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Scarey Nerd
2010-05-16, 04:09 PM
Can someone answer this question for me? It's been driving me mad for so long.

WHY ARE HUMANS NOT IN THE MONSTER MANUAL?

This also applies to other d20 games such as Phoenix. It drives me insane.

CockroachTeaParty
2010-05-16, 04:13 PM
Have you ever read the human chapter in Races of Destiny? It's pretty much extremely vague, rather uninspiring, and ultimately pretty lame. Humans are whatever the DM wants them to be in their setting. Trying to nail down humans with a simple entry in the monster manual is next to impossible, since they vary so much from culture to culture.

Would the presented 1st level warrior use a spear? A sword? Wouldn't favored weapons, tactics, and armor be based off of culture, nationality, or other factors?

icastflare!
2010-05-16, 04:15 PM
what edition of dnd are you using. I know they are in fourth. Besides humans are varied. One can be a short rogue, the next a tall wizard. They are whatever they want to be.

Scarey Nerd
2010-05-16, 04:16 PM
what edition of dnd are you using. I know they are in fourth. Besides humans are varied. One can be a short rogue, the next a tall wizard. They are whatever they want to be.

I use D&D 3.5, and the d20 expansion "Phoenix". I know that they are varied etc, but just the stats for an example, like a bandit or a mugger would make life so much easier.

Boci
2010-05-16, 04:17 PM
I use D&D 3.5, and the d20 expansion "Phoenix". I know that they are varied etc, but just the stats for an example, like a bandit or a mugger would make life so much easier.

DMG has sample NPCs with PC classes.

Hendel
2010-05-16, 04:18 PM
If that is the most irritating thing about WotC to you, then my hats off to you because I could start a list that use up all of the band width on the forum.

In defense of WotC, I will offer that they stepped in over a decade ago and saved my favorite game (D&D) so I will give them credit where credit is due (now just stop ruining my favorite game and I will be at peace).

Nidogg
2010-05-16, 04:19 PM
according to the Ph they are 10 all round. yet another reason for not having an MM entry, if we take the "average" human they are pretty lame.

FoE
2010-05-16, 04:19 PM
what edition of dnd are you using. I know they are in fourth.

In fact, humans are listed in both Monster Manuals.

Scarey Nerd
2010-05-16, 04:19 PM
In defense of WotC, I will offer that they stepped in over a decade ago and saved my favorite game (D&D) so I will give them credit where credit is due (now just stop ruining my favorite game and I will be at peace).

I agree that the update from 3rd to 3.5 was fantastic, but 3.5-4th? Not so much :smallconfused:

Coidzor
2010-05-16, 04:21 PM
Well, there's always taking a standard warrior from the dwarves, elves, orcs, half-orcs, half-elves, or what have you humanoids and filing off the racial stuff and stat bonuses and adding toughness for mooks.

Hendel
2010-05-16, 04:23 PM
I agree that the update from 3rd to 3.5 was fantastic, but 3.5-4th? Not so much :smallconfused:

Amen!


In fact, humans are listed in both Monster Manuals.

They are not in my 3.5 Monster Manual.

Drakevarg
2010-05-16, 04:23 PM
Can someone answer this question for me? It's been driving me mad for so long.

WHY ARE HUMANS NOT IN THE MONSTER MANUAL?

This also applies to other d20 games such as Phoenix. It drives me insane.

Because humans are speshul. And because they're so super speshul they're too awesome to be limited by an MM entry. As opposed to Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and Gnomes, all of whom are totally okay to reduce to racist stereotypes.

FoE
2010-05-16, 04:24 PM
They are not in my 3.5 Monster Manual.

Both of the 4E Monster Manuals, I meant. Apologies if that was not clear.

Nidogg
2010-05-16, 04:24 PM
Well, it did level out casters. A lot. From "I win" buttons to average...

Ahem, back to the topic... Humans statline varies a lot. For example, I consider myself quite bright (high int) but cant catch to save my life (low dex). Im sure everyone here has met a lot of people who would be 10all round.

JadedDM
2010-05-16, 04:25 PM
Humans are in the Monster Manual for 2E, but not for 1E. So I guess it skips an edition.

Hendel
2010-05-16, 04:26 PM
Humans are in the Monster Manual for 2E, but not for 1E. So I guess it skips an edition.

Like male pattern baldness, I guess...

hamishspence
2010-05-16, 04:27 PM
In non-advanced D&D (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortals) there weren't Monster Manuals, but DM books and Player books, or Rulebooks.

In the Master DM's Book, three types of humans are mentioned- Executioners, their Thug variant, and Mystics.

And in the Expert Rulebook, Men is a monster entry- with a whole lot of types: Pirate, Noble, Trader, and so on.

randomhero00
2010-05-16, 04:29 PM
You're human right? Ok, you already know then...

Drakevarg
2010-05-16, 04:33 PM
You're human right? Ok, you already know then...

Really? Personally, I can't find my stat block.

Zeta Kai
2010-05-16, 04:34 PM
Yay, a hate thread. Oh, how I've missed these. Well, it may not be long before this gets locked (for our protection, of course), so I'll have to get my spite in quick.

Lessee, the no-humans-in-the-MM thing is weird, considering that every other race gets an entry. I understand that human are all unique snowflakes & that no single block of stats could do their diversity justice & blah blah blah. But seriously. You could say the same for every race. Elves have a hundred different varieties, & they get stats; human don't even have sub-races (I'll admit, a human sub-race has a big potential for RL skeeviness). Every race gets an entry as a first level warrior anyway, so there isn't much statistical diversity there. So, yeah, I'm with you, that's annoying.

