DUNGEON's NEW STAT BLOCK FORMAT

[Mouseferatu]

Unfortunately, showing your work doesn't guarantee accuracy either. Stat blocks beg for automation and quite frankly, I'm shocked there is no viable solution out there after all these years.

Nothing guarantees accuracy. Ever.

But showing your work guarantees that there are more opportunities for someone to catch the mistake. It means that editors and developers don't have to go back through and redo all the calculations themselves. If they see a mistake, they can see where it happened and fix it. And they're more likely to see that mistake in the first place.

 

[Arnwyn]

Not true; we have no plans to decrease the number of high-level adventures in Dungeon. We'll continue to print at least one adventure for level 13+ characters in every issue; I'm not sure who "they" are who say that we'll be printing less high-level adventures in the magazine... but I'm happy to say that "they" are flat-out wrong.

It was someone at Paizo (and maybe even you!). But, that's why I said "high" instead of "higher" (though I admit I wasn't clear at all and should have elaborated) - indeed, epic level (even low epic level, like near 20th) was the topic of the time.

I know that you will continue to have one adventure of 13-20 in each issue (but I do notice that it's usually a lot closer to 13 than it is to 20).

And again - not enough epic level adventures!

The new stat block does indeed take up a little bit more room than the old stat block. However, multi-part adventures (Age of Worms, Shackled City, Shadows of Istivin, and Shards of Eberron) have proven to be much more popular than we anticipated. Old wisdom held that splitting adventures up over multiple issues would annoy the readers. Based on what we've been hearing, this couldn't be more wrong. As long as the individual parts can still be used as stand-alone adventures, you can expect several really long adventures in the magazine in the future.

W00t! I love my Dungeon subscription...

 

[A'koss]

Nothing guarantees accuracy. Ever.

But showing your work guarantees that there are more opportunities for someone to catch the mistake. It means that editors and developers don't have to go back through and redo all the calculations themselves. If they see a mistake, they can see where it happened and fix it. And they're more likely to see that mistake in the first place.

I see where you're coming from but I don't buy that an automated solution isn't viable. Have the data entry into the program triple-checked, beta-test the hell out of it. I'm by no means suggesting that it is an easy task, but insurmountable?

 

[James Jacobs]

Another problem with automated stat blocks is that they need to have constant updating; whenever a new product comes out, a new host of rules are introduced that the stat block program needs to incorperate. And constant updating means constantly throwing money at the thing to keep it going.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I see where you're coming from but I don't buy that an automated solution isn't viable. Have the data entry into the program triple-checked, beta-test the hell out of it. I'm by no means suggesting that it is an easy task, but insurmountable?

Oh, it's not insurmountable. I'd love to see it done. But here's the catch...

It has to be done by WotC.

There's no way WotC is going to trust anyone else's guarantee of "error-free stat blocks." (And really, who could blame them? I wouldn't either.) So the problem--at least for writers, which is the perspective I'm coming from--is that not only must the program exist, but it must come from a very specific source.

And I just don't think they're going to expend resources or effort on this, when there's so much else they can be doing.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Plus, what James said.

 

[Ketjak]

Ease of use problems? Fair enough. I can't see that being an insurmountable problem though, but if it does exist I can see it turning off many from using it.

Unfortunately, showing your work doesn't guarantee accuracy either. Stat blocks beg for automation and quite frankly, I'm shocked there is no viable solution out there after all these years.

Ease-of-use: The "CharBook" Excel spreadsheet from Brian Wardman (hosted at RPGsheets.com) (http://www.rpgsheets.com/cgi-bin/arcdb.cgi?action=dl&id=1996) is pretty good for character sheet generation, but has no stat block outputs. And it has bugs, but he's working them out.

PC Gen (http://tinyurl.com/ex7nc) is harder to use, much more flexible, and at first had what I might consider insurmountable user interface problems. It's still got a bad UI, though I see it less now that I use it. It outputs stat blocks in a couple of different styles, none of which are complete or bug-free. They're also not in the format I wish they were in, which requires manual editing or I put up with it. Of course, I could learn to edit them, since PC Gen is incredibly customizable.

I don't use PC Gen for very important NPCs or my characters when I play - I use charbook for those, perhaps PC Gen as a "scratch pad" and for lesser characters.

And both utilities are made by volunteers and take feedback. Truthfully, though I acknowledge their weaknesses they have each saved me dozens of hours - and charbook especially makes leveling a standard character (and now many prestige classes, too) a breeze. I owe them my thanks (again!).

 

[Grazzt]

Now if you suddenly don't list things like Toughness or Iron Will because it's not "needed" for the stat block in question, how am I supposed to know if the developer worked it into the stats already or just plain forgot it?

Reverse engineer the stat block. If the monster/NPC/whatever has 3 extra hit points (above its standard hp plus any Con bonus), then chances are very good Toughness is included.

For example, a monster/NPC with Con 14 and 3d8+9 HD (22 hp) has Toughness included..pretty easy to spot as its Con bonus X HD is +6. So, the extra +3 tacked on has to be from toughness (or some really bad math )

Same with saves. Reverse engineer. If a save is +2 higher than it should be, chances are good again its because of a feat (Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Great Fortitude).

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

I'm not trying to slam anyone with my attempt at humor.

Yes, I know your tongue was planted firmly in your cheek, and mine was, too.

I was just sending out some love to poor John Cooper. I think he is misunderstood, and I for one hope he never stops doing what he does.

Happy Gaming, everybody! My two sons just leveled up their characters today! I'm running them through the dungeon in the Basic Game, and pretending it's the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. They lost their wizard in an encounter with a couple of orc adventurers, so they decided to head back to Eveningstar, train up, and find another party member before heading back to the dungeon.

I love D&D! It's tons of fun for all of us, and a great excuse to bond with my kids. Huge thanks to guys like Monte and John and James and Erik and all the rest who continue to make it better and better for the rest of us!

 

[Lord Morte]

Does look very good. Nice and simple, easy to read.