Size of a couatl and TCoE illustration

[Millstone85]

The MM stats the couatl as a Medium-sized creature.

That never felt right to me. A marilith? Large. A naga? Large. A yuan-ti abomination? Large. But the celestial feathered serpent? Eh, just Medium.

https://i.imgur.com/mmddPaw.png
And yes, that's how I imagine a couatl would look next to humans (or well, elves).

Now, I have been told this might be a statue with painted feathers. Even so, gee, how convenient that the artist would choose that over the real deal.

How do you see couatls?

[Theodoxus]

Same as you.

However, I don't think that's a statue... the tail comes off the dais, and that makes it inconvenient for approaching, cleaning, etc. I just don't think an artist would do that - plus it would probably need to be repaired quite often as things get bumped into it. No, I think a statue would have the tail coiled under the body, as added support.

[Imbalance]

I have repeatedly heard it said that in 5e a creature's Size has less to do with the physical volume that its form occupies and more to do with its area of control during combat, which still doesn't make much sense to me in cases like this one. But then, I haven't playtested it to find out if three additional squares of adjacency makes this guy broken.

[Amnestic]

It looks like they're medium in 1e and 5e, and Large in 2e-4e.

Given their height (12') and total wingspan (15') large does feel more appropriate. Can't say I ever gave it any real thought.

[LudicSavant]

The MM stats the couatl as a Medium-sized creature.

That never felt right to me. A marilith? Large. A naga? Large. A yuan-ti abomination? Large. But the celestial feathered serpent? Eh, just Medium.

https://i.imgur.com/mmddPaw.png
And yes, that's how I imagine a couatl would look next to humans (or well, elves).

Now, I have been told this might be a statue with painted feathers. Even so, gee, how convenient that the artist would choose that over the real deal.

How do you see couatls?

To me a Couatl is an impressive celestial creature on par with a Rakshasa power-wise... much like they were in past editions (like 3.5e, in which they were Large and had the same CR as a Rakshasa, and were their big celestial rivals in Eberron lore).

5e Couatls are little baby Couatls. I remade them as higher CR Legendary creatures.

[Unoriginal]

Now, I have been told this might be a statue with painted feathers. Even so, gee, how convenient that the artist would choose that over the real deal.

This looks like an alive Couatl, just a big one.

[Imbalance]

I have repeatedly heard it said that in 5e a creature's Size has less to do with the physical volume that its form occupies and more to do with its area of control during combat, which still doesn't make much sense to me in cases like this one. But then, I haven't playtested it to find out if three additional squares of adjacency makes this guy broken.

Actually, I forgot that their Constrict action has a 10 ft reach. That gives them an area of control on par with a creature of huge Size for one bludgeoning grapple attack. I also forgot that they're only Challenge 4 (for summoning?). Pretty sure there would need to be a host of other numbers adjustments to let them be Size large.

[Millstone85]

It looks like they're medium in 1e and 5e, and Large in 2e-4e.Good to know. They shouldn't have reverted the change, then.


I don't think that's a statue... the tail comes off the dais, and that makes it inconvenient for approaching, cleaning, etc.
This looks like an alive Couatl, just a big one.I am glad, as that makes this picture way better. According to the book's description, they are preparing for a couatl festival. I find it great that the guest of honor is already here and nobody looks stressed.


5e Couatls are little baby Couatls. I remade them as higher CR Legendary creatures.
Pretty sure there would need to be a host of other numbers adjustments to let them be Size large.Indeed, I am not a fan of the rest of the statblock either.

[KorvinStarmast]

It looks like they're medium in 1e and 5e, and Large in 2e-4e.