Human
Warrior 1
Medium Humanoid (Human)
Hit Dice: 1d8+1 (5HP)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 30’ (6 squares)
Armor Class: 15 (+1 Dex, +3 studded leather armor, +1 light steel shield); touch 11; flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/+3
Attack: Scimitar +3 melee (1d6+2, 18-20/×2) or shortbow +2 ranged (1d6+2/×3)
Full Attack: Scimitar +3 melee (1d6+2, 18-20/×2) or shortbow +2 ranged (1d6+2/×3)
Space/Reach: 5’/5’
Special Attacks: N/A
Special Qualities: Humanoid traits
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +1, Will -1
Abilities: Str 14 (+2), Dex 12 (+1), Con 13 (+1), Int 10 (+0), Wis 8 (-1), Cha 11 (+0)
Skills: Craft (any) +4, Diplomacy +5, Listen +3, Spot +4
Feats: Cleave, Power Attack
Environment: any land (Siraaj)
Organization: solitary, pair, squad (2-4), company (11-20 plus 2 3rd-level sergeants & 1 leader of 3rd-6th level), or band (30-100 plus 20% noncombatants plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 10 adults, 5 5th-level lieutenants, & 3 7th-level captains)
Challenge Rating: ½
Treasure: standard
Alignment: any
Advancement: by character class
Level Adjustment: +0
There, now was that so hard? That took about 6 minutes of my time, & I didn't get paid to do it. :smallsigh:

My biggest peeve with WotC, though, is their lack of effective playtesting. They just never tested their rules from the point of view of a player with a brain. Their assumptions of how their products would be used were laughably out of sync with the real world. Their classes are unbalanced, their feats are unbalanced, their spells are unbalanced, their items are unbalanced, their monsters are unbalanced, their skills are unbalanced, their combat system is unbalanced, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum. Everything about the game is unbalanced, & it's all because they just cannot seem to playtest & make effective changes based on the feedback.

This goes for Paizo, too, nowadays. They did playtesting, but it seems as though the feedback fell on deaf ears.

lightningcat
2010-05-16, 04:35 PM
Well I'll be. Humans are in fact not listed in the 3.5 MM (or MM2, MM3, MM4, or MM5). They are however in the 2e MM, as well as the 4e MM.
I guess they assume that you can add in the feat and skill points to an NPC, and make up appropriate backstory for any humans in the world.
Still, kinda odd.

hamishspence
2010-05-16, 04:40 PM
But seriously. You could say the same for every race. Elves have a hundred different varieties, & they get stats; human don't even have sub-races (I'll admit, a human sub-race has a big potential for RL skeeviness).

Yes- that can be tricky. Races of Faerun is about the only book I can think of that has feats that only humans of certain "races" can take ( Aglarondan, Mulan, Rashimi, Illuskan, and so on). And calls them "racial feats".

That said, it doesn't alter their stats.

Players Guide to Faerun lists the same races, and gives some of them very slightly different weights and heights.

oxybe
2010-05-16, 04:42 PM
I agree that the update from 3rd to 3.5 was fantastic, but 3.5-4th? Not so much :smallconfused:

3.5 to 4th was the best update imo, followed by 2nd to 3rd. 3rd to 3.5 was horrible. 3.5 attempted to solve issues with 3.0 (like the poor 3.0 ranger class... just poor guy), and it did with some (like the aforementioned ranger, and the old DR system), but it failed to really go at the meat of the problems with the system: the linear non-mages and quadratic casters, and especially the lack of options of the former and the powerful options of the latter.

as for not appearing in the 3rd ed monster manuals, it's probably because humans are the race we are most familiar with and the hardest for us to pin down.

for monsters you can generally chose personality 2-3 traits, focus on those and build on them. with humans you almost have to be kinda vague... we're difficult to pin down in a game because we have a hard time pinning ourselves down IRL, and if you make the "human" race too exotic in it's mindset, you lose your "base standard" race that the player can identify with.

now, not having pregen human enemies is kinda rough, but in most cases you can just grab a dwarf (or elf or whatever) enemy, remove his racial traits, add a skill+feat and you're golden. or grab one of the various prebuild NPCs in the DMG (which are human by base).

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-16, 04:45 PM
3.5 to 4th was the best update imo, followed by 2nd to 3rd.

This thread is not going to a good direction IMHO :smalleek:

*teleports*

Scarey Nerd
2010-05-16, 04:46 PM
This thread is not going to a good direction IMHO :smalleek:

*teleports*

WOW, what does that "H" stand for? Humble?

Drakevarg
2010-05-16, 04:47 PM
Honest, I believe.

HunterOfJello
2010-05-16, 04:55 PM
Cityscape has listings for Human Thugs, City Guards, Craftsmakers, Guards, Nobles, Cultists and Thieves. Each of which has 3 tiers of difficulty from around CR 1, 5 and 10.

I would use those listings for various humans in the world inside or outside cities.

Lord Loss
2010-05-16, 05:01 PM
Honest, I believe.

You are correct.

Comet
2010-05-16, 05:10 PM
Honest, I believe.

I always take it as Holy. Makes things so much funnier.

Anyway, aren't there some generic NPCs per class level in the DMG? I always use those for random humans and it seems to work well enough.

edit: oxybe seems to have beaten me to it.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-16, 05:18 PM
You don't have human stats? How is that a problem? A human's entire shtick is being anything. Do you really need stats for a level one NPC? How difficult could that possibly be? One level in warrior, 2 feats, standard point distribution. If you really want info about humans, pick up races of destiny.

