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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 7935324" data-attributes="member: 6801228">We seem to be in agreement on all these. I don't think D&D culture advocates against these more than it ever has in the past. Some DMs are super light touches, some are rockfalls. But the culture overall is just moving more towards narrative cohesion rather than "can I kill this guy today" (basing that line off of the Knights of the Dinner Table for comedic effect.)If you are heavy in intrigue, I'd say Poison, Magic, and shapechangers. All three are big, with various effects you can use.For example, my DM had to specifically rewrite Dream because by RAW it is a near perfect assassination tool. If you can deny a long-rest by someone failing the save against Dream, then they do not gain any hp or spells back, and they take damage from the spell. One night of that will have your players scrambling to find the culprit.Also, just homebrew stuff. One of the first things I thought about was a poison that is harmless, until you are exposed to a secondary poison that then has nasty effects. That doesn't exist in the game, but it easily could.And Shapechangers, dang, a good shapechanger with some decent skills and stats can be a terrifying foe, because it causes so much paranoia amongst the party. Especially if you can convince a party member to act in place of the shapechanger for a quick scene, like they split up to investigate a party and the shapechanger sneaks over looking like a party member. They reveal a plan only for a few minutes later for the character to show up and them realize that they were lied to, or better yet, think the new person is the shapechanger.It doesn't add combat challenge, but not knowing where your foe is or what they have planned is a big stress button for players. And if they are stressed they will feel more threatened even if in a straight fight they could take the individual out.I see the point you are trying to make, but I don't think it was necessary for a pretty obvious reason.Most DMs are far more active and responsive to surveys than players are.For example, amongst all the tables, digital and real, that I play at, I am just about the only one that participated in the surveys and I'm generally the most knowledgeable about the UA articles and rulings. That puts me vs about... sixteen other people? Something like that anyways.So, it is reasonable that the survey accounted for this weight (in statistical terms) when sifting through the data without any special effort needed on the end of us the public. I want to additionally note, there were professional survey testers involved in the process, easy to spot things like this were almost certainly addressed as they gathered and sifted through the data.</blockquote>

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