Given their height (12') and total wingspan (15') large does feel more appropriate. Almost the size of a Wyvern, just skinny. :smallcool:

[Segev]

For mechanical purposes, there are only three things making it Large instead of Medium would do that I can think of:

Make it harder to grapple, as you'd need a Medium grappler rather than a Small one to manage it,
Make it able to serve as a mount for a Medium creature (as a Medium creature, itself, it could only carry Small ones on its back), and
Make it unable to move through "normal" 5 ft. wide hallways without squeezing

From a design standpoint, I suspect the most relevant of these is point 3: as Medium creatures, they can slither down halls after or away from normal PCs without squeezing and without needing any word count wasted on a special rule for fitting into narrower spaces than usual.

[stoutstien]

Something I've been doing for years is including size categories that aren't necessarily squares to allow medium creatures that are long rather than just large to have a more logical presence. I use it pretty sparingly because it can be a pain to track it and a 3D space but having something like a giant constrictor snake serpentining around ruins it's just a very enjoyable encounter.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I mean, having a snake body is one of those times where you have to kinda ignore the rules a bit, imo.

For example, snakes aren't immune to the prone condition. Think on that for a minute.

[stoutstien]

I mean, having a snake body is one of those times where you have to kinda ignore the rules a bit, imo.

For example, snakes aren't immune to the prone condition. Think on that for a minute.

Why would they be immune to it? Probe just means it's in a somewhat compromised position.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Why would they be immune to it? Probe just means it's in a somewhat compromised position.

Yeah, but it also leads to silly things like being able to trip snakes. Mind you, that's more the fault of how general some status conditions can be in 5e rather than a specific complaint here.

[quinron]

Why would they be immune to it? Probe just means it's in a somewhat compromised position.

It edges back into the "mechanics over fiction" that was a big point against 4e for a lot of people.

Are there positions you can force a snake into where it's going to have to move itself around to become fully mobile again? Yes. But the rules for the prone condition literally say a creature "stands up" to overcome the condition, and the big penalty for being prone is that your only movement option is to crawl. Which both feel like very silly ways to be able to penalize a snake.

[stoutstien]

It edges back into the "mechanics over fiction" that was a big point against 4e for a lot of people.

Are there positions you can force a snake into where it's going to have to move itself around to become fully mobile again? Yes. But the rules for the prone condition literally say a creature "stands up" to overcome the condition, and the big penalty for being prone is that your only movement option is to crawl. Which both feel like very silly ways to be able to penalize a snake.

I agree they should have never used the words "stand up" but the only other option was to have a very wordy condition that would probably lead to more confusion than it was worth. Maybe "upright" but even then you would find edge cases of NPCs that don't use standard directional orientations like some aberrations, NPCs that can treat walls and ceiling as down, and of course underwater scenarios.
Sometimes the mechanics have to be taken first for the game to run. That's kind of the point of rules to begin with. Sure sometimes the verbiage is off but the alternative are things like grappling and 3.x which was both extremely wordy and still nonsense narratively.

[quinron]

I agree they should have never used the words "stand up" but the only other option was to have a very wordy condition that would probably lead to more confusion than it was worth. Maybe "upright" but even then you would find edge cases of NPCs that don't use standard directional orientations like some aberrations, NPCs that can treat walls and ceiling as down, and of course underwater scenarios.
Sometimes the mechanics have to be taken first for the game to run. That's kind of the point of rules to begin with. Sure sometimes the verbiage is off but the alternative are things like grappling and 3.x which was both extremely wordy and still nonsense narratively.

I dunno. We can talk ourselves in circles about rules vs. fiction, but it seems pretty clear that "prone" means "lying on the ground because you lost your footing or your flight was interrupted." All the verbiage around the condition and features/spells that impose it imply this definition. I think snakes should be immune to that, and the game won't stop running if you make them immune to it.

That said - flying snakes and couatls fly using wings, and the prone condition is used when a flying creature is knocked out of the air. So if they were immune to being prone, you'd have to assume that couatls and flying snakes levitate. It's a bit tricky.

