D&D 5E Volo's Guide to Monsters: General Discussion.

[Elderbrain]

So, is anyone else irritated by the inclusion of so many humanoid/class templates? By my count there's about 19 of them, since I wasn't sure if the warlocks listed were generics or no. Most of the examples of such in the MM average 2-3 per page, so that means at best 6 pages of generics, more with art present. Couple that with, as others point out, the frankly bizarre number of cows listed, and it almost feels like they somehow needed filler in an already light book.

Irritated? I'm DELIGHTED! This fills many holes in the MM NPC list. I do understand you wanting more monsters, but NPCs are important, too... it looks like finally all the PCs classes will have at least one NPC stat block - assuming that the "Champion" is a Paladin, that is.

With regards to the Cows, they decided to put one Cow-like animal in (say, the Stench Kow, or the Rothe), and said to themselves, well, we can use this Cow stat block to represent four different animals - which makes sense. If you've decided to have a stat block for one of them, why NOT mention that it can also represent x,y, and z with appropriate modifications? Of course, you may not have a use for ANY of them, but so it goes.

 

[jadrax]

Champion is a Fighter with some Champion Sub-class features.

Darklings and Darkling Elders are Dark Creepers, the Underdark/Fey creatures that explode when killed.

Deep Scions are basically drowning humanoids that have been transformed into shape-changing squid folk by some powerful undersea creature.

Sea Spawn are basically the crew of the Flying Dutchman from Pirates of the Caribbean films. They also act as minions for powerful underwater creatures.

Blackguards are fallen Paladins.

 

[jadrax]

So, is anyone else irritated by the inclusion of so many humanoid/class templates? By my count there's about 19 of them, since I wasn't sure if the warlocks listed were generics or no. Most of the examples of such in the MM average 2-3 per page, so that means at best 6 pages of generics, more with art present. Couple that with, as others point out, the frankly bizarre number of cows listed, and it almost feels like they somehow needed filler in an already light book.

Personally, I think the humanoid/class templates are probably the most useful thing in the book - Although I could have lived without the specialist wizards, most of the others are so fundamental they have been sorely missed up to this point.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

To be fair, those were all presented as setting-independent by Roger E. Moore in Dragon magazine. They got the official thumbs-up from Gygax and became assumed part of the Greyhawk setting. Apparently, Ed Greenwood & Jeff Grubb also dug them, and incorporated them into the Forgotten Realms, too. Since then, they've been presented as both setting-neutral as well as part of those two settings.

This needs to be stickied somewhere in a universal D&D primer.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I picked up the version with the limited Game Store cover, and it is even more beautiful in person. It's a very attractive book, and I will happily buy any future books released in this style. I'd even buy new copies of the core books.

 

[flametitan]

@TheHobgoblin, what's wrong with making Hobgoblin wizards? Wizards tend to boost Int/Dex/Con, and you're getting bonuses to two of the three. You can pick up Net proficiency so you have some way besides spamming cantrips to spend your off-rounds, and maybe heavy crossbow proficiency too to give you something to do at long range (cantrips rarely exceed 120' range). Saving face is a quasi-substitute for Resilient(everything) and can help you keep concentration and/or avoid critical save failures like a surprise Banshee wail. You aren't going to intentionally risk those saves more than 1/short rest anyway.

It's not terrific, but it's not terrible either, and unlike a variant human at least you get darkvision. Hobgoblin wizards appear to be 100% reasonable.

Amusingly, Hobgoblins would make pretty decent Bladesingers if such a thing were possible, maybe better than High Elves. (The High Elf cantrips are a waste for a wizard.) Con instead of Dex is a significant change and would incline Hobgoblin bladesingers more toward spell-chucking than melee, but then that is already one of the top recommended usages of Bladesingers already.

Hobgoblin Fighter/Abjurors might also reasonably become a thing, even though that makes the martial weapon proficiency a waste.

Obviously, Hobgoblin NPCs will benefit more from Saving Face than many PCs will--but don't underestimate the number of allies in a typical party! Once you finish up adding up all the PCs and hirelings/other NPCs, the various familiars, and the Paladin's intelligent steed, that +5 may turn out to be the most common bonus.

I wonder if Saving Face is usable for initiative. Can initiative checks ever be said to "fail"?

