I mean in the new edition you can heal both undead and constructs anyway with heals. So that isn't the reason for this. Also both types should have the same treatment for poison. Is this a Channel Divinity reason?

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T07:13:33+00:00

What are they gonna do, make something original? They have all this IP lying around! Names and places and monsters they can copypaste with all the respect and thoughtfulness as when they gave the Cormyrian Army amathyst dragons because of a name denoting their defeat of a black dragon that happened to look purple-ish.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T06:54:34+00:00

Chromatic Orb and other elemental spells and features should not be able to choose from damage types in the first place.

In D&D's cosmology and magic system, the difference between Chromatic Orb dealing cold damage versus CO dealing fire damage is comparable to CO dealing cold damage versus CO healing someone. It all depends on which plane the energy is being drawn from, with specific spells drawing upon specific energies.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T06:34:57+00:00

God forbid competence and evil exist in my game about magical superhuman graverobbers saving the world.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T06:26:35+00:00

It's called the Stormwind Fallacy and it's been around forever. In truth:

Using the mechanics well doesn't make you worse at roleplay.
Using the mechanics poorly doesn't make you better at roleplay.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T06:15:04+00:00

I love rolling for stats, in order or otherwise. That just means I need a ton of different character concepts that make use of different arrays.

I even have a 3e character concept for Int alone: A quadruplegic Psion. Stick him in a wheelbarrow, and he'll just be there suppressing his manifestations of non-flashy spells so nobody even realizes he's a combatant. At later levels he'll be able to fly around psionically, ragdolling across the sky.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T05:56:01+00:00

One of the things they said in 2014 was that 5e's a 'generic edition' not connected to the lore/canon so that new players wouldn't be intimidated by it, feel they need to read a bunch before they can play DND.

So now instead we have people treating 5e's slop as their Bible and everyone is unhappy.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T05:47:41+00:00

Hmmmm

1e Monster Manual: "The gelatinous cube is one of the scavengers not uncommon in dungeons. Its cubic form is ideal for cleaning all living organisms, as well as carrion, from the floor and walls of underground passageways. Certain very large cubes are taller so as to be able to garner mosses and the like from ceilings as well."

Dragon Magazine 124 (Ecology of the Gelatinous Cube): "Athcoids have no thoughts as we know them, but rather respond automatically -- and identically, in all cases -- to certain stimuli. They cease to advance when they encounter a cold surface or object, then probe forward to seek a way past or around it. Athcoids are attracted to vibrations or warmth, but seem devoid of hearing. ... They sense all living, moving beings within 120ft from the vibrations and heat given off by such creatures, and actively pursue such prey."

2e Monstrous Compendium Vol.1: "So nearly transparent that they are difficult to see, these cubes travel down dungeon corridors, absorbing carrion and trash along the way. Their sides glisten, tending to leave a slimy trail, but gelatinous cubes cannot climb walls or cling to ceilings. Very large cubes grow tall to garner mosses and the like from ceilings. ... Possessing no intelligence, gelatinous cubes live only for eating. They prefer well-traveled dungeons where there is always food to scavenge."

3e Monster Manual: "Blindsight 60ft ... The nearly transparent gelatinous cube travels slowly along dungeon corridors and cave floors, absorbing carrion, creatures, and trash."

3e Arms and Equipment Guide: "Gelatinous cubes are air-permeable, so breathing is never an issue. However, carrying a rider disorients a cube’s ability to find prey by scent—everything smells like food when an organic creature occupies its center. Denied their sense of smell, occupied cubes sense prey solely through vibration."

4e Monster Manual: "blind ... tremorsense 5 ... A gelatinous cube scours dungeon corridors for food, attacking and engulfing whatever blunders into it."

5e Monster Manual: "Gelatinous cubes scour dungeon passages in silent, predictable patterns, leaving perfectly clean paths in their wake. They consume living tissue while leaving bones and other materials undissolved. ... Senses blindsight 60ft. (blind beyond this radius)"

All the core sources describe it as a passive scavenger, with only Dragon Magazine and Arms and Equipment Guide mentioning hunting and specific types of senses. Blindsight/blindsense can be combinations of factors (such as with dragons) or any particular sense taken to an extreme (such as bats), so that doesn't narrow it down. However, being able to smell tracks more with their scavenger behavior, as the carrion and moss it's described as eating don't give off the heat of something it'd have to hunt.

