- I may be an old fashioned DM, but I do expect my enemies to be bound by the same rules I am. So when I encountered Gnolls who can either melee or range attack consistently three times a round, or a would be level 4 paladin dishing out more than 20 hp damage in one attack and then happily going on to multiattack, my first reaction was "What the hell did I do wrong with my character and companion builds? Why can't I do that?". Following that was a frantic search to enable my party to provide the same level of punishment. Apparently I didn't do anything wrong, which beggars the question why a level 4 standard Gnoll is so much more proficient in combat than what should be the hero of the game.
I switch my monster up every now and then to keep my players on their toes. If things are too predictable because of OOC knowledge it's not necessarily a good thing. I think they should keep to the rules for the run-of-the-mill gnolls and goblins, but then have a lot of leeway for the bosses and unique monsters they want to put in.