[stoutstien]

I dunno. We can talk ourselves in circles about rules vs. fiction, but it seems pretty clear that "prone" means "lying on the ground because you lost your footing or your flight was interrupted." All the verbiage around the condition and features/spells that impose it imply this definition. I think snakes should be immune to that, and the game won't stop running if you make them immune to it.

That said - flying snakes and couatls fly using wings, and the prone condition is used when a flying creature is knocked out of the air. So if they were immune to being prone, you'd have to assume that couatls and flying snakes levitate. It's a bit tricky.
Part of the fatal flaw of having a simplistic system. All the conditions govern multiple scenarios so they need give to flex and fit sometimes conflicting ideas. Prone covers kneeling and like you said falling in flight. It wouldn't make much difference one way or the other of all serpentine creatures were immune to prone other than taking away a useful tool for martial characters that already have a shallow array of choices.

[Imbalance]

For mechanical purposes, there are only three things making it Large instead of Medium would do that I can think of:

Make it harder to grapple, as you'd need a Medium grappler rather than a Small one to manage it,
Make it able to serve as a mount for a Medium creature (as a Medium creature, itself, it could only carry Small ones on its back), and
Make it unable to move through "normal" 5 ft. wide hallways without squeezing

From a design standpoint, I suspect the most relevant of these is point 3: as Medium creatures, they can slither down halls after or away from normal PCs without squeezing and without needing any word count wasted on a special rule for fitting into narrower spaces than usual.

All true, but again consider that on the grid, their Constrict action goes from controlling 24 squares for a medium creature to 32 squares for a large, and their Bite (with poison) gains 4 potential squares. I know not everybody plays on a grid, but it should be understood how much of an order of magnitude it is between these size categories, which is magnified even further if they're summoned. On the other hand, it has very little effect on their list of innate spells.


Something I've been doing for years is including size categories that aren't necessarily squares to allow medium creatures that are long rather than just large to have a more logical presence. I use it pretty sparingly because it can be a pain to track it and a 3D space but having something like a giant constrictor snake serpentining around ruins it's just a very enjoyable encounter.

This is a cool idea. It has often bothered me that of all the purple worm minis bursting dramatically from underground, I don't recall ever seeing one that included the tail stinger. And while it's easy to imagine them being long enough to encircle a party, staging it is another matter. Maybe if I modified a Slinky...

I would advocate for the rules to reflect that for some creatures (namely snakes) prone is the natural condition, and that the disadvantages to movement are applied in reverse when the creature is forced into a standing position. Advantage/disadvantage when targeting a snake would remain the same. It's a corner case perhaps, but an intuitive exception.

[Segev]

All true, but again consider that on the grid, their Constrict action goes from controlling 24 squares for a medium creature to 32 squares for a large, and their Bite (with poison) gains 4 potential squares. I know not everybody plays on a grid, but it should be understood how much of an order of magnitude it is between these size categories, which is magnified even further if they're summoned. On the other hand, it has very little effect on their list of innate spells.

Fair enough; perhaps they made them Medium in part to limit the reach?

[quinron]

All true, but again consider that on the grid, their Constrict action goes from controlling 24 squares for a medium creature to 32 squares for a large, and their Bite (with poison) gains 4 potential squares. I know not everybody plays on a grid, but it should be understood how much of an order of magnitude it is between these size categories, which is magnified even further if they're summoned. On the other hand, it has very little effect on their list of innate spells.

I think you make a good point - while the books and press for the game all make their paeans to not needing a grid, it's clear that combat has been designed to work most fluidly with one. Also, if you're playing gridless, you might as well go all the way and make creatures that don't just occupy perfect squares.

[Unoriginal]

For mechanical purposes, there are only three things making it Large instead of Medium would do that I can think of:

Make it harder to grapple, as you'd need a Medium grappler rather than a Small one to manage it,
Make it able to serve as a mount for a Medium creature (as a Medium creature, itself, it could only carry Small ones on its back), and
Make it unable to move through "normal" 5 ft. wide hallways without squeezing

From a design standpoint, I suspect the most relevant of these is point 3: as Medium creatures, they can slither down halls after or away from normal PCs without squeezing and without needing any word count wasted on a special rule for fitting into narrower spaces than usual.

