Hilarious things you've found in RAW?

[Vaern]

Having damage reduction does not inherently allow you to bypass damage reduction of the same type, except magic and epic.
Creatures with an alignment subtype deal aligned damage matching their subtype. An inevitable does not ignore DR/chaotic for having the same type of damage reduction, but it does bypass DR/lawful for having the lawful subtype.

That being said, I feel like there is something in the back of my mind about creatures ignoring damage reduction of creatures of the same kind... Like, a vampire could ignore the DR of another vampire, but it would not be able to bypass the DR of a werewolf without an actual silver weapon. I'm sure I'm just misremembering something, though, or maybe it was an on-the-spot house rule that came up at one table. Either way, I'm fairly sure I've heard a rule similar to this before, but I can't find anything to actually back it up.

[Seward]

Bag of holding can store a creature for 10 minutes before it runs out of air.

Doesn't matter if it is a turtle or a troll, 10 minutes is what you get, assuming you fall under weight limit.

Probably doesn't matter if it is 100 turtles or 1 troll. Each gets 10 minutes.


As the arcanist tells the frustrated druid "hold breath doesn't matter either. You get 10 minutes. That's how it works".

[loky1109]

Bag of holding can store a creature for 10 minutes before it runs out of air.

Doesn't matter if it is a turtle or a troll, 10 minutes is what you get, assuming you fall under weight limit.

Probably doesn't matter if it is 100 turtles or 1 troll. Each gets 10 minutes.


As the arcanist tells the frustrated druid "hold breath doesn't matter either. You get 10 minutes. That's how it works".

You are not right. 100 or 1 does matter.
10 minutes for one creature.

[Seward]

You are not right. 100 or 1 does matter.
10 minutes for one creature.

The SRD begs to differ. Emphasis in Bold is mine.

If living creatures are placed within the bag, they can survive for up to 10 minutes, after which time they suffocate.

Wording is identical in Pathfinder SRD as well.

My wife and I speculated that the bag was designed to give each creature a specific number of breaths of air and attach that air to each individual creature in the extra-D space. I assume it actually works for 10 minutes of normal breathing and then holding breath rules apply, but that isn't actually what it says. For all we know, after 10 minutes a vacuum forms that sucks all the air out of you.

[loky1109]

My mistake.

[Scots Dragon]

That's actually just how vacuums work in Dungeons & Dragons. Check out Spelljammer sometime.

[ShurikVch]

I'm seriously puzzled by the lack of facing rules: no matter from which side you're coming to the creature, it's always supposed to be laser-guided on you - even if it's sleeping. And it's get weirder in case of multiple attackers...

Not, exactly, RAW - but it's deeply satisfying to know: according to the novels, all the "older" versions of spells - from previous editions (or even just earlier books of the same edition) - are not quantumed into oblivion, but still present in the world, and could be found (or re-researched)

That's actually just how vacuums work in Dungeons & Dragons. Check out Spelljammer sometime.

No, it's not how vacuum works in Dungeons & Dragons:

The moonlet has few defenses. The dangers of the void are enough to keep enemies at bay. Unless the moonlet is approached when it has already entered the atmosphere - at which point it is almost too late - characters must contend with the hazardous environment. After 3 rounds of exposure to the void, a living creature must make a successful DC 20 Constitution check or suffer excruciating pain, becoming stunned and remaining so until it returns to the atmosphere. Creatures that fail the check by 5 or more fall unconscious.
Creatures that require air are also subject to suffocation. Attempting to hold one’s breath requires a DC 15 Constitution check every round. The DC increases by 1 each round. Even on a successful check, the creature takes 1 point of Constitution damage from the pressure. On a failed check, or when the creature stops holding its breath, it falls unconscious on the following round, and its hit points fall to 0. On the next round, the creature drops to –1 hit points and the round after, its hit points fall to –10 and the creature dies.

