This is regards to Dnd 5e. Do you actually have to see a living creature? Can you see a picture in a book or a script? What if you only see a part of a beast such as only the right hand/claw/etc is visible? What if you see a statue of a creature?
10849
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your action to magically assume the   shape of a beast that you have seen before.   This doesn't say anything about the gender or age of the beast, so can a druid change into a female bear if he has only seen male bears? Can he change into a bear cub if he has only seen adult bears? What about hens/roosters/chickens, which look quite a bit different? Or does the gender of the animal shape just match the gender of druid?
13764
As an Artillerist Artificer, if I create a tiny-sized Eldritch Cannon with legs, can I place this cannon somewhere on my person and let it use its legs to hold on to my character (on my head, shoulder (Predator!), wrist, belt, top of my backpack, etc.)?  I understand that with RAW, it cannot move on its own into an occupied space, so it would not be able to climb up onto me, but I think that I should still be able to pick it up and place it somewhere as an object interaction.  It could use its legs to hold on once in place.  If I can control it from up to 60 feet away, I would think that it shouldn't hinder the use of my hands for other actions once it is there.
22374
I'm fairly new to DMing and so is my group, so we are all on a learning curve together. We're playing D&amp;D 5e.  Last week a fighter in our group tamed a wolf with Animal Handling and then requested that he keep the wolf. I allowed this, but now I'm not sure about how to play the wolf.  Specifically, how can he train the wolf to perform certain actions such as attacking?  What other things might I need to be aware of with a PC owning a "pet"?
103367
At what point is a creature's toughness calculated? If I have  where I can sacrifice a creature and put X 1/1 token creatures onto the battlefield, where X is the sacrificed creature's toughness.  If I have a creature that is 4/4 and cast  to give it +3/+3 then sacrifice it? Do I get 4 tokens or 7?  Also what if my 4/4 creature was dealt 2 combat damage before I sacrificed it? Do I get 2 or 4 creatures?  Finally, what about counters? If my 4/4 had a +1/+1 do I get 4 or 5 tokens?
14083
Background  I am a brand-new DM, about to lead a game for brand-new players.  I have a lot of knowledge of rules from playing Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights over and over, leafing through a friend's books, and finally buying the three basic books for myself.    Question  How much information should I give to my players about monsters they encounter?  Should I essentially read the entire MM entry to them, or let them figure out how the enemies operate through experience, or (as I assume), something in the middle? Keep in mind, only one of them has even peripheral experience with D&amp;D (they are very good sports for giving it a shot!), so they won't be bringing background knowledge to the table.  For example, do DMs generally let players know what immunities creatures have, or do they let them figure it out by trial and error?  What about offensive abilities?  For example, if a player has a potion of fire resistance, should I give them a heads-up about the fact that the chimera they're facing has a fire breath attack?
43545
My question is:  Where can I reference the RAW as to (1) that summoning undead is always an evil act, and (2) why summoning undead is always an evil act?  Some of the players in my game keep coming up with the theory that they can make an army of undead and only use it for good deeds, and it won't be evil.  My response is that no, summoning undead is always evil.  You are dealing with negative energies, it taints the soul beyond the veil even if you're only dealing with the body, and it's a desecration of body and soul.  The problem is that even with the big [evil] descriptor on the spells, they don't understand why it would be evil. It seems arbitrary to them, and they don't want to accept any flavor I might give for it that they can't read in the book. They have a knee-jerk reaction to being told something is evil without a good reason.  So they said, "No, you don't do anything to the soul, you're just using the body as raw materials."  I said, "Then you're not using negative energy, you're not using necromancy, and you're not making undead, you're making a golem."  They said, "What's the difference?"   Enter infinite loop until one of them said, "Where in the rules does it say that?"  And we're back to the question.
64900
Can you play a  or  (fox or cat beings, respectively) in D&amp;D 5th edition? I have never played,  but wanted to use one of my RP characters for D&amp;D.  If not, are there any existing races that are similar?
6473
I've always been certain that the echo created by an Echo Knight fighter using their 3rd-level feature Manifest Echo is not defined in game terms as a creature, since the description of the echo never explicitly tells it is a creature. But the presence of people believing the echo to be a creature in lieu of the fact that it is immune to all conditions and might make saving throws (game characteristics typically associated with creatures only) brought this doubt to my mind.  from Jeremy Crawford implies it is just an image and not a creature, further confirming that the feature should tell you, but  implies that the echo is an object whilst the feature doesn't explicitly say so. (Included for reference and insight, since tweets are not eligible as official ruling) Is the echo a creature?
117952
My friend is 2 weapon fighting a flesh golem. He has one sword that does lightning damage, and one sword that does fire damage. His right hand holds the lightning sword, and his left hand holds the fire sword.  My friend wants to attack with his left hand because lightning heals the golem. However, the DM says that because his left hand is his left hand, he can't use it as his "main" hand, and only attack with it. Is this rules as written/intended?
80814
I'm designing a character for a campaign whose role is to be a recurring antagonist. When the players first meet him, I want him to seem undeniably human. The idea is that the party will "kill" him and his body will be destroyed, only for him to be revived later and come back for revenge as Lich.  The party will be able to check him for magical effects when they first meet and I want it to be a surprise that he is a Lich. If they party detects Transmutation or Illusion magic on him or detect him as Undead it will give too much of a hint to his true nature.   Is there a way the Lich could retain a human form without magic?
