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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jacob Lewis" data-source="post: 8471176" data-attributes="member: 6667921">One of the things I miss the most about 4th Edition as a DM is how all the important information for an encounter was collected in one place. I didn't need to go to the back of the book to find out the full stats for a monster during a battle, or a completely different book to see how a power or spell worked, etc. And while this alone might not have been a selling point on 4e for me, it has made me less enthusiastic about running published titles for other editions (or games) that didn't do something similar.In my workbooks for OneNote, I could place all the statblocks on the same page as the encounters. But that ruins the clean presentation, forcing me to scroll around to find what I need in the heat of the moment. More importantly, some monsters might be used repeatedly in the same adventure. In my current example, Stone Giants appear in more than a few places. But instead of pasting the same statblock on multiple pages, which takes up room and increases the file size, I can create one page with one statblock and create a link to it as many times as I need to.In this part of the tutorial, I will briefly show you how I create the statblocks using a template I created in Excel, and how I place them into my OneNote document. Let's get started!<img src="https://i.postimg.cc/fTQmLkwB/SB1-N-Tutorial-01.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Continuing from where we left off on Encounter 8 above, I'm going to need a statblock for a new creature called the Stormstone Fury. Now, I could grab an image from the pdf file and copy it as shown. That could work because the pdf is very clean and easy to read. But let's say you have a poor-quality file, or you want to use something out of your physical copies, or you want to make your own personal adjustments. It's up to you how you want to do that, but you don't really need a tutorial for that.The first thing I need to do is create a new page in OneNote. Since I have several already made, I can just copy and paste one that has the format I need. Be aware, however, that you can't use the Ctrl+C option to copy a page. You'll need to left-click and select copy manually from the popup menu. This lets the program know that you don't want to copy any of the content contained on the page, like pictures or text, but the page itself. Once you paste it into the tab, you can move it up or down on the list as you like, or even indent it to make it a sub-page (see screenshots below).<a href="https://postimg.cc/qgB73PDM" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/qgB73PDM/SB1-N-Tutorial-02.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a><a href="https://postimg.cc/SJJNZWpB" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/SJJNZWpB/SB1-N-Tutorial-03.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>With your new page in place, you can begin working on the statblock. I'm not going to go into great detail on how to copy and paste text, or input your data manually. If you use a template, like the one I have shared in this <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/monster-stat-block-design-using-excel-2021.683629/" target="_blank">thread</a>, then it should be an easy process to figure out. However, there are a couple tips I want to share.Row Height: If you're familiar with statblocks in 4e at all, then you should know that one size does not fit all. Some powers will fit on a single line, while others can be much, much longer. Now, again, I'm not an Excel expert and I may be missing a solution that could be obvious to someone else. But it has been my ongoing experience that I need to adjust the row height manually for cells with more than one line of text. You might think it would be an easy process (i.e. just multiply the number of lines by the size of the first row (15)). But that actually increases the gap between the top and bottom of the cell. Probably a fraction or something. So I had to figure out an algorithm for which size to use with multiple lines of text.<img src="https://i.postimg.cc/2yN5Gby6/SB1-N-Tutorial-09.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><a href="https://postimg.cc/fJCWTBfS" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/fJCWTBfS/SB1-N-Tutorial-10.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a> <a href="https://postimg.cc/CRKhZkcP" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/CRKhZkcP/SB1-N-Tutorial-11.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>On a semi-related note, you should build up a collection of statblocks as an Excel file. Why? First, you never know when you may need to go back and fix a mistake, or just want to make a slight change to an existing monster. It's a lot easier to change a few things than having to make one all over again. Second, the more examples you have, the easier is to find something similar to copy and do less work. In the example above, I copied a Stone Giant Advisor for a completely different monster. But since they are the same level, and have several standard and triggered actions that appear similar, that means I'll have less work to modify.Keep in mind while you're building groups of monsters in your file, you'll want to copy and paste each new statblock below the others. As mentioned before, row heights will vary and will effect everything on that line across the page. Work down, not across.Hanging Paragraphs:Alright. I had to do some serious research to figure this one out. What's a hanging paragraph, you ask? It's like a regular paragraph but every line under the first is indented from the left. You see it in every official 4e statblock in every official 4e sourcebook. The question is how do you do that in Excel. It's actually quite easy.Go to the end of the first line and hit Alt+Enter, then space bar until you get the next line where you want it. I've been going four spaces with mine, but you can do whatever looks right for you. Do this again for each line. Be consistent so everything lines up correctly on the left side, and it should look like perfect.<a href="https://postimg.cc/1fvCwGf2" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/1fvCwGf2/SB1-N-Tutorial-13.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a><a href="https://postimg.cc/JGrYs64j" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/JGrYs64j/SB1-N-Tutorial-14.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>Copying Statblocks into OneNote:Now to get copy the statblock into OneNote, you'll want to copy as an image. Select the statblock, then go up to the tool bar and right-click Copy in the Clipboard tab (pic below). You'll get two options: Copy and Copy as Picture. Select the last one and it'll give you another popup menu. Just hit OK if the default options are shown. Then go to your OneNote page where you want the statblock and Ctrl+V to paste. Everything appears exactly as it should, and you can't accidentally mess with it.<a href="https://postimg.cc/jDC8XDf5" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/jDC8XDf5/SB1-N-Tutorial-15.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a><a href="https://postimg.cc/RW8gbv1T" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/RW8gbv1T/SB1-N-Tutorial-16.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/QM6wT37C/SB1-N-Tutorial-17.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Creating Links:So here comes the best part. You got your encounter page all set. You got all the statblocks you need collected and organized. Now you're going to make it interactive by creating direct links on your encounter page to all the important stats (and other pages, if needed).Start by selecting the text you want to use for your link. For monsters, just go to their monster name. They're all near the top on one line. Hit Ctrl+C to copy the name first, then hit Ctrl+K to go to the link menu. Skip the address line and go to the next one that says "Pick a location..." (see below). Hit Ctrl+V to paste the name you copied and it should come right up as an option. Select it and hit OK. You just created a direct link on that page to the statblock you will need later during the encounter. Rinse and repeat for everything else on that page. You're done.<a href="https://postimg.cc/S2LVs8BZ" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/S2LVs8BZ/SB1-N-Tutorial-18.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a><a href="https://postimg.cc/JDCPMK2D" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/JDCPMK2D/SB1-N-Tutorial-19.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/5yzRTQRQ/SB1-N-Tutorial-20.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />This is all I have at the moment, and how I've set up my workbooks. I hope it was helpful to someone, and at least inspirational to a few. If you have any tips, advice, questions, or feedback, please feel free to share them in this thread.</blockquote>

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