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Anyone else HATE the 3E stat block?
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<blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 64066" data-attributes="member: 114"><p>I find the standard stat blocks really difficult to use. In a published adventure I photocopy the stat pages and use a highlighter pen to mark AC, BAB etc, Saves.</p><p></p><p>For my money, a great stat block just has the ability modifiers and not the abilities themselves, because for nearly every mook in every battle it is only the ability mod that is important (there just ain't that many poisoned or diseased bad guys in my game, and nobody does anything to them to affect their stats. The actual ability numbers aren't worth having for me, certainly not when I'm running a combat.</p><p></p><p>Most of the time I re-write stats out on little "combat cards" for the key foes and NPCs. Like someone else I normally put</p><p></p><p>+4 bite (1d6+2), 2x -1 claw (1d4+1)</p><p></p><p>so that the damage is next to the attack bonus.</p><p></p><p>I always use AC as 17 (-1 size, +1 dex, +7 armour) rather than the horrible recent versions which say AC17 (touch 10, flatfooted 16). Not least because published adventures often make mistakes!</p><p></p><p>Strangely I find it much easier to instantly work out touch or flatfooted AC from that listing than it is to work out an ability mod. I guess I'm better at adding and subtracting than division <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Cheers</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Plane Sailing, post: 64066, member: 114"] I find the standard stat blocks really difficult to use. In a published adventure I photocopy the stat pages and use a highlighter pen to mark AC, BAB etc, Saves. For my money, a great stat block just has the ability modifiers and not the abilities themselves, because for nearly every mook in every battle it is only the ability mod that is important (there just ain't that many poisoned or diseased bad guys in my game, and nobody does anything to them to affect their stats. The actual ability numbers aren't worth having for me, certainly not when I'm running a combat. Most of the time I re-write stats out on little "combat cards" for the key foes and NPCs. Like someone else I normally put +4 bite (1d6+2), 2x -1 claw (1d4+1) so that the damage is next to the attack bonus. I always use AC as 17 (-1 size, +1 dex, +7 armour) rather than the horrible recent versions which say AC17 (touch 10, flatfooted 16). Not least because published adventures often make mistakes! Strangely I find it much easier to instantly work out touch or flatfooted AC from that listing than it is to work out an ability mod. I guess I'm better at adding and subtracting than division :) Cheers [/QUOTE]
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Anyone else HATE the 3E stat block?
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