[Morphic tide]

Everyone loves going Abjurant Champion. Entry is a bit awkward for full casters, though, since you have to reach +5 BAB. Enter Spellsword from Complete Warrior, which takes the usual "proper" Martial proficiency set that can be handled by a level of all sorts of classes, which asks for BAB +4 and has full BAB. Every even-numbered level loses a caster level, but it's an open level to mix progression.

The thing of it is that Spellsword, due to the way its worded, has a hilariously ridiculous use case for Sorcerers in particular: One of its features, at 4th level, is essentially Move Action Smiting Spell... Except the way it's worded is not casting the spell, you simply expend the slot as a Move Action to set a charge that lasts for 8 hours. So a Sorcerer no longer suffers the Full Round metamagic. And, since it says nothing about components, and is specifically not actually casting the spell, it seems you can technically ignore them. Obviously an insane reading, but RAW can get stupid.

Furthermore, regardless of the spell's original properties, it affects only the thing next hit with it. Stick a Fireball in there, it only hits the target, no risk of exploding in your face. There are no restrictions on what you can put in it, too. You can stick Mage Armor in there to whack somebody with an hour/level buff. You can Awaken a construct by making a Standard Action attack with a club. No need for a brain, no need for 5k XP, no need for eight hours, one round and zero cost. And since it's just target, you can also Create Undead by whacking a valid corpse.

Even without the cost removal reading, it's completely inarguable that it absolutely and without exception sets the spell's effective casting time to a Move Action, and absolutely and without exception sets the target to what you hit. So it's still one round instead of eight hours to Awaken a Construct and still cheats targeting by setting to "Whatever I hit with this weapon next". May even force creature-oriented effects on objects and vice versa, to Very Strange results.

[liquidformat]

Standard DC is 10+CR. Since a wolf is not CR 0, you can't roll an untrained knowledge check.

I am cracking myself up at the idea of a couple farmers being like, why do my sheep keep eating each other? as he watches a pack of wolves killing and eating his flock of sheep.

...although I think it's pretty fun to point out how advanced the healing of D&D is and also how dangerous the diseases in setting are. IRL, even quite contagious diseases don't usually strike people into bedrest in 5-7 business days. But Cackle Fever, Shakes, and Slimy Doom will either kill you or put you in a coma within a few days and they all have saves a commoner is unlikely to make. In 3.5, communities without two trained healers are likely to lose half their population if any disease rolls through town but ones with two are basically unstoppable, because even a Heal 4 + skill focus (Heal) means nobody's dying of anything short of an attack from hell.

I mean if you aren't looking at modern times even if you are just going back around 100 years this seems pretty reasonable. The plague would go through cities killing off 80-90% of the population and even colds and flu could be quite deadly. The only unreasonable thing is how well the heal skill works. If we go back to the dark ages it was thought that a lump of horse dung would be very effective at healing wounds at one time...

Crafting things requires raw materials worth 1/3 the price of the thing you're crafting. If you want to craft some flour, the raw material you'd use is grain. Thus, 1 cp of grain can be crafted into 3 cp of flour. Seems straightforward enough - except that 1 cp of grain weighs 1 pound, while 3 cp of flour weighs 1.5 pounds. From this we conclude either that D&D millstones are magical or that D&D flour has a huge amount of grit in it.

I mean even in the 19th century it was a very common practice for flour to be adulterated so as to get more bang for your buck. Using white spackle was quite common and normally people preferred the look and weight of bread made with it. There is a reason that the baker was included with the butcher and candlestick maker in the nursery rhyme about drowning the corrupt people in society...

On a related note, a D&D setting has no need for farmers. The Survival skill lets you find food for yourself in the wild with a DC 10 check, and you can provide for 1 additional person for every 2 points by which you beat the check. Even a neophyte forager (4 ranks, skill focus) can provide food for three people in addition to herself when she's able to take 10 - a level of food productivity that the real world didn't reach until the early 20th century. An experienced forager can do much better.

Yeah this one has always rubbed me the wrong way as someone who does a lot of outdoors stuff and is quite knowledgeable about survival, all the DCs are way to easy and don't take into account things like not being familiar with the flora and fauna of an area or climate...

