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In Search of "the" Ideal Monster Presentation
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<blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 9167953" data-attributes="member: 6915329"><p>For me, the primary problem with those abbreviated traits is that any special abilities or defenses have to get spelled out in the text, which can be hard to find if they're not neatly labeled. I love the AD&D 2e monsters--those MCs are still my favorite monster books--but it can be a real pain trying to figure out exactly what each creature's special qualities actually <em>do</em>. Often abilities were never fully explained for the sake of brevity (there's plenty of monsters that are given a ranged attack but no range was ever given, or given spells but no listing of how often they could cast them). Compare to the way 5e has resistances, immunities, traits, etc., each bolded and its own line, and spells were neatly divided into number of times per day they can be cast. It takes up a lot of space, but it's easy for me to find what I want to know.</p><p></p><p>Beyond that, though, I do agree that the half-page statblocks are often annoying. It's nice when a monster has a bunch of interesting abilities, but sometimes it's <em>too </em>much.</p><p></p><p>I'm sure there's some compromise. Bolded words in the four paragraphs of text, perhaps. Since I'm doing the "Vote Up a 5e-alike" threads, I'll think about how the monster stats could be shrunk.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Faolyn, post: 9167953, member: 6915329"] For me, the primary problem with those abbreviated traits is that any special abilities or defenses have to get spelled out in the text, which can be hard to find if they're not neatly labeled. I love the AD&D 2e monsters--those MCs are still my favorite monster books--but it can be a real pain trying to figure out exactly what each creature's special qualities actually [I]do[/I]. Often abilities were never fully explained for the sake of brevity (there's plenty of monsters that are given a ranged attack but no range was ever given, or given spells but no listing of how often they could cast them). Compare to the way 5e has resistances, immunities, traits, etc., each bolded and its own line, and spells were neatly divided into number of times per day they can be cast. It takes up a lot of space, but it's easy for me to find what I want to know. Beyond that, though, I do agree that the half-page statblocks are often annoying. It's nice when a monster has a bunch of interesting abilities, but sometimes it's [I]too [/I]much. I'm sure there's some compromise. Bolded words in the four paragraphs of text, perhaps. Since I'm doing the "Vote Up a 5e-alike" threads, I'll think about how the monster stats could be shrunk. [/QUOTE]
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