Mr.Bookworm
2010-05-16, 05:42 PM
A human's entire shtick is being anything.

This.

I always thought the whole point of humans in D&D Fantasyland was that they were the baseline to compare everything else to. While all other races have some defining trait (elves are pointy-eared bastards, orcs are green-skinned bastards, dwarves are bearded bastards, gnomes are annoying bastards, kobolds are scaly bastards, halflings are sneaky bastards, half-elves are useless bastards, warforged are robotic bastards, kender are bastards, etc., etc.), whereas humans are defined by their lack of definition.

They're supposed to be relatively normal.

Though that they don't at least get a Warrior 1 block is a little odd.

AslanCross
2010-05-16, 05:56 PM
Humans are really easy to stat because you don't have to worry about any racial modifiers or special qualities.

The most irritating thing about WOTC is the Tome of Battle "errata." :smallfurious:

Optimystik
2010-05-16, 05:57 PM
If this is what you find most irritating about WotC, you must not own many splatbooks.

Drakevarg
2010-05-16, 06:03 PM
I always thought the whole point of humans in D&D Fantasyland was that they were the baseline to compare everything else to. While all other races have some defining trait (elves are pointy-eared bastards, orcs are green-skinned bastards, dwarves are bearded bastards, gnomes are annoying bastards, kobolds are scaly bastards, halflings are sneaky bastards, half-elves are useless bastards, warforged are robotic bastards, kender are bastards, etc., etc.), whereas humans are defined by their lack of definition.

And I've always found this insultingly stupid. Mainly because actual humans are nothing like that. On a global scale, sure. But limit yourself to a country or a city and humans can largely be expected to behave in a manner consistant with that group. There will be deviations, sure, but they will be the exception and not the rule.

In a game like DnD, where there are dozens of races competing for dominance, humans simply will not be nearly as widespread and variable. They can be expected to act in a relatively consistant manner, which in DnD probably means in a "Germanic/Anglo-Saxon manner".

Humans suffer from speshul snowflake syndrome in real life because they are scattered about an entire planet. In a world where elves and dwarves and what have you also existed, they simply wouldn't be. Or if they were, so would everyone else, and none of the other races would have racist stereotypes to play off of either.

Math_Mage
2010-05-16, 06:21 PM
I always thought the whole point of humans in D&D Fantasyland was that they were the baseline to compare everything else to. While all other races have some defining trait (elves are pointy-eared bastards, orcs are green-skinned bastards, dwarves are bearded bastards, gnomes are annoying bastards, kobolds are scaly bastards, halflings are sneaky bastards, half-elves are useless bastards, warforged are robotic bastards, kender are bastards, etc., etc.), whereas humans are defined by their lack of definition.


IOW, Humans are just plain bastards. :smallbiggrin:
(Kender are thieving bastards)
The problem with trying to represent humans as an internally consistent group is that the DM's picture of humans in a campaign world is far more likely to vary by DM than the DM's picture of elves, dwarves, kender etc. But it is annoying that humans get Special Snowflake syndrome as a result.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-05-16, 06:24 PM
Humans are in the Monster Manual for 2E, but not for 1E. So I guess it skips an edition.

Au contraire. They do appear in the 1e MM (under "Men"), and there are entries for the Bandit, Berserker, Caveman, and more.

ken-do-nim
2010-05-16, 06:26 PM
Au contraire. They do appear in the 1e MM (under "Men"), and there are entries for the Bandit, Berserker, Caveman, and more.

Beat me to it.

holywhippet
2010-05-16, 06:44 PM
My biggest peeve with WotC, though, is their lack of effective playtesting. They just never tested their rules from the point of view of a player with a brain. Their assumptions of how their products would be used were laughably out of sync with the real world. Their classes are unbalanced, their feats are unbalanced, their spells are unbalanced, their items are unbalanced, their monsters are unbalanced, their skills are unbalanced, their combat system is unbalanced, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum. Everything about the game is unbalanced, & it's all because they just cannot seem to playtest & make effective changes based on the feedback.


I have two theories as to why D&D 3rd edition is like this:

1) The developers were going more for flavour than hardcore number crunching. Fighters are good at hitting things, wizards cast lost of mostly offensive spell, rogues are good at sneaking and backstabbing etc. Balance? Not too bad at low levels but eventually the power difference becomes obvious - caster power does push them over the top, but that's because most DMs are too nice to run a war of attrition that will see the casters run out of spells and be forced to take a back seat. In short they wanted the game to be fun and weren't madly running the numbers to see who could do more DPS.

2) The developers left imbalances in the game to reward players who studied the source books and were able to find combinations that gave them the edge. Some of these are more obvious than others.

Curmudgeon
2010-05-16, 07:00 PM
The most irritating thing to me? In the whole D&D 3.X series they appear not to use their products. They went through some limited playtesting, and occasionally responded to complaints after the fact with errata, but otherwise showed cluelessness about how many parts of the game worked.

D&D 4 is being better maintained, though the fact that you've got to pay for an online subscription to get the errata integrated into book text (unless you happened to start with the "Deluxe Edition" core books) is annoying.

