the Jester
Legend
I much prefer the new stat block to the old one. It's arranged logically, to make it easy to use; I can find my monsters' offensive and defensive options with ease. Good stuff, I love it.
DMG II Statblock - How Is It
- Thread starter GoodKingJayIII
- Start date
Treebore
First Post
Here is something you may find of interest:
"Originally posted by James Jacobs on the Paizo Messageboard
Now that "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk" has been anounced, I can talk a little bit about my experience writing in the Delve Format. It sucks. Building encounters using this format takes MUCH longer than building them in the current format. I think that the payoff (having everything you need to run an encounter on one or two pages) is worth it though. Delve format adventures are CERTAINLY easier to run in game.
But the problem with the delve format really starts to show in higher level encounters. In "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk," I was the one who got to design the highest level encounters. And there were many times that the delve format simply didn't work. For example, one of the most classic encounters (the evil adventuring party) doesn't work in this format, since there's simply not enough room for four compelx stat blocks. Often, there's not enoguh room for one complex stat block, and a final encounter with only one BBEG is generally an anticlimax since the PCs outnumber him and can take him down easy.
In addition, the delve format takes up a hideous amount of pages. In a product like a a 224 page adventure, that's not as much of a deal. But in a magazine, it's impossible. Let's take issue #140 as an example. In the three adventures we have in that issue, we've got about 54 combat encounters. Using the Delve Format, we'd be able to strip out the stat blocks and tactics sections from the adventures themselves, which would probably save us about 19 pages. But then, each of those encounters would have to have at LEAST a one page encounter, and most of them would have to have two. A few of them wouldn't work at all, and we'd have to cut creatures from encounters. My experience writing the Greyhawk adventure was that, if you plan well, you can do about 1/3 of your encounters as a 1 page encounter. Using that math, we'd need 90 pages of content to do those combat encounters; subtract the 19 pages we save and you're still at a magazine that's 71 pages over. Nevermind the fact that since each delve encounter requires a map, that'd skyrocket our budget and leave us with a magazine that was illustrated only with maps; I doubt we could afford any art at all.
We might be able to do one adventrue per issue if we used the delve format, and that's not an option, so therefore we won't be using the delve format."
"Originally posted by James Jacobs on the Paizo Messageboard
Now that "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk" has been anounced, I can talk a little bit about my experience writing in the Delve Format. It sucks. Building encounters using this format takes MUCH longer than building them in the current format. I think that the payoff (having everything you need to run an encounter on one or two pages) is worth it though. Delve format adventures are CERTAINLY easier to run in game.
But the problem with the delve format really starts to show in higher level encounters. In "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk," I was the one who got to design the highest level encounters. And there were many times that the delve format simply didn't work. For example, one of the most classic encounters (the evil adventuring party) doesn't work in this format, since there's simply not enough room for four compelx stat blocks. Often, there's not enoguh room for one complex stat block, and a final encounter with only one BBEG is generally an anticlimax since the PCs outnumber him and can take him down easy.
In addition, the delve format takes up a hideous amount of pages. In a product like a a 224 page adventure, that's not as much of a deal. But in a magazine, it's impossible. Let's take issue #140 as an example. In the three adventures we have in that issue, we've got about 54 combat encounters. Using the Delve Format, we'd be able to strip out the stat blocks and tactics sections from the adventures themselves, which would probably save us about 19 pages. But then, each of those encounters would have to have at LEAST a one page encounter, and most of them would have to have two. A few of them wouldn't work at all, and we'd have to cut creatures from encounters. My experience writing the Greyhawk adventure was that, if you plan well, you can do about 1/3 of your encounters as a 1 page encounter. Using that math, we'd need 90 pages of content to do those combat encounters; subtract the 19 pages we save and you're still at a magazine that's 71 pages over. Nevermind the fact that since each delve encounter requires a map, that'd skyrocket our budget and leave us with a magazine that was illustrated only with maps; I doubt we could afford any art at all.
We might be able to do one adventrue per issue if we used the delve format, and that's not an option, so therefore we won't be using the delve format."
Li Shenron
Legend
GoodKingJayIII said:
That's not bad at all, I like the idea of grouping stuff by areas (defense, offense, movement, perception...). But I also agree with the gripes about different type of features (skills, feats) being scattered around.
This new stat block is almost perfect for monster cards or inside ready-to-use adventures, but for a monster manual I think the old one still have an edge (at least for my habits, since I usually take a MM entry and modify it slightly).
Tiberius
Explorer
I've only recently picked up books using the new stat block, and I'm not a fan. I'm predisposed to hate change, though, so we'll see what happens. I agree that AC & HP need to be broken out, and am pleased to hear that MM4 rectifies one of these errors. One thing I noticed, though, was that the Environment portion of the stat block seems to have been struck. This I also dislike, because now I'm not sure where I would quickly look to find creatures appropriate for, say, a jungle. If I have to check the ecology section of each monster's writeup, that will be a major strike against the new format for me.
Arnwyn
First Post
Hate it. (And to nip any nonsensical "you haven't tried it" comments in the bud right away - I've had ample experience with Dungeon mag.)
The lack of information is just plain bad - notably HD and AC (nice to hear that at least AC was fixed - though slow and late). Missing HD is just stupid. In any case, these problems can be considered flat-out errors. Further, thanks to that lack of information along with the over-long and slightly convoluted (scattered) format, and having to search out the advancement info (if it's even there) advancing and/or templating monsters has become considerably more time consuming... and that's a huge problem.
The marginal improvement in gameplay no where near makes up for the increase in prep workload on the DM - where the real problems with D&D lie, IMO. The new stat block is tolerable in a pre-made module, but unacceptable for generic monsters.
The lack of information is just plain bad - notably HD and AC (nice to hear that at least AC was fixed - though slow and late). Missing HD is just stupid. In any case, these problems can be considered flat-out errors. Further, thanks to that lack of information along with the over-long and slightly convoluted (scattered) format, and having to search out the advancement info (if it's even there) advancing and/or templating monsters has become considerably more time consuming... and that's a huge problem.
The marginal improvement in gameplay no where near makes up for the increase in prep workload on the DM - where the real problems with D&D lie, IMO. The new stat block is tolerable in a pre-made module, but unacceptable for generic monsters.
Garnfellow
Explorer
Treebore said:
Note that while the delve format uses a variation of the new statblock, it is NOT the same thing. The delve format is a visual dungeon key, where each room basically takes up 1-2 entire pages. Here's an article explaining the delve format: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060317a
Last edited:
Cam Banks
Adventurer
I love the new format. It has taken me some time to get used to writing stats up in it, though. All of the new Dragonlance books from Sovereign Press/Margaret Weis Productions (Legends of the Twins, Knightly Orders of Ansalon, Dragons of Autumn, Price of Courage) use the new format, and we've not really lost any space.
Cheers,
Cam
Cheers,
Cam
Cthulhudrew
First Post
Hey- Garn:
Your link goes right back to this thread.
Your link goes right back to this thread.
GoodKingJayIII
First Post
billd91 said:
Which book are you talking about? MMI? DMGI? As Wizards releases more products, we're going to see less and less products using the older formats. AFAIC, the less books I sift through to find what I want, the better.
Though I do see your point about using the best tool for the job. Obviously the new stat block is not meant to be used as a tool to modify monsters. But I still dislike that points of short, valuable information are missing. That smacks of poor design, IMO.
Li Shenron said:
I agree, after reading the author's breakdown of the format, I appreciated the format a lot more.
