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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5072385" data-attributes="member: 2067">Oh it doesn't?Here's the description of a monstrous bat:"Attacks just about anything without provocation" is not a description, it is basically the MM telling the DM "Hey, you fight these things!"Similarly, here's the lore.What's that you say? Fire bats hang out with fire creatures, and shadow bats hang out with shadow creatures?Shocker.Or, here's one of my favorites that got previewed before 4e was released and forecasted this inanity:The shocker to this was that Bodaks in 3e and in 2e had some pretty interesting flavor (normal people who died contaminated by tremendous evil) that 4e abandoned in favor of "kills for the sake of killing." Which is probably the most uninspiring motive possible. And while the lore of the galeb duhr is fine (though it re-uses the "escaped slaves" trope that is rampant with the dwarves), the first thing a newbie DM reads about them is this:"Hey, DM," says the MM, "Rock monsters like to hang out with rock monsters." It then goes on to repeat that info in the lore, and the encounter groups.And of course there's the infamous-by-this-point blue dragon/DIRE PIKACHU.It's also worth noting that the Lore checks are specifically PC information that might never come to light, if the PC's don't really care about what the thing in front of them is doing in front of them. Though that might be a problem more of presentation than of lousy writing. I mean, it's unfair of me to say that all the monsters from the MM1 are like that, but CLEARLY the monster manual DOES do that sort of thing, and more than just once or twice. It's the 4e equivalent of the Ythrak. "Why would I use this thing?"Quality of fluff can be a pretty subjective thing, of course. But the utility of fluff is less subjective. Even bad fluff can be useful at the table. But MM's 1 and 2 have clear problems with this.Nothing about the galeb duhr, for instance, seems to warrant its own monster entry. It's a side-kick for giants. It's a palette swap of the Azer. There's a hint that they might not all be so aggressive, but there's nothing on how to use that hook in an encounter with them to make an encounter with them stand out from an encounter with anything else. If your rock dwarf ain't providing artillery support for your rock people, it's got rock nothing to rock do. Now, the galeb duhr in 2e could fight you, or could tell you where the nearest mine is, or could just provide atmosphere as its gravelly "song" echoed off the mountain peaks. That gives me at least three different kinds of encounters with this one monster. That's a lot of utility out of a stat block. And that's not even a particularly strong 2e example.</blockquote>

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