ikd man, it's kinda weird that your talking about them like they're real people. Like it all depends on the world and fiction. Some stories orcs are savage brutes and others they're the same as people. All depends on the story you're telling. Personally I'm not a big fan of how D&D is moving to all races being variant humans. It's less flavorful in my opinion.

Huh, a different view than the doom and gloom of other creators. Good work!

This is the hottest take. The new books seems obsessed with removing the uniqueness of all creatures. Orcs are should templates for bandits just like all humanoids. But they should also have unique orc monster entries alongside elves, dwarves and all playable species. Having stats for a Halfling Ruffian or Dwarven Elite warrior would allow for more lore on player races and give cool stat blocks. Speaking of which the new book killed lore which is one of the major uses of the books. You can flip to a random page and be able to make an entire campaign with rich detail for players to learn about.

“66” damage sounds way too similar to 6d6 in the context of D&D. Much less shocking than 12d10 😅

No. Just....no.

nice content

Youre not a part of D&D, wotc is not your friend,.

I highly disagree with the take that the Orcs and other humanoid races aren't included in the stat blocks is a good thing. The first thing would be the complete gutting of any lore included in the book, so I as a DM am being offloaded the work of needing to research Lore to run anything that has to do with Orcs or Drow, the second thing is that it's easy to say, "Just reference the PHB and NPC stat blocks and put them together." Except that as a DM, I don't want to track the proficiency bonus number of times the SIX Goliath bandits can do their Giant-Lineage Ability, because it's quite clear THAT'S the ability that makes them FEEL like a Goliath and not another generic NPC that I'm telling my players to just, "Please pretend it's a Goliath." Stat Blocks and abilities are NOT just a representation of a Monster's Mechanical ability to do damage to a PC, it should include abilities that tell a story ABOUT the monster, it's physiology and it's culture to the PC through the execution of it's stat block. Offloading everything to, "DM should make it up despite *PAYING MONEY* for this information*" is NOT how we as a community should be encouraging. The best example of this would be that in the official conversion table tells you that Drow Elite Warriors, the race known for dexterity, grace and beauty should be converted into Gladiators, the NPC stat block with 18 Strength, used to represent the upper echelons of the Poison using, Crossbow shooting, Quick Elvish Weapon using Drow. And, "Just switch the stats around", is not a valid excuse, because DMs are *paying* for the product, if the answer is, "Oh the DM should shoulder the load of this instead of running the game", then we're not having a conversation in good faith. And on top of that, a generic "race" stat block gives the DM a reference for a balanced way, in the eyes of WOTC, to provide racial abilities from the perspective of an NPC. An NPC will NEVER be a PC, and shouldn't be designed as if they were, because you field more than one. A PC can have a million things that need tracking because the person playing them only needs to deal with one Character Sheet. A DM has to deal with numerous, and answering that problem with sanitising everything and making them as generic as possible so that it's easier is not the answer. In summary my point is, we *PAY* WOTC for information and reference, and they should provide it. It's a VERY similar scenario to the Spelljammers book, we *paid* for a book for information about how to run a campaign in the FLY SPACESHIPS setting, and the book told DMs, "Don't run flying spaceships" and "make it up lol".

Shill vid

I guess I am to old. Orc's were wild pigs that walked upright and had slightly higher than animal iq. I guess if humanoid means walks upright they are humanoid. I guess when half orcs came along that changed things. And this is just another change. Not sure if we need to get over done by it.

States that it's good Orcs are being removed because now you can "have more varied encounters". Ignores the fact that you could ALWAYS DO THIS PREVIOUSLY REGARDLESS OF EDITION. This magic caster is an Orc, this fighter is a Haufling, this cultist is a Kenku. It's that simple.

i rarely ever use a monster stat as it is in the monster manual... i use the monster manual as somewhat a guide, like, ok, what is the avarage health of a monster of CD 10? or what s the avarege damage that a CD8 giant usuly causes? and than i create my own monsters based on that... like, for real, the last time i used a monster exactly as it was writen in the book was a purple worm, usuly i just get the regular orc,and change it to make my 8 different types of orc, the orc archr, the orc warrior, the orc shaman... hell even with dragons, when i make a dragon it isnt just a ramdom dragon, my dragons are important parts of the story, so i dont just pick the dragon and use it... i change the stats based on that dragon personality... one example is that have a dragon that is pretending to be someone they arent, so i made them have a hige charisma modifier, exactly so that if people try to insight them, they dont notice much...

