Teos Abadie

so often doesn't and then we're just always talking about what could just be weapon damage but we have to list all three out and we say it right you know you take five slashing damage when it almost never matters right it's like this thing you have to do for those few exceptions yeah

so often doesn't and then we're just always talking about what could just be weapon damage but we have to list all three out and we say it right you know you take five slashing damage when it almost never matters right it's like this thing you have to do for those few exceptions yeah

Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, that's fair.

You've noticed the giant jump in initiative, right? Which I thought was interesting because so the 2014 Empyrean, you know, doesn't list initiative. That's a 2025 change. So it's the it's DEX is the same. It gets a plus five bonus added to something that would use the DEX in this case initiative. So it should be plus 15. But here it's plus 19, which is that's big.

You've noticed the giant jump in initiative, right? Which I thought was interesting because so the 2014 Empyrean, you know, doesn't list initiative. That's a 2025 change. So it's the it's DEX is the same. It gets a plus five bonus added to something that would use the DEX in this case initiative. So it should be plus 15. But here it's plus 19, which is that's big.

The other thing I noticed was the parenthetical 29. So they show you the plus 10 initiative on these monster examples, which I did not think they would do that. Some folks like that. We talked about initiative in the earlier segment. I don't like just adding 10 to it.

The other thing I noticed was the parenthetical 29. So they show you the plus 10 initiative on these monster examples, which I did not think they would do that. Some folks like that. We talked about initiative in the earlier segment. I don't like just adding 10 to it.

I find that leads with a lot of monsters being all chucked into the middle because initiatives, while these are wild swings, they often end up all in the middle if you do that. Love the plus 10 method.

I find that leads with a lot of monsters being all chucked into the middle because initiatives, while these are wild swings, they often end up all in the middle if you do that. Love the plus 10 method.

Yeah, I'll try to hit it somewhat fast because it's an enormous stat block. Speaking of high initiatives, plus 16. The Ancient Gold Dragon is a CR24 monster, and it was kind of neat. It's a guy that all these links are in our show notes.

Yeah, I'll try to hit it somewhat fast because it's an enormous stat block. Speaking of high initiatives, plus 16. The Ancient Gold Dragon is a CR24 monster, and it was kind of neat. It's a guy that all these links are in our show notes.

So D&D Beyond had a web page where they talked about the Ancient Gold Dragon and used it as an illustration of what's going on in stat blocks in 2025, what each of the sections are meant to do and how they've changed them up.

So D&D Beyond had a web page where they talked about the Ancient Gold Dragon and used it as an illustration of what's going on in stat blocks in 2025, what each of the sections are meant to do and how they've changed them up.

um the thing i wanted to know what the ancient gold dragon one is how it had changed from the ancient green dragon we saw before which as we mentioned the reactions are gone the legendary actions are back uh how it would do things like spells because it's got spell casting so one thing that happened that i'm really i'll just go since i just said spells let's talk about this right now

um the thing i wanted to know what the ancient gold dragon one is how it had changed from the ancient green dragon we saw before which as we mentioned the reactions are gone the legendary actions are back uh how it would do things like spells because it's got spell casting so one thing that happened that i'm really i'll just go since i just said spells let's talk about this right now

Mordenkainen, when that redid Monsters, right, which was sort of a soft redo of Monsters, depending how soft will be your perspective. We got these blog posts talking about the mentality and Jeremy Crawford would talk through, hey, you know, if it's an attack thing, it's not going to appear in a spell list. It's going to be down below as an action.

Mordenkainen, when that redid Monsters, right, which was sort of a soft redo of Monsters, depending how soft will be your perspective. We got these blog posts talking about the mentality and Jeremy Crawford would talk through, hey, you know, if it's an attack thing, it's not going to appear in a spell list. It's going to be down below as an action.

And you now will know what to do and you can use it easily because you don't have to go look this up. And I thought that was brilliant personally for me. Not everybody agrees. But then when Mordenkainen actually arrived as a book, that was sometimes true, but sometimes not. And the version that was in the action wasn't like, help me know what it is, it was sometimes something different.

And you now will know what to do and you can use it easily because you don't have to go look this up. And I thought that was brilliant personally for me. Not everybody agrees. But then when Mordenkainen actually arrived as a book, that was sometimes true, but sometimes not. And the version that was in the action wasn't like, help me know what it is, it was sometimes something different.