[Wildstag]

Yeah this one has always rubbed me the wrong way as someone who does a lot of outdoors stuff and is quite knowledgeable about survival, all the DCs are way to easy and don't take into account things like not being familiar with the flora and fauna of an area or climate...

Eh, it's not really that hard to find edible food, and that's all the skill check needs. It's not like you roll a Survival check expecting poached eggs and smoked fowl. A basic roll gets you basic food. Everything else would be a Craft (? I think I saw that up thread) roll.

Finding edible food is simple provided you have a pot and a fire. First if it's hostile to touch, don't eat it. Secondly, seep it (make plant-tea). If you don't get sick from that, then try it boiled. You probably get a bit of calories. Lastly, if boiled it does not make you sick, maybe try cooking it other ways.

And terrestrial animal meat is generally simple enough. Cook it well done and consume. You get the energy but it's not great.

Like, I could easily eat a lot of the desert plants near me, though there'd be some prep work. It's just a matter of drinking the leeched-plant-water just a few sips to test if it gives me the runs. From there it's just a task of finding enough.

It's the "Survival" skill, not the "Thrive-al" skill.

[Bohandas]

Or how about some blatant (but never officially corrected) typos - like with the Eye of Gruumsh in Epic Level Handbook:

Spoiler: I wonder if it matter which kind of ore...

Show

That image would be more ridiculous if D&D did not already have earth elementals as popular monsters

[liquidformat]

Eh, it's not really that hard to find edible food, and that's all the skill check needs. It's not like you roll a Survival check expecting poached eggs and smoked fowl. A basic roll gets you basic food. Everything else would be a Craft (? I think I saw that up thread) roll.

Finding edible food is simple provided you have a pot and a fire. First if it's hostile to touch, don't eat it. Secondly, seep it (make plant-tea). If you don't get sick from that, then try it boiled. You probably get a bit of calories. Lastly, if boiled it does not make you sick, maybe try cooking it other ways.

And terrestrial animal meat is generally simple enough. Cook it well done and consume. You get the energy but it's not great.

Like, I could easily eat a lot of the desert plants near me, though there'd be some prep work. It's just a matter of drinking the leeched-plant-water just a few sips to test if it gives me the runs. From there it's just a task of finding enough.

It's the "Survival" skill, not the "Thrive-al" skill.

That right there is a great way to kill yourself; let's ignore mushrooms since that is its own can of worms and there are mushrooms out there that micrograms of can kill you.

For starters being sick in a survival situation is often in and of itself deadly; if you are incapable of going out to get more food or even worse stuck in one spot because stuffs coming out of both ends you aren't going to last long. Furthermore the risk of poisoning yourself with highly toxic plants far out ways the chance of finding something edible; I have never seen any survival guide that suggests you start picking random stuff and boiling it up to try, that is the fastest way I can think of to kill yourself out in the wilds. Everything I have ever read and from every person I have talked with or gone out with you follow a simple rule of if you don't know what it is don't eat it. For example here where I live we have wild onion and another plant that looks and smells very close to wild onion the big difference is the leaf size and the wild onion has white flowers with a line of purple on each petal whereas the other is just white. That other plant will kill you if you consume it, I am pretty sure steeping and drinking that might also be enough to kill you too granted the amount you consume also matters.

Let's take your example of desert plants, there are quite a few cacti out there that will mess with your head and being in a survival situation in an altered state is bad, there are others that are as good as drinking sea water and will make you quite sick, and more still that will dehydrate you. So yeah great idea there...

Let's hop over to terrestrial animal meat now shall we; sure most of it is fine though there are some major exceptions but those are pretty far and between and tend to be things you wouldn't want to mess with anyways. With that said parasites are the big concern with terrestrial animal meat, there are plenty of nasty things living inside of a lot of animals that are going to make you really sick if you eat even if you are fully cooking the meat and this becomes even more of a concern the closer you are to the equator. For example outside of fall/winter I wouldn't touch rabbits since you can get all sorts of deadly diseases from them during spring and summer such as the plague, lyme disease, or rabbit fever.

Also while in the wilds foraging for food you are typically eating 'poorly' and rarely able to find enough to be maintaining your weight, it isn't sustainable long term.

[Wildstag]

That right there is a great way to kill yourself; let's ignore mushrooms since that is its own can of worms and there are mushrooms out there that micrograms of can kill you.

For starters being sick in a survival situation is often in and of itself deadly; if you are incapable of going out to get more food or even worse stuck in one spot because stuffs coming out of both ends you aren't going to last long. Furthermore the risk of poisoning yourself with highly toxic plants far out ways the chance of finding something edible; I have never seen any survival guide that suggests you start picking random stuff and boiling it up to try, that is the fastest way I can think of to kill yourself out in the wilds. Everything I have ever read and from every person I have talked with or gone out with you follow a simple rule of if you don't know what it is don't eat it. For example here where I live we have wild onion and another plant that looks and smells very close to wild onion the big difference is the leaf size and the wild onion has white flowers with a line of purple on each petal whereas the other is just white. That other plant will kill you if you consume it, I am pretty sure steeping and drinking that might also be enough to kill you too granted the amount you consume also matters.

Let's take your example of desert plants, there are quite a few cacti out there that will mess with your head and being in a survival situation in an altered state is bad, there are others that are as good as drinking sea water and will make you quite sick, and more still that will dehydrate you. So yeah great idea there...

Let's hop over to terrestrial animal meat now shall we; sure most of it is fine though there are some major exceptions but those are pretty far and between and tend to be things you wouldn't want to mess with anyways. With that said parasites are the big concern with terrestrial animal meat, there are plenty of nasty things living inside of a lot of animals that are going to make you really sick if you eat even if you are fully cooking the meat and this becomes even more of a concern the closer you are to the equator. For example outside of fall/winter I wouldn't touch rabbits since you can get all sorts of deadly diseases from them during spring and summer such as the plague, lyme disease, or rabbit fever.

Also while in the wilds foraging for food you are typically eating 'poorly' and rarely able to find enough to be maintaining your weight, it isn't sustainable long term.

Firstly, most toxic plants will be noticeably toxic at a glance, by virtue of their not being eaten. If they are being eaten, you sip (no gulping) the tea-like juice. If sufficiently diluted, few toxins will actually give you the runs or other GI issues. And cacti worries are generally overblown and played up in media.

Mice and lizards are safe to eat as are squirrels, and they’re relatively easy to catch. Eggs, if you can reach them, are for the most part safe. A lot of insects are safe too (though I’d avoid butterflies, moths, and the stinging sort). Cicadas and grasshoppers are good.

Lastly, long-term survival is actually doable and sustainable. However, it requires that you learn what works and what doesn’t, and if your starting herb-lore is nonexistent (as it is for much of the modern western culture), you have to expand your palette eventually. Honestly the thought that it isn’t sustainable long-term is laughable to me. Our species mere existence proves otherwise.

P.S. the whole “leech in water” method is used for cooking acorns and beans, it’s really not that absurd.

[ShurikVch]

Knowledge (nature) gives nature-limited omniscience: character able to recognize bats and squids (presuming the successful checks) - even if they lived all their life in a tundra (which have neither bats, nor squids)

Weapon in a game is, essentially, indestructible: PC able to demolish wall of solid stone (or even adamantine!) with a wooden nonmagical stick (or even a bottle) - and weapon would never break from it (certain special exceptions aside)

Oh, and speaking about the demolishing walls: since walls are immune to nonlethal damage, characters without Improved Unarmed Strike wouldn't be able to break a wall by their bare fists - even if they have Str 100 (but, despite the all aforementioned, - would never injure their knuckles from such ineffective punches)

That image would be more ridiculous if D&D did not already have earth elementals as popular monsters

Actually, Metal Elemental should be better example (unofficial variants in dandwiki and d20PFSRD both directly saying Metal Elementals are consist of solid unworked ore)
It's weird how Manual of the Planes have Wood Element Creature, but not Metal Element...

[nedz]

Yep. We've found a few of these over the years.
Check out the handbook below.

[King of Nowhere]

people in the bast would be a lot more knowledgeable with wilderness lore than we are nowadays. people in the modern world who have studied and taken extensive training in survival have... what, a few months of practice living in the wilderness?
People who are born in the wilderness have a lot more experience than that already as children.

Conversely, think of all the incredibly complex stuff we do on a regular base without thinking about it: nowadays solving first-degree equations is a simple mathematical skill that everyone is expected to have in high school. but those people have been studying 8 years to get the training needed to do that. you go in the middle age in a small settlement in a scarcely populated area, noboy knows how to solve equations; the "scholar" of the village is the one guy who learned how to read and write. Conversely, everyone will have experience spending a few days outside and will be easily capable of getting along in comfort.
Probably, if you were to ask them, they'd say that the DC to forage food in the wilderness are ridiculously high because even a child should be expected to be proficient at it. While solving first degree equations would be a DC 25, and second degree would be above 30. Calculus is epic level challenge. They'd be baffled by the idea that a society could have every young adult be capable of it, just like they'd be baffled by the idea of a society where knowing which mushrooms are safe is not something that everybody knows intimately.

Or think of hierogliphics. Ancient egiptians had very few scribes, and they spent years learning to recognize the symbols. It was such an impractical system, nowadays we don't use it anymore... except that we have all the icons, the emoticons, the street signs... You see a bunch of white lines on the road, and you know you are supposed to cross it there. Every children knows it. Have you ever stopped to consider how incredibly strange that idea would be to someone born before automobiles? they'd consider it exhotic knowledge.


No, what's actually funny about the survival skill is that it has no dc adjustment for terrain and condition. Find food in the tropical rainforest? DC 10. In the desert? DC 10. In the arctic tundra in winter? DC 10. There are 1000 other hunters in the same area who stripped it dry of everything edible? Still DC 10.

I nominate as most ridiculous of all, though, the environmental heat rules. From the srd

A character in very hot conditions (above 90° F) must make a Fortitude saving throw each hour (DC 15, +1 for each previous check) or take 1d4 points of nonlethal damage. Characters wearing heavy clothing or armor of any sort take a -4 penalty on their saves. A character with the Survival skill may receive a bonus on this saving throw and may be able to apply this bonus to other characters as well. Characters reduced to unconsciousness begin taking lethal damage (1d4 points per hour).

90 °F, which is 32°C.
Which is an absolutely common temperature in summer in most of the world - including especially the parts of the world where humankind actually originated from. Apparently, 24 hours of continuous exposure to 32° is enough to kill over 90% of the population, with the remaining half being unconscious. I don't know who wrote that; I suppose some people in the USA are so used to air conditioning, they forgot people can survive pretty well without it. But seriously, death by exposure to a mild summer day?

Extreme heat (air temperature over 140° F, fire, boiling water, lava) deals lethal damage. Breathing air in these temperatures deals 1d6 points of damage per minute (no save).

140°F is 60°C; that's a temperature you cannot survive indefinitely. But still, you can stay a very long time in it. Actually, I think you can survive indefinitely in 60°C if it's very dry and you have abundant water to drink.
Anyway, a sauna has normal temperatures of 90 to 100 °C. You stay inside generally around 10 minutes at a time, before it starts to get uncomfortable; then you get out, cool yourself off, and you get back in. I guess everyone in the nordic countries takes 10d6 damage on a regular base; You can easily take 50-60d6 damage on sauna day. You don't want to mess with such people

[Promethean]

I nominate as most ridiculous of all, though, the environmental heat rules. From the srd

90 °F, which is 32°C.
Which is an absolutely common temperature in summer in most of the world - including especially the parts of the world where humankind actually originated from. Apparently, 24 hours of continuous exposure to 32° is enough to kill over 90% of the population, with the remaining half being unconscious. I don't know who wrote that; I suppose some people in the USA are so used to air conditioning, they forgot people can survive pretty well without it. But seriously, death by exposure to a mild summer day?

