NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6001264" data-attributes="member: 17106">They don't all have the same ability scores or combat skills either.Neither do orcs, mind flayers, or tarrasques. (Okay, so there's only suuposed to be one tarrasque).A monster stat block is one of two things:*A set of modifiers that you can deconstruct and use to make a monstrous NPC.*A handy example that you can modify to suit your needs if you don't have the time or inclination to deal with it.For example, if I read an ogre stat block and see this...Str 21, Dex 8, Con 15, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 7...it doesn't mean that every ogre has those ability scores, or even that the average one does. Given a 3d6 distribution and the possibility of improvement over levels or changes due to aging or magic, I'd guess that less than 10% of ogres actually have 21 Str. There might only be one ogre in the entire world that actually has this exact ability array. Similarly, only a small percentage of monsters will have no class levels or advanced hit dice or whatever other parameter you use to build them.So, again, the stat block is just a handy example. If I were to stat a marine, I'd give him some simple straightforward things that represented a typical marine, and note where he got them from (i.e. class levels) so a DM could customize skills/feats/etc. as needed.It is. Putting the boss monster tag on a stat block is not a big deal in and of itself. But the philosophy that it represents is a very general problem: it's about designers trying to "make the game easier" by playing it for us. Given the people who are (still) working on D&D, any red flag, anything that goes in this direction, should be called out aggressively.</blockquote>

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