Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5748964" data-attributes="member: 2067">Some specifics!I'm not totally sure I follow your logic, here. You mentioned the MV as a "setting" book, but there's nothing stopping you from using the organizations, creatures, and minions in other settings, even whole cloth (indeed, since the Maths is better,  you probably want to use the MV versions instead of the original MM versions). The DSCC is similar: you could easily use any of those monsters or threats out of its native element, perhaps with just a little re-fluffing, perhaps not. I don't see this as functionally any different than the MM1-3's, aside from the latter books being more robust in terms of flavor and inspirational material. DSCC has an obvious campaign-specific bent, but it's interesting for any DM who wants some tactical monster challenges. Nothing about any of the Sorcerer-kings provided therein means you can't rip their stats out and use them as generic epic-level monsters, or even unique non-DS-specific threats, if you want. I perhaps just don't see the big difference you're seeing between a "monster manual" full of combat stats, and a "setting book" like the MV: full of combat stats, with more fluff. The books seem very similar in audience and in purpose to me. I think you're right in that encounter design is "the" big way to make PC flight a non-issue, but I think that might be part of the problem: forcing DMs to design encounters with flight in mind makes flight problematic, since it puts a limit on the DM's ability to do whatever they want. No normal T-Rex (or terrasque) is going to worry a flying character too much. In designing a game for a wide audience, it would seem prudent to avoid anything that forced the DM's hand. Flight would certainly fit in that category.So that leaves me sort of searching for a way to make flight a non-issue in a way that doesn't make a DMs job harder. It's possible that flight may be one of those things that separates the game between "advanced" and "basic." Basic D&D? No flight. If you want flight, here's some flying races, and some DM advice on how to make sure they don't spoil your fun. There's no easy mechanical solution, we just need to "train" the DM to keep the fun moving, and not allow in a flying PC willy-nilly, but only after proper DM preparation.That seems like a tall order, but it might be the way to put back in flying PC's at 1st level. Make them optional, and contingent on the DM learning how to creatively handle flight. Hmmm....It's interesting. I think in previous editions, the Monster Manuals were functionally exactly that: encounter books. Clearly focused on combat, but also with creatures like nymphs and angels and elves that you wouldn't necessarily fight, but that could provide an interesting encounter. It's why there's a Human entry. It's why the Campestri exist. It's why Metallic Dragons are Good. It's the function of the Rust Monster or the Rot Grub (they were traps disguised as monsters!). It even included player abilities -- aerial servants that clerics can summon were in the MMs. Type IV Demons were Type IV because that was what wizards summoned. That list of herd animals was a list of things the druid could turn into! I personally think there would be a lot of value in returning to something like that model (perhaps absent the player abilities, which should probably be in the player books). I would have hoped that aarakocra would find a place in there as at least a level 1 social skill challenge or something. A lot like their original incarnation. And maybe they'd find a place in the DMG2 as a race that features flying (along with DM guidelines for flight). <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification