We have 2 Druids in our new campaign, and were looking up some likely creatures they'd have available for Wild Shape, given the environment the PCs were from. Xanathar's has some nice tables of creatures organized by environment, but the Mountain environment was somewhat lacking. Then I found some good beasts from adventures, like the Mountain Goat in Icewind Dale, which seemed an obvious option. However, there's no environment tag for any of the monsters in that adventure, so I can't just say "search for Mountain Beasts." How are Environment tags determined for monsters, anyway?
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Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
We have 2 Druids in our new campaign, and were looking up some likely creatures they'd have available for Wild Shape, given the environment the PCs were from. Xanathar's has some nice tables of creatures organized by environment, but the Mountain environment was somewhat lacking. Then I found some good beasts from adventures, like the Mountain Goat in Icewind Dale, which seemed an obvious option. However, there's no environment tag for any of the monsters in that adventure, so I can't just say "search for Mountain Beasts." How are Environment tags determined for monsters, anyway?
Environment tags per se are from the DMG, p302 - it's an explicit list, so any new monsters added to the game after the MM/DMG/PHB aren't in it. I'm not aware of Xanathar's modifying the DMG list in any way, although it might have - so far as I know, all it did was trim the DMG lists by biome to only include Beasts. I'm also not aware of any rules source post-DMG giving the same information for additional monsters that have come out since.
Bear in mind almost no-one is just from the Mountain biome, since Mountains can exist anywhere. Usually, anyone who grew up on a Mountain is also familiar with at least one other biome. Pick any mountain on Earth that has humans living on it and you'll immediately see that at least one other biome would also be appropriate. That should help flesh out your Wild Shape lists at least a little.
There's another trick you can pull as well, I'll DM you about it.
We have 2 Druids in our new campaign, and were looking up some likely creatures they'd have available for Wild Shape, given the environment the PCs were from. Xanathar's has some nice tables of creatures organized by environment, but the Mountain environment was somewhat lacking. Then I found some good beasts from adventures, like the Mountain Goat in Icewind Dale, which seemed an obvious option. However, there's no environment tag for any of the monsters in that adventure, so I can't just say "search for Mountain Beasts." How are Environment tags determined for monsters, anyway?
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Environment tags per se are from the DMG, p302 - it's an explicit list, so any new monsters added to the game after the MM/DMG/PHB aren't in it. I'm not aware of Xanathar's modifying the DMG list in any way, although it might have - so far as I know, all it did was trim the DMG lists by biome to only include Beasts. I'm also not aware of any rules source post-DMG giving the same information for additional monsters that have come out since.
Bear in mind almost no-one is just from the Mountain biome, since Mountains can exist anywhere. Usually, anyone who grew up on a Mountain is also familiar with at least one other biome. Pick any mountain on Earth that has humans living on it and you'll immediately see that at least one other biome would also be appropriate. That should help flesh out your Wild Shape lists at least a little.
There's another trick you can pull as well, I'll DM you about it.
Thank you for the DMG page reference (Appendix B), that was what I was looking for in terms of "where did the tags comes from?"
We're also including the Hill biome for the character who came from the mountains, I was just trying to figure out the sources of things.
Your messaged suggestion on how to find beasts with a climb or burrow speed within the right CR range is doable on DnDB, by the way.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
You left out the environment filter, which DDB can't accomplish.
There's only a couple pages of results from my search, so I'm good. You don't need to push that other site.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)