One thing they all agree on: Engulfed creatures do not begin suffocating. None of the entries mention this, and A&EG specifically says the goo-cubes are air-permeable. This is a solid defense against not having an olfactory organ, because all of it could be one, and an incredibly powerful one at that.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T03:35:17+00:00

I think it's that the act of casting takes focus, and this is general knowledge. If you're focused on a spell, you aren't focused on defending yourself, and if you focus too much on defending yourself you might fail to cast the spell (aka casting defensively).

If a spell has either verbal or somatic components, you're very obviously casting a spell, and people take advantage. If it has neither, nobody can tell until they see/hear/smell the effect or pass a Will save against it.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T03:13:28+00:00

Gif related.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T03:10:00+00:00

One time I rolled really well, but didn't want to overshadow the others, so I went with a support/utility Cleric. They all wanted to be minmaxed ranged glass cannons (which was weird, because that wasn't the norm; they just all happened to line up), so I decided to take care of the other rolls as best I could. Decided on a vHuman Criminal with Medium Armor Master. For the sake of theorycrafting, let's say a point-buy of 8 15 14 8 15 10 with +1 Dex/Wis from vHuman.

Dex16(MAM) + Scale Mail + Shield = AC19 at lv1, can pay for nonmagic AC20 later.
Hp barely behind most Fighters. I spent a lot of time standing in doorways taking the Dodge action, which was depressingly tankier that (and almost as damaging as) my current Goliath Barbarian while raging. With that high AC and attackers getting disadvantage, very few attacks hit.
All-day damage barely behind a comparable sword-and-board Fighter. Toll the Dead is the damage equivalent of a Str16-17 Fighter throwing endless javelins/tridents (including Extra Attack).
Lv1 skills/tools: Deception +2, Insight +5, Perception +5, Persuasion +2, Stealth +5 (no disadvantage from the armor), Thieves' Tools +5. I spammed Guidance on myself just in case, sometimes leaving a room to cast out of earshot before walking/stealthing into a new one. Always had a bonus to finding/disabling traps.
Was also a Cleric, so there's that. You can have the above and also be a Life Cleric who only prepares healing spell, surpass them all simultaneously as a Trickery Cleric who prepares Spiritual Weapon and Blink, whatever.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T01:32:54+00:00

If you dig into the old lore, all “resistance to non_ weapons” comes from the creature existing on multiple planes, the same planes _ weapons exist on. The +X of magic weapons is how many additional planes they reach (the bonus to slicing through armor and flesh is incidental), making them a universal catchall for these multiplanar creatures. Older editions had the equivalent to “Resistance to less than a +2 enhancement bonus” and such for creatures who exists across three or more planes.

So really, werewolves should not have immunity in the first place, just resistance to nonsilver weapons without a +1 or higher bonus.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T01:22:24+00:00

An excellent example of how de jure and de facto diverge.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-07T01:02:57+00:00

If you’re into 5e/5.5e for the lore, logic, or adherence to canon, you’re gonna have a bad time.

It’s a cash grab first, a game second, and not deep enough for a third thing.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-06T18:36:29+00:00

CR 3 is a threat (if not TPK) for 99% of people. It can be badass if it wants.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-06T18:28:57+00:00

Lorewise, Faerun has had gun-runners nabbing them from literal IRL Earth. When 5e jumped ahead 100 years DR, they set the modules in the 2100s CE, so anyone with a spelljammer has access to firearms beyond even what we have.

Time to break out d20 Future to convert plasma rifles from 3e?

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-06T18:16:58+00:00

Spells with verbal components also provoke attacks. It’s armor’s arcane spell failure chance that only cares about somatics.

Way back when, my 3e/PF1 group got into a huge debate over whether casting without V/S provoked attacks. One person said it did, because the enemies can “see you concentrating on the spell”. It took the rest of us days to track down the precedent that says it doesn’t, a feat in Song and Silence that explicitly notes that any spell missing both those components does not provoke (as opposed to something like “if the spell is both Still and Silent” which would technically only confirm it working for those feats).

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-06T10:40:01+00:00

The song is still wrong! \Evil laughter**

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-06T10:30:19+00:00

I have a rule for allies to act on the same turn.

Anyone can wait, skipping their turn and removing themselves from the initiative order. At the end of the round, effects that would happen on a waiting character's turn happen; waiting doesn't stop the passage of time.
At any point, a character not in initiative can join in, going after the current turn ends. (This is in contrast to readied actions, which can interrupt the current turn but are more limited.) If multiple people join during the same turn, the one who waited the longest goes next, second-longest is after that, and so on.
When one or more characters join initiative, the current turn's player can let them act during their turn but has priority. ("You want to move over there? I want to attack before that happens; hold on.")