140°F is 60°C; that's a temperature you cannot survive indefinitely. But still, you can stay a very long time in it. Actually, I think you can survive indefinitely in 60°C if it's very dry and you have abundant water to drink.
Anyway, a sauna has normal temperatures of 90 to 100 °C. You stay inside generally around 10 minutes at a time, before it starts to get uncomfortable; then you get out, cool yourself off, and you get back in. I guess everyone in the nordic countries takes 10d6 damage on a regular base; You can easily take 50-60d6 damage on sauna day. You don't want to mess with such people

Considering most people have 1d6 health(being lvl 1 peasants) as well, most peasants would die almost immediately in relatively normal conditions.

If one takes RAW as law, one must question how humanoids even survive the sun rising in the morning...

[Gemini476]

For what little it's worth, I think WotC realized how dumb those rules were when they wrote Sandstorm and updated the heat danger rules, so now temperatures above 90F... can be survived indefinitely if you're wearing the right clothing, I guess.

Also, for whatever reason, wind exclusively increases the temperature bands rather than decreasing them. Despite the text mentioning that "a cool breeze on the skin can be a blessing during the day".

Speaking of Sandstorm, it's got one of those interesting little bits where some specific rulings make normally aesthetic things matter for charop: an optimal D&D character should be dark-skinned if possible, as it then takes longer to get a sunburn.
(Incidentally, the way the rules are written really assumes that, well, the default player character isn't.)

If a character is caught out in the sun and completely unprotected, serious consequences can result. After 3 hours of such exposure, the character is mildly sunburned and takes 1 point of nonlethal damage. After 3 hours more exposure, the character develops severe sunburn and immediately takes 2d6 points of nonlethal damage and a –2 penalty on Fortitude saves to avoid damage or fatigue from heat dangers until the nonlethal damage is healed.

Characters or creatures with naturally dark (or tanned) skin pigmentation are naturally resistant to sunburn. Such individuals can remain in the sun unprotected for 6 hours before becoming mildly sunburned, and for 12 hours before becoming severely sunburned.

[Metastachydium]

Considering most people have 1d6 health(being lvl 1 peasants)

Did you mean 1d4 (or 1d4-2 if you have an unlucky middle-aged elf)? Anything in this game that can't kill a 1st level commoner with ease is just not trying hard enough.

[King of Nowhere]

For what little it's worth, I think WotC realized how dumb those rules were when they wrote Sandstorm and updated the heat danger rules, so now temperatures above 90F... can be survived indefinitely if you're wearing the right clothing, I guess.

Also, for whatever reason, wind exclusively increases the temperature bands rather than decreasing them. Despite the text mentioning that "a cool breeze on the skin can be a blessing during the day".

Speaking of Sandstorm, it's got one of those interesting little bits where some specific rulings make normally aesthetic things matter for charop: an optimal D&D character should be dark-skinned if possible, as it then takes longer to get a sunburn.
(Incidentally, the way the rules are written really assumes that, well, the default player character isn't.)

well, it's true. on the downside, they are at greater risk of vitamin D deficiency at polar latitudes.
I wonder if there is a snowstorm supplement where that becomes rilevant

[ShurikVch]

Considering most people have 1d6 health(being lvl 1 peasants)

Did you mean 1d4

Actually, it should be 1d8: the most common class in the world is Warrior - not Commoner

[Metastachydium]

Actually, it should be 1d10: the most common class in the world is Warrior - not Commoner

I'm not sure about that. And warriors have d8 hit dice.

[ShurikVch]

I'm not sure about that. And warriors have d8 hit dice.

My bad! Indeed, it's 1d8. Fixed it.

