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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5425369" data-attributes="member: 8835">well, to equivalent that in pre-4e, since spellbooks have almost always been locked in on # of known spells being calculated, somebody could have provided "spell packs", load-outs for various styles of NPCs of spells known.Then the GM just picks the level and "style" of wizard, and gets a list of spells known in their book.  This would be better than randomly rolling spells, as a human would have picked stuff that would "get the job done"I would ignore spell memorization, as nobody's going to check your work, and it will make your NPC more powerful.  Heck, if you did use random spell selection which would probably weaken your NPC, this would counter-balance the probability of the NPC being stuck with useless spells.What I liked about 1e/2e was the simplicity of monster stats.  We started 2e with the 1e Monster manual.  From there, I wrote a program for the Apple IIe to roll out monster stat blocks and print them out.Back then it dumped:monster name (#HD)AC: 7THAC0: 19Damage: 1d6 shortswordNote: noneHP: 7 ooooo oowith HP showing the number, and circles in groups of 5 for crossing outIf you wanted multiple monsters, it repeated the HP line (differently rolled hit points)This was a very short, minimal text stat block.  It was also all the GM needed.I suppose it also could have included the source and page# in case the DM needed to look it up better.If the monster doesn't have buttloads of abilities, skills and feats, the Notes section is all you need to describe a breath weapon, or special abilityHow often do you REALLY need to know all the skills or ability scores of a monster or NPC?  Not bad enough to include it in the game notes.  If you GM on a PC, that could be linked, so you don't waste screen space on it.</blockquote>

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