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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4214639" data-attributes="member: 2067">I'm kind of with you on this one. To bring back a catchphrase from a few months ago, IMO, a monster should be able to fill three different roles in the game: Adversary, Anybody, and Ally.#1 (most important): It should be an interesting encounter.This means, good combat abilities used in unusual ways. This is good when you're fighting the monster.#2 (very important): It should be an interesting being. Monsters come from somewhere, they go somewhere. They need to have a place in the world. This is good when you're dealing with the monster, but not (necessarily) fighting it.#3 (important to pay attention to): It should be an interesting ally.PC's who recruit the monster, or who go through its territory, or who otherwise team up with it against the Greater Threat. This is key because it's going to happen and it can't unbalance the game when it does.The problem will be when non-obvious monsters don't get the fluff they need.When considering the importance of fluff to monsters, I think it's important to ask yourself the following question:How many times have you used a phantom fungus in your games?It's an interesting encounter. Invisibility, plant abilities, it requires innovative tactics (at a low level) to overcome. It's colossally dull in fluff.Now imagine 50% of the MM being filled with phantom fungi.And we have a Slight Problem. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />edit: as a corollary, think of why you might want to use a succubus in an encounter. Is it because of the combat that results from it, or the seduction and evil leading into the combat?</blockquote>

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