D&D 5E Explain: Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse

[Blue]

And yet, the game survived, and thrived, with its first two editions having no means of magical counterspelling, and its third edition by only counterspelling if you cast the exact same spell as the one being cast at the same time. Are you saying that the game existed its first 25 - 30 years without having its own spirit of the game?

It's pretty cheap rhetoric to take one of a long list of examples of a general concept and then try to twist my words that if this one example doesn't exist, neither does the spirit of the game. You do not seem to be arguing in good faith, I will not further engage with you on this.

 

[Blue]

Magic Resistance would help. It says it's a magical ability.

Good catch, it does.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It's the other way around. They have no levels to interact with something like Counterspell or Globe of Invulnerability. It doesn't need anything explicit saying it doesn't interact any more than an axe does.

Here's a sample - the old Derro Savant had a bunch of spells, including Chromatic Orb. This has less spells, and Chromatic Orb is turned into a attack power Chromatic Beam.



It doesn't even pass the "Is this a spell?" test in the SA Compendium.

An Oath of the Ancients paladin with an aura granting resistance to spell damage won't affect this, though it would for Chromatic Orb. A Globe of Invulnerability, or monster-like equivilents like the Rakshasa's Limited Magic Immunity, don't stop it as written. Heck, there's not even anything that says a resistance to magic would help, though a DM could make a ruling.

and again was this the intent or an unintended side effect

 

[Blue]

and again was this the intent or an unintended side effect

Sorry, I don't know.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Are there actually DMs out there that would like their players to be able to Counterspell these new "spell-ish" abilities of the monsters in this new book, but actually won't let them because they aren't listed as spells or have slots anymore? And that DM will be unwilling to just make a ruling to do so at the time the attempted Counterspell occurs? That seems an odd methodology to take.

 

[Reynard]

and again was this the intent or an unintended side effect

The video posted above explicitly says these decisions were intentional -- prior to the book coming out. So lacking evidence that this is some sort of cover up, can't we assume that, yes, they intentionally built abilities into some creatures that aren't subject to anti-magic and counterspelling?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The video posted above explicitly says these decisions were intentional -- prior to the book coming out. So lacking evidence that this is some sort of cover up, can't we assume that, yes, they intentionally built abilities into some creatures that aren't subject to anti-magic and counterspelling?

thank you i did not watch all of them

 

[renbot]

Clarification is necessary regardless.

Yeah but it isn't. I don't know how often you read Sage Advice, but one thing Jeremy Crawford is famous/notorious for is not actually answering questions directly but pointing out that the rules have already answered the question. It's like the old "teach a man to fish..." proverb: JC seems determined to teach players how to fish (read the rules) rather than handing them a fish...I mean an answer.

Recent example:
Q: When you summon a Elemental (Conjure Elemental), do you need to speak its language to command it?

JC: Some spells say you summon something and it obeys you. If the spell has no language requirement, there's no language requirement.

Note that a simple "No" would have been much easier. But instead JC tries to educate us on how to answer the questions ourselves. When you take the rules at face value and assume that the developers have thought about how they interact with each other, the answers are usually clear. People seem to ask for "clarification" when they are making non-rules assumptions about the rules.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah but it isn't. I don't know how often you read Sage Advice, but one thing Jeremy Crawford is famous/notorious for is not actually answering questions directly but pointing out that the rules have already answered the question. It's like the old "teach a man to fish..." proverb: JC seems determined to teach players how to fish (read the rules) rather than handing them a fish...I mean an answer.

Recent example:
Q: When you summon a Elemental (Conjure Elemental), do you need to speak its language to command it?

JC: Some spells say you summon something and it obeys you. If the spell has no language requirement, there's no language requirement.

Note that a simple "No" would have been much easier. But instead JC tries to educate us on how to answer the questions ourselves. When you take the rules at face value and assume that the developers have thought about how they interact with each other, the answers are usually clear. People seem to ask for "clarification" when they are making non-rules assumptions about the rules.

He's said that a lot of the questions that he gets are people trying to apply AD&D, 3E or 4E assumptions.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah but it isn't.

The particular issue at hand has been resolved, so I won't belabour that, but I do think that it is the responsibility of a game designer to present information as completely and concisely as is possible.

RPGs have frankly been getting away with half asses rules for decades, mostly because there is a GM in there to make calls when the rules aren't clear. Now, i am not saying an RPG needs to have comprehensive rules. That's neither possible nor desirable. but the rules that are there should be clear and easy to look up. It is still a game. And while you don't need to reiterate a rule with every game element the rule interacts with, if you present a new element that interacts with a rule, you should certainly point out how that interaction works.

Again, this isn't related to the spell abilities thing: we have hashed that out and it seems to fall well within existing rules structure (even if some abilities were changed from spells to not-spells). They did not invent a new category of ability, which is what I originally though. But if they did -- say the book added "Psionic Powers" as a category -- I would expect to be told how exactly that new category interacts with abilities and spells that affect or are affected by magic.