D&D 5E Recent Errata clarifications

[Bolares]

I know that, which is why I said decoy instead of dud.

I was not talking directly to you... If I was I'd mentioned or replied to you. You don't like Legendary Resistances, I got that. And that's fine, there's always something in the game we don't like.

 

[Staffan]

Pathfinder 2 has a different solution to the "save or suck versus the boss monster" problem: the Incapacitation tag. Basically, any spell or ability that can take someone out of a fight directly or hit them with a strong enough debuff to get close gets the Incapacitation tag, which means that if the target's level is higher than either the user's level (if it's a class ability or similar) or double the spell level (for a spell), their save automatically improves by one step (so a failed save becomes a successful save, or a successful save a critical success). That's intended to serve the same purpose, but the effect is basically that you just don't use that sort of abilities on higher-level targets.

The more elegant solution is from 13th age, where such effects usually have HP limitations, which means that before you can use them on strong targets you need to knock them around a bit.

 

[Mind of tempest]

What's the challenge? You throw three decoy saves at them, waste three rounds, then start the real fight.

proper boss design is not something 5e seems to do well.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well, have you ever considered that maybe you were the bad guys?

Sure, we aim to misbehave!

 

[Alby87]

Why? Mindflayers like to mind control sentient humanoids and eat their brains. "So, are they good guys or bad guys?"

I've played many different RPGs since the 1980s, and they all managed without alignment apart from D&D. We never had any trouble figuring out who the bad guys are (usually, they where the ones shooting at us).

Wait, I was talking about both Alignement Suggestion in PHB and Roleplaying tips for monster NPCs.

Mindflayers aren't a playable race (yet), and those suggestion that were lost in Volo's errata could have been useful when designing a "minor" NPC.

Aligment Suggestion for playble races in PHB (et similia) contained some lore about the race, useful for having an idea of a culture of a race when used by DM for NPCs or for getting an idea when creating a PC. Saying that some Dwarves in Faerun "believe in the benefits of a well ordered society" (and for this they tend to be lawful), is a good example of "what" you should consider when getting the alignement for your new character, not a "you must get this" because you are playing a Dwarf.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exactly. All this noise about how they're "removing alignments" is a molehill being made to look like a mountain. I personally was more concerned about the large amounts of lore being chopped out of Volo's, but Ray's explanation for that makes sense to me. I'm glad I have an old copy of Volo's that still has that content in it, but I don't mind that they've removed it in future copies.

The explanation makes sense, but the problem is they replaced it with nothing. If not all yuan-ti (for example) are as originally described, that what are they like? Officially, we don't know.

 

[Mind of tempest]

if they are going to remove alignment from PC races can we get more flavour for the races as they feel just slightly too bland especially dwarves and halflings?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I know that, which is why I said decoy instead of dud. It's a metagame of trying to trick the DM when both of you know any good effects you use will get no-selled. I don't like 'challenging' player skill vs DM skill in a game about the characters and the world.

Nearly every challenge challenges the players. They're the ones making the decisions.

 

[Laurefindel]

The explanation makes sense, but the problem is they replaced it with nothing. If not all yuan-ti (for example) are as originally described, that what are they like? Officially, we don't know.

Officially, we know a little from the Monstrous Manual and other sources like Volo's. I think their intention is still to describe what they (Yuan-ti in this case) are, but not in the race description. That information must come from elsewhere, possibly from setting-dependent sources.

So far D&D has been operating under a "this is how things are, except for when it's different" philosophy. It feels to me that they want to start operating like "It always depends. In this setting, things are like this" instead.

So I don't think WotC is trying to remove moral/cultural information from the game, but to migrate this information to another place than PC racial templates. Which other place? I don't know yet. I hope they do.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Officially, we know a little from the Monstrous Manual and other sources like Volo's. I think their intention is still to describe what they (Yuan-ti in this case) are, but not in the race description. That information must come from elsewhere, possibly from setting-dependent sources.

So far D&D has been operating under a "this is how things are, except for when it's different" philosophy. It feels to me that they want to start operating like "It always depends. In thins setting, things are like this" instead.

So I don't think WotC is trying to remove moral/cultural information from the game, but to migrate this information to another place than PC racial templates. Which other place? I don't know yet. I hope they do.

this will likely change how they do setting books by at least a small fraction.


I just fear the worst-case version where they cut it and replace it with nothing as dumber things have happened.