When they switched from “combat is deadly and best avoided” to “combat is fun in itself and should be a central pillar of the game.” Can’t have the fun of the game just randomly end without it being a direct result of PCs showing off their cool powers, therefore monsters stand there and ineffectually hack away until dead.
But DM guides stated monsters can flee even after morale was removed from the game. So it's not a matter of what is the concept of combat (the "sport vs war" in simplistic terms).
to me it feels more like a vestige from the war game origins of the hobby than anything else. I didn’t use it when it existed and I am not missing it either.
That's how I play too, I try to roleplay their intelligence and motivations, plus other elements like hatred and culture. But it would be nice to have a guideline like in older editions.
IDK why I didn't see your quote earlier but for some reason I didn't get a push notification. Anyhow I suppose these are things I would want to see re-instated in new monster entries. perhaps it should be its own thread but I'm pretty sure it's been discussed here before. Anyhow DMG, page 273 does detail morale according to 5E tools. Seems like an odd place to put it, and not have it in the monster manual, but I suppose they were probably thinking that its DM purview and applies to NPCs and Monsters alike.
Mod and Save will not always be the same.
The Monsters Know gives these guidelines per monster, usually a matter of intelligence and how wounded they are, but other factors (e.g. determination) are considered in as well
Yes, of course. But the point was that there’s no need to show them both when they’re the same.
