2002 Fun Fact: City of the Spider Queen includes stat blocks for 18 named drow NPCs and 19 generic drow, not counting all the drow ghosts, vampires, revenants, keening spirits, half-dragons, wererats, and silveraiths.
— James Wyatt (@aquelajames) January 20, 2020
2002 Fun Fact: Here’s the distribution of drow NPC stat blocks (named and generic) in City of the Spider Queen, by challenge rating. pic.twitter.com/JyFgbSNiVg
— James Wyatt (@aquelajames) January 20, 2020
Yeah…..
— James Wyatt (@aquelajames) January 20, 2020
2002 Fun Fact: The 5e Monster Manual and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes include 10 different stat blocks for drow. But add in the various NPCs—especially higher-level spellcasters in Volo's Guide—and you can cover a LOT of the drow in CotSQ.
— James Wyatt (@aquelajames) January 20, 2020
Isn’t that also the edition where 2nd level fighter npcs had masterwork weapons, armor and carried potions of healing? Yes. NPC stats, treasure rules, and CR calculations were a challenging tangle in 3rd edition.
— James Wyatt (@aquelajames) January 20, 2020
So while the heroes of the novels (including a draegloth!) venture into the Abyss to uncover the reason for Lolth's silence, the heroes of the adventure have to deal with drow activity in Faerûn that is the result of Lolth's silence.
— James Wyatt (@aquelajames) January 20, 2020
2002 Fun Fact: Early playtests of City of the Spider Queen led to characters wheeling barrows full of +1 rapiers out of the dungeons and back to town. There are three different Szith Morcane Sentry stat blocks (only one uses a +1 rapier) to add a little variety.
— James Wyatt (@aquelajames) January 20, 2020