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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hayek" data-source="post: 6336673" data-attributes="member: 53760">There's some common sense to follow, as not every single rule should be duplicated. But, yes, I believe the paralyzed condition should be included in the ghoul's stat block, as it will definitely need to be referenced in order to resolve that combat. Forcing page-flipping rules referencing time on the table is not amenable to quick/easy play. Certainly some corner cases/niche abilities don't need to be described, but if it is very likely to be used (such as a ghoul's paralyzing touch) then it should be at hand and not force rules referencing on the table. The space requirements become a good indicator of when your monster is way too complicated to be feasibly played by a non-rules intensive group. If when you throw in all the conditions/spells/movement powers it uses, and you come up with 10 pages of rules not commonly known (i.e. outside of basic attack/movement rules), that monster is way to complicated and needs to be redesigned or moved to an 'advanced' monster manual.As above, if this much information is needed to run a monster in the game, then the game has failed its stated goal of being easier to play and not feeling like a giant communal rules-reading. If you're telling me that all the relevant rules for running a monster fit in a 15-page spread because of all of the spells/conditions/powers they throw out, then I'm telling you that is a monster that no one other than an uber-experienced, advanced DM should be using. In an advanced module for people who enjoy that? Go for it!! In the 'Core' game that is supposed to be easy to pick up and play, this kind of monster is a guaranteed bad play experience in 1 of 2 ways: 1) The play (and fun) grinds to a halt as the DM references rules for 5-10 minutes 2) The monster's abilities are ignored by the DM as they are too overwhelming to process at the table, and consequently the monster is not the big bad threat it was advertised to be. This happened every time I threw my party against a lich back in 2nd edition in my 'formative' years of high school d&d - I always got overwhelmed by the spell list (and didn't want to stop to read all of its spells) and just had it attack, then was shocked when this 'terrifying, deadly' monster just did d6 claw damage.By the way, you didn't really think I was gonna put up a post without a numbered list in it did you! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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