D&D 5E Black bear: wrong attack bonus?

[Hriston]

I agree with the guy that has me blocked. It clearly isn't a mistake considering the black and brown bears both exhibit this same peculiarity. You'd have to assume the designers made the same mistake twice in two independent instances and that both times the mistake just happened to be in designing a monster that is a bear. For me, that's just too much of a coincidence on which to base an assumption.

 

[Ristamar]

"A small chicken with a +20 attack bonus? No, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a mistake. They don't follow rules like in 3E." Yeah, that's just BS.

 

[seebs]

You're telling me things I already know.

Most monsters skill and attack bonuses line up with their proficiency bonus.

A few don't. We don't get any explanation as to why they're excepted - we don't even get any indication an exception has occurred.

I prefer to consider these accidental rather than intentional, since otherwise the design process is completely opaque and non-predictable, and there would never be any way to hold anyone accountable for any genuine mistakes - indeed there would not even be any way to tell if a non-standard number was a mistake at all.

That's not actually an argument. They specifically state that the design process is not 100% system-bound and involves estimating or adjusting based on intuition or experience. "That would mean an opaque design process, which I dislike" isn't an argument against them doing it when they said specifically that's what they did.

"A small chicken with a +20 attack bonus? No, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a mistake. They don't follow rules like in 3E." Yeah, that's just BS.

Look at the small chicken's CR. Does a +20 attack bonus fit it? No? Then it's probably a mistake. Is it a CR15 monster? Then it's a bit weird that it's a small chicken but the +20 is probably intentional.

 

[Hriston]

I have to say, I disagree with the idea that halving a creature's proficiency bonus amounts to an "opaque design process". It seems fairly straightforward to me. We have an example of this very thing in the Bard's "Jack of All Trades" feature right there in the PHB!

 

[CapnZapp]

I have to say, I disagree with the idea that halving a creature's proficiency bonus amounts to an "opaque design process". It seems fairly straightforward to me. We have an example of this very thing in the Bard's "Jack of All Trades" feature right there in the PHB!

That's not what's opaque.

The opaqueness is in not knowing whether a +3 that normally would have been a +4 is because of an error, a halved proficiency bonus, or some other ad hoc modification...

As long as the rules are clear and predictable there is nothing opaque or otherwise wrong with having a proficiency bonus. Cheers

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[Hriston]

That's not what's opaque.

The opaqueness is in not knowing whether a +3 that normally would have been a +4 is because of an error, a halved proficiency bonus, or some other ad hoc modification...

When I look at the evidence presented by both the black and brown bears, I feel fairly confident that it wasn't a mistake and that it's the proficiency bonus that's being halved. Of course, this doesn't answer why, but I think some good suggestions have been made in this thread. I also realize that not everyone will come to the same conclusions, and for them the design process may be more mysterious.

As long as the rules are clear and predictable there is nothing opaque or otherwise wrong with having a proficiency bonus. Cheers

I agree in that I think they should have pulled back the curtain a little more on design choices like this. I don't see too much of an upside to not doing so, unless it's to keep DMs from being limited by overly codified monster design rules.