Foryn Gilnith
2010-05-16, 07:14 PM
I have to second the lack of playtesting. Some of the products they put out are more balanced than others, probably due to the designers' intuition, but if WotC could institute a rigorous playtesting program their games would likely improve.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-05-16, 07:32 PM
I have two theories as to why D&D 3rd edition is like this:

1) The developers were going more for flavour than hardcore number crunching. Fighters are good at hitting things, wizards cast lost of mostly offensive spell, rogues are good at sneaking and backstabbing etc. Balance? Not too bad at low levels but eventually the power difference becomes obvious - caster power does push them over the top, but that's because most DMs are too nice to run a war of attrition that will see the casters run out of spells and be forced to take a back seat. In short they wanted the game to be fun and weren't madly running the numbers to see who could do more DPS.

It's not so much a matter of "what's fun" but rather "what worked in 2e." If class balance, roles, etc. in 3e had the same relative effectiveness as in 2e, things would be fine from a playtest perspective. However, the devs playtested 3e by playing 2e-style without actually looking at the new rules for what they were--higher HP and worse saves made blasting inferior and SoDs good, changed initiative and the AoO system made martial classes less tanky, Concentration and faster casting meant wizards didn't have to cower in the back all the time, etc. The reason the tank/sneak/blaster/healer party system is the stereotype is that it worked in prior editions, it just doesn't work now.

Skaven
2010-05-16, 08:08 PM
This issue is a splash of Humans are Average (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumansAreAverage) with a dose of The writers being human (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MostWritersAreHuman).

Its an issue that always confunded me too. That humans are everywhere doing everything. IN a more realistic setting with all the competing races, humans would likely have their own lands, as opposed to being literally everywhere.

However, players / readers need something to 'relate to' everywhere they go.

Hendel
2010-05-16, 08:29 PM
The reason the tank/sneak/blaster/healer party system is the stereotype is that it worked in prior editions, it just doesn't work now.

I am not sure if I agree with that statement, but I wanted to focus the conversation back on topic.

Folks, this is a fantasy game and all of the points that have been brought up are valid as to why you should or should not include a blurb about humans in the Monster Manual. It is not that humans are all average, it is that we tend to know more about humans and less about elves (then again, some of the people I see at some conventions might know more about elven relationships than human ones, but I digress). Humans are not average, per se, look at the characters that have 18 strengths, intelligence etc. They are stand outs from the general populace, just as you would have in any race.

Why they were left out of 3.5, beats me, but remember, it came out in a time, like today also, in which racial tensions existed and PC meant "political correctness" not player character. Would you want to include in your work something like, "the northern human are light skinned and strong with bonuses to constitution and strength" or "the black skinned humans in this tropical area are fast and can endure with bonuses to constituion and speed." I think they would be concerned about promoting sterotypes that exist OUTSIDE a fantasy game. What if white skinned humans received a bonus to intelligence and dark skinned ones a penalty? That would upset me. So, in keeping with the idea of a fantasy game, it is easier to say that dwarves are dour and taciturn as not to many dwarves exist to object to that sterotype.

Heck, they used to refer to them as "Men" in earlier editions. Should that not upset half of our population. What if men had a strength bonus and women a penalty, would that be more realistic or just gender biased? I don't know but I want my real world and politics OUT of my game, so if humans are left out of the Monster Manual, I do not care.

Lycanthromancer
2010-05-16, 08:33 PM
Beat me to it.Like a red-headed step-lich WotC psionic character.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-05-16, 08:37 PM
I am not sure if I agree with that statement, but I wanted to focus the conversation back on topic.

That particular party makeup worked in the sense that healing in combat was useful, blasting was a viable strategy, martial characters were valuable, and skills characters were necessary in many cases. Whether it was the best strategy is up for debate.


Why they were left out of 3.5, beats me, but remember, it came out in a time, like today also, in which racial tensions existed and PC meant "political correctness" not player character. Would you want to include in your work something like, "the northern human are light skinned and strong with bonuses to constitution and strength" or "the black skinned humans in this tropical area are fast and can endure with bonuses to constituion and speed." I think they would be concerned about promoting sterotypes that exist OUTSIDE a fantasy game. What if white skinned humans received a bonus to intelligence and dark skinned ones a penalty? That would upset me. So, in keeping with the idea of a fantasy game, it is easier to say that dwarves are dour and taciturn as not to many dwarves exist to object to that sterotype.

Heck, they used to refer to them as "Men" in earlier editions. Should that not upset half of our population. What if men had a strength bonus and women a penalty, would that be more realistic or just gender biased? I don't know but I want my real world and politics OUT of my game, so if humans are left out of the Monster Manual, I do not care.

The issue with this analysis is that there are no human subraces as such. For all the gray elves and wood elves and wild elves and high elves and hill dwarves and mountain dwarves and duergar and rock gnomes and svirfneblin and all the other subraces, there's still just one human race. Including a human warrior in the MM alongside the elf warrior and halfling warriors wouldn't bring up any PC issues because the whole thing about human races or gender divides doesn't exist in 3e. If it did, humans in the MM would be the least of their worries.

Math_Mage
2010-05-16, 08:53 PM
The issue with this analysis is that there are no human subraces as such.

Silverbrow humans. :smalltongue:

Yeah, yeah, I know they don't count for the purpose of your argument, but give me my moment of pedantry.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-05-16, 09:15 PM
Silverbrow humans. :smalltongue:

Yeah, yeah, I know they don't count for the purpose of your argument, but give me my moment of pedantry.

Fine, Mr. Pedant.

¬∃x | (x ∈ {human subraces}) ∧ (x ∈ {all subraces published as of the publishing of MM1})

Happy now? :smallamused:

Coidzor
2010-05-16, 09:17 PM
Were Silverbrow those ones with the dragon-ties?