But seriously - how many, by you estimation, there are Goblin Commoners in the world? Bullywug Commoners? Orc Commoners?
Commoner is a class for civilized people - savage people don't use it at all
And, in the D&D worlds, savage people are always outnumbering civilized folk (otherwise, how are they not gone extinct from all those mur... *ahem* adventurers?)

[Gemini476]

well, it's true. on the downside, they are at greater risk of vitamin D deficiency at polar latitudes.
I wonder if there is a snowstorm supplement where that becomes rilevant

The supplement is Frostburn, and there's no such mechanical benefit for pale characters.

I'm not sure about that. And warriors have d8 hit dice.

The DMG backs up Commoners being the norm in multiple places. According to the class description they "make up the majority of the population", and the demographics rules (p.138) back this up: "take the remaining population after all other characters are generated and divide it up so that 91% are commoners, 5% are warriors, 3% are experts, and the remaining 1% is equally divided between aristocrats and adepts".
All first-level, mind you. Anything level 2 and up is a specific individual as far as the DMG is concerned.

The examples in the Monster Manual are generally Warriors for all races (be it Orc or Elf), but that's largely just an issue of those being the people who can actually fight and thus are relevant to stat up.

As for specific monsters:
Goblins are 50% noncombatants in their tribes of 80-800 people.
Bullywugs don't even have class levels, if I'm reading Monsters of Faerun right, and their ponds are only 15-48 people.
Orcs are 60% noncombatants in bands of 75-250 people.

Meanwhile, according to the DMG, human cities are 5,000-12,000 people for "small" cities.

[hamishspence]

Bullywugs don't even have class levels, if I'm reading Monsters of Faerun right

"Most bullywugs encountered outside their homes are warriors: the information in the statistics block is for one of 1st level"

That seems to be the general rule for 1 HD humanoids - since it's a 3.0 book they don't specifically say "1st level warrior" in their statblock, but the fluff section does normally say so.

Sharlarin "The information above reflects a 1st level sharlarin warrior"
Siv: "The information above describes a 1st level siv warrior"

and so forth.

[Beni-Kujaku]

"Most bullywugs encountered outside their homes are warriors: the information in the statistics block is for one of 1st level"

That seems to be the general rule for 1 HD humanoids - since it's a 3.0 book they don't specifically say "1st level warrior" in their statblock, but the fluff section does normally say so.

Sharlarin "The information above reflects a 1st level sharlarin warrior"
Siv: "The information above describes a 1st level siv warrior"

and so forth.

The key here is "outside their home". Commoners don't go adventuring far from their homes, only soldiers and merchants do. That would be warriors and experts. So, yeah, you're more likely to encounter a bullywug warrior, but that doesn't mean that a bullywug is more likely to encounter a bullywug warrior than a commoner.

[ShurikVch]

The DMG backs up Commoners being the norm in multiple places. According to the class description they "make up the majority of the population", and the demographics rules (p.138) back this up: "take the remaining population after all other characters are generated and divide it up so that 91% are commoners, 5% are warriors, 3% are experts, and the remaining 1% is equally divided between aristocrats and adepts".

If we look definition of a "Commoner" in the Wikipedia - we would see:

In Europe, a distinct concept analogous to common people arose in the Classical civilization of ancient Rome around the 6th century BC, with the social division into patricians (nobles) and plebeians (commoners).

For a less advanced societies - like nomads, or even hunter-gatherers - there would be no Commoner at all, regardless of what DMG may say

As for specific monsters:
Goblins are 50% noncombatants in their tribes of 80-800 people.
Bullywugs don't even have class levels, if I'm reading Monsters of Faerun right, and their ponds are only 15-48 people.
Orcs are 60% noncombatants in bands of 75-250 people.

"Noncombatants" ≠ "Commoners"
Experts are noncombatants too
(Also, classless children...)

Meanwhile, according to the DMG, human cities are 5,000-12,000 people for "small" cities.

