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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MechaPilot" data-source="post: 6594529" data-attributes="member: 82779">Defense and mobility are almost universally good, but getting these things from spells can be situational.You mentioned Expeditious Retreat.  That's a concentration spell.  Concentration spells are troublesome because each of the PCs will generally be intent on dealing damage to the dragon, and each hit means an opportunity to break concentration.You mentioned Shield.  Sure, Shield is great.  It buys you one turn of improved AC, but its value is far greater as an aid to fleeing without being killed.  Additionally, if the dragon has the opportunity to do just about anything else with its reaction, it is usually better off doing that instead.You mentioned Misty Step.  Misty Step looks to me to be a total waste of effort for a dragon (especially if it has anything else to do with its bonus action).The bulk of these spells seem like they are only useful to the dragon once the dragon has been virtually defeated by the party and is looking to flee for its life.I don't buy the "many monsters not knowing to avert their gaze" bit.  If we assume for the sake of discussion that mythology is accurate, there has been one Medusa on Earth and virtually everyone knows you can't look her in the face/eyes.  How much more prevalent would this knowledge be if medusas actually existed as a race that populated parts of the world instead of there being but one medusa?I consider the lack of an action cost to be part of the MM medusa's class-replacement abilities (the way I see it, the MM creatures get certain abilities that help them remain relevant in the face of enemies with class levels.  Multiattack is a great example of this).  I would charge a PC a reaction for it (especially since the MM says that it is an activated ability by the medusa and not an always-on effect of just anyone looking her in the eyes.No, I'm not really arguing that.  I think several monster abilities need to have the class-replacement aspect excised before those races are suitable for use as PC races, but that once those class-replacement aspects are removed the monster would be suitable for a PC race, which includes them getting the standard +2/+1 stat increases.</blockquote>

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