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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 9247336" data-attributes="member: 58172">The monster statblock can present more helpfully the information about abilities and skills. I am looking at the Cat statblock for comparison, and am thinking about Cat as high Strength for its Size.For the 2024 statblock, I prefer something like the following:CATTiny Beast, Material, UnalignedSpeed 20 ft, Run x12, Climb 20 ftArmor Class 12Hit Points 5 (1d4)STR +2 (15) DEX −1 (8) CON +2 (14)INT −4 (3) WIS −3 (5) CHA −2 (6)PROFICIENCY +2: Persuasion +0EXPERTISE +4: Athletics +6, Perception +1, Stealth +3Senses Passive Perception 11Keen Smell. The Cat has Advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.Night Vision. If any light is in sight, the Cat can see as if in Dim Light.Powerful Legs. The Cat has Advantage on Strength checks that rely on its hind legs.Notes• The Cat is a creature of the "Material" Plane. Familiars, such as Fey spirits or Celestial archetypes, are adopting the form of a Cat.• The Speed for whether the Cat can outrun one or not, seems more immediate than the AC for whether one can hit it or not.• The Speed of a Cat is typically slow and rarely walks at length in a straight line. But it can Run very swiftly, about 30 miles per hour. When traveling alongside a human, a reallife cat can stay at a comfortable trot at the human speed. Using D&D round numbers, this works out to be roughly "Speed 20 feet, Run x12".• The Cat has a Climb Speed about the same as its walk Speed.• Here, the Armor Class bonus for a Cat derives from its agile Strength, not from a manual Dexterity to block attacks.• Despite Tiny Size, a Cat is surprisingly tough. Thus it gets the normal 3 Hit Points from its 1d4 Hit Dice, and it has a decent Constitution. One reallife cat that belonged to my mom definitely had a Constitution Score between 15 and 17. It survived eating poison. It survived starving for a month after getting itself trapped in the attic space of a neighbor who was traveling. It lived to be over 20 years old. Etcetera. This is the cat that gives the "nine lives" reputation creedance.• The three Physical Abilities (Str, Dex, Con) and the three Mental Abilities (Int, Wis, Con) are on separate lines. An Ability is the same thing as the Ability Bonus. Its comparable "Score" is in parentheses.• Strength has no dependence on Size. The Cat is both Tiny and high Strength proportional to its Size. The Cat is also unusually agile, jumping, climbing, running, etcetera, equivalent to an innate Expertise in Athletics.• The Cat is strong, but lacks the Weightlifting skill or a special feature for it. The data for the reallife cat strength seems spotty, heh, partly due to lack of cooperation with tests. Generally, the average housecat should weigh roughly 9 pounds, but is typically overweight. It can easily Carry a quarter of its body mass by its mouth, which it frequently does, such as to carry a kitten or a prey. It is estimated to be able to carry upto its own body weight this way, but rarely does so. Its ability Lift, Pull and Push seems to depend on how much of a panic it is in, and its leg force for pulling or for pushing itself into something can be astonishingly strong. The housecat is proportionally stronger than the tiger, but less strong than the lion. The cat is proportionally stronger than an average human. Tentatively I am quantifying the D&D Cat as Strength +2. Thus when it feels like it absolutely must, it can Lift, Push and Pull about twice its Lean Weight:  (2 + 2 Strength + 0 Weightlifting)(½ Lean Weight). Notably, the D&D Lion is Strength +3 (17), so making the Cat Strength +2 (15) seems about right. Perhaps the Tiger should be Strength +2 (14). Of course, the Lion and Tiger are Large, and the Cat is Tiny.• The manual Dexterity of a Cat is less than an average Human but better than many other animals, so about Score 8.• Wisdom: Heh, I prefer D&D never stats any reallife animal as if a "wise" Buddha. Normally, the mental abilities of animals range between 1 and 6, depending on the animal. Notice the low Wisdom but high Expertise in Perception, and special Perception features. If the habit of weirdly high "wisdom" is too hard to break, then redefine socalled "Wisdom" as merely Perception, while its willpower Save is really an inflexible instict. But cats seem more easily frightened than humans are, for example, so the lower Wisdom feels more accurate. Perception is a separate skill, that can be innately high, and special features can augment it. Most D&D Beasts that represent reallife animals would restat with lower Wisdom scores.• Charisma: I get it that cats are cute, but this isnt the same thing as a mental ability. That said, dogs and cats are more social than many other animals. A Charisma Score of 6 seems fine. Note a Persuasion Proficiency.• The Proficiency number and the Expertise number list separately. These numbers help the DM figure out special situations quickly.• I added "Night Vision" to note and tentatively quantify something that cats are famous for. Cats are about 7x better than humans at seeing in the dark, and normally hunt during the evening and morning twilights, and to a lesser degree during the night. The idea that the Cat can "see as if in Dim Light" "if any light is in sight", including star light or a distant candle, is an exaggeration by oversimplification. But there are situations that are total darkness for humans, but merely dim for cats.For comparison here is the 2014 statblock for the Cat.CATTiny beast, unalignedArmor Class 12Hit Points 2 (1d4)Speed 40 ft, climb 30 ftSTR 3 (−4), DEX 15 (+2), CON 10 (+0) INT 3 (−4), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 7 (−2)Skills Perception +3, Stealth +4Senses passive Perception 13Keen Smell: The cat has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.</blockquote>

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