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-05-16, 09:22 PM
Yep, just like forestlord elves (green dragons), fireblood dwarves (red dragons), and the other Dragon Magic subraces.

Hendel
2010-05-16, 10:25 PM
Were Silverbrow those ones with the dragon-ties?

At first I thought they had little neckties in the shape of Silver Dragons when I read your post, but now I understand of what tie you speak.

Zeta Kai
2010-05-16, 10:26 PM
I am not sure if I agree with that statement, but I wanted to focus the conversation back on topic.

The topic is Most irritating thing about WOTC, hence the thread title at the top of everyone's post, including yours. If it's irksome, then it's on-topic. QEMFD.


Folks, this is a fantasy game and all of the points that have been brought up are valid as to why you should or should not include a blurb about humans in the Monster Manual. It is not that humans are all average, it is that we tend to know more about humans and less about elves (then again, some of the people I see at some conventions might know more about elven relationships than human ones, but I digress). Humans are not average, per se, look at the characters that have 18 strengths, intelligence etc. They are stand outs from the general populace, just as you would have in any race.

Why they were left out of 3.5, beats me, but remember, it came out in a time, like today also, in which racial tensions existed and PC meant "political correctness" not player character. Would you want to include in your work something like, "the northern human are light skinned and strong with bonuses to constitution and strength" or "the black skinned humans in this tropical area are fast and can endure with bonuses to constituion and speed." I think they would be concerned about promoting sterotypes that exist OUTSIDE a fantasy game. What if white skinned humans received a bonus to intelligence and dark skinned ones a penalty? That would upset me. So, in keeping with the idea of a fantasy game, it is easier to say that dwarves are dour and taciturn as not to many dwarves exist to object to that sterotype.

Heck, they used to refer to them as "Men" in earlier editions. Should that not upset half of our population. What if men had a strength bonus and women a penalty, would that be more realistic or just gender biased? I don't know but I want my real world and politics OUT of my game, so if humans are left out of the Monster Manual, I do not care.

If the game designers were so worried about political correctness that they omitted humans from every monster manual, then their opinion isn't worth a fig, IMO, & I couldn't be bothered to read a word that dribbled off of their pens. But I doubt that this was the case for such a glaring omission.
Your argument seems to imply that you believe that every single elf/dwarf/orc/whatever has the exact same stats as every other example of its kind. Does every drow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elf.htm) in your games have 13 Strength? Does every gnome (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gnome.htm) have 8 Charisma? I should think (& hope) not. So it can be assumed that every entry in the monster manual is a simplified stereotype, for the DM's gaming convenience.
If I saw a human warrior in the MM, but I needed a merchant, I'd adjust the stats accordingly, the same way that I'd do if I needed a human diplomat. I'd do this because I'm not a moron. And, of course, if I need a human, I could always convert an elf from the MM, or use the NPCs in the DMG, or whatever. But just because I can do something myself doesn't mean that I should have to. That way leads to the Rule 0 Fallacy ("It's not broken if I can fix it"). I paid for a monster manual, & surprise! Humans are my most common opponents (or "monsters", if you will (but I won't (nested parentheses FTW))).

On a different (yet still on-topic) note, I have another irritating thing about WotC, again from the MM. Dragons. Why, oh why, must I make my own every time I wanna use one? They devoted a LOT of pages in the MM to the dragons. Would if have killed them to stat a few of them up for us? I hate using dragons in my campaigns, & I suspect that I'm not alone in this. Why? Because, for every dragon that you wanna include in your game, you have to put their stats together yourself, based on tables that are only somewhat complete. No wonder dragons are rare in most game settings; they are a pain in the ass to put together.

Hendel
2010-05-16, 10:34 PM
The topic is Most irritating thing about WOTC, hence the thread title at the top of everyone's post, including yours. If it's irksome, then it's on-topic. QEMFD.



If the game designers were so worried about political correctness that they omitted humans from every monster manual, then their opinion isn't worth a fig, IMO, & I couldn't be bothered to read a word that dribbled off of their pens. But I doubt that this was the case for such a glaring omission.
Your argument seems to imply that you believe that every single elf/dwarf/orc/whatever has the exact same stats as every other example of its kind. Does every drow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elf.htm) in your games have 13 Strength? Does every gnome (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gnome.htm) have 8 Charisma? I should think (& hope) not. So it can be assumed that every entry in the monster manual is a simplified stereotype, for the DM's gaming convenience.
If I saw a human warrior in the MM, but I needed a merchant, I'd adjust the stats accordingly, the same way that I'd do if I needed a human diplomat. I'd do this because I'm not a moron. And, of course, if I need a human, I could always convert an elf from the MM, or use the NPCs in the DMG, or whatever. But just because I can do something myself doesn't mean that I should have to. That way leads to the Rule 0 Fallacy ("It's not broken if I can fix it"). I paid for a monster manual, & surprise! Humans are my most common opponents (or "monsters", if you will (but I won't (nested parentheses FTW))).

On a different (yet still on-topic) note, I have another irritating thing about WotC, again from the MM. Dragons. Why, oh why, must I make my own every time I wanna use one? They devoted a LOT of pages in the MM to the dragons. Would if have killed them to stat a few of them up for us? I hate using dragons in my campaigns, & I suspect that I'm not alone in this. Why? Because, for every dragon that you wanna include in your game, you have to put their stats together yourself, based on tables that are only somewhat complete. No wonder dragons are rare in most game settings; they are a pain in the ass to put together.

