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<blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 6310520" data-attributes="member: 7635">Thought I'd toss some additional fuel to the fire. Here is a PDF with the &quot;stat block&quot; of the goblin in six versions of D&amp;D: Original, Basic, 1e, 2e, 3.5, 4e, and Next. Most of these are straight from PDFs or the books (or the SRD in 3.5's case) with minor reformatting to make it fix a six column layout. You can see some interesting things when you look at all six. * You can definitely distill an &quot;essence&quot; of goblin out of them; some elements remain true for many editions (look how often 40-400 appears, or how every goblin is wearing leather armor). * The stat blocks have grown progressively longer, culminating in 3.5 before reversing to getting smaller (formatting here creates the illusion of size, but if you look at info density, you find the same trend)* However, goblins have been given progressively more and more to do, at least as far as individual options. * Part of the reason the block has been getting longer is that more info needed is actually included with the monster (previous to 3e, saves were not written out but instead referred you to a chart in the books/DM screen. Same with to-hit). So while the 3.5 block might cause your eyes to glaze over with info-overload, it actually can be completely run as-is without referring to supplemental material (weapon tables, saving throws, combat matrices) to run. * Likewise, omitting the &quot;text&quot; below the stat block removes a lot of useful info, such as how they have infravision, light penalties, and even what languages they speak. A lot of important &quot;stat&quot; info is found in those paragraphs, something later D&amp;D thought to include in their stat blocks. *I'm sure repeating this exercise with more complex monsters (orcs, minotaurs, medusas, or dragons) would yield a similar result. Anyway, here is the chart. Enjoy. [ATTACH]62038[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Remathilis, post: 6310520, member: 7635"] Thought I'd toss some additional fuel to the fire. Here is a PDF with the "stat block" of the goblin in six versions of D&D: Original, Basic, 1e, 2e, 3.5, 4e, and Next. Most of these are straight from PDFs or the books (or the SRD in 3.5's case) with minor reformatting to make it fix a six column layout. You can see some interesting things when you look at all six. * You can definitely distill an "essence" of goblin out of them; some elements remain true for many editions (look how often 40-400 appears, or how every goblin is wearing leather armor). * The stat blocks have grown progressively longer, culminating in 3.5 before reversing to getting smaller (formatting here creates the illusion of size, but if you look at info density, you find the same trend) * However, goblins have been given progressively more and more to do, at least as far as individual options. * Part of the reason the block has been getting longer is that more info needed is actually included with the monster (previous to 3e, saves were not written out but instead referred you to a chart in the books/DM screen. Same with to-hit). So while the 3.5 block might cause your eyes to glaze over with info-overload, it actually can be completely run as-is without referring to supplemental material (weapon tables, saving throws, combat matrices) to run. * Likewise, omitting the "text" below the stat block removes a lot of useful info, such as how they have infravision, light penalties, and even what languages they speak. A lot of important "stat" info is found in those paragraphs, something later D&D thought to include in their stat blocks. *I'm sure repeating this exercise with more complex monsters (orcs, minotaurs, medusas, or dragons) would yield a similar result. Anyway, here is the chart. Enjoy. [ATTACH]62038._xfImport[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE]

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