Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
Monster stat blocks never read "proficient with X". They frequently have entries that correspond to being proficient, but the proficiency is never actually stated on the stat block, you just have to assume "well, I guess the monster must be proficient".
Oh, now I understand. Thanks for your time and patience with me.
BTW:
I agree with this ruling.
The Monster Manual has a section that explains what all the different parts of a stat block are, and it explicitly says that the Skills section "specifies a monster's skill proficiencies" and defines how they're calculated.
pronouns: he/she/they
I'm not sure I do. Keeping your own int/wis/cha and your proficiencies can only mean that you can actually use your int/wis/cha and proficiencies. Otherwise why specify you keep them?
Also it leads to the weird situation where you can be worse off because the creature has a skill listed than if it doesn't.
Pantagruel666 is correct about how the monster stat blocks work.
If a monster stat block has one or more entries listed in "Skills", each entry lists a skill in which the monster is (at least) proficient. Next to this will be a hard-coded +/- value. This value represents the "proficiency" in that skill which by definition is assumed to have the Proficiency Bonus already applied to it. The Proficiency Bonus of the monster is listed elsewhere in the stat block. In many cases, you could reverse engineer a formula such that you can arrive at this "proficiency" value by starting with the monster's ability modifier and then adding its Proficiency Bonus or adding double its Proficiency Bonus (implying an expertise level of proficiency), but it doesn't necessarily have to work like that. The important bit is that the "proficiency" value is not a derived value -- it's hard-coded. Therefore, if, for example, the monster's ability modifier changes, the "proficiency" value does NOT change along with it as it would for a character.
Some general rules for "proficiency" from the PHB were posted earlier. Confusingly, despite what that rule appears to say, that procedure for determining "proficiency" is not followed for monsters. In particular, you do NOT follow the procedure whereby "This [Proficiency Bonus] bonus is applied to a D20 Test when the creature has proficiency in a skill . . . that the creature uses to make the D20 Test." That's because the total value for the proficiency is already hard-coded into the monster stat block and you simply apply that value instead. It's sort of like if an action for a monster describes an attack that has a +5 to-hit . . . that's the number that gets applied to the die roll -- there is no further calculation which needs to happen during the attack roll procedure as there might be for a character.
For example, a Goblin Warrior stat block has an entry which reads: "Skills Stealth +6" and also elsewhere in that stat block it says "PB +2". When this monster takes the Hide action and subsequently makes the necessary Stealth check, you apply +6 to the die roll for that check. You do NOT apply +8 (+6 + 2) by using the above rule / formula for calculating Proficiency. That's because for a monster the proficiency is not calculated with a formula -- it's hard-coded into the stat block.
Note that this same issue also applies to spell attacks and the DC of saving throws for spells. That same rule from above states that: "The [Proficiency Bonus] bonus is also used for spell attacks and for calculating the DC of saving throws for spells." In practice, this does not apply when using a monster stat block because those values are not "calculated" values in a stat block -- they are directly listed there in a hard-coded manner.
__________
Now, to get back to the original question in the OP:
Discussing this aspect of the Shapechange spell:
In my opinion, based on the wording used, I believe the intention is that you do not have anything twice. Whichever "game statistic" you are looking at either got "replaced" or "retained" but never both.
So, you follow this procedure:
Throw away your character sheet. Put the monster stat block in front of you. Next, cross out the monster's creature type and replace that entry with the creature type that was listed in your character sheet. Do this same thing for the monster's alignment; personality; Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores; Hit Points; Hit Point Dice; proficiencies; and ability to communicate -- replace these entries with whatever was listed in your character sheet. Lastly, if you had a Spellcasting Feature on your character sheet, you just cut-and-paste that entire Feature into your monster stat block. Published monster stat blocks for 2024 really never have an equivalent feature of their own. More typically, they might just have an Action that is defined and is named "Spellcasting". There is no conflict there. You gain this Action when the game statistics of the monster stat block replaced your character sheet, but you also still have this Feature from your character sheet.
I feel like it's worth pointing out again that that's not how the Monster Manual says the stat blocks work. It specifically says that these values are calculated by summing the ability modifier and the proficiency bonus.
pronouns: he/she/they
The relevant language from the MM is this:
This very clearly states that "Skills" = "proficiencies that a monster has", that there is a formula for calculating the bonus, and that it is followed.
It seem the only thing you can't explicitly conclude is whether a number that is more than PB+Ability Modifier is from expertise or "other modifiers".