Anyone may talk about what you want to, I have no problem with that and please don't take my post so serious. I thought I have been clear that I am:

#1 Not a fan of WotC other than I love D&D

#2 Agree with you that it is stupid that they did not include humans in one version of the Monster Manual

#3 I was just throwing out some thoughts as to why nothing more, just specualtion

#4 That I even stated in my post that there are stand outs in every race so no not all Drow have the same strength, etc.


Anyway, I couldn't agree with you more also about the dragons. If you give them Ssorcerer levels, GIVE THEM SPELLS! I have found Draconomicon as a good resource for that, but why should I have to buy two books??

Optimystik
2010-05-16, 10:36 PM
If you want sample dragons, just get Draconomicon. (You should have it to make CR-appropriate dragon encounters challenging anyways.)

Drakevarg
2010-05-16, 10:36 PM
On a different (yet still on-topic) note, I have another irritating thing about WotC, again from the MM. Dragons. Why, oh why, must I make my own every time I wanna use one? They devoted a LOT of pages in the MM to the dragons. Would if have killed them to stat a few of them up for us? I hate using dragons in my campaigns, & I suspect that I'm not alone in this. Why? Because, for every dragon that you wanna include in your game, you have to put their stats together yourself, based on tables that are only somewhat complete. No wonder dragons are rare in most game settings; they are a pain in the ass to put together.

Well, they DO have stat blocks. It's just that due to all the age categories, they're set up in a particularly annoying fashion. It's the same in the Draconomicon, although there they at least have a chapter devoted to example dragons, which as sourcebooks are wont to do are statted out in barely legible run-on sentance style. The information's THERE, it's just not presented in any sort of useable manner.

EDIT: Double-ninja'd. Yay.

Math_Mage
2010-05-16, 10:44 PM
Fine, Mr. Pedant.

¬∃x | (x ∈ {human subraces}) ∧ (x ∈ {all subraces published as of the publishing of MM1})

Happy now? :smallamused:

Oooh, yes! I haven't dealt with any formal logic for months! Many thanks. :smallbiggrin:

Altho...I would write it {human subraces} ∧ {subraces published as of the publishing of MM1} = {}

Optimystik
2010-05-16, 10:55 PM
#1 Not a fan of WotC other than I love D&D


To be fair, Magic is a great game for all that it is a massive money sink. And despite its flaws, 4e is a step in the right direction, both for D&D and for tabletop gaming as a whole.

Belobog
2010-05-16, 10:56 PM
The most irritating thing to me? In the whole D&D 3.X series they appear not to use their products. They went through some limited playtesting, and occasionally responded to complaints after the fact with errata, but otherwise showed cluelessness about how many parts of the game worked.

D&D 4 is being better maintained, though the fact that you've got to pay for an online subscription to get the errata integrated into book text (unless you happened to start with the "Deluxe Edition" core books) is annoying.

Are you talking about the character builder/monster builder line? Because other than that, there's also the cut and paste (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdateMay2010.pdf) method.

Knaight
2010-05-16, 10:57 PM
Personally, I find their inability to admit mistakes the most annoying thing about them. They pretend that their balance and such is perfect, there are no flaws, and they are a brilliant company, right up until they have a new edition to sell, then they screwed up all over the place. How convenient.

Rappy
2010-05-16, 11:19 PM
On a different (yet still on-topic) note, I have another irritating thing about WotC, again from the MM. Dragons. Why, oh why, must I make my own every time I wanna use one? They devoted a LOT of pages in the MM to the dragons. Would if have killed them to stat a few of them up for us? I hate using dragons in my campaigns, & I suspect that I'm not alone in this. Why? Because, for every dragon that you wanna include in your game, you have to put their stats together yourself, based on tables that are only somewhat complete. No wonder dragons are rare in most game settings; they are a pain in the ass to put together.
D20 Modern's answer to this was "all dragons have the same stat block per age category, but have a different breath weapon, energy immunity, and allegiance". Was it a good idea?

...Sorta. But it would have been nice to have some little "+2s,-4s, etc." templates for particular dragon breeds instead of saying "this is an adult blue dragon. It's exactly like that adult gold dragon you fought, except it has lightning breath!"

As for my biggest irritation with Wizards of the Coast is a tie. First is d20 Spectaculars was sat upon and never released. That is an irksome "thing that could have been".

Second is d20 Dark*Matter, a (IMHO) disappointing attempt at revitalizing Dark*Matter. A grand total of one new creature in it, not enough of the old material revitalized, I could go on...

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-05-17, 12:12 AM
Oooh, yes! I haven't dealt with any formal logic for months! Many thanks. :smallbiggrin:

Altho...I would write it {human subraces} ∧ {subraces published as of the publishing of MM1} = {}

I'm a comp sci guy; first order logic > set theory. :smallbiggrin:

As for what I find most annoying about WotC, it would have to be the way they ignore non-core material when making new books. The fact that they don't test combos among books is somewhat understandable, in that they don't really have anyone who knows all of the material (though of course internet folks can figure out new combos within days....), but the philosophy of "print a new class/power source and then never see it again" really pisses me off.

Math_Mage
2010-05-17, 01:50 AM
I'm a comp sci guy; first order logic > set theory. :smallbiggrin:

As for what I find most annoying about WotC, it would have to be the way they ignore non-core material when making new books. The fact that they don't test combos among books is somewhat understandable, in that they don't really have anyone who knows all of the material (though of course internet folks can figure out new combos within days....), but the philosophy of "print a new class/power source and then never see it again" really pisses me off.

