The DnD Assassin subclass is a master of swift and decisive attacks, able to coat their weapons with poison so lethal it can ignore the poison resistance of their targets. That sounds equally edgy and awesome, until you realise that in the new Monster Manual, just six out of more than 500 monsters have poison resistance – and two of them are badgers.
The six creatures with poison resistance in the DnD 2024 Monster Manual are:
- Badger
- Giant Badger
- Succubus
- Incubus
- Cambion
- Assassin
An Assassin needs to be level thirteen to even unlock the Envenom Weapons ability, which lets them afflict the target of their Cunning Strike with a recurring poison that cannot be mitigated by poison resistance.
As the Badger has a challenge rating of zero, and the Giant Badger has a challenge rating of ¼, the only reason an Assassin will be fighting one at level 13 is if it is specifically hunting them down. Why are high level assassins brewing badger poison?
Many more DnD monsters are totally immune to poison, making it probably the weakest of the DnD damage types. All constructs, green dragons, and undead are immune to poison, as are most elementals, fiends, and plants, not to mention some celestials, monstrosities, and aberrations.
It isn’t unheard of for DnD classes to have abilities that were more or less useful depending on which enemy they were facing: the DnD Cleric’s ability to ‘turn undead’ was iconic, and the DnD Ranger‘s old ‘preferred enemy’ ability fit with their lore as specialist trackers, even if it sucked when they didn’t show up at all in a campaign.
The fact that the DnD Rogue Assassin is bad at killing constructs, undead, and creatures made out of bits of rock and fire certainly makes narrative sense. It’s just a bit weird that it has a special ability which makes it particularly good at killing other assassins, sexy demons, and badgers specifically.
There are three other prominent creatures with poison resistance – they just aren’t in the Monster Manual. Three player character DnD races have poison resistance: Dwarfs, Green Dragonborn and Abyssal Tieflings. A specialization in killing members of your own party does not help the Assasin’s reputation as the Rogue subclass most likely to be played by an edgelord.
Though the print version of the Monster Manual isn’t quite out yet on the DnD release schedule, it is available in digital early access at certain DnD Beyond subscription levels. If any parts of the book have left you scratching your head in confusion, make sure you check out the first errata, which you can find here.
Source: Wargamer
