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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 7210858" data-attributes="member: 15700">Then why do you insist on ignoring it?  If you acknowledge you know about it (playing NPCs and monsters as they were living beings with personality and intelligence appropriate to their stats, and tweaking the rules to fit your style), then I must assume you intentionally are refusing to do it.  That seems a you issue, and not a game issue.If a creature's strength goes from a 0 bonus to a +4 bonus, that is enough to increase the CR.  Why should INT be excluded from that, especially when INT has such a huge impact?CR is based on a creature's challenge.  It's right there in what CR stand for: CHALLENGE rating.  How you are advised to play a monster very much affects how challenging it is.  And since the DM's guide tells you right up front what a DM's job is (to breath life into monsters and play them as actual creatures), you are literally instructed to play the monster as challenging as a high INT monster would be.Between your responses here, and that thread I linked to where you described your gaming style, it seems like you refuse to either incorporate or acknowledge the impact something like intelligence can have in an encounter.  More than just me has said how intelligence can make a huge difference in how challenging an encounter is.  And we gave examples as to why.  All I have to go on is that thread of your example of game play, where you played high level NPCs as incompetent morons.  That sounds harsh, but it's true.  They had no planning, no preparation, didn't react at all like an intelligent creature would in combat, no personality, and even engaged in behavior directly counter to what they normally would have done.  That is mind blowing to me because you're constantly saying how your group are optimizers, but then play the NPCs and monsters incompetently.  Then when I combine that with your responses here, where you say things like "all it (INT) does is make the monster better at knowledge skills and resisting Feeblemind.", I'm left with an impression that the concept and instructions given to us on how to DM is either a concept you just don't get, or you refuse to acknowledge it.  That's what "breathing life into monsters" means.  It means role-playing them as more than just a combat stat block.  It means intelligence is much more impactful than just a skill check or resisting feeblemind.  I admit I might be a bit biased since I am a designer myself.  But this is getting old, fast.  I am really tired of you blaming the designers for your shortcomings or preferred style of play.  It seems clear to me that you prefer to play D&D with the monsters as nothing but game pieces with no actual thought or personality tied with them.  Judging by the example we have from that thread, you also neuter them in effectiveness.  That's great.  You can do that.  There's nothing wrong with that because it's the style you prefer.  I'm not calling that "badwrong".  But what is wrong is when you insist on ignoring how the game is designed to be played, and then constantly attack the designers as being lazy or incompetent.  I posted the quote out of the DM's guide about what the DM's job description is because it's important.  It directly tells us how we are supposed to play NPCs and monsters.  I.e., treat them as living creatures and play them as they would normally act.  That means a genius monster is going to be played like a genius monster, and do things a genius would do both in and out of combat, which very much affects the challenge of a particular encounter.  You either don't get that concept, or refuses to acknowledge it by your adamant position that INT doesn't matter and only affects mechanical things despite people clearly explaining how that isn't true.The bottom line is you still refuse to take any ownership of your style of play, ignoring the instructions on what a DM's job is, and then blame the design team.  That's what I have an issue with, and what I would describe as "badwrong".  Not your style of gameplay, but your continued insistence that your deviation from the way the game is designed is the design team's fault, and your refusal to tweak the game as you need due to your style of gameplay (also right there as an instruction of what a DM should do, that I quoted above).  Ignoring flavor text and how a monster would act, and refusing to tweak the rules to fit your style (both things clearly in the DM job description) is 100% on you.  Own it.  Stop insulting the design team.  More than just me has asked you to put up or shut up on this topic.  That if you have all the answers and know all the best ways to design a game, to show your work.  Do it.  Prove it.  Where is your stuff on the DM's guild or DTRPG?</blockquote>

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