In Dungeons & Dragons and similar games, a creature's type describes its basic characteristics. Creature types may interact with some rules, e.g. character abilities that work only on specific types. In that use, a type is a tag, keyword, or trait.
A subtype is a qualifier for type. For instance, red dragons are of the dragon type and fire elementals are elemental, but both are of the fire subtype.
Monster types in Classic Dungeons & Dragons[]
The Rules Cyclopedia compiled the different monster types from the BECMI rules series.
- Normal Animal: including Giant Animals and Prehistoric Animals
- Lowlife: including Insects, Arachnids, Fungi, Slimes, and similar creatures
- Construct
- Dragon: including dragon-like creatures and dragon-kin
- Humanoid: including Human, Demihuman, and Giant Humanoid
- Monster: fairly equivalent to monstrosity in 5e
- Planar Monster
- Undead
With the exception of planar monster and undead, these types do not pertain much to a creature's origin so much as its form and characteristics. Thus, a creature such as a dryad is a "person" with respect to such spells as charm person.
Types in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition[]
The following list is used in Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition.
- Aberration: An aberration has a bizarre anatomy, strange abilities, an alien mindset, or any combination of the three.
- Animal: An animal is a living, nonhuman creature, usually a vertebrate with no magical abilities and no innate capacity for language or culture.
- Construct: A construct is an animated object or artificially constructed creature.
- Dragon: A dragon is a reptilelike creature, usually winged, with magical or unusual abilities.
- Elemental: An elemental is a being composed of one of the four classical elements: air, earth, fire, or water.
- Fey: A fey is a creature with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place. Fey are usually human-shaped.
- Giant: A giant is a humanoid-shaped creature of great strength, usually of at least Large size.
- Humanoid: A humanoid usually has two arms, two legs, and one head, or a humanlike torso, arms, and a head. Humanoids have few or no supernatural or extraordinary abilities, but most can speak and usually have well-developed societies. They usually are Small or Medium. Every humanoid creature also has a subtype.
- Magical beast: Magical beasts are similar to animals but can be more intelligent. Magical beasts usually have supernatural or extraordinary abilities, but sometimes are merely bizarre in appearance or habits.
- Monstrous humanoid
- Ooze: An ooze is an amorphous or mutable creature, usually mindless.
- Outsider: An outsider is at least partially composed of the essence (but not necessarily the material) of some plane other than the Material Plane. Some creatures start out as some other type and become outsiders when they attain a higher (or lower) state of spiritual existence.
- Plant: This type comprises vegetable creatures. Regular plants, such as one finds growing in gardens and fields, lack Wisdom and Charisma scores (see Nonabilities) and are not creatures, but objects, even though they are alive.
- Undead: Undead are once-living creatures animated by spiritual or supernatural forces.
- Vermin: This type includes insects, arachnids, other arthropods, worms, and similar invertebrates.
Dungeons & Dragons third edition (3.0) had the same list, plus the Beast and Shapechanger types.
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game uses a similar list, but excludes elemental and giant.[1]
In these versions of the game, a creature's type also functioned as a type of class for monsters, defining its Hit Dice, attack bonus progression, and so forth.
Types in Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition[]
In 4th edition, types were split into two axes, origin types and general types, which could be combined in many ways.
The origin types are:
And the general types are:
Each monster has one origin type and one general type, and possibly some subtypes. For example, Dragon is now a subtype, generally of Natural Magical Beasts.[2]
Types in Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition[]
5th edition D&D returns to the single axis of creature type from 3rd edition. The types in 5th edition are:
- Aberration
- Beast
- Celestial
- Construct
- Dragon
- Elemental
- Fey
- Fiend
- Giant
- Humanoid
- Monstrosity
- Ooze
- Plant
- Undead
Types in Pathfinder Second Edition[]
Pathfinder Second Edition treats type as any other trait for a creature, and as such it includes a longer (indefinite) list, including:
- Aberration
- Animal
- Astral
- Beast
- Celestial
- Construct
- Dragon
- Elemental
- Ethereal
- Fey
- Fiend
- Fungus
- Giant
- Humanoid
- Monitor
- Ooze
- Plant
- Undead[3]
References[]
- ↑ "Creature Types & Subtypes". d20PFSRD (SRD for Pathfinder). Retrieved 2020-08-06.
- ↑ Echohawk (2008-04-18). "4E - 4ed creature types and subtypes". ENWorld forums. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
- ↑ "Bestiary". PF2 SRD (an SRD for Pathfinder Second Edition). Retrieved 2020-08-06.