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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 9558708" data-attributes="member: 20323">Sure, so I've had problems with 3 "categories" of overwritten monsters.(1) There are monsters that have "too much writing devoted to one ability"; my most recent example (from the last live 5e game I ran, since then it's just been PbP Rime of the Frostmaiden) is the intellect devourer's Body Thief.(2) Then there are monsters that have the "too many powers leading to analysis paralysis" problem; Acererak from my Tomb of Annihilation campaign was the most complex example of this problem that I encountered in 5e.NOTE: That was a BBEG, so yeah I get it, but that wasn't the only time I had that issue. Many legendary monsters & spellcasters had this issue. More broadly speaking, when I ended up needing to re-read stat blocks or learn strategies about how to use a monster from Keith Ammon's The Monsters Know What They're Doing blog, that was – for me, personally – a sign that the essence of the monster was getting lost / the design wasn't clear about how it was supposed to be used.(3) The 3rd category are the "trying to say too much and not using layout well" monsters. My primary example was running a vampire. Holy crap that was a messy stat block to make sense of. Not only does it try to cram too much in, and several of the abilities are overwritten, but there is so much clutter.How to slim it down becomes a matter of priorities – e.g. most 5e players would prioritize its combat abilities and probably say "most of the Vampire Weaknesses could probably just be in the flavor text", whereas I'd prefer to see more cut from the combat part of the monster. But it would probably be a universal improvement for Spider Climb to be moved to the Speed line of the stat block.Whichever way you bite it, my experience was it was hard to find what I needed to quickly run the vampire looking at its stat block for the first time – I needed to really read through it in advance to digest it. And for my personal GMing style, that just wasn't part of my priority / interest / time budget. In the case of Acererak? Yeah, I did extensive homework, probably more than I would have preferred to do, and it paid off. But that's the exception to my rule. I really don't want to be spending time parsing a stat block during game prep (and only minimally during play).</blockquote>

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