Creatures w/ Innate Spellcasting - need Material Components or Not?

[ksbsnowowl]

Draconomicon, page 24:

RULES: MAGICAL ABILITIES
As noted in the Monster Manual, creatures with innate spellcasting abilities, such as dragons, do not require material components to cast their spells. If a spell has a focus, however, a dragon or other innate spellcaster must have the focus on its person.

MM1 Glossary, page 315:

Spells: Sometimes a creature can cast arcane or divine spells just as a member of a spellcasting class can (and can activate magic items accordingly). Such creatures are subject to the same spellcasting rules that characters are, except as follows.

A spellcasting creature that lacks hands or arms can provide any somatic component a spell might require by moving its body. Such a creature also does need material components for its spells. The creature can cast the spell by either touching the required component (but not if the component is in another creature’s possession) or having the required component on its person. Sometimes spellcasting creatures utilize the Eschew Materials feat to avoid fussing with noncostly components.

[Jackinthegreen]

http://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=36923 might be something to look at while people here go digging.

[rot42]

Rules Compendium (137) sez that spellcasting creatures do require material components and sometimes select Eschew Materials. I think that this is part of the distinction between having casting and just having a few SLAs.

[wotmaniac]

I think that the rule is when a given source conflicts with Core, default to Core.
If Dcn had said something like "hey, we're just gonna fap even harder to dragons, so they, and only they, no longer need components for their innate spellcasting" -- that would have been fine (dumb, but honest and logical in a "Dragons are awesome" book).  But the author clearly didn't even understand the base rule (which he was only trying to reiterate).

[ksbsnowowl]

But the author clearly didn't even understand the base rule (which he was only trying to reiterate).

Yeah, that's what I'm getting out of it.

Darn.  Would have been nice.