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="Eric V" data-source="post: 6955136" data-attributes="member: 6779717">This was a great response [MENTION=65151]knasser[/MENTION]; sorry to hear you're being misrepresented in your arguments. It happens around here. Just know that not everyone was mis-reading you that way.  You are absolutely right:  D&D is a game.  There's really only so much time that can be invested in a game.  All games (board, party, rp, etc.) should make it as easy as possible to get to the fun; the designers themselves acknowledged this when they said speed of character creation was one of their goals.  After that, any additional complication has to be worth it in terms of added fun.  So, a game can be complex and fun, as long as each additional complexity adds to the fun instead of detracts it.  It's why our group switched to 5e from 4e for example: the added complexities in 4e were no longer giving out the expected increases in fun.Having more detailed statblocks for the monsters definitely lets people get to the fun faster; it's bizarre to argue otherwise.  If one likes researching all the spells, there's nothing stopping them from doing so; having the most common ones available with all their attendant rules does not interfere with that at all.  The D&D team knew this at one point (4e) so it's disappointing to have to go back to a less efficient version.As a game to play with friends around the table, the gaming experience isn't enhanced by lack of description for the monsters' most common attacks.  It is diminished, either because 1) The DM had to pause the game to look up the particulars of a specific spell; or 2) The DM had to commit the spells to memory or otherwise write down all their relevant details, time that could be better spent either on other more fun aspects of the game or personal life, etc.And yeah, better solos would make the game work better for everyone.  I have no idea why one would argue otherwise.  All that does is open up more options for fun.  However, as you may have noticed, some people just don't want other people to have official options in their game (see any thread about including the warlord in 5e).  I have absolutely no idea why.I sort of agree with you re: your last point, but you may find it disappears after multiple encounters with the same opponent.  Having one encounter with gnolls and another with orcs may not feel different, but multiple of each, and you'll definitely have players remembering (fondly?) that "orcs are the ones that rush us" and "gnolls get extra savage when they take us down!" and "Don't let hobgoblins double-team you!"  It's true that 5e monsters sometimes suffer from "bag o' hp" syndrome, but sometimes the differences are there and just need to be teased out more.</blockquote>

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