On top of influencing the reach as others noted above, augmenting size category would also augment the number of damage dice for physical attacks (double it, in the case of going from Medium to Large).It also changes which HD is used, but that wouldn't affect the HPs inherently (since first they establish the HPs then they backtrack to figure out how many HDs that means).

It's possible the 5e writers didn't want the Couatl to be a strong opponent in pure body-vs-body fights, for one reason or another.



https://i.imgur.com/mmddPaw.png
And yes, that's how I imagine a couatl would look next to humans (or well, elves).

Examining the picutre again, I think the one sitting on the couch, next to the Couatl (on the right side of the pic for the viewer) is an halfling.

Like, even if you take perspective into account, the one sitting/kneeling on the floor next to the Couatl is waaaaay bigger than the one on the couch.

If the one on the floor is an elf/half-elf, it would make the Couatl bigger than an Anaconda, but not much bigger.

[Segev]

On top of influencing the reach as others noted above, augmenting size category would also augment the number of damage dice for physical attacks (double it, in the case of going from Medium to Large).It also changes which HD is used, but that wouldn't affect the HPs inherently (since first they establish the HPs then they backtrack to figure out how many HDs that means).

It's possible the 5e writers didn't want the Couatl to be a strong opponent in pure body-vs-body fights, for one reason or another.Also possible, true.


Examining the picutre again, I think the one sitting on the couch, next to the Couatl (on the right side of the pic for the viewer) is an halfling.

Like, even if you take perspective into account, the one sitting/kneeling on the floor next to the Couatl is waaaaay bigger than the one on the couch.

If the one on the floor is an elf/half-elf, it would make the Couatl bigger than an Anaconda, but not much bigger.

Them all being halflings would make that work out nicely, actually.

[ATHATH]

5e Couatls are little baby Couatls. I remade them as higher CR Legendary creatures.


It's possible the 5e writers didn't want the Couatl to be a strong opponent in pure body-vs-body fights, for one reason or another.
It should be noted that Couatls are INCREDIBLY under-CR'd, to a degree that would make even That Damn Crab from the 3.X era of D&D weep. Literally every aspect of the coautl's stat block is either impressive or outright bonkers.

*inhales*

They have almost 100 hit points, and their natural AC is greater than that of a human wearing full plate armor. They have a 90 ft. fly speed. Their stats are all >=16 (with two of them being 20s) and they're proficient in CON, WIS, and CHA saves. They're resistant to radiant damage, immune to psychic damage(!), and IMMUNE TO B/P/S DAMAGE FROM NONMAGICAL ATTACKS. They have a great passive perception score and have passive Truesight out to 120 ft. (imagine needing to spend a 6th level spell slot to get an effect similar to that for only an hour, couldn't be me), making them incredibly hard to trick. They speak all languages AND are telepathic out to a range of 120 ft., allowing them to coordinate your party silently during battle.

*inhales again*

Couatls are also spellcasters! For their at-will spells, they get Detect Evil and Good, Detect Magic (suck it, Warlocks), and Detect Thoughts (as if trying to fool them wasn't hard enough already). Their 3/days include Bless (one of the best 1st level buffing spells in the game), Create Food and Water (so you don't need to carry around rations anymore), Cure Wounds (so they can save people at 0 HP), Sanctuary, and Shield (in case you actually hit their 19 AC or try to bypass their immunity to nonmagical B/P/S attacks using Magic Missile). For their 1/days, they get three 5th level spells: Dream (which can synergize with the couatl's Detect Thoughts and special bite or just be used for long-distance communication), Greater Restoration, and Scrying. They only need to use verbal components for these spells, so they can cast them while both of their hands are full and don't need to pay for the expensive material components/foci of Greater Restoration and Scrying. Couatls also get the Shielded Mind trait, which is yet another "screw you" to tricksters.

