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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 5922835" data-attributes="member: 17106">Again, screen time may or may not differ. And the point is not that every monster should be as detailed as every PC, but that the game engine should allow this to take place if the DM chooses. They've talked a lot about varying the level of complexity in character creation. Also, what if a PC becomes and NPC, or vice versa? They have to run off the same basic engine. I full well expect that many players will spend more time actually detailing their characters than DMs will, but that doesn't mean I don't want my monster rules  to work.D&D is improvisational. If I need an NPC I don't have, I make things up. I can make stats later if needed. Moreover, a good set of stats can be used in a variety of ways, allowing creative freedom. If I go into a session knowing that the PCs will meet an athach, but not knowing where or why this meeting will happen or whether combat will even take place, the PCs are hardly railroaded.Precisely the opposite. I consider monster stats a luxury. Thus, when I bother to make them, they get the royal treatment. I consider having a set of monster and character rules that I can easily manipulate in my head essential to actually running the game session, wherein I most certainly don't have perfect answers ready.Frankly, the actual statblocks themselves are usually written so poorly I can't use them (in any game). I have an aversion to game designers doing my work for me, doing it ineptly, and making me pay for it if I want the actual rules. This objection carries through to the 3e MMIV and MMV, which also have this problem. Again, a monster manual is a tool you use to make monsters. The less well it fulfills that function, the less well-written I judge it to be.My observations, like all people's, are a product of my experience. As are yours and everyone else's. I have never met anyone with the philosophy of monster design you describe, have never met anyone who uses monster statblocks straight out of the book or had a problem referencing monster abilities, and indeed, have never met anyone who plays 4e, despite knowing people who play a number of different rpg systems in different contexts. I think it is safe to say that both our experiences are completely different, but equally valid.I recall a lot of debate being directed towards the minion concept (and the monster role concept in general), as well as the inability to play monsters as PCs, lack of detail for monster ecology and out-of-combat functionality, and many other things that are germane to this thread topic. The other points you raise are perfectly valid, but your suggestion that there is a prevailing opinion against the monster design of 3e and earlier editions is unconvincing.Well, this is true. We should, however, dump this "spell-like ability" nonsense and say that everything that has magic uses it the same way. But certainly, limiting the appearance of that magic is a good idea.As others have noted, the 5e statblock that started this thread was for a spellcaster.</blockquote>

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