Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
I'll be honest, I'm struggling to see how your comment relates to mine?
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If anything I'd say 5e handles out-of-combat encounters better than combat ones, you have a limited number of action choices, unless you're a fighter I guess, and most encounters boil down to grinding out the same actions and attacks turn after turn. Compare that to put of combat encounters and players are only limited by their creativity in terms of how they use any of their skills. Casters have a great range of utility spells that don't necessarily have any combat application at all.
I just want to say I really don't mean any malicious intent with my posts, even if my tone comes across hostile through the wonderful medium of text.
Truth is, I really don't even care about orcs. I don't use them in my games for most of the reasons you've described unless a player character is one. I've only been playing 5e for the past 3 years And DMing for 2 so I'm not a veteran by any measure. I don't like using hordes of orcs because quite frankly I think it's lazy more than anything. I would like to see WoTC add lore to some of the neglected races. Goblins get to be crafty and cunning tinkerers, but orcs just don't have an alignment anymore. I thought Eberron was cool with what it did with both races, again this is just a 5e perspective so I might be ignorant of something compromising.
I do think the little lore changes are a bit out of place right now, with potentially another edition soon round the corner as they could completely reinvent the Forgotten Realms or make an entirely new one.
I would like to apologise to anyone who has been upset by my line of questioning. None of you are responsible for what WoTC do with their property and my queries should have been with them more directly.
So I'm sorry. I don't like who I am when I forum post.
You're viewing it as combat v non combat. In my opinion, that's not the best way. To my view, that's like viewing food as being veggies v non veggies. I understand why, it's because the other elements, the non combat elements, are quite underdeveloped in comparison. For example of the other divisions, you get social interaction, physical interaction with the world (climbing, etc), observing the world, etc.
Let's look at what's the most important non combat aspect of the world (in my experience, at least), socially interacting with others, and compare it to combat. I'll just be looking at non creative methods, since once you get creative, it's like dealing with infinities, and unmanageable.
Without magic, you can...persuade or intimidate, and maybe saving throws. . Combat with a character with no special abilities? You can attack with a melee weapon (we'll ignore damage types), you can shoot them with a ranged weapon, you can grapple, you can choose knock them unconscious, you have a health system, you have saving throws (much more regular than in social interaction), you get the life or death throws mechanjcs, you get to choose weapons which each has a meaningful impact in terms of straight damage vs being able to dual wield etc, your get to choose between armour or stealth, and so forth. I could go on, but then I'm starting to get into overlaps (such as having the choice to throw or stab with your dagger).
With spells, yes, you get spells that help with social interaction such as Friends, Detect Thoughts, etc, but most of those are also applicable to combat, and then there are tons that are only applicable for combat.
When looking at magic items, there are some that are for social interaction, but the vast majority are for combat.
We could go through other aspects of the game, like observing the world, exploring it, etc - but it's mostly the same story. The combat side of things is marvellously developed. It's spoiled me as I started playing Star Trek Adventures, whose combat is severely lacking in comparison, and it has received a lot of care and attention. The other aspects of the game are severely neglected by comparison. Don't get me wrong, they're not terrible, but the combat side of things is so well developed that it kind of makes the rest look almost non existent. We have a class that was based around another leg that gets seen as very underpowered as a result and had to be patched to have more combat options just so people would consider it viable. You seemed to consider the game as combat v non combat, as opposed to combat v social interaction v exploration etc.
I'm now aware that we've gone wildly off OT now, so I'll leave it there. I'll just say that it would be amazing if WotC could develop the other aspects of the game to the level that they developed combat, or at least to the point where players see them as important aspects of the game in their own right. I don't know how they can, but it'd be great if they could do that.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
At the end of the day, regardless of what Wizards of the Coast publishes, you can run your game in any capacity that you and your players find acceptable.
Your experiences are not the same as another's nor more valid. It is important that published content be published in a manner that is experience agnostic, meaning, that regardless of your experiences, you can find it enjoyable and acceptable. From that point, make it your own. If that consists of making all drow evil Lolth worshippers, you do you, or having widespread racism, you do you.
I feel the way the changes were explained was very bad.
Paragraphs removed and lists of possible traits added, all without showing us what the old/new lore is.
Lore is changed, but won't tell what was removed or added.
It is this unknown change that I have a negative reaction to.
If it was known, we would not have to ask what lore made people uncomfortable, because then we could see what made it "bad".
That's just not true https://media.wizards.com/2021/dnd/downloads/VGtM-Errata.pdf They mention what has been removed and the give the changes to the old lore.
That is the problem, not showing exactly what it was before and after.
Are you talking about digital copies? Because if you have a printed copy you have the original text. If you are talking about digital copies than you're barking up the wrong tree.
