Animal to Magical Beast as Humanoid to Monstrous Humanoid?

[Tvtyrant]

MH: Monstrous Humanoid
H: Humanoid
MB: Magical Beast

I was looking through Stormwrack's monsters and I realized that the separation of Magical Beasts/Animals and Humanoids/Monstrous Humanoids is spotty at best. One of the "Magical Beasts" from Stormwrack is a fish with horns. Nothing else about it is remotely magical, it has an int of 2, but the horns apparently make it entirely separate from the animal kingdom.

The H to MH conversion is much the same; if it has animal parts or is weird it is a MH instead of a H, unless it is an aberration or randomly put in humanoid anyway. Is a Hadozee more human than a Gnoll?

And don't get me started on the arbitraryness of what becomes an aberration. The Anguillian is an eel with hands, which seems like a MH to me, but actually it is an aberration!

If it were me I would eliminate the Aberration type entirely, dividing everything in it into either MHs or MBs. Beholder? MB. Ithiliad? MH. Elan? H.

[mangosta71]

The distinguishing characteristic is an immunity to certain types of charms.

[Steward]

I like the aberration type for entities from the Far Realm, creatures that exist either outside the natural order or an affront to it.

I agree with you on the arbitrariness but I feel like aberrations are thematically more interesting and should be kept distinct from monstrous humanoids that are just odd-looking foreigners. Merging the two to me would feel like merging monstrous humanoids with undead.

[Waker]

[SPOILER]I was looking through Stormwrack's monsters and I realized that the separation of Magical Beasts/Animals and Humanoids/Monstrous Humanoids is spotty at best. One of the "Magical Beasts" from Stormwrack is a fish with horns. Nothing else about it is remotely magical, it has an int of 2, but the horns apparently make it entirely separate from the animal kingdom.
Well of course not! Fish don't have bones. Horns are composed of keratin and bone. Ergo, it must not be a fish.


The H to MH conversion is much the same; if it has animal parts or is weird it is a MH instead of a H, unless it is an aberration or randomly put in humanoid anyway. Is a Hadozee more human than a Gnoll?
You could make that argument that Hadozee are closer to humans than Gnolls, since they are descended from Apes, whereas Gnolls are akin to Hyena.


And don't get me started on the arbitraryness of what becomes an aberration. The Anguillian is an eel with hands, which seems like a MH to me, but actually it is an aberration!
Much of the time you can assume a creature is an Aberration if it is alien somehow (Far Realms, another planet) or if it is somehow related to a mix of arthropod, fish, amphibian and reptile. The latter seems to be a shout out to Lovecraft, where many of his monsters possessed at least some traits from creatures inhabiting the waters. After that it gets tricky. How is an Elan an Aberration, but a Dromite is a Monstrous Humanoid?

[Tvtyrant]

Well of course not! Fish don't have bones. Horns are composed of keratin and bone. Ergo, it must not be a fish.


You could make that argument that Hadozee are closer to humans than Gnolls, since they are descended from Apes, whereas Gnolls are akin to Hyena.


Much of the time you can assume a creature is an Aberration if it is alien somehow (Far Realms, another planet) or if it is somehow related to a mix of arthropod, fish, amphibian and reptile. The latter seems to be a shout out to Lovecraft, where many of his monsters possessed at least some traits from creatures inhabiting the waters. After that it gets tricky. How is an Elan an Aberration, but a Dromite is a Monstrous Humanoid?
Most fish have bones.... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteichthyes)

Are goblins descended from apes? Elves? Dwarves? I don't think evolution counts for much in a world where oozes and dragons can produce offspring...

Merfolk are shown as having fish and human parts, and they are humanoids. IMO humanoid vs. none-humanoid is based on how attractive the characters are.

[Waker]

Most fish have bones.... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteichthyes)

Are goblins descended from apes? Elves? Dwarves? I don't think evolution counts for much in a world where oozes and dragons can produce offspring...

Merfolk are shown as having fish and human parts, and they are humanoids. IMO humanoid vs. none-humanoid is based on how attractive the characters are.

Hmm, my lack of sleep is showing up more frequently in my posts. I like that I remember about keratin in horn, but not about fish bones.
The post about being ape descended was mostly tongue in cheek, considering the magical nature of D&D. I could have used colored text, but I decided against it.
The attractiveness isn't necessarily the case. As I mentioned before, Elans look like humans and are considered aberrations, while dromites are monstrous humanoids. I think that at least partially the decision to classify a creature is determined by whether or not it exists in myth outside of the game. While many creatures are unique to D&D, I can't think of one outside of Will-O-Wisps that are aberrations.

[Yora]

The difference between an animal and a magical beast is that animals are modeled after real world animals, while magical beasts are fictional.

Which within the world of the game isn't a difference at all, they are all real.

Humanoids and Monstrous Humanoids have no difference. They are completely random.