*inhales yet again*

A couatl's weapon attacks are all magical, so they can't be stymied by other creatures who're resistant or also immune to B/P/S damage from nonmagical attacks in the late(r) game. This is relevant because couatls are not just great support and stellar utility spellcasters- they're also MONSTERS in melee combat. Their +8 bite forces a save vs. falling unconscious for 24 hours if it lands, and while another creature can use its action to wake a creature who's been knocked unconscious by that ability up, they'll still be poisoned for the next 24 hours, and damage does NOT seem to break that unconsciousness effect. Their constrict attack has a range of 10 ft. and auto-grapples medium or smaller creatures on a hit, so if it lands, a couatl can fly up to 45 feet straight up and then drop its victim for a nice chunk of extra damage.

*inhales once more*

And finally, we reach the last ability in the couatl's statblock: Change Shape, or as I like to call it, LESSER SHAPECHANGE. Read it carefully, as it differs slightly from the Change Shape variants that other monsters and even other celestials have.
Change Shape. The couatl magically polymorphs into a humanoid or beast that has a challenge rating equal to or less than its own, or back into its true form. It reverts to its true form if it dies. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying is absorbed or borne by the new form (the couatl's choice).
In a new form, the couatl retains its game statistics and ability to speak, but its AC, movement modes, Strength, Dexterity, and other actions are replaced by those of the new form, and it gains any statistics and capabilities (except class features, legendary actions, and lair actions) that the new form has but that it lacks. If the new form has a bite attack, the couatl can use its bite in that form.
A couatl can adopt the form of any humanoid or beast with a CR <= its own, gaining all of its abilities (that aren't class features, legendary actions, or lair actions), its attacks, its immunities, its STR score, and its DEX score, among other things, while retaining most of its couatl abilities, like its spellcasting (which isn't under the "actions" section of its stat block), its immunity to B/P/S weapon attacks, its considerable HP pool (meaning that frailer forms are much more viable when used by a couatl), and its ability to make its weapon attacks count as being magical. I don't think I need to explain how ridiculous this ability is, but just in case, I'll link to this thread where people discussed some good couatl forms: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?627281-Couatls-and-Change-Shape.

This... thing, which is strong enough to (nonlethally!) subdue an entire army and has more utility packed into it than Batman's belt, is CR...

*drumroll*

4.

Coincidentally, Conjure Celestial summons a celestial of CR 4 or less when not upcasted, and the only celestials of CR 4 or less in the Monster Manual (or in any AL-legal book released so far, for that matter) are the CR 2 pegasus (that a Paladin can summon indefinitely using Find Greater Steed) and the CR 4 couatl. If you have a level 13+ non-evil Cleric in your party, I strongly, STRONGLY recommend summoning and Planar Binding a couatl- it will NOT disappoint you.

tldr;
5e couatls are not "little baby couatls", and they're definitely strong opponents in pure body-vs-body fights.

[Sharur]

Why would they be immune to it? Probe just means it's in a somewhat compromised position.

This is also consistent among other "snaked bodied" monsters: nagas, marailiths and yuanti also aren't prone immune, or even resistant.

[Doug Lampert]

I dunno. We can talk ourselves in circles about rules vs. fiction, but it seems pretty clear that "prone" means "lying on the ground because you lost your footing or your flight was interrupted." All the verbiage around the condition and features/spells that impose it imply this definition. I think snakes should be immune to that, and the game won't stop running if you make them immune to it.

That said - flying snakes and couatls fly using wings, and the prone condition is used when a flying creature is knocked out of the air. So if they were immune to being prone, you'd have to assume that couatls and flying snakes levitate. It's a bit tricky.

Flip a snake over, and it's severely handicapped and will flip back over at the first opportunity.