You can see what was removed if you compare what the books show on the website to the books you have in the app. Someone mentioned the beholder getting savaged. If I may, the text that was removed from the beholder is really just redundancy. It is covered in the literal pages of content right above it.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
This.
There's also the matter of folks complaining about changes and not having the change laid out to them. Not to go all Zen riddle; but if a angry poster goes back to Volo's and can't figure out what's missing, were they really robbed if they were never aware of the removed text in the first place.
So much of this "controversy" is resultant from bad faith journalistic coverage.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Why do I have a feeling that if these changes had been made in the very late 2000s/early 2010s, there would be notably less rage? Today there's a whole cottage industry of reactionaries who rage against anything that could be vaguely perceived as "woke".
Late to toss my two coppers in, and tbh, after spending a few days reading this thread and thinking about it, I fear I don’t really have much to add.
However I did want to say, as one of those folks whose played since he was ten & is now over a half century, I like the changes!! I am not at all upset by the edits, and I don’t think any of it detracts or sullies my enjoyment of the game as a whole. My children are in their twenties now, and I do think that the D&D being published today is indeed focused to appeal more towards their generation than mine, and I think that is a good thing.
I don’t see what is happening as ripping the lore to bits, and even if they were… heck that would be what.. the sixth time Forgotten Realm’s lore was “Crisis-Molded” into something reflecting the newest commercial offerings? I lose track.
I guess more than anything else I just wanted to be one of those voices saying that I think this direction WOTC seem to be taking things is a positive step in a good direction. I hope it leads to a long fun journey we can all take together.
That would be nice.
I am confused.
OK - this is fluff to partialy describe my origins and abilities.
What?
How can Lolth "corrupt" some of the oldest drow cities when she is the reason the drow exist in the first place? If you mean that Lolth corrupted some of the earliest "proto-elves" into siding with her then yes - she has "corrupted some of the oldest drow cities" by virtue of being built by her followers in the first place ...
I'm sorry what the f***?!? According to the PHB the primary religion is now relegated to "a lurking cult"?!?
.... I am pretty sure that people shape a cities culture, but that a peoples culture is not confined to only one city ....
So the new origin that we have is that we grew up in dark places .... all the drow in the multiverse are just mole people now.
"We have an Underdark in our Setting because we have Drow!" and "We have Drow in our Setting because we have an Underdark!"
Nahhh - its just the secondary reason they exist in the first place AND their primary Godess in pretty much every setting. Unless you are gonna tell us that all Elves worship Corellon next - Including on Eberron?
Like .... what?
.......
This requires further investigation .....
I don't mind that there are non-lolthite societies out there, but it bugs the hell out of me how they decided to go about it. There were already lots of drow cities, enclaves, tribes etc above and below ground-Vhaeraunites and Eilistraeens in particular, but you also had entire cities that worshipped other members of the Dark Seldarine like Ghaunadaur, had multiple members of the pantheon observed, or even were nonreligious (Sshamath). There was even an entire surface nation of humans, drow and half drow who followed Loviatar (and Lolth to a lesser extent) Those are effectively erased now Menzoberranzan is the first (only?) drow/udadrow city founded by Lolth
These new changes basically boil down everything into three flavors of drow centered around three city states. It basically does the exact opposite of it's advertised intent of adding subtlety and diversity to drow depictions. All the members of the Dark Seldarine here suffer from this, but honestly, the familiar Lolthite 'udadrow' seem to be set to suffer the biggest case of flanderization from this.
By centering all things Lolth around Menzo and erasing/marginalizing all the other cities you can't have somewhere where every noble house expresses their faith in a different way with different practices and dogma (Guallidurth), a city where the priestesses kowtow to the male magocracy to cling to what little power they have left after a revolution (Sshamath), where an order of warrior lolthite monks have supplanted the usual military structure and were the true power behind the throne (Undrek'Thoz). etc. Basically this turns drow as we knew them into even more of a monoculture by erasing all of the previously marginalized drow lore instead of emphasizing it and instead just presenting us with this image of drow 'as we knew them'=Menzoberranzan.
The new origin for the drow seems to throw out the old origins. Menzo is no longer a third generation city, but the first udadrow city where Lolth lured some drow to the underdark to found. This throws into question stuff like the history of the Great Rift and the Crown wars, and the nature of the descent itself, in turn throwing up into the air dwarven history and much of elven history.
Lolth is also basically just a minor cult goddess now. Her biggest accomplishment now is luring a small group of drow (while the majority turned their nose up at her, apparently) into isolating themselves (as opposed to being banished/driven underground) and forming a cult. It massively takes the wind out of the sails of one of D&D's most iconic antagonists IMO, and it also makes the other Dark Seldarine who struggled against her look downright-dare I say it- pathetic due to their inability to overthrow a minor cult goddess whose claim to fame is founding a cult in an underground city.
