Monstrous Imponderables

[demiurge1138]

Now, on to questions of my own:

Why are centaurs and wemics monstrous humanoids, sphinxes and lamias magical beasts, and hybsil feys ?

Centaurs and wemics have more humanoid torsos than sphinxes, and lamias have more magical abilities than most MMI monstrous humanoids. Hybsil are feys instead of monstrous humanoid the same reason saytrs are fey; it's just because of their fey-ishness

Why aren't Dragonne dragons ?

They're just reptilian lions with wings. The draconic qualities are inferred from that. I'm thinking that hydrae and behirs deserve dragon status much more than dragonnes do.

Why are athach aberrations, when avariels aren't ? Especially considered they were found in the Giant entry in previous beastiaries. Possible answer would be having a giant the dwarves, gnomes, and giant-"favoring" rangers would get no bonus against.

Athaches are pretty weird looking for giants, whereas most giant-types are just overgrown humans with cosmetic differences. The third arm and tusks consigned them to the brutal ghetto of aberration-hood. Although then formorians should be there too...

Why are animal stats so silly ? Cats have a -4 Dex penalty compared to average stats of animals of their size, according to the MM2 charts. Real world donkies are smarter than horses. Lots of real world animals would have Int greater than 2, by the way.

Going to have to agree with you there. I don't know if all of the animal intelligences wouldn't be better described as Wisdom, though.

Why do small skeletons and zombies move at the same speed as their larger "brethren", when they are supposed to be slower because of shorter legs ? Why do goblins and kobolds move at 30 ft. speed without that being a goblin/kobold trait (like the 20 ft. move speed is a dwarf trait) ?

Speed isn't necesarily a matter of leg length. Halflings, dwarves and gnomes (who get a lot of nice abilites compared to say, elves and humans) have reduced speed simply to balance them. They just got the short end of the stick

Why are hill giants so charismatic ?

C'mon, everyone love hill giants! Seriously, typo.

Why is the nightwing's transformation bite so enigmatic ?

Shoddy conversions?

Why is the new marilith so famished you want to give humanitarian food rations ?

Well, if you hadn't eaten anything but damned souls for thousands of years, you'd be skinny too!

Demiurge out.

 

[Khisanth the Ancient]

Why, in 2e, was the marilith able to deal more damage than the balor? (It might still be able to, I mean, 6 magical greatswords and 4d6 + strength for the tail? HUH?) If they're this powerful, why haven't they taken over the Abyss? Balors aren't THAT much more powerful in HD or magical abilities, are they?