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Why is the media overstating how controversial the Druid's Owlbear shape is?
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<blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8934499" data-attributes="member: 7023887"><p>This in general points out the loose definitions of "beasts" and "monstrosities" in D&D. Sure, artificial creatures (even if they're now true-breeding") typically count as monstrosities in D&D, not beasts. But . . . who defines "artificial creatures"? Humans made dogs through thousands of years of artificial selection. Do dogs and other extremely domesticated animals count as "artificial creatures" and not "creatures of nature" and therefore should be monstrosities instead of beasts. In a ton of D&D worlds, all animals and sentient races were created by one of the world's gods, typically through magical means, and are therefore "artificial" in the sense that they were made by sentient creatures. Should Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and other god-created creatures be monstrosities instead of humanoids? And that's not even mentioning that some creatures that might be "natural" or "artificial" in one setting might be in the opposite category in a different world or edition of the setting (old Forgotten Realms lore about the evolution of dragons versus newer lore that says they were created by their gods). </p><p></p><p>Clearly, creature type is an abstraction and has some pretty major flaws, just like real world taxonomy (but is obviously more flawed than real world taxonomy, because it was made by game designers making up fantasy terms, not scientists spending centuries researching the topic). Sometimes creature type is a matter of game balance instead of setting lore that defines the creatures. Several 5e "beasts" have been errata'ed into monstrosities, presumably because they don't want Druids to be able to turn into them (Crag Cats, Steeders, Tressyms, etc).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Levistus's_Leviathan, post: 8934499, member: 7023887"] This in general points out the loose definitions of "beasts" and "monstrosities" in D&D. Sure, artificial creatures (even if they're now true-breeding") typically count as monstrosities in D&D, not beasts. But . . . who defines "artificial creatures"? Humans made dogs through thousands of years of artificial selection. Do dogs and other extremely domesticated animals count as "artificial creatures" and not "creatures of nature" and therefore should be monstrosities instead of beasts. In a ton of D&D worlds, all animals and sentient races were created by one of the world's gods, typically through magical means, and are therefore "artificial" in the sense that they were made by sentient creatures. Should Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and other god-created creatures be monstrosities instead of humanoids? And that's not even mentioning that some creatures that might be "natural" or "artificial" in one setting might be in the opposite category in a different world or edition of the setting (old Forgotten Realms lore about the evolution of dragons versus newer lore that says they were created by their gods). Clearly, creature type is an abstraction and has some pretty major flaws, just like real world taxonomy (but is obviously more flawed than real world taxonomy, because it was made by game designers making up fantasy terms, not scientists spending centuries researching the topic). Sometimes creature type is a matter of game balance instead of setting lore that defines the creatures. Several 5e "beasts" have been errata'ed into monstrosities, presumably because they don't want Druids to be able to turn into them (Crag Cats, Steeders, Tressyms, etc). [/QUOTE]
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Why is the media overstating how controversial the Druid's Owlbear shape is?
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