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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9061216" data-attributes="member: 18">A lot of the changes to monsters were part of the &quot;apology edition&quot; approach, which is why they were such a mess, and why they've changed again more recently.A significant element of 5E's launch design was to make an edition with some aesthetic elements resembling older editions, and they were willing to throw usability/function, flavour, and principles of good design out the window to get this aesthetic.This is very clear from the monster designs, especially the godawful reversion to &quot;simple stat block, but with like 14 spells the monster can cast&quot;. That's a huge loss of usability, because you have to look up and understand all those spells to use the monster fully, it's extremely hostile to new DMs (but so was a lot of 5E, surprisingly, it's amazing how well it's done despite that, not because of it), and in general flavourful abilities from 4E were replaced with bland spells.Now with the newest monster book this has changed again, and design of monsters is more 4E-like, with fewer spells, more abilities and their use much better handled, and I think it's safe to expect the new MM to be like that also.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 9061216, member: 18"] A lot of the changes to monsters were part of the "apology edition" approach, which is why they were such a mess, and why they've changed again more recently. A significant element of 5E's launch design was to make an edition with some aesthetic elements resembling older editions, and they were willing to throw usability/function, flavour, and principles of good design out the window to get this aesthetic. This is very clear from the monster designs, especially the godawful reversion to "simple stat block, but with like 14 spells the monster can cast". That's a huge loss of usability, because you have to look up and understand all those spells to use the monster fully, it's extremely hostile to new DMs (but so was a lot of 5E, surprisingly, it's amazing how well it's done despite that, not because of it), and in general flavourful abilities from 4E were replaced with bland spells. Now with the newest monster book this has changed again, and design of monsters is more 4E-like, with fewer spells, more abilities and their use much better handled, and I think it's safe to expect the new MM to be like that also. [/QUOTE]

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