47727
I have a  and I was a little curious about the description of it. It specifically says "At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are fewer than six creature cards in your graveyard, sacrifice a creature."   So what I was wondering is, do I have to sacrifice my own creature? Or can I try and keep less than six creatures in my graveyard and sacrifice an opponent's creature every upkeep? Since it does specifically says "a creature" &mdash; it does not say "your creature" or "a creature you control." Most cards that have a sacrifice involved are extremely specific about that and will say "your creature" or "a creature you control" if it wants you to sacrifice your own creatures.
9079
We have previously determined that  or  can attune to magic items, but one of those is a sapient creature, and the other "always obeys your commands".  A paladin's steed (per the Find Steed spell) is also 'unusually intelligent' and falls within the score range for sapient creatures.  But what about a regular old animal? If my ranger has a wolf companion, can he make that wolf attune to, say, an Amulet of Health? According to the Beast Master archetype, a companion animal "obeys your commands as best it can".  Is spending an hour 'focused only on the item' (as required for attunement) something a beast can manage?  Or what if it's not an Animal Companion, but just a riding horse, a pet dog, a trained magpie?  I know, probably this is going to be down to the DM to determine, but is there any guidance we can use to help decide whether my cat can attune to an item, and whether rubbing it with catnip would help?
39027
In D&amp;D 5e, the description of hiding (PHB p177) says an invisible creature needs to stay quiet and otherwise avoid leaving signs of its passing, while the "invisible" condition (p291) says the creature's location can be determined by any noise it makes. This seems straightforward: even a blinded creature can pinpoint the location of anything on the battlefield that isn't tiptoeing/holding its breath.   However, the Ranger's "Feral Senses" ability (p92) grants awareness of the locations of invisible creatures within 30 feet, provided the creatures aren't hiding and that the Ranger can both hear and see. I realize the ability also removes the disadvantage to attack rolls against invisible creatures, but the wording and limitations seem to imply that awareness of the location of an invisible, unhidden creature isn't a given.  I realize the hidden vs invisible question has , but I'm hoping someone can explain what changes for a Ranger when she hits 18th level. Is there a scenario where a creature who can see and hear would not be aware of the location of unhidden, invisible creatures within 30 feet? Or is this just the equivalent of giving a fighter the ability to add half of their proficiency bonus to attacks with simple weapons for which they don't already have proficiency?
111389
I think the first time we see an animal or supposedly living being created by a spell in Harry Potter is when Harry and his friends are in the Transfigurations class and Professor McGonagall turns her desk into a pig and back into a desk.  There's also a reference, in the same scene, that Harry realizes it'll be a while before the students are changing furniture into animals.  I don't remember reading anything in the books (but a few of mine have been loaned out and haven't come back for months and months!), but wondered if there was anything elsewhere, from JKR or other somewhat authoritative sources about whether animals created by transfigurations or by other spells are actually alive.  Are they full biologically complete versions of the animals?  If so, do they have the same sense of awareness of an authentic version of the same animal?  I can't remember whether or not I read somewhere that spells can't create life.  If that is the case, then what drives the behavior in an animal created by a spell?
73225
There are some clearly defined limitations already on the Wizard School of Conjuration's Minor Conjuration feature, however...  Does normal "wear and tear" count as damage?  (e.g. I'm in a fight without a weapon, and create, say, a dagger or club.  Will it hold up through the fight?).  How about a bottle of ink?  Does dipping my pen into it and writing a quick note "damage" the ink?  Is it one piece?  ( e.g., can I use it to make a temporary replacement for a set of Thieves' Tools (which is 'an item' on the equipment list) or is it limited to one contiguous item, such as a skillet, or a coil of rope?)
43486
Say that I want to become an Animagus, and am really hoping to be a certain animal (say, a stag). I study a whole bunch and manage to perfect the technique. Do I get to pick the animal I wind up as, so that I wind up being a stag like I want? Or is it something where I just find out what I turn into (and if I wind up as a dung beetle, tough luck)?    This is not a duplicate of  because that question is about which animals an Animagus can potentially transform into. Mine is about if I can decide which potential animal I wind up being.
80633
In my D&amp;D 5e game, I have a custom cosmology, and I'm currently working on a concept for an afterlife plane where any sentient creature who enters is sorted by alignment and guided to the afterlife. While in this afterlife plane, a character begins to take on a form that represents its alignment. This visually distinguishes each alignment from one another (making them easier to sort) but also provides a cool transformative aesthetic that my players have expressed interest in seeing.  In order to prevent this from being opinion-based, answers must entail specific monsters that have canonically been declared to be representative of their respective alignment, or creatures that have another narrative connection with their alignment or alignment-based plane. I will accept any creature from the history of D&amp;D and Pathfinder as long as you can cite its close ties with its respective alignment.  I understand that there may be more than one correct answer (for example, Monster X may be the perfect NE monster in D&amp;D 4.0 while it might be Monster Y in Pathfinder. An answer is considered correct as long as it is backed by the lore of its system.