The problem people are having is not that the Drow aren't evil anymore - because the evil Drow are still there - but because it's a retcon that's awkward, unnecessarily tramples previously established lore, and because it lacks nuance.
The new Drow have problems on the face of it. Literally. First of all, good Drow have existed almost as long as the concept of Drow have in the cult of Eilistraee, but the problem was that as an outsider there was no way to tell a good one from an evil one especially since the Lolth-worshipping culture lent itself to deceit. With no way to distinguish beyond RPing it out the introduction of a party of Drow immediately shifted the tone to one of intrigue as you tried to figure out whether you were going to get shanked.
nuDrow have magic tattooes informing anyone who cares to look what their allegiance is. In what was presumably an attempt to add nuance they've ended up making them a one-note binary of "bad guy looks like this, good guy looks like that, stab appropriately". Evil Drow aren't evil because they're descendants of a messy civil war raised in a culture that forces them to develop their worst traits just to survive, they're evil because they're bad guys. Good drow are good because they have a signpost telling you so, not because they've struggled to leave behind wickedness and redeem themselves. It feels like an unwarranted move to appease people who've created a problem out of their own lack of knowledge on the subject and damaged the setting in doing so.
It also introduces the new Jungle Drow who have absolutely no basis in the near half-century now of writing Forgotten Realms can boast (which the new Good/Evil Drow also walks all over) and are an entirely unnecessary addition. The fact that they are essentially discount Eberron Drow in the latest example of homogenisation and setting theft isn't helping soften the blow.
..... wow. Just wow.
#OpenDnD
1) No. At least not from scratch. Correllan made the Elves. Lolth stole/corrupted some Elves away from Correllan. Those Elves became the Drow.
- Yes. If there are versions of the Lore that predate (or postdate these days I suppose) the version you want to be true; those versions can be lies in-universe that Drow mistakenly believe is true.
-She wishes she could've made golems, but found herself stuck with sentient beings, whom she has worked long and hard to make as golem-like as possible (bit of an oversimplification, but close enough)
----No, it doesn't mean that about the PC's; it largely means that about NPC's. When a PC Drow encounters NPC Drow, they should NOT generally/reasonably expect to be able to persuade those Drow to 'see the light and change their ways,' and otherwise break from the will of their goddess. A PC of a typically evil race who is not themselves evil should always be the exception. They should not be a ...is the word mguffin? to try and change the lore and say "Oh, no; that all Drow are evil thing is just a myth spread by bigots, most of us are actually alright really." No. Drow ARE typically evil; but that doesn't mean the PC needs to be evil.
----This goes back to Lolth, not really having made the Drow, but merely taken them from Correllan who made all the Elves in the first place. Drow do have free will, including the free will not to follow Lolth, because Elves have free will and Drow are Elves. This doesn't mean a persons will can't be broken and subjugated; and Lolth created an entire culture around growing up in a social environment specifically designed to break and crush their will and so make them maleable and obedient.
--1e was before my time. Perhaps Lolth's defeat gave some of her followers pause; but she would still have had those followers who did not pause, kill anyone who expressed signs of disloyalty -or she would turn them in dryders?. Anti-Lolth would remain an underground no-pun-intended movement in Drow civilizations.
5. Lolth being only a lesser god rather than a greater one is why she can't actually create her own race and has to settle for having claimed some of Corellans people instead.
6 Sentient beings don't just go around forsaking their own creator-gods all wily-nily; particularly ones that are near/active inthe setting and clearly granting cleric spells and paladinhoods, etc. What motivation would an elf have to seek an alternative patron or pantheon?
----
People keep asking that. Why is hard to understand that removing the simple dualist nature of D&D and replacing it with a nuanced nature full of shades of gray, is, in and of itself, worse for making campaigns. At the very least, it forces us to work harder, as someone mentioned in the other thread, and this is just a game for fun. I don't want to have to work too hard to make it happen as though it were a job.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Because the majority of the player base (at least on this website) doesn't actually think that this is true. The poll numbers prove this.
It's hard to understand because this is clearly not true. If you want the absolute black and white alignments, all you have to do is say so to your players. Saying, "by the way, we're keeping evil races evil for this campaign" is not work. It's 2 seconds during session zero and you're all set.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
As others have said - removing moral absolutism, stark black-and-white capital-G Good and capital-E Evil, from D&D is worse for your games. Many other tables, many other players, went out of their way and did a lot of extra work to put those shades of grey into their games in the first place. For me and my table, that sort of moral absolutism is flat, boring, and makes it very difficult to take a story seriously. It's the realm of children's bedtime tales, easy problems with easy answers that fail to hold the imagination anymore. There's no tension to it, no thrill, none of the meaty shit that gets us engaged. If that was all there was to D&D, and all there ever could be? We've long since abandoned the game and moved on to the next hobby.
