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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8533307" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Beyond the two reasons you listed, I find that there's a third, which might be easily mistaken for verisimilitude but is actually quite different. That is, verisimilitude covers (more or less) "how this creature exists in the world/cosmology." There's another reason of a similar kind but not the same: explicitly spelling out how its abilities work.I don't mean its combat abilities, though those are also relevant. I mean things like "how a genie's wishes work" or "what mummy rot does" or the like. Things like the ecology, behavior, and society (if sapient) are verisimilitude. Things like damage values, AC, HP, etc. are combat. But "can speak telepathically at-will, but only broadcast"? That's...not really a combat thing, but it's also not particularly related to verisimilitude either. Likewise, what languages a creature knows are verisimilitude, and its Intelligence bonus is more or less mostly combat-focused, but supernatural linguistic abilities warrant explanation, e.g. "acts as though under the effect of tongues and comprehend langauges at all times, but as an innate ability that is not suppressed when entering an antimagic field or dead magic zone." No real combat significance, but also not really "verisimilitude" in the formal sense, since it doesn't really have anything to do with giving the impression of a grounded, realized entity.And the thing is, a LOT of good creatures in the MM have abilities like this! Angels and dragons and agathions/guardinals, all sorts of things have fancy features or quirky non-combat abilities that warrant being spelled out.That gives us three reasons: statblocks for when they need to fight (whether with or against the PCs), ecological/sociological/psychological info for helping contribute to a consistent and believable world, and miscellaneous abilities that matter but aren't ecological/etc. nor meaningfully combat-related.</blockquote>

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