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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 1658826" data-attributes="member: 8461">What your friend told you was the "quick and dirty" way to calculate racial ability adjustments for monsters. It does hold up, and is true. However, if you're just opening your MM to a particular page and applying that technique, you may be running into some problems if its a creature with Warrior NPC levels, or is an advanced monster (has extra hit dice, class levels, or template(s) from the base version of the monster).Check out the top of page 7 in the (v.3.5) MM. It says right there that a monster's ability score adjustments can be found just as your friend said, so all basic monsters were given 10's and 11's in their scores, and then had their innate bonuses and penalties applied. However, Humanoids with a level in Warrior instead use the "nonelite array", with scores of 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, and 8 assigned to whatever abilities the designers wanted. Likewise, advanced monsters used the "elite array" of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8, so the "subtract 10 or 11" rule won't work there. Remember to also note that monsters who received additional hit dice or class levels may have gotten extra ability points if they gained enough.</blockquote>