D&D (2024) Is anyone at WOTC paying attention to what they print any more?

[jdrakeh]

As a sometimes editor and proofreader of RPG books, I can assure you that errors are not unique to WotC products. I've had the good fortune to work with many talented folks and even the best of them sometimes get things wrong.

 

[Lanefan]

I mean, that's funny as hell. LOL

How I would resolve it, though, is that it seems to me that the carrion crawler ability is more specific than the more general paralyzation rules. It seems clear from the specific ability that you can continue to make dex saves that are possible to succeed at and break the poison/paralysis.

Edit: It would have made more sense as a con save in any case.

More sensible yet would be Dex save to avoid in the first place, Con save to shrug off later.

 

[MerricB]

As a sometimes editor and proofreader of RPG books, I can assure you that errors are not unique to WotC products. I've had the good fortune to work with many talented folks and even the best of them sometimes get things wrong.

This one irritates me, but it's an invisible error. You're not going to spot it easily. (I pointed this stat block to one of my rules lawyers, and he didn't spot it, despite normally being all over this sort of stuff).

It's the stomping obvious ones that really get me going. (Like the read-aloud text in Shattered Obelisk that refers to the wrong monster).

Cheers!

 

[Lanefan]

I have issues with the MM that seem to stem from lack of oversite, but this example is not one of them. To me it is clear that paralyzing is secondary to the poison condition and the save every turn applies to the poison condition. If the poison condition ends, so does the paralyzing condition.

Still doesn't answer why someone's degree of dexterity has anything to do with resisting poison once that poison has taken hold.....

 

[Sacrosanct]

What bothers more is the wording of it now. Not just with the Carrion Crawler, but that's how they are doing every creature ability with that particular format. This:

Paralyzing Tentacles. Dexterity Saving Throw: DC 12, one creature the carrion crawler can see within 10 feet. Failure: The target has the Poisoned condition and repeats the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. After 1 minute, it succeeds automatically. While Poisoned, the target has the Paralyzed condition.

Does not read very intuitively to me. The 2014 version is much easier to read and parse.

 

[MerricB]

What bothers more is the wording of it now. Not just with the Carrion Crawler, but that's how they are doing every creature ability with that particular format. This:

Paralyzing Tentacles. Dexterity Saving Throw: DC 12, one creature the carrion crawler can see within 10 feet. Failure: The target has the Poisoned condition and repeats the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. After 1 minute, it succeeds automatically. While Poisoned, the target has the Paralyzed condition.

Does not read very intuitively to me. The 2014 version is much easier to read and parse.

I'm really tempted to give the standard answer of "They had something that worked, and they changed it to something that didn't work!"

But then I had to analyse that first statement. Did the original version work?

In the case when you have the effect being Damage + Paralysis, then attack then save does work. But when the only effect is Paralysis, the actual odds of inflicting that Paralysis at all is a lot lower than you'd expect. 50% chance of hitting, 50% chance of failing save = 25% chance of paralysis.

The new Carrion Crawler text means the paralysis goes up to 50%, and that ability becomes something that happens more. (Which, for the distinguishing part of the monster, I'm in favour of).

I think the text as it stands is pretty good - it's just unfamiliar to us at the moment. (A lot of D&D text requires familiarization before we really get it).

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Still doesn't answer why someone's degree of dexterity has anything to do with resisting poison once that poison has taken hold.....

People whose muscles twitch faster get rid of paralysation faster, obviously!

(Yeah, they cared more about the simplification of the template rather than whether the ongoing save made sense).

 

[MonsterEnvy]

It’s an oversight they should have had the future save be a con save. Will probably get errata. Proof readers are sadly not perfect.

But I don’t agree with you about any of the other stuff you named being problematic.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I agree with your assessment Merric. If they want to go the "one roll" route, then just make a Con save to begin with. You can easily imagine that if you are engaged in melee, you're going to be exposed to a bunch of tentacles and their poison. As a DM, I can narrate that well enough, even though I liked the 2014 version better.

This is the way. I like that this makes the poison VERY potent, and encourages the party to stick to ranged attacks, knowing that an unlucky die roll could quickly result in a dead melee fighter.

The other way would be to have it as a rider on a tentacle attack, but not require the initial save. So, each time you get hit with the tentacles, you get paralyzed without a save, but can limit the duration by having a successful save in subsequent turns. Makes poison immunity a bigger deal in the fight, and makes paralysis something that happens a lot.

Dex saves are over-used in D&D and this exacerbates the issue.

Though, I do reject the premise of the thread. Editing is tough. It's inevitable that stuff like this slips through the cracks. I haven't particularly noticed a big trend in more errors happening in this run of books than in any other run.

 

[Distracted DM]

It’s an oversight they should have had the future save be a con save. Will probably get errata. Proof readers are sadly not perfect.

I certainly agree that things can be missed, but they still haven't errata'd one big oversight from the (shameful) Spelljammer release which irks me to this day:
The neh-thalggu can't use its Extract Brain ability in after it's Mind Blasted something- its Mind Blast ends at the end of the Blasted creature's next turn, not the neh-thalggu's