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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary3/humbaba.html) or Typhoeon (http://www.worldsofimagination.co.uk/monster%20Typhoeon.htm) 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 (https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/783445319576977408?lang=ca). 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 :p
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 (https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/783445319576977408?lang=ca). 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. :D )
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 (http://genericcleric.blogspot.com/2015/12/sphinxes-etc-of-nefret.html) 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.