The only downside of playing a hobgoblin wizard is that the stereotype of hobgoblins seems to me to be more of a Battlemaster fighter over a gish wizard. As much as I dislike racial abilities that discourage playing against type, a race that doesn't have much in the way of encouraging you to play type is kind of weird.

Otherwise I agree that they'd make decent gish wizards. Perhaps ignore the bladesinger subclass in favour of using the SCAGtrips for your melee fighting. Abjuration, if I've done the math right, takes you slightly ahead of the fighter if you don't roll for hit points (and generally I prefer avoiding rolling when possible for theorycrafting as you have more control over the end result. In play I will admit I like adding a little chaos). The big weakness of the Bladesinger is that you have a high AC but if you fail your saves you're going down quickly. An Abjuration Wizard that can reliably have a 16 con 16 INT and Stud Leather is doing ok but not amazing on the AC field, but with Arcane ward can take hits fairly well.

I don't believe Initiative counts as failing, as I'm pretty sure it doesn't count as an opposed check.

Checked my "local" game stores. Do not have the books yet, but they expect to be able to ship it to me in a couple weeks. I am sad. At least I got some city themed map tiles for my effort.

 

[Dualazi]

Now that I know more about Volo's goblins, it seems clear that Fury of the Small is going to do damage competitive with Aasimar bonus damage too. If your 10th level Necrotic Shroud is doing 50 - (27 or whatever) damage over five rounds, and my goblin's Fury of the Small is doing 10 points of bonus damage three times per day, that's comparable, nicht so?

I’ll probably be repeating this several times, but the 50% is just that, 50%, and could well be higher based on combat round count and player luck/accuracy. That said, Fury of the Small is also suspiciously good, doubly so when coupled with goblin’s nimbleness. Will probably disallow them at my table as well.

If the reaction attack is triggered, you have an adjacent ally almost by definition. You don't need advantage to get sneak attack damage in that case.

Also, Swashbucklers rock.

Okay, so I was reading it correctly. I don’t know why the monster wouldn’t just pummel the rogue then, and I would hardly call it reliable enough to “double the rogue’s damage” consistently, anyway.

(mounted combat stuff)

I’d be happy to discuss the merits/demerits of the feat, but we’re kind of getting off track from the purpose of the thread.

So now you're assuming 8-10 round battles, but survivability (such as what you get from Nimble Escape, Mounted Combatant, Mobile, etc.) has no value? Color me skeptical. In such battles, "kill enemies faster" is clearly not working.

The more I read about Volo's, the more Aasimar look worse than goblins.

I never said they have no value, I said that the damage being brought by this racial ability is *more* valuable, and I stand by it. Furthermore, I started my complaint with a discussion based on racial comparisons, not feat comparisons. Only the variant human has access to those, and I would still say it’s one of the most broken options because of it, and one that my table unanimously agreed to ban. YMMV.

I may decide to ban goblins too, since they seem to have been given a bit much as well, but it really looks like wizards just didn’t feel like balancing many of these offerings in one way or another, which is disappointing because it only increases the chances DMs will say no, I think.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Would you care to elaborate on any instance in which your group actually used the Intelligence attribute for well... literally anything...
That wasn't inconsequential... oh, and wasn't a situation in which it wasn't perfectly fine if only one party member made the check and everyone had the chance...

Arcana checks (You see a magical symbol, what does it do?)
Investigation Checks (Is the Door trapped?)
Religion or Nature or History checks (How do you not offend the powerful entity standing in front of you)

Ah, but you may say that if only one person passes it is fine. Which isn’t really always the case. You check the door for traps, fail, you don’t think the door is trapped…. So why would Jim, Bob, Steve, Gary and Amanda all check for traps as well, there are no traps.

Sure, only one person needs to pass the nature check to understand how to not offend the powerful wolf spirit…. But all that means is that one guy might not offend him, the rest of you did, which may cause problems.

And there are spells and monsters that require Intelligence saves, they aren’t common but they exist and if a group showed up to my table, bragging about how they don’t need Intelligence scores and had scores under 10 across the board… Well, I’d finally get a chance to run that Intellect Devourer cave encounter I’ve been toying with… and that is probably all bad for that party.

