D&D 5E Fizban Is In The Wild -- With the Table of Contents!

Some people have received their copies of Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, and have posted photos (including the table of contents!) online!

 

[Demetrios1453]

Finally (for now) I like the Greatwyrm mythic builds. I don't own Theros so this is the first I have seen of them. The only thing I don't like is how it engages. I would double their hit points and have it happen at "bloodied" rather than pull a "gotcha" on the players by describing how it is almsost dead but NO, it comes back stronger! I think some players would feel cheated, especially if they ust burnt a mjor ability to down the thing because I described it as "close to falling" or whatever.

Eh, you don't have to describe it as "almost dead", just that "you've damaged it a lot and now it takes on a new form". Anyone who has played CRPGs, especially MMOs, will recognize the "Boss Phase" format.

 

[Reynard]

Eh, you don't have to describe it as "almost dead", just that "you've damaged it a lot and now it takes on a new form". Anyone who has played CRPGs, especially MMOs, will recognize the "Boss Phase" format.

If you don't have to describe it that way then why is it built that way. The literal only mechanical effect is to screw players out of a big damage hit at the bottom. Or, even worse, to let them drop the BBEG halfway through the fight with a sleep spell. Wouldn't that be a trip?

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

If you don't have to describe it that way then why is it built that way. The literal only mechanical effect is to screw players out of a big damage hit at the bottom. Or, even worse, to let them drop the BBEG halfway through the fight with a sleep spell. Wouldn't that be a trip?

It’s ultimately for ease of use. It’s very straightforward to just have a monster regenerate practically all of its health when it reaches 0, tack on a few special abilities appropriate for its existing challenge rating, and then double the XP. The alternative is not nearly as straightforward.

What’s the new CR for the monster? Two CR 10 monsters in sequence is not the same as a single CR 20 monster. At the most basic, proficiency bonus jacks up. How should to hit, damage, save DCs, etc. increase to match the new CR? Should they? Does it make the encounter too difficult across the board, or does not boosting them to match the new CR make the encounter too easy from start to finish?

If you’re publishing this for a third-party offering, is it easy for the user if you present an already doubled HP and tell them they need to figure out where the 50% of health mark is? Sure, dividing by 2 probably isn’t that big a deal for most people, but just saying “when they go to 0, set them to n hit points” is a lot more straightforward.

A lot of these sorts of monsters are going to be already a very high CR due to mythic monsters being more geared towards the highest tier of play as an added challenge. Polukranos from Theros, for example, is a CR 19 monster that should be treated as two CR 19 encounters in a row. You can’t just double that since the CR table only goes up to 30. What do you do in those cases? Do you now put it on the user (whether that’s the person buying your supplement if you’re a creator or that’s you as the DM who is using a system that Wizards defined) to extrapolate a bunch of things?

 

[Reynard]

If you’re publishing this for a third-party offering, is it easy for the user if you present an already doubled HP and tell them they need to figure out where the 50% of health mark is? Sure, dividing by 2 probably isn’t that big a deal for most people, but just saying “when they go to 0, set them to n hit points” is a lot more straightforward.

I am note sure why "when they reach 250 (of 500) hit points, their Epic Actions become available" or whatever is too complicated. Liek i said, there are solid design reasons for not having the monster get down to 0 HP because of a few connected mechanics.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

I am note sure why "when they reach 250 (of 500) hit points, their Epic Actions become available" or whatever is too complicated. Liek i said, there are solid design reasons for not having the monster get down to 0 HP because of a few connected mechanics.

Since the enumerated maximum hit points in stat blocks are a convenience and the expectation is that many DMs roll for monster hit points, the feature description would need to account for that possibility rather than making the assumption that the consumer would stick with the "typical" hit point value.

So, at best, it would be something more like "when the Gobbledygook reaches half of its maximum hit points (250)..."

Is it the worst thing in the world? Of course not. It's objectively not as straightforward, though.

And that only covers the hit points, forgetting all the other complications that come from making it a single, much stronger monster as opposed to two relatively equal "phases", which is a problem more for making some sort of easy baseline "system" to create your own mythic monsters as opposed to just utilizing one that has already been created for you.