D&D (2024) Creature Stat Blocks in 2024 Player's Handbook

[Micah Sweet]

I like having it turn on the Healer’s Kit Dependency and Slower Natural Healing rules. When you’re bloodied you’ve taken meaningful meat damage and need to be patched up to recover.

This is a better idea.

 

[GreatestHonor]

Keen Senses has been a deprecated design element for a while now, looking at recent 2014 rules books you won't see it, going back to at least Monsters of the Multiverse. Instead, you'll see Proficiency or Expertise in Perception for creatures that used to or otherwise would have Keen Senses.

You can see it in the 2024 Wolf stat block with its +5 to Perception (Wis +1, PB +2 doubled).

Personally not a fan of this change. It makes Perception too broad for some creatures. I like that it was specified that wolves weegood and hearing and smelling, not all senses.

 

[the Jester]

Personally not a fan of this change. It makes Perception too broad for some creatures. I like that it was specified that wolves weegood and hearing and smelling, not all senses.

I miss the Scent special quality from 3e.

 

[Dan Dillon]

Personally not a fan of this change. It makes Perception too broad for some creatures. I like that it was specified that wolves weegood and hearing and smelling, not all senses.

I get it, but what tended to happen too much is DMs flat out forgot to apply the advantage at all so in a practical sense the wolves had no boosted senses whatsoever. That's at least the impetus for the change. I'm not declaring anyone has to like it.

 

[pukunui]

I get it, but what tended to happen too much is DMs flat out forgot to apply the advantage at all so in a practical sense the wolves had no boosted senses whatsoever. That's at least the impetus for the change. I'm not declaring anyone has to like it.

This. Back when I used to write out all the statblocks in Word docs so I could customize them more easily, I would put something like "passive Perception 15 (20 for scents)" or similar. But once I started relying heavily on DDB, where you can't customize the passive Perception part of the statblock, I stopped bothering. It's easy to forget conditional bonuses and penalties like those!

 

[Micah Sweet]

This. Back when I used to write out all the statblocks in Word docs so I could customize them more easily, I would put something like "passive Perception 15 (20 for scents)" or similar. But once I started relying heavily on DDB, where you can't customize the passive Perception part of the statblock, I stopped bothering. It's easy to forget conditional bonuses and penalties like those!

One side benefit of not using DDB.

 

[pukunui]

One side benefit of not using DDB.

Oh man, DDB saves me so much time compared to when I did it all by hand. I don’t think I could ever go back to how I was doing it before.

 

[zottel]

But, again, it’s inclusion doesn’t take any additional page space, so being on team tiny combat blocks isn’t relevant here. It’s one thing to say you don’t like it aesthetically, but don’t try to claim it’s a page space issue when this literally takes less page space than it used to, and getting rid of monster save proficiencies entirely wouldn’t reduce the page space any further.

Still adds to the visual clutter. For me, it's not only about the size of the stat block. The reason it should be smaller is so it is easier and faster to use. You could reduce the size in any number of ways, but the main goal needs to be usability, which for me would be increased by removing the column.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh man, DDB saves me so much time compared to when I did it all by hand. I don’t think I could ever go back to how I was doing it before.

Well, I don't play WotC's version of 5e, and DDB's not much good for anything else.

 

[Charlaquin]

Still adds to the visual clutter.

Right, so aesthetic preference. Which is perfectly fine, it’s just not an issue of stat block size.