[Steward]

One of my favorite examples of this is the Ormyrr (http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_98.jpg&imgrefurl=http://monsterfinder.dndrunde.de/details.php?id%3D615%26backlink%3D%252Fallmonsters .php&h=273&w=400&sz=106&tbnid=4HcCABp9DJb1nM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=132&zoom=1&usg=__SXYrWUO2ris5XLp3-b4uymVPrJw=&docid=-iLl_3brtt7e6M&sa=X&ei=wWifUZq8EZH64AO6voDwCQ&ved=0CDwQ9QEwAg&dur=1670).

It is a 20-foot long bloated lightning-blue slug with an enormous frog-like head filled with razor sharp fangs, huge reptilian eyes, four tiny arms. Like a giant slug, it uses a tangled mess of wriggling cilia-like limbs coating the underside of its body. You might think that such a creature, which is hinted to come from another dimension, would be clearly an Aberration, or at least a Magical Beast or an Outsider.

Nope. Monstrous Humanoid.

[TuggyNE]

I think that at least partially the decision to classify a creature is determined by whether or not it exists in myth outside of the game. While many creatures are unique to D&D, I can't think of one outside of Will-O-Wisps that are aberrations.

Your antecedents are a bit puzzling here, but I think you mean that you can't think of a mythical creature included in D&D that's an aberration besides the Will o' Wisp (which is undeniably mythical, not unique). Another exception, though, would be nagas.

Honestly, nagas should probably be MonHu, right?


One of my favorite examples of this is the Ormyrr (http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_98.jpg&imgrefurl=http://monsterfinder.dndrunde.de/details.php?id%3D615%26backlink%3D%252Fallmonsters .php&h=273&w=400&sz=106&tbnid=4HcCABp9DJb1nM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=132&zoom=1&usg=__SXYrWUO2ris5XLp3-b4uymVPrJw=&docid=-iLl_3brtt7e6M&sa=X&ei=wWifUZq8EZH64AO6voDwCQ&ved=0CDwQ9QEwAg&dur=1670).

It is a 20-foot long bloated lightning-blue slug with an enormous frog-like head filled with razor sharp fangs, huge reptilian eyes, four tiny arms. Like a giant slug, it uses a tangled mess of wriggling cilia-like limbs coating the underside of its body. You might think that such a creature, which is hinted to come from another dimension, would be clearly an Aberration, or at least a Magical Beast or an Outsider.

Nope. Monstrous Humanoid.

All of the facepalms!

[Tvtyrant]

The difference between an animal and a magical beast is that animals are modeled after real world animals, while magical beasts are fictional.

Which within the world of the game isn't a difference at all, they are all real.

Humanoids and Monstrous Humanoids have no difference. They are completely random.

They also grant Magical Beasts a better chassis than animals. Better BaB and HD, which means that an Owlbear is a better fighter than a normal bear of the same HD. Why is the Owlbear more capable of hitting someone than a Brown Bear?

The whole thing just irritates me for some reason. Someone (else) should do something!

[Coidzor]

Most fish have bones.... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteichthyes)

Are goblins descended from apes? Elves? Dwarves? I don't think evolution counts for much in a world where oozes and dragons can produce offspring...

Merfolk are shown as having fish and human parts, and they are humanoids. IMO humanoid vs. none-humanoid is based on how attractive the characters are.

I always figured it was primarily based upon whether they wanted players to seriously consider playing one.

[The Viscount]

One of my favorite examples of this is the Ormyrr (http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_98.jpg&imgrefurl=http://monsterfinder.dndrunde.de/details.php?id%3D615%26backlink%3D%252Fallmonsters .php&h=273&w=400&sz=106&tbnid=4HcCABp9DJb1nM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=132&zoom=1&usg=__SXYrWUO2ris5XLp3-b4uymVPrJw=&docid=-iLl_3brtt7e6M&sa=X&ei=wWifUZq8EZH64AO6voDwCQ&ved=0CDwQ9QEwAg&dur=1670).

It is a 20-foot long bloated lightning-blue slug with an enormous frog-like head filled with razor sharp fangs, huge reptilian eyes, four tiny arms. Like a giant slug, it uses a tangled mess of wriggling cilia-like limbs coating the underside of its body. You might think that such a creature, which is hinted to come from another dimension, would be clearly an Aberration, or at least a Magical Beast or an Outsider.

Nope. Monstrous Humanoid.

Along the same lines, I was floored when I found that Drakkensteed was an animal.

[TuggyNE]

Along the same lines, I was floored when I found that Drakkensteed was an animal.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course.

[Balthanon]

The real difference that makes a designer put a creature into one category or another? Each of the latter types have full base attack bonus. i.e. the fish with horns is a magical beast because they wanted it to be more of a threat.

The variant hobgoblins in the MM5 (I think) are a good example of this-- they were made into monstrous humanoids because monstrous humanoids have good BAB. I believe the designer actually posted about it afterwards, though I don't recall where I saw that.