Film of a mongoose verses a snake will show you the mongoose repeatedly darting in and out trying to flip the snake till it does, at which point it attacks the severely disadvantaged snake.

You can prone a snake in the sense of knocking it over so that it can't move well and is at a disadvantage in melee combat. It shouldn't get advantage against bows from this unless it gets that all the time, but that's the only real problem.

[Millstone85]

Examining the picutre again, I think the one sitting on the couch, next to the Couatl (on the right side of the pic for the viewer) is an halfling.
Them all being halflings would make that work out nicely, actually.Or rather gnomes, since 5e halflings have round ears.


Like, even if you take perspective into account, the one sitting/kneeling on the floor next to the Couatl is waaaaay bigger than the one on the couch.I suck with perspectives, but you are probably right.


If the one on the floor is an elf/half-elf, it would make the Couatl bigger than an Anaconda, but not much bigger.I also don't know my anacondas. Wikipedia gives me this picture (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Eunectes_murinus_-_Flickr_-_****_Culbert.jpg) (GitP doesn't like people named Richard, so please replace the asterisks accordingly) which I think floor guy and the couatl would be far from able to recreate without shapeshifting.

[Asmotherion]

The MM stats the couatl as a Medium-sized creature.

That never felt right to me. A marilith? Large. A naga? Large. A yuan-ti abomination? Large. But the celestial feathered serpent? Eh, just Medium.

https://i.imgur.com/mmddPaw.png
And yes, that's how I imagine a couatl would look next to humans (or well, elves).

Now, I have been told this might be a statue with painted feathers. Even so, gee, how convenient that the artist would choose that over the real deal.

How do you see couatls?
Always imagined them Huge or larger. My head cannon is that Asmodeus himself (His original form) was originally a colosal Couatl that lost his wings on his descent to Hell. So, yeah, I'm not sold on the idea of a medium couatl.

[LudicSavant]

It should be noted that Couatls are INCREDIBLY under-CR'd, to a degree that would make even That Damn Crab from the 3.X era of D&D weep. Literally every aspect of the coautl's stat block is either impressive or outright bonkers.

"That Damn Crab" is strong for its CR. It still would be disappointing if you called it a dragon turtle.


tldr;
5e couatls are not "little baby couatls", and they're definitely strong opponents in pure body-vs-body fights.

They're strong relative to their CR. That doesn't necessarily mean they're as strong as people think they should be, independent of CR.

[Millstone85]

Truthfully, my main reason for wanting Large couatls is so shulassakar transcendents can be the same size as yuan-ti abominations, without ending up dwarfing the couatls they sought to emulate.


Always imagined them Huge or larger. My head cannon is that Asmodeus himself (His original form) was originally a colosal Couatl that lost his wings on his descent to Hell. So, yeah, I'm not sold on the idea of a medium couatl.I too embrace the story of the Serpents of Law, although I headcanon Asmodeus as a fallen angel who convinced Ahriman to let him replace Zargon as the apparent ruler of Baator.

[Zuras]

To pile on to the under-CRed nature of the Couatl—have you ever run one as a DM? It can Change to a Swashbuckler to abuse Suave Defense, and if it’s a Lizardfolk swashbuckler it even still gets it’s bite as a bonus action. They are extremely capable without having massive offensive punch.

[quinron]

Flip a snake over, and it's severely handicapped and will flip back over at the first opportunity.

Film of a mongoose verses a snake will show you the mongoose repeatedly darting in and out trying to flip the snake till it does, at which point it attacks the severely disadvantaged snake.

You can prone a snake in the sense of knocking it over so that it can't move well and is at a disadvantage in melee combat. It shouldn't get advantage against bows from this unless it gets that all the time, but that's the only real problem.

