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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aegeri" data-source="post: 5237197" data-attributes="member: 78116">Nothing, because Wildshape in 4E no longer functions like that as a way of getting broken abilities on top of being able to cast spells anymore. So it's a rather irrelevant question now, because druids just don't work like that.As for other points, I don't need to know stats of a housecat for anything meaningful in my games as an example. Mechanically, classes like the Druid no longer interact with such stats in a meaningful way so needing to know a housecats stealth is pointless. I could make my own housecat trivially, it would be a minion and its attacks would maybe do 1 damage with a +0 attack bonus. Basically an absolute non-threat to even the worst adventurer in existence in 4E. I do not need it in a monster manual to quickly derive something like that in the absolute scenario that I need it (which I can imagine would be never).Some creatures I would always like stats for though, ordinary bears, wolves (already in 4E though), sharks and similar large predatory animals deserve and warrant stats. I don't need combat stats for mice (unless it's maybe a swarm of them?), cats and similar things though. When something doesn't need to be fought (or alternatively, really can't be) there isn't any point to giving it combat stats. When I buy a MM, I want things that are usable in encounters and are mechanically interesting. When I want something that I have no intention of making a relevant combat encounter, I'm not going to bother or even want to give it stats. I'll balance it around it being a non-combat challenge, which means that hitting it should be the part where you've failed that.Should they perhaps expand on this elsewhere or in other books or similar? I suppose they can add such creatures and I would certainly be interested in how they were implemented. I wouldn't want these things taking space in the MM though.Fluff is one thing, but fluff without mechanics is terrible and mechanics without fluff - well that's an arguable point. Let me bring up the Tarrasque for a moment. I've always loved the concept of the monster, it's fluff and its potential but every time I've looked at it I've passed it over. Why? Because the mechanics in no edition of DnD matches its awesome fluff. It's always a worthless sack of HP waiting to be killed by various spellcasters (2E and 3E), or just whacked into oblivion in general due to its hilariously bad action economy and stat block (4E). To add insult to injury, it's frankly boring to fight. It's mechanics have never been fun or interesting in the least. So all that interesting fluff and flavor is absolutely worthless to me, because the creatures mechanics are so bad I wouldn't want to use it unless I make something myself. If I wanted to just make something myself, that's precisely what I would have done in the first place and I don't need a MM to tell me about fluff of a world ending monster. I need the MM to give me a compelling mechanically sound creature and enough fluff to tell me what it does.So I actually have even higher standards. I want decent fluff that gives me a solid idea "What the hell does this creature do" and then I want solid fun game mechanics. I want to use Lolth from MM3. I want to use Allabah from MM3. I want to use the weird water primordial from Plane Below (forget the name sorry, but she's awesome). I want to use Tiamat (Draconomicon). I want to use Turglas (Dungeon) These are monsters with an excellent core piece of fluff that tells me what they do easily and is backed up by a rock solid fun looking stat block. I don't want to use the Tarrasque (crap), I don't want to use black dragons from the original MM (boring), I don't want to use the original Orcus and so forth. They have good fluff attached to them, but their mechanics are just too poor to be viable without needing to make major modifications. I will give you that Orcus from E3 is a lot better than his MM counterpart by a long shot, but the original Orcus was just not a great or worthwhile stat block. All that fluff and I will never bother with it if the monster it tries to support isn't worth using in my game. A monster with mechanics and no fluff is still usable, not everything requires interaction outside of combat, where I basically vigorously disagree with Shemeska especially. Having good fluff is merely something that actually helps and makes a monster superior - but not unusable like a terrible stat block does.If I'm preparing an adventure I look around at monsters I pick:Good fluff + excellent mechanicsOkay Fluff + Excellent mechanicsExcellent MechanicsGood fluff + Okay mechanicsOkay mechanicsBecause in the end I need monsters for a distinct purpose and that's generally for combat (for most creatures). I don't need hours of lore on giant centipedes to be able to figure out a giant centipede is a large angry creature that bites people. I just need a mechanical stat block that makes a giant centipede fun to fight. I have youtube and can watch any number of nature documentaries, because no fluff will actually match how creepy the things are in real life to begin with. If I'm making the BBEG of my campaign, I'm going to pick exclusively on who has the best fluff AND mechanics. Fluff makes the villain compelling and your PCs want to fight him. Mechanics make that fight actually fun and climatic as it should be.That's what I want from a MM now. A decent fluffy idea or use for a creature, combined with a rock solid interesting stat block. Even if I won't use it, mechanics that are interesting inspire my own new mechanics for my own monsters (or show me ideas as to what is acceptable). Things that I don't need to make new fluff OR mechanics for are the best monsters in the game though.</blockquote>

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