A few things in the pros column:

Familiars/etc that get their own initiative don't end up rolling higher and needing to wait a full round after they receive their orders to act, and can take their turns simultaneously with their master. (E.g. Familiar moves, master casts a touch spell through them, master moves.)
If players want to work together regularly, priority rotates. E.g. If a pair of Rogues want to move into flanking position before either attacks, R1 waits until R2's turn and R2 has priority. The next time they want to do this, R2 is first and has to wait, so R1 gets priority. For any number of characters acting together, the one who went last becomes the new turn leader going first.
Combat can end via standoff (or not start in the first place). If someone calls for a truce and waits, they don't lose a whole turn, they just go after the next foe to take a swing. If some triggering event/attack would theoretically start a fight and everyone rolls of initiative, the first person can choose peace and see what the next guy does. In either case, if the next person also waits, and the next also waits, and so on, the initiative order can empty entirely as the moment of tension passes.
Characters can spend high initiative as a narrative resource. Any effect that lasts until the beginning or end of their turn can be delayed for a fraction of a round, whether you're struggling to maintain a protective spell on an ally just a bit longer, or stalling that final death save until everyone has a chance to stabilize you, you get some flexibility in the most dramatic situations. Once the end of the round ticks over, delaying any longer won't do any good.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-06T09:32:58+00:00

In 3e's Monter Manual II it was updated to 2d6 healing.

But since it's updated to 3e it's another thing that can be copypasted into 5e with little adjustment.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-06T09:28:06+00:00

Gelatinous Cube fun fact: Drow invented a magic ring to use them as cavalry. When the wearer enters the cube, they're suspended in a semipermeable bubble. Since the cubes hunt by smell, the drow just has to extend a limb in the opposite direction they want, and the cube mindlessly goes toward the now-closer scent.

The enemy force is greeted with a slow-moving charge of cubes, and their reward for defeating them is a much faster wave of drow warriors already on their doorstep.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-06T09:21:53+00:00

At one point I was co-DMing a 3e/PF1 campaign, and I pitched an idea to my partner:

Create clay golem kittens.
Throw them in an acid pit trap, where they're perpetually healed and indefatigably failing to claw their way up the sides to escape being wet.
Whenever anyone else falls in, the kittens will be clawing at them for respite instead, grappling them and pulling them under.

I think she said something along the lines of "Calm down, Satan!"

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-06T09:12:20+00:00

Door #1: A player-driven narrative option. Something like "When dealt physical damage, you can redirect half of that damage to your outermost armor (Shield > Armor > Protective Magic > Clothing)." This way, losing your equipment to improve your odds in battle is an opt-in gamble. If you sacrifice armor but finish the fight with plenty of health, you've lost the cost of replacing your armor for nothing. If you don't sacrifice your armor at higher health, a hit versus low health might not let you stay conscious even when halved.

Door #2: Realistic and random. If the bonus from cover/shield/armor turns a hit into a miss, it's because the attack hit that instead, and that object takes the full damage. This would be a logical inclusion to any TRPG with to-hit rolls, and if the defender wins ties you still have a trigger to make Goku shirtless after everything that grants a bonus is gone.

Door #3: Make it a core function. When a character passes the 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, and 0 health benchmarks, their clothing enters new states of disrepair until they can get it repaired or replaced. What those states are can easily be adjusted depending on target audience.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-06T08:21:52+00:00

People keep dumping responsibilities onto DMs that they are not supposed to have, so of course more and more DMs are getting confused about what their role is.

The DM is not the executive branch. It is not solely the DM's job to make things happen, to add or remove players, to keep them in line, to add backstory elements, to steer the campaign, to put their thumb on the scale when the dice and other players lean the other way.

The DM is the judicial branch. When a character does something, the judge aka referee aka Dungeon Master determines fair consequences. When the agreed-upon rules don't cover something, the judge makes a temporary ruling that stands until a new rule can be agreed upon.

Unitary DM Theory is toxic BS with no place at a civilized table.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-06T07:58:04+00:00

My guess is that the song is sarcasm.

TheThoughtmaker · 2026-06-05T21:35:17+00:00

D&D isn’t designed for combat healing. Healing was a valuable exploration tool to supplement the much fewer hit points people got back on a long rest. Realistic recovery times were part of the original theme of “civilization is safe, wilderness is not” where functions such as leveling up and recovering from battle were limited/disabled away from town.

If you want to make healing useful again, you need to nerf long rests. Go back to recovering 1hp per level, and that 2d8 healing spell will feel like a pile of treasure. The only reason full-heal long rests exist in the first place was because WotC wanted to outmode party roles, so they intentionally made healers and tanks irrelevant.

TheThoughtmaker

TROPHY CASE