The General D&D thread

I'd love to, but sadly I'm usually working at 8 on saturday.

So, while reading one of the new art books I picked up today, I found something out:

Turns out, that apparently the archetypal Our Monsters Are Weird D&D creature, the Owlbear, is not a D&D original monster. Winged bears have been used in European Heraldry for centuries, but are relatively obscure. However, the "owlbear" as in "owl + bear" has roots in Native American traditions and legends.

In the mythology of the Salish tribe the legend of the Katshituahkee tells the story of a young couple in love but from different tribes. A curse was cast upon them to keep them separated forever: the man was turned into a bear and the woman an owl so that they could never live together. It is believed they loved one another despite the curse, and their child became the owlursus.

Not sure if it is actually legitimate or not, because looking up "Katshituahkee" gave me no leads, but that's pretty frigging cool to think about, because how many major creatures based on Real Life mythology in D&D/Pathfinder are from Native American legend? Also, I love the artist's rendition of an owlbear waaaaaaaaaay more than the D&D/Pathfinder one. Mainly because his has more feathers, proto-wings on the forelimbs and a beak that has teeth inside the jaw. It combines all of the best(worst?) traits of bears and owls.

I suspect that that is independent from D&D's Owlbear. Because the origin of the D&D Owlbear is relatively well known; it's one of several classic D&D critters based on some Old, weird, plastic toys.

edited 17th Oct '16 2:49:33 PM by Gilphon

Ah, okay then.

Also, the other book I got is on Dragons and it has some.... interesting things. Specifically the groupings, because it lists cockatrices (crossbreed of an amphithere and owl here), coatyls, basilisks, kilin, and hydras as dragons. Which... to be honest makes more sense than what they're listed as, especially regarding their origins.

I like when dragons are really various. Like in Pokemon, where a superfast jetplane land shark, a bigass coconut tree, and a T. Rex are all dragons. I kinda wish DND engaged in that a little more — as it stands its dragons are kinda samey a lot of the time.

That's because D&D didn't really try to do variety in their dragons. I mean, the edition with the most variety of dragons was 3.5, and that's not counting the 3rd-party stuff.

Like, if one looks through the Oriental Adventures, Draconomicon, Dragon Compendium and a few other books that have dragons in them (like Sandstorm), there's a lot of variety.

But personally, I'd do what that book did: Add coatyls, basilisks, kilin, and hydras as dragons, and make more variety. Also, one of the more iconic D&D monsters was originally a dragon: The Tarasque/Tarrasque

There's plenty of variety◊ to D&D Dragons. A fair number of them are kind of samey, but there's also lots of bonkers stuff out there.

So this preview to Volo's guide to monsters is fancy

Oh god, that dissection image is something straight out of a death metal album cover,

Thank god they put a book over his gnads, because a mind flayer's junk is not something I need to see.

^^It seems to be callback of sorts◊

Ah, I see there they didn't have a book handy, so they very kindly peeled back his abdominal flesh to preserve his modesty. Very considerate of them.

So internet has revealed which ten monsters get pc race blocks in Volo's Guide

*Urge to play kobold Warlock/Sorcerer intensifies*

Trying to balance this stupid phoelarch race of mine again; specifically, the flame aura.
Had a goofy idea on how to balance it:

Is that the best way to word it, and is it even intelligible? :| The idea is that it doesn't add damage, but changes the type of some of the damage you're dealing (assuming there're ways of adding Chamod to a damage roll; the Warlock has one, I'm pretty sure, but I dunno what else there is); for instance, a Paladin or whatnot with a +3 Str and a longsword deals 1d8 slashing and 3 fire damage instead of 1d8+3 slashing; gets something past nonmagic resistances without bypassing them entirely, capitalizes on any fire weaknesses, and... doesn't do absolutely nothing against fire resistances.
Figured it might be better than adding one measly point of fire damage, or making it scale.

edited 4th Nov '16 4:13:41 PM by Knowlessman

I would word it as something along the lines of "when this is active, change your ability modifier damage's type to fire".

Your ability modifier doesn't have a damage type. Spell and weapon attacks do.

It's for 5e, not Warhammer. :| Or 4e.

edited 5th Nov '16 6:51:07 AM by Knowlessman

x5 Wow, between the core rulebook, Elemental Evil and the upcoming guide, that brings us up to 24 playable races in published 5e material, and that's not even including subraces, Unearthed Arcana or DM's Guild.

Speaking as someone who loves Massive Race Selection in RPGs, colour me pleasantly surprised.

edited 5th Nov '16 9:46:09 AM by MapleSamurai

Seeing Kenku on that list makes me want to get back on that Tengu race I was going to make.

I'm currently running a 5E game focusing on what I call "adventure archeology". And I wanna put some sort of puzzles in it but I don't wanna frustrate them if they can't solve them. Do you guys have any advice on how I should do this?

Let the fighter make a strength check to solve the puzzle if he gets frustrated?

That turns every single puzzle into a Strength check. That said, if he has a high enough bonus and they can get the right leverage, and they've put enough work into their work-around...

I say put a RL time limit on it, and if they're nowhere near solving it when it runs out, have a minotaur or guardian or something burst through the puzzle and chase them through it.
Or incorporate a trap into puzzles such that when it's triggered, it starts drowning or crushing them or something, but alsodraws attention to the way to solve it.

Or allow for Int checks.

edited 7th Nov '16 9:24:05 AM by Knowlessman

Appeal to their greed.
Make it so progression through the place only requires basic puzzles that they can stat check through.
Save the good puzzles for loot or quest objectives. Makes the goodies visible and shiny, but inaccessible until puzzle is solved.

Or if they're after an artifact or relic, don't deny access to it, just make it so forcing the puzzle damages the relic and reduces the value to the quest giver. Maybe even put them in the quest giver's debt or anger them, leading to more plot hooks for later.

One surprisingly good tip I've heard is to give the players a puzzle without an answer. Give them a clear set up for the puzzle, let them toil around with the puzzle pieces you've given them, and when you feel like they've either reached a fitting logical point or have spent enough time on the puzzle, tell them that they figured it out. Sure, it is cheating, but if you don't tell them that there's no answer, they'll feel smart and like they've accomplished something.

Well, they'll have accomplished figuring out the other half of your puzzle for you, and that's not nothing.

edited 7th Nov '16 2:02:07 PM by Knowlessman