“Magic” in a world should have rules, and all magic should obey those rules.
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If they’re casting a spell then it should act like a spell.
I don't share this sentiment at all. Magic is the
defiance of rules. And spells are no one single thing: compare, say, a chaos sorcerer to an infernal warlock to a tome wizard. In the fiction, they all look pretty diffrent to me in what their spell casting consists in.
I love “that which man was not meant to know”. But you can’t just throw it around all the time. You can’t break it out to explain every spellcaster other than you.
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If the party is fighting a 10,000 year-old larval mage from antediluvian times then, yeah, the mad scribblings in his spellbook should probably not be read. But if it’s just some punk elf conjurer… his spells should be garden variety.
I think we see the gameworld differently. My 4e gameworld, based around the 4e default, doesn't have "generic" conjurers. Because 4e doesn't have generic spellcasters. No two PC casters can be expected to be the same, given the variety of classes, powers and feats. So why would NPCs be different?
Death knights are actually a good example of my point. They have “Eldritch Fire”, which has the area of fireball and comparable damage to fireball cast as a 7th-level spell. It has half the range, but that doesn’t make it a new spell.
But what does eldritch fire look like? What does it do? Is it a burst of fire or a wave of necrotic energy that bursts into flames? Do creatures just catch ablaze? Is it an exploding ball or a radiating pool of flame or expanding ring of fire?
We have no idea because there is just the mechanical game effect as it pertains to the PCs.
I assume we're talking here about the Next Bestiary? In that case, there is a note that the eldritch fire sets flammable material in the AoE alight. But does it matter whether one GM narrates it as a ball of fire, and another as a wave of necrotic energy that sets things alight (I'm thinking a bit like Ghost Rider)?
That tells me what they are and where they live but little else.
But what do they eat? What are their goals? How do they live? Are they social: how often is “sometimes … live together”? Are they civilized or savage?
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Look back at the aboleth entry. It tells me how to use them in an encounter, with each monster’s tactics called out, but not how to use them in an adventure or campaign. It’s basically “this monster lives underground and bends humanoids to its will.” Coming to that uninitiated (and unfamiliar with Lovecraft) one might get the impression of a dull-witted creature meandering through the underdark and turning people into zombies.
It doesn’t mention their intelligence, their cities, or how the creatures bent to its will are its slaves that do its bidding. It doesn’t suggest Lovecraftian cults or the implied age of the aboleths.
Most of the early 4e monster fluff just fell flat in that regard. It told you what the monster was, but not its place in the larger world.
On the intelligence of aboleths - according to their stat blocks they are all INT 23, which I think answers that question. They are also all trained in Arcana and Dungeoneering, which provides us with more information about their knowledge and inclinations.
On the sociality of aboleths - besides being told that they sometimes live in broods (you seriously want a % chance for this?), there is this from p 8 that I didn't bother to quote:
Aboleths lair in the deepest reaches of the Underdark, having slipped into the world from the Far Realm. However, lone aboleths can be found closer to the world’s surface, haunting ruins, deep lakes, and old temples without hope or want of companionship. In many of these places, kuo-toas serve them.
On the place of aboleths in the larger world, we have all that I've quoted: they come from the Far Realm, they live in broods in the Underdark but solitary ones haunt deep lakes and temples closer to the surface, perhaps served by kuo-toas. We also have this, from the DMG p 161:
the most alien creatures known [are] aberrant monsters such as the aboleth and gibbering orb. These creatures don’t seem to be a part of the world or any known realm, and where they live in the world, reality alters around them. This fact has led sages to postulate the existence of a place they call the Far Realm, a place where the laws of reality work differently than in the known universe.
So we know also - if we hadn't worked it out from the description already give plus the illustration on p 9 of the MM - that aboleths are alien horrors.
As to their goals which they pursue with their aid of their enslaved humanoid and willing kuo-toa servants: I assume that this is the sort of thing a GM might work out. What do alien entities do? Observe humanity? Ignore it? Do things that seem irrational to us because our puny minds can't comprehend the motivations of such otherworldy beings?
Have you really looked at aboleths, realised that they're mind-enslaving entities from another alien world, and then been puzzled as to how you might work them into your game?
Now, the 3e MM wasn’t much better, often having shorter entries. Both failed compared to the 2e Monsterous Manual.
Here is what I found on the aboleth in the 2nd ed Monstrous Manual:
The aboleth is a loathsome amphibious creature that lives in subterranean caves and lakes. It despises most land-dwelling creatures and seeks to enslave intelligent surface beings. It is as cruel as it is intelligent. . .
An aboleth brood consists of a parent and one to three offspring. Though the offspring are as large and as strong as the parent, they defer to the parent in all matters and obey it implicitly. Aboleth have both male and female sexual organs. A mature aboleth reproduces once every five years by concealing itself in a cavern or other remote area, then laying a single egg and covering it in slime. The parent aboleth guards the egg while the embryo grows and develops, a process that takes about five years. A newborn aboleth takes about 10 years to mature.
The aboleth spends most of its time searching for slaves, preferably human ones. It is rumored that the aboleth use their slaves to construct huge underwater cities, though none have ever been found. The aboleth are rumored to know ancient, horrible secrets that predate the existence of man, but these rumors are also unsubstantiated. There is no doubt that aboleth retain a staggering amount of knowledge. An offspring acquires all of its parent’s knowledge at birth, and a mature aboleth acquires the knowledge of any intelligent being it consumes.
This doesn't tell me the motivation of aboleths either; nor how often they live in broods rather than on their own (the number appearing is 1d4, but I have never assumed that this is to be taken as a demographic statistic - apart from anything else, a linear shape doesn't look right for that). It has what is, for me, needless details about their reproduction (I haven't got room for proper stat blocks, but I've got room for that?). It uses unnecessary words to tell me stuff that the 4e entry conveys via the Arcana and Dungeoneering entries.
It adds information about underwater cities, in the form of "rumours", but doesn't mention deep lakes, temples or kuo-toa, so it's not as if it has
more world-oriented information. Just different.
This actually fits my impression of 2nd ed material: an obsession with reproduction and aspects of demography more generally, but many words for little actual story.
Nor have I stressed out about learning all of a monster's abilities; I like to read through ahead of time, but that's a really quick process because of the simple and functional language. If necessary, I can open to a monster entry and be ready to go in about 20 seconds, unless it's an intentionally complicated solo. And even then it's way faster than anything with spell-like abilities in 3e or earlier.
