D&D 5E Observations on the Monsters in the Starter Set.

[Kobold Stew]

We've been given a small bestiary in the Lost Mine of Phandelver. What have you noticed?

(warning: some spoilers for the adventure may follow; feel free not to read if this might upset you)

1. More hit points generally, answering a clear concern from the last play test.

2. I really like the scaling hit point dice: from d4s for tiny, d6 small, d8 medium, d10 large and d12 huge. This was in the play test, I know, but it's a nice, easy-to-freewheel default.

3. Orcs now have 16 strength -- higher than bugbears (has that ever happened before?)

4. Zombies and skeletons are Intelligent and evil. I presume that means making them is also explicitly evil.

5. Hobgoblins (which we saw leaked before release) are tied for the highest armour class -- they are hardest to hit.

6. art! The pictures of the stirge and the ghoul are perhaps the best I've seen of these creatures.

 

[Charles Wright]

On zombies and skeletons. It says in the Basic Rules that...

"Necromancy spells manipulate the energies of life and death. Such spells can grant an extra reserve of life force, drain the life energy from another creature, create the undead, or even bring the dead back to life.
Creating the undead through the use of necromancy spells such as animate dead is not a good act, and only evil casters use such spells frequently."

So your supposition is correct!

 

[beej]

Do any of the monsters have proficiency bonuses to their saving throws?

/asks the 3rd world gamer who won't get his Starter until September

 

[Kobold Stew]

Do any of the monsters have proficiency bonuses to their saving throws?

/asks the 3rd world gamer who won't get his Starter until September

Yes -- two named individuals (who are included in the bestiary) and the beastie on the cover of the box. Generally no, though.

 

[samursus]

Do any of the monsters have proficiency bonuses to their saving throws?

/asks the 3rd world gamer who won't get his Starter until September

There a few instances:

Those "monsters" that are PC races with character classes.

Oddly enough, Zombies have a Saving Throw bonus of Wisdom +0 (their actual Wis gives a -2 penalty)

And...

[sblock] the Dragon [/sblock]

Edit: Ninja'ed!!!!

 

[caudor]

A big difference that I noted is that some low level monsters now have a fractional CR. Let's take the goblin.

Previous versions of the goblin had a Level 1 (which was different terminology for CR, I think). The Start Set Goblin has a CR of 1/4. In addition, the previous goblin was worth 10 XP, while the Starter Set goblin is worth 50 XP. Much appears to have changed; so much so, that I'm having a hard time translating old monsters to the new math.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I really like the idea of skeletons and zombies being aligned. Makes necromancy 100% eeeeeeeeevil, as it should be.

 

[tuxgeo]

At least casting "Animate Dead" would be evil, if that spell made it into the final rules.
"Speak with Dead" would seem a likely candidate to be evil, as well.

 

[mach1.9pants]

At least casting "Animate Dead" would be evil, if that spell made it into the final rules.
"Speak with Dead" would seem a likely candidate to be evil, as well.

Why is that?

 

[Charles Wright]

At least casting "Animate Dead" would be evil, if that spell made it into the final rules.
"Speak with Dead" would seem a likely candidate to be evil, as well.

Since they mention it specifically in the Basic Rules (my quote above is straight out of that PDF) then I think it's safe to say that animate dead made it into the final rules.

Why would speak with dead be an evil spell? For disturbing the rest of the departed? (Serious question).