I'm conflicted about this. For me, orcs have always been monsters, inherently a manifestation of evil on a philosophical level. I wish WOTC had created a new orc-like race. I tend to dislike it. I WANT classic evil races that are inherently evil. If we start making everything neutral, then the entire multiverse no longer makes sense in its clear division.

could'nt you do that with every single monster where every monster is special onto itself

Buuuuuu

You're lucly the dislike button dont appear anymore.

I fully agree that the expression of orcs in prior editions was problematic. However, this attempt to "fix" that problem doesn't fix it, and it creates wider problems. I applaude the effort to address the issues - but think through what they actually did. Firstly, the problematic, "These are just thugish brutes" stereotype is kept alive in the new edition - they just moved it to the PHB. Orcs are still oversized brutes that are more athletically gifted than other species. Want to play an orc wizard? He sure is great at running! Read the lore section of the PHB on orcs. Is it free of the problematic historical chains, or did it just put a thin sheet over it and pretend it is not there? Real change or superficial change? Second, we are being DIRECTLY told that orcs are just Toughs and Fanatic Cultists. That is what the conversion guide tells you to use for them when running older materials. That is not accomplishing the goal of "updating" and being more attentive to the issue. It is just hiding the offense poorly. Take a look at Duergar. The conversion tells us these dark skinned people are all spies - who use charm and deception to hide their true intentions. Is this progress? Third, we're washing the orcs. Saying, "they're just like humans" makes them ... just like humans. This is a bit like allowing Emma Stone be an Asian character in a movie. Do we need to "preserve mythical orc culture"? Not really. But if they end up without a unique place in the game, they end up not having any place in the game. Fourth, mechanically, this is often problematic in converting older materials. Duergar, are a stronger example of the problem with the mechanical impact of this situation. The guide recommends that we use spies for Duergar. However, that makes no sense what-so-ever. When used in prior adventures, a well placed Duergar was usually intended to be an ambush specialist that used size changing and martial skill to control a battlefield. A well designed encounter that showed them as intelligent combatants using their abilities to get to their foes and isolate them between blocks of ogre sized dwarfs in heavy armor with war picks and shields ... makes no sense when the new stat block they slap on is for a sneaky stealth fighter in light armor with tiny weapons and low ACs. Yes - a good DM can easily work around these things ... but there are a lot of new DMs that will not know to look for the problem before they run the encounter... and as easily as you can say a good DM should be able to handle it, a good game company should be able to not create the problems. Fifth, if you're new to the game ... and you want your Tolkien orcs ... you now need to pay more to get them. You can still buy them from the 2014 books. Is it right for them to still be selling them if they determined they're problematic? Also, there are still many other variations of orc in Volo's Guide and other resources - and they're putting those problematic orcs right back into the game via 3rd party content, too. I'd have been fine if they'd put one page in the MM that said, "When using these species from the PHB as foes, use the humanoid entry that best fits your goal and apply these modifications and then listed the abilities the species gain in the PHB (perhaps with a CR bump for species like Duergar that gain stronger abilities single use abilities which give more benefit to a single use monster than the recurrent abilities of species like orc). My preference would have been for them to add more depth to these species in the PHB and in the MM. For example, perhaps give the orcs some abilities that are not warlike and thuggish. An affinity with nature, a connection to the spiritual world/ancestors, determination that allows them to reroll / get a bonus on ability checks Proficiency Bonus times per day, a gift of special sight granted by One Eye... something that doesn't scream "tough, brutal thug". I'd love to see there be a reason I might want to play an orc wizard in a way where the mechanics support a great story ... rather than the cliche, "It is interesting because the character is so ill suited mechanically." Like many problems in the 2024 books (Conjure Minor Elementals, Nystul's Magic Aura, etc... - this approach to humanoids looks rushed, untested and incomplete. It is a Half Measure (... and do we remember what Mike said about Half Measures, Walter?). The approach tried to walk a line that would please 60 year olds that grew up playing Tolkien inspired fantasy, 20 year olds that find the depiction of orcs in the 2024 PHB and earlier offensively racist, and everyone in-between - and ended up with something that I think everyone will eventually say is incomplete. They could have, and should have, done better.

