Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;972180Why is there a keyword system with detailed definitions if the keywords are not used consistently by the rules or the fluff?

Because the keyword distinctions themselves are more important than the individual decisions about what go where.  Individual creatures are meant to be changed for campaigns, as needed.

The idea that their can be some perfect keyword assignment that will answer all objections and shouldn't be tampered with is a 3E-ism that needed to die in a fire before it was born.  All they had to do was study how "Tagging" works in information management systems to see that.  (Or ask someone that has dealt with such systems.)

I'm not saying the system as presented is perfect.  It can't be, by the inherent nature of the beast.

Quote from: rawma;972245Two or fewer legs (like someone who got a leg chopped off by a sword of sharpness) does not disqualify a creature from being a humanoid. Four legs does. You will have to find a humanoid with four legs to persuade me otherwise. Four legs good (non-humanoid), two legs bad (possibly humanoid).

Merfolk have a fish tail instead of legs, yet are considered humanoid despite the description of humanoid type specifying bipedal. Aracokra (bird people) and thrikreen (mantis people) have six limbs each and yet are considered humanoid. The monstrosity type specifies it is for abnormal, unnatural and malevolent creatures. The centaur is none of these. In 4e the centaur was typed as humanoid.

The monstrosity type is being used for two distinctly different groups. One is creatures which are genuinely abnormal, unnatural and malevolent but are somehow not labeled as another type like fiend or construct or whatever. Another is creatures that the writer couldn't be bothered to place under another type due to either laziness or the other types not being comprehensive. The current type system is insufficient and a miscellaneous type encourages lazy monster design. When I look through bestiaries sold through DM's guild, 99% of the monsters will be monstrosities based on criteria that vary by writer.

Quote from: rawma;972245I think that would be a boring druid. I'm not sure the crag cat should be a beast, but your cure is much worse than the disease.

Then let the druid built their own statblocks in a point buy system or something. Don't let them copy the statblocks of creatures in bestiaries that were never balanced for use. Any spell or class feature that lets you summon or assume the stats of a monster is fundamentally broken because the monsters are not balanced for being used like that.

I would go so far as to say that game balance is a myth, at least for tabletop games. Yes, some powers and classes are simply better than others and will let some PCs outshine the others and the developers should not dump responsibility for fair play onto GMs. The problem is that constantly expanding exception-based mechanics are fundamentally unbalanced and cannot be rebalanced through irregular errata updates without rebuilding the publishing model from the ground up. The closest you can get to balance would be a point buy system and even so the point values can fall victim to arbitrary pricing when dealing with incomparable powers.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;972290Because the keyword distinctions themselves are more important than the individual decisions about what go where.  Individual creatures are meant to be changed for campaigns, as needed.

The idea that their can be some perfect keyword assignment that will answer all objections and shouldn't be tampered with is a 3E-ism that needed to die in a fire before it was born.  All they had to do was study how "Tagging" works in information management systems to see that.  (Or ask someone that has dealt with such systems.)

I'm not saying the system as presented is perfect.  It can't be, by the inherent nature of the beast.

Not perfect? 4e had a fairly logical type system, 5e is a clear downgrade, but 3e was definitely the worst. A type hierarchy where something may only be one type, even though the types don't have mutually exclusive characteristics, is a bad idea. The type mechanic isn't modular either, so you can't add new types to cover any gaps in the system because the rest of the rules don't account for that. It makes more sense to either let a monster have as many types as appropriate (that is, drop the type mechanic and rely entirely on tags/keywords/whatever they're called that aren't mutually exclusive), or use a variation of the origins, types and keyword system from 4e. Again, a miscellaneous type encourages lazy monster design.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;972302Merfolk have a fish tail instead of legs, yet are considered humanoid despite the description of humanoid type specifying bipedal. Aracokra (bird people) and thrikreen (mantis people) have six limbs each and yet are considered humanoid.

Four legs [STRIKE]good[/STRIKE] non-humanoid! (No more than) two legs [STRIKE]bad[/STRIKE] might be humanoid! Don't care about number of arms/wings!

QuoteThe monstrosity type specifies it is for abnormal, unnatural and malevolent creatures. The centaur is none of these.

A centaur is not unnatural? I'm always learning new things here.

QuoteIn 4e the centaur was typed as humanoid.

