having their own canon at their table. Thousands of different Forgotten realms or Eberrons, or home brew worlds with different histories but many of the same creatures and species.

I know it's not exactly DnD canon, but I like it much better. So that's how I choose to see the multiverse

Yeah, I have one "universe" full of galaxies and star systems and worlds with varying degrees of magic, all coexisting.

Then I have the "alt timeline" worlds that are "what if" scenarios and home campaign variations.

 

[Chaosmancer]

To be fair, WotC never said it was!

Yeah, this is the part that just blows my mind. So many people going "Of course that is what they meant" and judging WoTC for motivations they never stated they had, then turning around and smugging at everyone over how those motivations, that were never stated, suddenly don't seem to apply.

You know... almost as though that was never their motivation in the first place!