The like button? You insulted almost every DM by calling them lazy and you could ALWAYS apply other npc stats to an orc, there is nothing stopping you because of monster stats, did they create an npc book and add orcs? (Actually dont know i play pathfinder) because if they havent and just removed it then they havent added options, they have removed options. Tell you what, ill let you in on a little secret you might not be aware of, DM's dont always plan out every single encounter nor path you choose. If we did it would be a waste of trees since player choice can and will make any plans you have useless (which is part of the fun) and have actual easy to grab stats is sometimes very very useful. If you think Orcs can only be npc's then that is honestly the shallower world. You can have an Orc trader, guards, whatever you want and still have orcs that live and die in a tribal system. Ie be the standard bad guy orc. I dare you to make a proper video and show your face and see what any DM you play with has to say about being blatantly called lazy.

All humanoids are playable. So they should either should be all out of the master manual or all in the master manual. The main pet peeve I have is that they changed the lore of the orcs which is blasphemous in my opinion to D&D. Next, they will say all chromatic dragons are good.

As i understand it, most ayable races were removed from the book except for those in the monster of the multiverse. Orcs and half orcs are playable races, thus they arent there. People who complain about it being woke just arent worth listening to because they arent engaging with reality, only with their delusions.

The real reason is because humanoid classes are the playable races in Meta DND, and all humanoid uses the general stat blocks for NPCs. Since orcs were playable they didn't want to change their type like they did with the Gith, Kenku, Goblins, etc...

in my first campaign we fought the young green dragon in mines of Phandelver, but we didn't know what was vanilla and what was homebrew since we just looked stuff up, and we killed it before it got a turn since we had surprise

Then why do goblins and many other previously playable races appear in the Monster Manual with dedicated statblocks?

Overall very good vid 👍 I'm glade there are other open minded people to see, test, and review the direction we (dnd community) are being presented. 👏 The lack of a setting lore is what most are talking about imo. We are used to having everything given out in setting and world. Yet what most forget is that as soon as a DM starts running it, it becomes homebrew. Just now the devs cut out the specific for humanoid (playable species) out for generic npc stats to fill in ourselves like you said. 😮 For the orcs, is now the PHB orc traits+ npc stat block. Only those with a difference in monster type, like some lizardfolk being element (mostly earth) because of being closer to it's magics over time. 🎉 Now I'm getting more ideas than before. it is a good change for those with enough imagination. It'll just be a long long road for those who are fighting it sadly. 😅

I have one waiting at the entrance of a flooded tower, where sahuagin reside. It is based on algae and floating driftwwod. Once the first player reaches the top of the tower and tries to open the trapdoor, it emerges, ambushing the single player. Then after gulping him up, it will try to go bqck into the water to drown him

Weak. Just virtue signaling. At least Paizo did the work and gave them actual culture and character alongside goblins, gnolls and others. But still kept them in the monster core book, to make them stand out from the other. Dnd is just embarrassing

Mimic as enemies are fun and all, but have you run it as a pseudo-magic item? A player of mine (oath of conquest paladin) met a mimic on a battlefield prior to the campaign. He managed to convince the creature to act as his living armour in exchange for food and protection. The mimic agreed to the symbiotic deal, and start travelling with him. We agreed on an AC of 15 for the mimic armour, no dex bonus, +2 to intimidation check (dude armour can grow eyes, teeth and mouth, reasonable people would find that terrifying). The mimic would still have a separated hp bar, took half the damage deal to the paladin. In exchange, whenever the paladin got hit with a melee attack, he can use his reaction to command the mimic to use adhesive and try to grapple the attacker, keeping them in range of his divine smite and gaining advantage against the enemy on a fail save. So, we have an oath of conquest paladin whose armour can grow teeth, eyes, and mouth all of a sudden. It goes well with the whole "frighten" flavour of the subclass so that's a plus. Dude burn through his lay on hands faster than an alcoholic burn through booze, tho.

will definitly incorporate this into my next session, thanks

That piano/spooky mixed in with the fast guitar makes it hard to really listen to what you're saying. Doesn't help it's at equal volume with your voice.

The mimic curse. A curse where any item you pick up has a chance of becoming a mimic

a group of mimics attempting to form a bridge, then dropping it once a creature is on.