Yes, DPR is part of the game-- hint, your character doesn't survive long nor does the party if you decide to ignore it. Ignoring it IS the niche-- YOU are the niche, not I.
It is very simple. The higher chance a character has of succeeding on each roll during the course of the game directly equates to just how viable the character is for play. An unviable character will not only leave you feeling you are contributing nothing by your presence, but will actually reduce the chance of success at everyone else at the table. Sure-- you can forgo dungeon crawling and battles all together and ignore skill rolls and just you know... crumple up the first page of your character sheet where all the numbers are located and just free form the whole thing. Don't even need a PHB or MM for that! By all means, you are welcome to do that.

But THAT is the niche play style. Looking at the actual effectiveness of a character in and out of combat and formulating their general chances of successfully passing the challenges necessary to complete the adventure-- that is the mainstream style of play.

I think you are being highly dismissive of political intrigue campaigns. A good plan and a few social rolls can finish a mission quicker than pulling out sword and spells to torch a thing.
Also, have you heard of Treamont’s God Wizard, highly respected wizard build. Does zero damage. So… ignores DPR and focuses on Intelligence.



Skipping the rest of your post because it is late and jumping down to

It is well known that regardless of your personal perception of how they are different, even in the printed modules, and much more so at your average game, any time Investigation could be used, the DMs call for Perception checks instead-- or at least allow Perception to substitute in. Moreover, Perception allows you to identify immediate risks which Investigation does not-- it is a flat out worse and more limited skill.

Every time I have seen any skill from the Intelligence pool called for in a game, it has always been the case that it is fine if only a single PC passes the test as that one PC can then relate the information along to everyone else in the party. As opposed to failing a Dexterity test in which you actually lose hit points or a Perception test in which you take an entire round of damage before you can even act or a Strength check which might deny you an entire round of action as you are forced to simply take damage...

Even when used as a save, the cost of failing Intelligence checks tends to be far less costly than nearly any other attribute. So I would like to know how any individual in a group could possibly be suffering from a low Intelligence Attribute and wouldn't be suffering a whole lot more if any other attribute were the deficiency.

I do not call for Perception when a player needs to use Investigation. I may sometimes allow them to substitute, but if I say Investigation, I mean Investigation.

In case you can’t tell, I’m the DM, and sure, anecdotes are nearly worthless, but from the way you are going about this rhetoric it sounds like you are focusing almost entirely on combat and hp damage… that isn’t the entirety of the game and plenty of tables play differently.

Plus, having a 16 in a primary stat isn’t worthless. It is decent. So Hobgoblins aren’t terrible at everything, they make very decent builds. Int and Con make for a great wizard, Arcane Trickster, or Eldritch Knight, all of whom can use the Int and the con not only helps with frontlining but helps keep concentration.

As for my player, it is a slight homebrew situation. I am running a steampunk game with Gunslingers and Gun makers.

He wants to make things with his Tinker’s Tools, but those are normally Intelligence Proficiency Checks, and he has a +0 Int, meaning that he often struggles to beat the DC required to make the complex items he requests. He also tried to show off his ingenuity to a Cloud Giant, and rolled poorly on Int meaning that the plans he presented were of average quality, not as great as he had claimed.

Also, my players just entered a heavily trapped filled dungeon. Only one of them has a high Intelligence, so the Investigation checks are hurting some of them. Lucky for them at least 2 of my 3 rogues took expertise in Investigation so they are getting by, but it makes it hard for the group at times when the person trying to check for traps isn’t as good at it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I’ll probably be repeating this several times, but the 50% is just that, 50%, and could well be higher based on combat round count and player luck/accuracy. That said, Fury of the Small is also suspiciously good, doubly so when coupled with goblin’s nimbleness. Will probably disallow them at my table as well.

By saying "50-27ish", I was granting you 100% "uptime" over the course of five rounds (#2-#6), with 27ish representing the opportunity cost in round #1. That's pretty generous already. In reality it's more likely to be 80%ish "uptime" over the course of two or three rounds (#2-#3 or #2-#4), which as demonstrated previously with the paladin math means you may not even be showing a profit at all.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Checked my "local" game stores. Do not have the books yet, but they expect to be able to ship it to me in a couple weeks. I am sad. At least I got some city themed map tiles for my effort.

I checked my local game store. They told me Thursday night that "oh, we don't have that until tomorrow," and then when I came back on Friday they were like, "Oh, you didn't pre-order? Sorry, we sold out." The fact that they made me come back twice for nothing annoyed me enough that I'm not going back there again--I'll just wait the extra few days for my Amazon copy to ship. Sorry, FLGS, by not fulfilling your one function (immediate access) you missed out!