I'm not claiming that there isn't a way to debilitate a snake by putting it in a difficult-to-negotiate position. I'm claiming that the specific features that impose the "prone" condition either do so with wording implying knocking over, shoving, blasts of concussion force, or maneuvers that are explicitly described as "tripping" or similar. Ultimately, I think the prone condition is poorly presented in the game's fiction given the broader range of physical debilitating implied by the range of creatures that can be rendered prone.

[Eric Diaz]

Bit of a tangent here, but the "prone" thing has been resolved in both 3e and 4e explicitly (and in opposite ways). but not in 5e (see sig):

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2017/02/tripping-oozes-in-d-3e-versus-4e-versus.html

In any case, you are not tripping snakes in my table.

(however... shoving a marilith? I think I might allow that. Maybe with disadvantage)

[sandmote]

I made some additional creatures for the spell a while ago, and the thing came out as CR 7 when I ran the numbers. What I assume happened is that the author consulted the table for determining effective hit points based on damage immunities and resistances (see page 277 of the DMG) and input the figures for a CR 17+ monster instead of for a CR 4 monster.

Similarly, if anything, I think the ranges of the bite and constrict should be switched, if either gets a 10 foot range. I'm aware of snakes being able to bite something from far away, but being able to wrap itself around a creature without coming closer is odd. Same goes for change shape, which is a mess to calculate. I realize its how a druid's wildshape is handled on other NPC stat blocks (ex: lizardfolk shaman) but just adding the CR of the transformation would be easier for calculation if the feature worked that way.

Considering both of the above, I think the stat block was written purely because someone realized the Pegasus was the only valid target for Conjure Celestial, and no one could find the time to proofread it. The shrunken size would just be another example.

[Zuras]

Bit of a tangent here, but the "prone" thing has been resolved in both 3e and 4e explicitly (and in opposite ways). but not in 5e (see sig):

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2017/02/tripping-oozes-in-d-3e-versus-4e-versus.html

In any case, you are not tripping snakes in my table.

(however... shoving a marilith? I think I might allow that. Maybe with disadvantage)

The problem with DMs injecting their ideas about “realism” into game mechanics is that it invariably affects martial classes disproportionately and spellcasters hardly at all. Restricting what creatures can be knocked prone beyond the existing listed condition immunities is a lesser version of the same logic that restricts Sneak Attack to enemies with organs and “vital points”. Logical, sure, but no fun for the poor sap who thought “dude who stabs people” was a viable character concept in an undead-heavy campaign.

Besides which, it’s hardly difficult to imagine a snake getting shoved in such a way that it’s disoriented and needs to spend half its movement righting itself, is it? Why not just reflavor the action instead of constraining character abilities?

[quinron]

The problem with DMs injecting their ideas about “realism” into game mechanics is that it invariably affects martial classes disproportionately and spellcasters hardly at all. Restricting what creatures can be knocked prone beyond the existing listed condition immunities is a lesser version of the same logic that restricts Sneak Attack to enemies with organs and “vital points”. Logical, sure, but no fun for the poor sap who thought “dude who stabs people” was a viable character concept in an undead-heavy campaign.

Besides which, it’s hardly difficult to imagine a snake getting shoved in such a way that it’s disoriented and needs to spend half its movement righting itself, is it? Why not just reflavor the action instead of constraining character abilities?

Agreed, broadly.. Personally, the bigger issue for me is that several conditions, especially prone, require most martials to use upwards of half their action just to impose them on o e creature (e.g., shoving uses an attack), while magic users get spells like thunderwave both deal damage and impose those conditions as riders.

Pretty much all martial methods of imposing conditions as a rider are limited-use, single-target things like Trip Attack or Open Hand monks' Flurry. By level 3, a wizard can cast a 1st-level thunderwave just as often as a Battlemaster can use Trip Attack.

[Tanarii]

By level 3, a wizard can cast a 1st-level thunderwave just as often as a Battlemaster can use Trip Attack.4 Thunderwave a day (6 with upcasting) vs 12 Trip attacks is not just as often.