I remember the shadow dragon; it had the most devastating breath weapons of all time. Its breath removed 2 levels. If you were level 18th when you started the fight and you got hit and didn't save, you fell to 16th level. Thanks this is an excellent video.

That’s crazy, that’s the exact same advice I got for the bedroom.

me wandering through a dungeon until I start hearing "Hello?"

Bag of holding

DC 13 to break the adhesive hold. It still takes damage from the attack as it is only immune to acid damage. Id allow my weaker players to use acid to break the adhesive hold.

Frieren has entered the chat

isn't fire an even more resisted damage type than cold? On top of the saving throw for fire breath being dexterity which is one of the highest stats across all classes and even has some classes being able to take no damage on a successful save like rogues evasion?

I love it. A long one.

Was definitely just expecting the chromatic dragons here… then I saw all 30+ dragons… Bravo sir and what a wealth of knowledge!

Nicee

As a DM, I usually offer the my parties a chance to buy themselves a ‘Pet’ small sized mimic that will generally remain loyal to them so long as the party takes care of it. I find it inspires creative thinking on the players part as its shape change ability means it can become a lot of useful ‘Tools’. Besides making them act out in a way to coax the mimic into transforming into what they want it to can be comedy gold at times.

Idk, my party of 4 lvl 1 adventurers would definitely consider ice mephits tanky when nobody rolled over a 10 for 4 rounds straight and we all died 😂

I love the idea of pet mimics for npcs. Also the idea of replacing parts of a broken statue. You guys think its wierd that the elven lady statue in this elven ruin has a dwarf head with beard? Lets go take a look!

I usually just use them as a means to punish unruly players, which I find to be the most effective utility by far. You know the kinds of people who goof off way too much, or argue maliciously, or are just douchebags in general. If you're THAT guy, you're getting mimics more often than usual. If the group doesn't top him or them, more of them are getting mimics. Of course, this prevents me using mimics in other creative ways, because the players need to think it's at least partially random, whilst still learning what NOT to do. Once they've learned, we can do more fun stuff.

Mimics can be a regular thing in a campaign but they don't always have to be a "ha ambush!" thing for your players or even really a combat. mimics are animalistic but that doesn't mean they cant learn how to hunt or survive better. the DM could really have some fun with this! 1: your players find a well kept shrine to an unknown local god holding out a bowl for offerings. these 1 to 3 mimics figured out that taking this form means people from the surrounding towns would just give them food in the form of offerings and they don't have to risk a fight to get it. if caught they could fight the party or simply run away to setup again elsewhere. 2: a merchant setup in a very rough and dangerous pert of the world has captured and trained a mimic to protect his storage of goods from thieves. maybe the merchant even sees the mimic as a pet that doubles as security 3: a party enters a treasure hoard that has several dead of whatever took residence in said dungeon. as the party enters they find a mimic that basically learned what adventurers look like and that they are more trouble than they are worth to attack so it just coughs up a small pile of gold on the floor and shuffles to the corner in a "take this and leave me alone" gesture

Hint that it is near by leaving physical evidence of previous kills, strange waste products, or a unique smell or sound it makes.

As a DM, my favourite recurring villain is a Changeling with a pet/backpack Mimic. The moment your players see it in the very 1st session, they doubt everything you put before them.

I wonder if I could turn an entire Town into a mimic? Or even just a single house? How much TP would it have?

The PCs walk into the dungeon. No mimics in sight. They kill the monsters and get into the back room with the treasure chest. They zap the chest, not a mimic, it's all good. They open it and inside there's a strange suit of armor that is all one piece, you just step into it like a spacesuit and there's a flap that you slap closed. Someone puts it on, works good. They walk out toward the sunshine again. The lead PC reaches for the front door of the dungeon, twists the knob, and it sticks to his hand. But it's just sticky with dungeon gunk, not a mimic waiting until they're on the way OUT of the dungeon all injured and spent. The injured Wizard lifts his wizard robe and climbs aboard his horse's saddle, pressing his bits against the bare leather. Luckily, a mimic hadn't croodled out of the dungeon and replaced his saddle. That would suck! They get home and back to the inn. The beds are so soft and inviting! Luckily not mimics. The adventurers have many fine quests and eventually retire to raise families. The Fighter puts his snoozing Fighter Baby in the cradle in a beautiful sunbeam and walks away. The cradle begins to rock itself ...