3.5 Stat Blocks Kill my creativity

[Kid Charlemagne]

Stat blocks drive me nuts as well, but if I forego using them I feel like I'm not doing my job.

The two biggest rules of DM'ing:

1. Do only the work you need to do.

2. Never let the players know when you're winging it.

And this is coming from a DM who likes to do a lot of prep.

 

[barsoomcore]

Ah, the "D&D is too complex" thread. Been a while, thread, nice to have you back.

 

[satori01]

SRD, SRD, SRD.

The SRD is the thing that makes stating up of creatures an easier thing, infact I stopped using E-tools and went to cut and paste of the SRD, cause it was easier and more accurate.

Tired of forgetting what the condittion Shaken does: cut and paste the condittion right there. Tired of a player forgetting how Turn works, Bingo print it out and have them stapple it to their character sheet. Want to add a template to a creature, bingo make the adjustments straight to the stat blocks.

I like 3.5 because it lets me make complex monsters, that feel consitent and rational.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

*Shrug*

An hour of prep for me usually translates to a six hour session -- or more.

Etools + Jamis Buck + Word copy/paste + prepublished stuff = minimal overhead.

Lot of stats in D&D? Yes. Not as many as some games, more than others. Use what you need, and remember that your stats don't have to be perfect. No one cares how many ranks in Diplomacy that mook has anyway. If the stats are too much, I suspect that (1) D&D may not be for you, or (2) the individual campaign might not be fun enough to make the prep effort worth it -- and that's not a problem with the game and rules, that's a problem with the campaign and gaming group.

Edit: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

My wife shows our dogs in agility. She spends weeks training, hundreds of dollars on travel and entry fees, for a 45-second run. If she didn't feel like the investment or effort were worth it, would it be the fault of the rules? In this case, the training and everything else is part of the fun. I submit the same is (or should be) true of DMing.

 

[Immak Antunel]

I've actually gotten to the point where I kind of enjoy stat blocks. Sure it's time intensive and occasionally repetetive, but hey, beats doing schoolwork. In the past week or so, I statted up a 13th level evil adventuring party, a very advanced dinosaur, a 17th level villain, two or three monsters with class levels, and a pair of extra antagonists for a mid-level module I'm running. Once I got the hang of it, I started to have fun. Maybe it's a momentum thing.

Oh, and I suppose it helps that I'm writing with the ultimate goal of publication in mind.

 

[dren]

Another idea is to create your own standard classes for levels between 1-10. Then when you need something, add the calculated statistics (atk, grapple, saves, feats and skills) to a racial, monster or prestige class "template", then adjust as needed. This works really well, as all of those things stack with each other, and only the magic items, spells and AC takes a bit of time to be calculated. It saves me a ton o'prep time, especially after adjusting it to fit on a spreadsheet program like excel.

For "unique" NPCs, I take the time to do them as individuals but it doesn't take that long if you use a character generator.

dren

 

[IronWolf]

I rarely lay anything out in a full stat block. I have an offline copy of the SRD to work off of in some cases or jot down highlights on some index cards. If I really need to generate a full stat block and choosing a closely matching one from Jamis Buck's NPC generator doesn't work then I use DM Genie to build up an NPC pretty quick and grab the stat block from there. I haven't found stat blocks to be an issue at all.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I don't have any problem with statblocks myself. The key is to build up a number of workable and useful NPCs--they can then be re-used through the magic of cut and paste.

I ran a campaign several years ago now and I created a bunch of NPCs and monsters while I was doing it. Load the files, check to see if they've anything that changed in 3.5 and I've got a bunch of NPCs ready to go. I run a fair number of modules too. Need an evil cleric? Snag one from Goodman Games' Eirie of the Crow God. Heck, the D&D miniatures now come with those little cards with their game stats on one side. Well, the other side has D&D stats. Slap a bunch of those in my binder and I've stats for everything from a sahuagin ranger to a crow shaman. (And I've only got four or five boxes of the things). But what about that odd prestige class I found? The new expansion books all have sample characters for each prestige class. (I don't think it's necessary or really helpful to me, but it's a source of no-work statblocks). Photocopy that page and you're ready to go. And if that's not enough, it's not much work to click on over to the Rogue's Gallery and find the 100 D&D NPC statblocks thread or Blackdirge's various threads (if you've a hankering for something truly fiendish and unusual).

I imagine I could probably run a campaign for two years now without ever writing up a statblock or resolving to not bother and just make it up as I go along. There are literally statblocks all over the place if you don't want to create them yourself or use randomly generated ones (and I hate the randomly generated ones myself since they regularly spit out nonsensical characters like a paladin with an 8 strength and 12 charisma and Skill Focus: Profession Lawyer). The only work you need to do (if you don't want to print them out and organize them by hand) is to cut and paste them into a single document.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Lastly, I've concluded that, because of this and other problems that get in way of the story, I don't like playing Dungeons & Dragons. So when my campaign ends in the next month, that's it! I'm done.

I'll still play RPGs--just not D&D.

You'll be quitting d20 Fantasy, not D&D. Perhaps you could break out or ebay-up a D&D Rules Cyclopedia or try Castles & Crusades.

 

[Steel_Wind]

e-tools makes this easier than any game I've ever played, in any version.

I really don't understand why everyone does not get this program.