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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 8532640" data-attributes="member: 19857">No that's not what I mean - what I mean is that if you dump everything into a single stat block you get people who think that it's all important. Despite the fact that the monster itself, knowing its own capabilities, would know better.So say you have a monster that can cast charm person and it's only in the stat block because a caster of its equivalent level would have spells of that level and there was a need to fill out the spell list for &quot;verisimilitude&quot;, or because it's there for non-combat encounters.&nbsp; A monster where using charm person in battle would not only be suboptimal, but isn't even considered as part of the design space when determining the CR.&nbsp; Without guidance on what the intent behind the monster design was when the CR was assigned you're left with DM experience to figure out that casting charm person is a dumb move while the novice DM is sitting there possibly thinking &quot;they gave this monster charm person, how am I supposed to be using it in a fight&quot;?&nbsp; That information should actually be in the Monster Manual - especially if the intent is that the spells are there for flavor or &quot;realism&quot; and not because they're actually relevant to how a creature is expected to be run as a game piece at the table where you have something called a &quot;Challenge Rating&quot; that is supposed to be useful in figuring out how to build fight encounters.The Monster Manual as published is full of stuff like this - more than I even realized when it was originally published and I already thought the 5e MM was confusing and annoying in organization.&nbsp; Mentoring a newbie DM through their first campaign has opened up my eyes to exactly how much I'm bringing to the table as a DM with years of experience for the material.&nbsp; You don't have to remove these things from the monsters but organizing it so that design intent is more obvious would go a long way towards making the book better on that front.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jer, post: 8532640, member: 19857"] No that's not what I mean - what I mean is that if you dump everything into a single stat block you get people who think that it's all important. Despite the fact that the monster itself, knowing its own capabilities, would know better. So say you have a monster that can cast charm person and it's only in the stat block because a caster of its equivalent level would have spells of that level and there was a need to fill out the spell list for "verisimilitude", or because it's there for non-combat encounters. A monster where using charm person in battle would not only be suboptimal, but isn't even considered as part of the design space when determining the CR. Without guidance on what the intent behind the monster design was when the CR was assigned you're left with DM experience to figure out that casting charm person is a dumb move while the novice DM is sitting there possibly thinking "they gave this monster charm person, how am I supposed to be using it in a fight"? That information should actually be in the Monster Manual - especially if the intent is that the spells are there for flavor or "realism" and not because they're actually relevant to how a creature is expected to be run as a game piece at the table where you have something called a "Challenge Rating" that is supposed to be useful in figuring out how to build fight encounters. The Monster Manual as published is full of stuff like this - more than I even realized when it was originally published and I already thought the 5e MM was confusing and annoying in organization. Mentoring a newbie DM through their first campaign has opened up my eyes to exactly how much I'm bringing to the table as a DM with years of experience for the material. You don't have to remove these things from the monsters but organizing it so that design intent is more obvious would go a long way towards making the book better on that front. [/QUOTE]

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