If you allow me example from real history - at the start of XIX century, in Russia, all cities and towns contained whopping 6,5% of population
Thus, don't matter how much people are in the cities - without knowing the whole picture, we can't make any assumptions there


Also, one more hilarious moment: none of "example" Goblin(/Orc/...) Warriors have any bonus to Survival, but have Wis penalty - shouldn't they get lost all the time?..

[King of Nowhere]

oh, there's also the size modifiers. size modifier go to hide, which is only sensible. they do not go to spot, meaning two ants wouldn't be able to see each other from one meter. But then, if you consider a normal garden, two ants not seeing each other from that distance is absolutely sensible.

on the other hand, move silently does not have a size modifier. which means that a dragon tramping around is no more loud than the ant. in fact, the two ants cannot see each others, but they can hear each other very well. A dragon at 30 meters, on the other hand, is almost impossible to hear.
in fact, owing to their high hit dice, bigger creatures tend to be better at moving silently than small ones.

[RSGA]

I'm just going to say lots of stuff about sundering and a hydra because if you stick to RAW it gets strange in a few ways. Like, you can't defensively sunder a head unless it's attacking you or everyone's willing to go a little out of RAW. See, bites and hydra tooth aren't given a hardness, and the rules for sundering don't give you much guidance for when you're sundering a natural weapon. Which, if you're sticking to RAW, is probably the only way that you could defensively sunder a hydra.

Also, if you look at the sunder rules, it becomes apparent that while the writers intended for Improved Sunder to have value they didn't think about much else. Given that natural weapons are regularly treated as light weapons, a hydra of any kind gets a +4 to it's attack in a sunder on a medium creature, exactly equal to the bonus from Improved Sunder on weapons. Except you can also get that with a two handed weapon, which a lot of front liners are going to have. Or if the PC is large, say via Expansion or Enlarge Person, hey, the Hydra's +4 is now +0.

Or you can start combining stuff, and that's where it gets silly. A level 2 half-giant Psi-Warrior (let's make this a hard-ish battle for this silly comparison) with Expansion, Improved Sunder, and a Large Great Axe does some sundering on a five headed hydra. Offensive or defensive doesn't matter for this. His bonus on the attack roll for the sunder is +8, making for an absolute minimum total bonus of +11. The hydra doesn't get a bonus and instead gets a -4 penalty so it rolls not at +6 but at +2.

And it only gets worse for the hydra from there. Actually, it's even worse for the Hydra now because the example Psi-Warrior has another feat to factor in, another power, and probably 4 or 5 PP. It's entirely possible for the Expansion to be a 30 min thing with low or no risk to the Psi-Warrior. And in that case, it's safer to throw out a one point Power Attack to get closer to the magic 16 damage that even a maximum, slightly improved Hydra needs to lose a head.

[ShurikVch]

oh, there's also the size modifiers. size modifier go to hide, which is only sensible. they do not go to spot, meaning two ants wouldn't be able to see each other from one meter. But then, if you consider a normal garden, two ants not seeing each other from that distance is absolutely sensible.

on the other hand, move silently does not have a size modifier. which means that a dragon tramping around is no more loud than the ant. in fact, the two ants cannot see each others, but they can hear each other very well. A dragon at 30 meters, on the other hand, is almost impossible to hear.
in fact, owing to their high hit dice, bigger creatures tend to be better at moving silently than small ones.

In the same vein, there are also no size modifiers for Balance (thus, need to make checks even if the "Narrow Surface" is wider than your body)
Or for Sleight Of Hand (Mountain Giant pickpocketing a Halfling... Yeah, sure... More like just "pocketing a Halfling...")

One more thing which baffling me is complete lack of Move Silently modifiers for flying: on one hand, such creatures as Air Elementals, Beholders, Lantern Archon, Nightmares, or Will-O’-Wisp are have no wings (and thus - produce no flapping sounds) - shouldn't their flying be mostly silent?
On the other hand, various vermins are noisy flyers even at their "common" size - try to imagine how loud should be aerial movement of a horsefly with a size of actual horse...