OK, this argument will leverage the immense popularity of 4e to force an immediate recall of all 5e rule books. Any moment now.

QuoteThen let the druid built their own statblocks in a point buy system or something. Don't let them copy the statblocks of creatures in bestiaries that were never balanced for use. Any spell or class feature that lets you summon or assume the stats of a monster is fundamentally broken because the monsters are not balanced for being used like that.

OK, it's not balanced, so it should be changed.

QuoteI would go so far as to say that game balance is a myth, at least for tabletop games.

And also balance is a myth, and nothing can be balanced.

Wait, I've lost the thread of your argument. Because it's inevitably unbalanced, the "exception based" source of unbalance is bad. Or at least unbalanced. Right?

QuoteNot perfect? 4e had a fairly logical type system, 5e is a clear downgrade, but 3e was definitely the worst.

You like 4e, and centaurs have four legs, so they must be given a more flattering type.

You're inevitably going to have a miscellaneous type (none of the above), or you're going to force every new monster to be in one of a limited set of types, and that would seem a worse blow to creativity than encouraging laziness. The argument that monstrosity and aberration are too similar would give you better traction.

I think anything non-extraplanar/construct/undead that's got human proportions from the waist up counts as 'humanoid'.

Aren't answering these questions why each group has a GM?

Quote from: Dumarest;972728Aren't answering these questions why each group has a GM?

Yes. But there can also be a 'conventional answer'. If a GM wants to, he can decide that a centaur counts as a type of aberration, and a bunny counts as extraplanar.

Quote from: rawma;972412A centaur is not unnatural? I'm always learning new things here.

By the standards of a typical fantasy setting, centaurs are perfectly natural. In a fantasy world with fantasy physics, how do you even define what is natural and what isn't? In the real world this is called the "appeal to nature" fallacy, but in a fantasy world you could actually have nature and artifice as magical forces with physical effects. Most fantasy settings, unfortunately, never actually define this stuff.

QuoteAnd also balance is a myth, and nothing can be balanced.

Wait, I've lost the thread of your argument. Because it's inevitably unbalanced, the "exception based" source of unbalance is bad. Or at least unbalanced. Right?

You're right. Somewhere along the line I lost my train of thought. Lets drop it and stay on topic, if that's okay with you?

QuoteYou're inevitably going to have a miscellaneous type (none of the above), or you're going to force every new monster to be in one of a limited set of types, and that would seem a worse blow to creativity than encouraging laziness. The argument that monstrosity and aberration are too similar would give you better traction.

We could add new types. I've seen someone invent a "sphinx" type by analogy with the dragon type (granted, that example is for Pathfinder but the argument should hold true for 5e).

Quote from: Omega;971849Why a Centaur isnt is anyones guess.

They are Large, so they would be a Giant rather than a Humanoid. But their humanoid upper-body is not actually bigger than a normal humans, so Monstrosity makes more sense.

Quote from: jadrax;973472makes more sense.

I'm unconvinced that sense is really relevant (not aiming at your specific logic, jadrax, just the whole concept). Any justification that we put to say 'the centaur goes into box A, not B or C,' is going to be relatively arbitrary. The next guy can come along and say, 'well no, the four legs is the most important factor,' and the one after that can say, 'all the parts of this creature are made up of real-world creatures, and that's the key issue.'

The whole thing stems from the need to put all the creatures in the MM into boxes. This was absolutely vital for 3e, since which box they were in determined what dice they rolled for hd, what their save progressions were, how many skill points they got, etc. 5e does not need this. What 5e needs is a flag/tag system--something to hang on the monster description that says, "rangers specialized in 'thing 1' get their bonus against these things, and spells or magic items that effect them apply, and so on." So instead of the Centaur entry looking like "Centaur; Size: Large, Type: Monstrosity," it should be more like "Centaur; Large creature (distinguishing it from swarms and traps-that-work-like-monsters-and-thus-need-entries) -- living, equine (maybe), sapient." Owlbears might get, "Owlbear; large creature--living, unnatural (if they are still each a mad wizards creation)," and Firbolgs would get, "Firbolg; large creature--living, giant (-kin), sapient." This would mean that these edge-case creatures would not need to be given a specific arguable box to go into, and the junk-drawer categories like aberration and monstrosity could disappear.