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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jaer" data-source="post: 3985972" data-attributes="member: 57861">This is where DM styles differ.  I buy the books for rules so that combat is organized, the classes are balanced, and I have a metric for judging what is an appropriate challenge and reward.  I buy the book so that I learn how combat is done, how hard a monster hits, and what sort of power is appropriate at certain levels.  Those are the things that are playtested, those are the things that are common and true, those are the rules everyone needs to know to use to play the game, in order for it to be a game that everyone can play.I do NOT need rules to tell me what a devil is doing in its spare time.  I do not need rules to tell me the succubus I want as the antagonist can alter her shape to look human or elven.  I do not need rules to tell me that the ghost in the haunted castle can close doors and windows and move furniture and cause plants to wilt, walls to bleed, and players to have nightmares of them being stalked and murdered.  I do not need these effects to mirror spells or be spell-like or supernatural abilities, nor do I need an rules governing line of sight, line or effect, or anything else to control these.  They happen when I need them to in the way that I want them to.They do not unbalance combat, they do not interfer with the rules others know to play the game.  These are environmental and the set a mood.  When I need things to behave a certain way to tell the story, they happen that way (much the way most novels do not follow D&D rules perfectly - forcing it can ruin the story).  I do need to know the combat stats for the ghost, I need to know what it can do in a fight should the PCs end up in direct conflict with it; I need that by the rules because I need it balanced and appropriate to the PCs power level.It really is a difference in how we go about setting up our games.  Some DMs look at the combat stats and the non-combat things and draw up the creature for that.  The look to the books to tell them how to use a creature in the gain, not just in combat.  For you, I hope there is enough info in the entry to accomidate.Others of us just use the rules as written when it comes to mechanical interaction, such as combat.  The creature in the world fits in as we need it to, and it is free form in that environment.  I don't like my PCs knowning what a creature is when I describe it or knowing what it can do (so annoying when a Nightwalker comes in and they put away their good weapons because they fought one two campaigns ago and know what is coming), so I change the flavor, the description, and the environment as needed so that even old-hat creatures can offer something new and different when encountered by the group.  For those of us who play like this, I hope the books have very clear, organized, and detailed combat stat blocks.I don't feel that these two things are mutually exclusive; it just takes good planning and layout.  Guess we'll find out what WotC did we see an example of a monster entry.</blockquote>

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