I have been doing some skimming of 5e products and noticed that there is no consistent criteria for why a monster is a monstrosity or not.

• The beast type includes cranium rat, flying snake, stench kow, stirge, and tressym.
• The humanoid type includes aarakocra, merfolk, and thri-kreen.
• The monstrosity type includes ankheg, centaur, griffon, hippogriff, and owlbear.

The description of the monstrosity type states it is monsters which are "extraordinary," "unnatural" and "malevolent." Many monstrosities do not fit those criteria and seem to be typed as monstrosity because they don't exist in the real world or have special powers. However, the beast type includes many animals which don't exist in the real world or have special powers. I cannot fathom why the centaur is a monstrosity when humanoid already includes bird people, mermaids and bug people.

Is there something I am not getting or should I follow my gut instinct and retype monsters I think are the wrong type?

If you want Hold Person to work on it, it's a humanoid. If you want Speak with Animals to work with it, it's a beast.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;971842If you want Hold Person to work on it, it's a humanoid. If you want Speak with Animals to work with it, it's a beast.

5e seems rather arbitrary in what it classes as beast, monstrocuty or abomination.

Humanoid though tends to be used only for sentient races rather than monster things. So Thri Kreen is a humanoid. Why a Centaur isnt is anyones guess.

If you dont like an entry just cross it out and replace. Or assume its a typo. What I did with the Stirge being classed as a beast as thats used mostly for real (and giant) animals. Not something that should be classed as a monstrocity.

Quote from: Omega;9718495e seems rather arbitrary in what it classes as beast, monstrocuty or abomination.

Humanoid though tends to be used only for sentient races rather than monster things. So Thri Kreen is a humanoid. Why a Centaur isnt is anyones guess.

If you dont like an entry just cross it out and replace. Or assume its a typo. What I did with the Stirge being classed as a beast as thats used mostly for real (and giant) animals. Not something that should be classed as a monstrocity.

Centaurs have four legs, not two. Humanoids have two legs. Duh. (Four armed or wings? You can still be a humanoid. Four legs? No.)

You ran into odd classifications with magic items that were plus against dragons or whatever, way back when. The ranger from Strategic Review (in 1975, maybe?) got damage bonuses against giant class, with much arguing about certain humanoid races were giant class or not (dwarf in particular). Some in 5e do strike me as odd; some of the newer beasts even have vaguely magical abilities like crag cats. The point has always been more about "what things are affected by this or that spell or ability or item?" than making a sensible taxonomy.

In our OD&D campaign we had a shapechanger class that was sort of like a Moon Druid without spells, but could change into various monsters and humanoids as well - so griffins and rocs and aquatic elves, but nothing with a breath weapon or spell-like abilities. There was a list of which were allowed and what level the shapechanger had to be; I don't think it would have been any better with some sort of classification scheme: shorter to describe, longer to argue through.

If you think in terms of 3.5e, Beasts in 5e are basically Animals and Magical Beasts rolled into one. Kind of like a human with psionics is still a humanoid, an animal with psionic or magical ability is still an animal. At least that's how I interpret it.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;971842If you want Hold Person to work on it, it's a humanoid. If you want Speak with Animals to work with it, it's a beast.

Good to know. What if the beast is intelligent enough to know a language? Do you have to use comprehend languages instead or do both spells work? For that matter why is speaking with animals a spell rather than a language choice? In fantasy fiction outside D&D people who can speak with animals are written as literally speaking an animal language. But I digress...

Quote from: Omega;9718495e seems rather arbitrary in what it classes as beast, monstrocuty or abomination.

Humanoid though tends to be used only for sentient races rather than monster things. So Thri Kreen is a humanoid. Why a Centaur isnt is anyones guess.

If you dont like an entry just cross it out and replace. Or assume its a typo. What I did with the Stirge being classed as a beast as thats used mostly for real (and giant) animals. Not something that should be classed as a monstrocity.

