D&D 4E WotC this is something you absolutely cannot screw up in 5E like you screwed up in 4E

[Olgar Shiverstone]

What about donkeyhorses and other compound names?

 

[Mercurius]

You mean you don't want to fight a thunderstomper drake with your shardmind battlemind?

 

[ferratus]

Yeah, definately out of the MM and (most especially) out of the random encounter tables. Dinosaurs and Dragons don't play well together in D&D.

Shouldn't this thread have a less inflammatory title like "Use proper Dinosaur names in 5e?" I don't like the beligerance and phrases like this raise the temperature of the conversation around here.

 

[Li Shenron]

"Latin"? What is this "Latin" language you speak of? Is that anything like Elven or Deep Speech? I don't recall it being an option on the Languages table.

[pun]

What are these "horses", "tigers" and "spiders" they're talking about? They should be called "swiftrunners", "striped fangroarers" and "poisonous webspinners".

And where is this "English" language after all, there is no such thing in the language table either!

[/pun]

Happy gaming


(edit): The reason why names should revert to the real ones is simple: they are real creatures that people recognize on sight (every grammar school kid has seen many of them already somewhere). Changing names to fantasy ones makes all us D&D gamers look silly. What if a 10-yo kid goes to school and in the history/biology class speaks up fantasy dinosaurs' names that he thought he knew right because he's read them from his big bro's D&D book?

 

[Glade Riven]

"Latin"? What is this "Latin" language you speak of? Is that anything like Elven or Deep Speech? I don't recall it being an option on the Languages table.

Glendric "Elfsblood" Tes'theroth, paladin and high inquisitor of the Holy Roman Church, is quite fluent in the language. Then again, his ancestors came to dystopian post-apochalyptic Earth from a version of Faerun over-run with a type of divine-immune zombie plague. Gnomes were to blame.

 

[Wormwood]

Disagree.

When I think of heroic fantasy, I don't think of Linnaean taxonomy.

 

[Wormwood]

Dinosaurs were first given descriptive names in 3e [Eberron Campaign Setting, p280: Bladetooth, Hammertail, Battletitan, etc.]

 

[Kunimatyu]

So you'd hate fighting a King Tyrantlizard, then? What about a Threehornface Horror? Armored Rooflizard?

You seem to think that these Latin names are magical and special and somehow not the same stupid fused-word naming convention we use all the time for animals. I blame Harry Potter.

 

[Jawsh]

Dinosaurs were first given descriptive names in 3e [Eberron Campaign Setting, p280: Bladetooth, Hammertail, Battletitan, etc.]

Indeed, where it was appropriate. A specific campaign setting with context.

 

[Piratecat]

Why not just take them out of the game entirely? Problem solved. Sure, you can include their stats in a "lost world" adventure, but do they really belong in the core rules?

Because I like you, I'm going to pretend this never got said. LALALALALA.