For you and yours? That simplicity is refreshing. It's nice and easy, and it's encouraging and bolstering to not have to deal with making tough decisions or agonizing over whether you made the right call, because 'the right call' is immediate and obvious at all times. That's the kind of world a lot of people wish they could live in, and so taking a vacation there on game night is great. That's awesome, good on you. Enjoy your games, and I absolutely mean that. Please, enjoy your games. My best wishes on your game night.
We're gonna be over here, on our game night, wallowing in the grit and mud and shit and blood and making the best decisions we can in a grey, nasty world, regretting our ****-ups and lamenting our weakness and loving every god damned minute of it. Even when we hate it, we love it, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
Please do not contact or message me.
nods, that's true too. For a while I did abandon the game (during 4e mostly) and played OWBN: Vampaire-The Masquerade. That's fun too, but different than D&D. It was LARP though and required traveling, so I stopped going with the first set of lockdowns from Covid. I still do some forum stuff, but only intermittently. I presume I will go back at some point, if and when the pandemic is ever over.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Yes. I'm stating it explicitley, Drow have free will.
Well, I don't think Lolth actually told her first set of followers "and I'm going to have you torture your children, etc". or even knew she would. Lolth wasn' t Lolth at first either. I forget the details of her story, but she was known by another name at first and was a consort of Corellan who attempted a power grab and/or tried to assasinate him; twice I think; and may or may not have had dealings with Gruumsh and/or some of Corellans other rivals. Once she was punishehed/banished from his Pantheon along with some other lesser gods who had broke faith with Corellan, she became Lolth, took up residence in the Demonweb pits of the abyss , where I presume over the course of time she became more and more evil then she innitially was when she began. If the ancestral proto-drow could see into the future, I don't think they would as readily have joined her ranks.
I read the book about Drizzit's childhood. Drow, at the very least the males, are beaten and whipped regularly whenever they step a toe out of line, and sometimes even when they haven't just for good measure.
Ah, there are no AI's who can do that YET. Wait for it.
It's true that broken and subjagated people are less productive - and yet, the bad guys keep doing it anyway. Apparently, they are productive enough. Evil enjoys breaking and subjugating in and of itself. Malleable to lolth, not to a 1st level PC. Let that PC develope into a 14th level Bard and then we'll see.
Yes, the women at least, but even otherwise, it's after their youtful malleableness has been taken advantage of. They've been forged to be that way towards non-drow. You'll find a common theme in many of the evil races is the idea that they are actually better that the other races and therefore often scornful of the other races.
...The PC Drow is being played by a player, and therefore typically thrust into the role of being a hero while the NPC drow is being played by the DM and therefore typically thrust into the role of being a villain. I'm not sure what other difference you are looking for.
Yes, 2,3,&4, are all true. Except perhaps re 3: It's true as far as encountered Drow in Modules vs first enounters with Dwarves, etc. but Lorewise, I think Dwarves are also a native subterrainian race and hill dwarves represent ones who migrated up and became a more surface style subrace rather than that mountain dwarves etc. being ones to have migrated down from a surface origin. re: drow, similarly, being elves, their ancestors to my mind would have gotten their start in a forest, most probably a forest in the feywylde; they wouln't actually be native denizens of the subterranian realms. They were just banished there long enough ago to be considered native, relatively speaking, by the younger or more shorter lived races.
Well, IRL, faith is all we have. It's not like we actually get superpowers from it to prove said faith is actually well placed or the other end of a transaction in a bargain for power. In game, aside from allignment disagreements an individual might have with their patron; I don't think fantasy folk will as often or as likely change faith so long as their patron is keeping their end of the bargain and granting spells, etc. in exchange for that faith.
Similarly when it comes to Evil patrons and subjugated followers vs. followers bound by bargain or what not; it's not as easy to escape your subugation as you are making it out to be. You can't just be like "I'm feeling a bit of wanderlust today, I think I shall leave this place and go on an adventure." or " Gee, stars are pretty and a breeze is nice; I think I'll stay up here".: If it was that easy, noone would live in North Korea; let alone meza whatever bardan? A subjugated person is effectively trapped in their situation, by varius means -including psycological manipulation on top of physical abuse for waivering from theirr directives. Yes, occasionally someone will find themselves jarred out of it somehow and make it to freedom, but again, its a rare thing. Usually, to free an entire society in that situation, you have to remove the Evil Overlord TM from power at the very least.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.