Tell me about it. The DFA wants more development, and Incarnum wants more love. Among other things.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-17, 03:52 AM
I always take it as Holy. Makes things so much funnier.

Anyway, aren't there some generic NPCs per class level in the DMG? I always use those for random humans and it seems to work well enough.

edit: oxybe seems to have beaten me to it.

Genius. "Tele-"

Zeta Kai
2010-05-17, 05:28 AM
If you want sample dragons, just spend another $30 to properly use the D in D&D, thereby tinkling all over the concept of Core.

Fixed for clarity. :smallwink:


As for what I find most annoying about WotC, it would have to be the way they ignore non-core material when making new books. The fact that they don't test combos among books is somewhat understandable, in that they don't really have anyone who knows all of the material (though of course internet folks can figure out new combos within days....), but the philosophy of "print a new class/power source and then never see it again" really pisses me off.

I couldn't agree more. There are distressingly few examples of post-publishing integration in the books. The Fiend Folio is by far the best about mentioning non-Core material, & even it isn't stellar in that regard. Granted, it would be a pain to do, but they're the ones writing the books, so they should at least be vaguely familiar with them.

Aotrs Commander
2010-05-17, 05:42 AM
I also found the lack of humans in the MMs to be a poor showing (considering their presence in previous editions). In my opinion, human should always be in the bestiary and described in terms that a nonhuman would see them in. (And I also don't believe humans should necessarily be the "baseline" as that's...kind of arrogant.) Mind you, Rolemaster tended to commit this particular sin as well, as I recall.

Considering humans are most likely to be one of the most common enemies encountered, I think it would have been far better to devote space to giving them the sort of treatment dragons got than the dragons. (I have mentioned in the past how much I dislike WotC's "dragons are teh specialz, to we'll stat them out totally differently and make it so you can use them as all levels, thus defeating the point as having them as top-end scary villains.")



What I found most irritating about WotC was not putting out the errata to 3.5 properly, even after 4E came out. The ToB errata is mostly cut-and-paste from one of the Completes after about the first two paragraphs; talk about laziness, to not even check that. And the fact that towards the end, their splatbooks were less-and-less generic friendly and more and more world specific (e.g. Complete Champion, which seemed to assume that everyone must be using the Core deities and that if they didn't the dieties would be exactly the same, but with the names changed. Not homebrew-friendly, much of it.) Oh, and the latter's insultingly stupid "replace-the-ranger-and-paladin's-entire-spellcasting-with-four-feats ACF" which was even worse than the spelless version presented in Complete Warrior; in the same book as giving paladins battle blessing.

(Not too keen on 4E either, but I'll let that one pass...)

Coidzor
2010-05-17, 05:53 AM
Isn't it rare that the sample monsters they do have are useful anyway?

It always seemed like the sample critters were intentionally built poorly in order to encourage DMs who could tell what way the wind was blowing would DIY creature construction with the toolkit given to them.

...Can't really figure out what my biggest beef with WOTC would be...

Aside from maybe them just not seeming to be coherent.


I also found the lack of humans in the MMs to be a poor showing (considering their presence in previous editions). In my opinion, human should always be in the bestiary and described in terms that a nonhuman would see them in. (And I also don't believe humans should necessarily be the "baseline" as that's...kind of arrogant.) Mind you, Rolemaster tended to commit this particular sin as well, as I recall.

Humans are the baseline, though perhaps baseline isn't the best word (as far as I've ever seen it though, the meanings I've run into have been rooted in comparisons), due to the fact that all sapient creatures are going to be compared with what the players know about sapients. Are these things more aggressive than humans generally are but also more sedentary so they don't get as much chance to act upon it? Are these things essentially just humans with pointy ears that have a fondness for pointy objects as a result of their own instrinsic pointiness? It strikes me as just a bit odd that you find this arrogant. Maybe I'm just not picking up on what's striking you as arrogance.

Unless you are willing to back up a claim of finding non-Human sapients IRL?

Now, I agree they should've been in there and that it could've definitely been nice to see a perspective on them as they appear to the sapient community.

Gametime
2010-05-17, 10:05 AM
I also found the lack of humans in the MMs to be a poor showing (considering their presence in previous editions). In my opinion, human should always be in the bestiary and described in terms that a nonhuman would see them in. (And I also don't believe humans should necessarily be the "baseline" as that's...kind of arrogant.)

Humans being the baseline doesn't mean they're any better or worse than other races, though. (I mean, in 3.5, they are, but I don't think that was the intention.) It just means they're the race by which we measure other races. Since WotC is (primarily) staffed by humans, and their entire customer base is (presumably) human, it makes sense to make the measuring stick something we can all relate to. "You know what humans can do? Good. Here's where dwarves are better and worse in comparison."

I do agree, though, that a showing in the Monster Manual would be appropriate. One of my favorite things about the 4th edition MM was that it gave stats for humans, elves, and dwarves in various roles and at various levels.


Oh, and the latter's insultingly stupid "replace-the-ranger-and-paladin's-entire-spellcasting-with-four-feats ACF" which was even worse than the spelless version presented in Complete Warrior; in the same book as giving paladins battle blessing.


That's a fine ACF for certain builds (usually ones that will be multiclassing and won't get enough spellcasting to make it worthwhile anyway). I'd almost always prefer it over the Complete Warrior version.

Cogidubnus
2010-05-17, 10:10 AM
Unless you are willing to back up a claim of finding non-Human sapients IRL?