Aberrations have been retconned to things tied to Limbo and the Far Realm (although 3pp don't really follow this IME). I think the stirge makes sense as a beast (it's no weirder than a literal giant mosquito being a beast, since giant arthropods cannot exist in reality without dramatically different physiology), at least by fantasy world standards. Since it is not reality, it doesn't make sense for beasts to be limited to real animals. The wild haggis (and other joke animals) doesn't exist in reality, but does it really make sense to type it as a monstrosity? If griffons and hippogriffs are treated as just another beast of burden, why shouldn't they be typed as beasts?

Quote from: rawma;971908Centaurs have four legs, not two. Humanoids have two legs. Duh. (Four armed or wings? You can still be a humanoid. Four legs? No.)

You ran into odd classifications with magic items that were plus against dragons or whatever, way back when. The ranger from Strategic Review (in 1975, maybe?) got damage bonuses against giant class, with much arguing about certain humanoid races were giant class or not (dwarf in particular). Some in 5e do strike me as odd; some of the newer beasts even have vaguely magical abilities like crag cats. The point has always been more about "what things are affected by this or that spell or ability or item?" than making a sensible taxonomy.

In our OD&D campaign we had a shapechanger class that was sort of like a Moon Druid without spells, but could change into various monsters and humanoids as well - so griffins and rocs and aquatic elves, but nothing with a breath weapon or spell-like abilities. There was a list of which were allowed and what level the shapechanger had to be; I don't think it would have been any better with some sort of classification scheme: shorter to describe, longer to argue through.

The mermaid doesn't have legs, so the centaur having four legs is not a compelling argument for them to be monstrosities. I think they could work as giants because of their large size, since there's an unwritten rule than all humanoids of large+ size must be giants instead; although unlike other giants their body mass is distributed much differently. In fact, I think most monstrosities of large+ size and generally humanoid anatomy could be retyped as giant without losing anything. What could be wrong with typing the Yeti, Humbaba or Typhoeon as a giant?

I think the druid's shapeshifting is broken because it lets you assume the form of any beasts regardless of level inappropriate magical abilities like the crag cat's spell turning. 5e really should have kept the playtest version with predetermined statistics that could be fluffed as any animal cosmetically.

Quote from: Krimson;971910If you think in terms of 3.5e, Beasts in 5e are basically Animals and Magical Beasts rolled into one. Kind of like a human with psionics is still a humanoid, an animal with psionic or magical ability is still an animal. At least that's how I interpret it.

That was my gut instinct too. However, when monsters from previous editions are converted this does not hold true. Whether a 3.0 beast or 3.5 magical beast becomes a 5e beast or monstrosity seems to be arbitrary or randomly determined. The WotC source books cannot keep it straight and 3pp have no way of determining what is appropriate. When I looked over the 5e version of the Scarred Lands player guide, the converted monsters did not exhibit much relation between their types in 3e and 5e but the types chosen for 5e generally felt more appropriate for the fluff and gave the types more variety than in the MM.

Beasts and Monstrosity's are intersectional terms that offend me. There is a spectrum of monster subtypes!

j/k

Druids can't change shape into monstrosities, no matter how many times they encounter them.  I'm fairly certain that is the main reason the distinction exists, along with any secondary effects on spells.  Otherwise, you can think of all of them in the world as just beasts.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;971975Druids can't change shape into monstrosities, no matter how many times they encounter them.  I'm fairly certain that is the main reason the distinction exists, along with any secondary effects on spells.  Otherwise, you can think of all of them in the world as just beasts.

In many cases there's no rhyme or reason for the distinction. Why can the druid turn into a winged snake or a stirge, but not a griffon?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;972114In many cases there's no rhyme or reason for the distinction. Why can the druid turn into a winged snake or a stirge, but not a griffon?

Because when WotC designs rules, they frequently (as in almost always) fail to comprehend what those rules actually say about the default setting assumptions of D&D settings.

