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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9814619" data-attributes="member: 29398">Indeed, but giving them stats anyway allows for quick and easy comparison with characters.  Simply saying Giants are tough and resilient isn't enough; saying Giants average Con 24* is way more useful, and by extension provides their Con save bonus etc. without it all having to be written out in the stat block.  Saying they average Dex 10* is really neat shorthand saying a typical Giant gets neither benefit nor penalty from Dex.Giving stats to individuals, especially where they vary from the norm, is also useful shorthand.  Saying that Glorg the Giant is more nimble and less starchy than his peers doesn't tell me by how much he is more nimble and less starchy; and it's the 'by how much' piece that I-as-DM need to know.  Is he Dex 12 or Dex 16 or what?  Is he Con 21 or Con 17 or what?I should note that IMO bonuses and penalties from high or low stats should apply equally to monsters as to characters (both PC and NPC).  One of 1e's biggest errors was to not give monsters their bonuses for high Strength and-or Con, making them far easier to defeat than they really should have been.  3e fixed this...but of course went overboard with it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />* - or whatever number, these are just for examples.Not sure how-where-why point buy enters into it....?I don't see this as a question of enforcing realism so much as a question of putting hard numbers to what's being abstracted; and hard numbers are useful.</blockquote>

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