Designing heroic tier monsters by hand and keeping track of them

[Burgonet]

All,

I'm about two weeks out from my first session of my campaign.
The game will feature players from the Essentials line of material, with a few extra twists.

This thread isn't about them, it's about my efforts to prepare for the game.

First off, I've decided not to go ahead with a DDi subscription. There are reasons, but again not the point of the thread.

So I'll be working on paper as well, mostly so I don't have to refer to a laptop.
So there goes Masterplan.

For sake of discussion, 'monsters' included every single NPC in the game.
It's much easier for myself as DM to keep track of everything using consistent rules, so we're all monsters bar the special people who level up.

So given the above, what methods already exist out there for creating and keeping track of 4e monsters and the encounter system?

I've got my hands on the Marvellous Monsters pdf, which seems a solid way to design your own monsters when need be.
But are there pdfs or templates out there that could help with my monster and encounter design and recording?

And what further tips would you give in regards to designing encounters given that the game won't necessarily be a picnic lunch railroad?
I've got DMG 2 and Robin's excellent advice on branching narratives and such. But what else beyond the official material do you believe I should be looking at when preparing for each session?

Thanks for reading and hopefully thanks for the advice in advance!

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've got my hands on the Marvellous Monsters pdf, which seems a solid way to design your own monsters when need be.
But are there pdfs or templates out there that could help with my monster and encounter design and recording?

I bought a series of index card boxes ... plus loads of index cards. (I'm using 4 x 6. If I started out, I'd go 5 x 7, but those are harder to find.) I arrange them by level and then name, and have a file on my computer where they are arranged the same way, so I can "search" for a monster without going through hundreds of cards. I currently have five boxes full (of cards, each has more than half the cards filled) plus two empty boxes.

And what further tips would you give in regards to designing encounters given that the game won't necessarily be a picnic lunch railroad?
I've got DMG 2 and Robin's excellent advice on branching narratives and such. But what else beyond the official material do you believe I should be looking at when preparing for each session?

Look at Sly Flourish and other advice sites. Sly Flourish has some great boss encounter ideas. (Often there will just be an elite, so not too many hit points... but it also gets special site-based set piece defenses that the PCs need to take down to get to it.)

 

[Burgonet]

Thanks for the advice.
I've reassessed a few things over the day and as a result there's no need for folks to offer me further answers.

So thanks everyone, but please consider my question answered and thanks for your help.

 

[Da3mon]

I recommend Masterplan Masterplan It has a great built in system that helps you create monsters and even does the math for you!

 

[Obryn]

I rely on Masterplan for this sort of thing, too. It's a marvelous campaign manager that doubles as an immensely capable combat tracker. What's more, it does my math for me, so I call that a win.

With this, I use a copy of the old 4e offline Adventure Tools. I need to manually fix attack and damage bonuses, but it's not too tough. I could build monsters right in Masterplan, but I like the Adventure Tools interface better.

-O