You can't really fault The Gaming Den for turning every WotC D&D discussion into 100% White Room theory - it's obvious that's how all their games are designed.

Quote from: CRKrueger;972116Because when WotC designs rules, they frequently (as in almost always) fail to comprehend what those rules actually say about the default setting assumptions of D&D settings.

You can't really fault The Gaming Den for turning every WotC D&D discussion into 100% White Room theory - it's obvious that's how all their games are designed.

I think making the distinction is more important for the game than getting every instance correct.  It's a label to hang rules off of, similar to how "short rest" and "long rest" can be changed into anything the GM wants, and play follows.  

That is, if you want a Griffin to be something a druid can change into it, instead of saying "Druids can change into Griffins.  Speak with animals works with them."  And so forth, tracking down every other place in the rules where it matters, you instead say in your house rule document:  "The following monstrosities are treated as beasts:  Griffins".  (And then any other creature you want to add.)

It's a shame that with all their work on such keywords in 5E that they regressed on spell management.

Quote from: CRKrueger;972116Because when WotC designs rules, they frequently (as in almost always) fail to comprehend what those rules actually say about the default setting assumptions of D&D settings.

You can't really fault The Gaming Den for turning every WotC D&D discussion into 100% White Room theory - it's obvious that's how all their games are designed.

The rules are not internally consistent with the implied setting. The MM describes, say, the griffon as being a natural creature that can be tamed and then labels it a monstrosity despite the description of monstrosity listing abnormal, unnatural, and malevolent as qualifiers.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;972140I think making the distinction is more important for the game than getting every instance correct.  It's a label to hang rules off of, similar to how "short rest" and "long rest" can be changed into anything the GM wants, and play follows.  

That is, if you want a Griffin to be something a druid can change into it, instead of saying "Druids can change into Griffins.  Speak with animals works with them."  And so forth, tracking down every other place in the rules where it matters, you instead say in your house rule document:  "The following monstrosities are treated as beasts:  Griffins".  (And then any other creature you want to add.)

It's a shame that with all their work on such keywords in 5E that they regressed on spell management.

Why is there a keyword system with detailed definitions if the keywords are not used consistently by the rules or the fluff?

For example, the keywords "dragon", "elemental" and "giant" have different meanings depending on context. They are used as both types and monster families within those types. In 1e/2e you had the logically organized dragons and dragon-kin, elementals and elemental-kin, and giants and giant-kin. In 5e dragon, elemental and giant are used as shorthand for "true" monsters and their "kin." Without additional qualifiers it is impossible to determine if whether a usage of those words is referring to the type or the monster family. No other types work that way, no sane taxonomist would have devised it, and it is completely unintuitive. To add insult to injury, the descriptions of those types explicitly note the distinction between "true" and "false" members of their type.

By contrast, the human, demihuman and humanoid distinction in 1e/2e was completely discarded in 3e/4e/5e in favor of calling everyone humanoids. Demihuman or humanoid is never brought up as a qualifier within humanoid. Why couldn't the dragons, elementals and giants work this way too?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;971964The mermaid doesn't have legs, so the centaur having four legs is not a compelling argument for them to be monstrosities.

Two 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).

QuoteI think the druid's shapeshifting is broken because it lets you assume the form of any beasts regardless of level inappropriate magical abilities like the crag cat's spell turning. 5e really should have kept the playtest version with predetermined statistics that could be fluffed as any animal cosmetically.

I 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.

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.

It worked fine in Pathfinder.

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.

I have a simpler point: I Assume the Mermaid can be seen as half human, half fish. Centaurs however, are NOT half human, half horse. They are far closer to "half human, 6/7 horse, i.e. they are mathematical abominations.
Had they indeed been "half horse", they'd be like fauns and humanoid.
(Unless they'd be like tripods, but that's a different kind of monstrosity.  )