Now, I agree they should've been in there and that it could've definitely been nice to see a perspective on them as they appear to the sapient community.

There are, I believe, large teams of psychologist/biologists trying to a) define sentience and b) see if it applies to dolphins and elephants.

Both creatures recognise their own reflections, making them at least as sentient/self-aware as an 18 month old baby (babies younger than this aren't self-aware, and don't connect past events with present results. Kinda like your dog).

hamishspence
2010-05-17, 10:35 AM
There are certain limitations to the mirror test, but quite a few animals pass it. Including magpies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

Cogidubnus
2010-05-17, 10:38 AM
How do you do that test on an Orca? :smalleek:

Telonius
2010-05-17, 10:46 AM
Most irritating thing? I've seen this quote attributed to Woody Allen, and it fits pretty well: "The food here is terrible, and the portions are too small."



There are, I believe, large teams of psychologist/biologists trying to a) define sentience and b) see if it applies to dolphins and elephants.

Both creatures recognise their own reflections, making them at least as sentient/self-aware as an 18 month old baby (babies younger than this aren't self-aware, and don't connect past events with present results. Kinda like your dog).

Another test dolphins apparently pass: they have names (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060508_dolphins.html), or something very close to them. (Conflict of interest note: I do work for the journal that published the paper).

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-05-17, 01:47 PM
Granted, it would be a pain to do, but they're the ones writing the books, so they should at least be vaguely familiar with them.

Yeah. I've never really bought the argument that they're so focused on one aspect of the rules that they can't bring in other materials. I mean, really...CharOp can analyze new material and come up with a half a dozen broken things within days, I can stat out 20th level characters without having books at hand, and the people who are paid to work with and balance this stuff don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the material? Maybe that's the cause of 3e's problems, that the devs didn't actually care enough about it to make it balanced or coherent.

Darklord Xavez
2010-05-17, 01:48 PM
Because humans are speshul. And because they're so super speshul they're too awesome to be limited by an MM entry. As opposed to Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and Gnomes, all of whom are totally okay to reduce to racist stereotypes.

Yes. Yes they are.
-Xavez

Volthawk
2010-05-17, 01:50 PM
Yeah. I've never really bought the argument that they're so focused on one aspect of the rules that they can't bring in other materials. I mean, really...CharOp can analyze new material and come up with a half a dozen broken things within days, I can stat out 20th level characters without having books at hand, and the people who are paid to work with and balance this stuff don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the material? Maybe that's the cause of 3e's problems, that the devs didn't actually care enough about it to make it balanced or coherent.

I suppose the fact that different people wrote splatbooks may not have helped.

I do agree, though. They even did it in MoI, as there are psionic powers there, and Eberron has some psionics, IIRC. Yet they won't do it for other books...

Kurald Galain
2010-05-17, 02:05 PM
Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and Gnomes, all of whom are totally okay to reduce to racist stereotypes.

Depends. Are you talking about high elves, wood elves, dark elves, or gray elves, or some other of the Over Nine Thousand elven subraces? And regular dwarves, gully dwarves, or duergar? And so forth?

It strikes me that there are just as many human stereotypes as there are elven ones.

LibraryOgre
2010-05-17, 03:03 PM
How do you do that test on an Orca? :smalleek:

Simple: Get a bigger mirror.

Drakyn
2010-05-17, 03:09 PM
Depends. Are you talking about high elves, wood elves, dark elves, or gray elves, or some other of the Over Nine Thousand elven subraces? And regular dwarves, gully dwarves, or duergar? And so forth?

It strikes me that there are just as many human stereotypes as there are elven ones.

It seems to me that humans are special in that they're practically the only D&D species that's allowed to have separate cultures without the population's DNA radically mutating overnight and branching them off into entire subspecies.

Fhaolan
2010-05-17, 03:34 PM
Actually, humans are speshul because they're the only known race to publish RPG books. :smallbiggrin:

Math_Mage
2010-05-17, 03:57 PM
It seems to me that humans are special in that they're practically the only D&D species that's allowed to have separate cultures without the population's DNA radically mutating overnight and branching them off into entire subspecies.

Rather, humans are the only D&D species that aren't allowed to vary by race due to the Unfortunate Implications (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnfortunateImplications).

hamishspence
2010-05-17, 04:05 PM
yes- Races of Faerun was probably taking it as far as it could safely go, by giving each "race" of humans its own set of feats.

PersonMan
2010-05-17, 05:32 PM
Yes. Yes they are.
-Xavez

Also, I doubt that elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. are going to complain/sue/boycott your products. And besides, it'd be a lot of work to make every single race as varied as humans are, and since they're so busy playtesting everything and making sure we have balanced material, they don't have time to do that. [/sarcasm]

Zeta Kai
2010-05-17, 05:38 PM
Also, I doubt that elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. are going to complain/sue/boycott your products. And besides, it'd be a lot of work to make every single race as varied as humans are, and since they're so busy playtesting everything and making sure we have balanced material, they don't have time to do that. [/sarcasm]

That's funny, because I paid somebody $30 a book under implicit assumption that effective playtesting was being implemented.

Drakevarg
2010-05-17, 05:39 PM
Also, I doubt that elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. are going to complain/sue/boycott your products. And besides, it'd be a lot of work to make every single race as varied as humans are, and since they're so busy playtesting everything and making sure we have balanced material, they don't have time to do that. [/sarcasm]

Because of course you couldn't intentionally leave the races as vague and "adaptable" as humans. Personally, I'd just give 'em stat blocks and let the DM figure out the culture bits.