Jacob Lewis
Ye Olde GM
Disclaimer: I am not here to entertain discussions involving legal copyright, GSL, etc. Very few people here are qualified to give their advice (and less welcome to give their opinions) on the matter. Those who are qualified are not being solicited for said advice or opinions, either. If I am doing something wrong, or I am not in compliance with the rules of the site, I have full confidence that a moderator will inform me and take the appropriate actions necessary.
(And in case it needs to be said, it is not my intent to provoke any actions or be non-compliant with the rules. Just know that anyone brings their "issues that don't actually affect them" here, I won't engage and most likely ignore. Thanks!)
Over the last few years, I've been looking for ways to create 4e content (for myself) in a manner that was efficient and aesthetically appealing. Obviously, resources (legal or otherwise) are difficult to find thanks to the restrictions of the thrice-damned GSL. Those that do exist are either lacking, incomplete, or just unsatisfying for what I want. So, like I often do, I figure out ways to do things on my own. (Why? It's not important. I just want to!)
So here I have an example of a monster stat block from the Monster Vault:
Except I made this with Excel (2021). The stats and information match exactly (or darn-near) as they appear in the original text of the manual (page 72, for those of you playing at home). I had to learn a few tricks to get the format and spacing right, including the hanging indents for paragraphs (which are not a standard function in Excel).
But the best part is that I can turn each stat block into an image that I can copy, save, and paste. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with this awesome new power, but I have begun saving them in a single OneNote document. At some point, I may convert older (pre-MM3) monsters to the cleaner format with fixed math (and better game design), as well as update all the blocks with the latest errata.
So aside from showing off my work here, I was wondering if this might be useful to anyone else. Obviously, I can't share my personal files that contain previously published stats. (And I'm not so sure that applies to monsters with converted statblocks if they were never (technically) published.)
If anyone has ideas, feedback, questions, or suggestions, let me know.
UPDATES
Uploaded zip file with the Excel (2021) version of the monster template I created, and the Asul fonts used (the fonts are available and free to use for anyone, but I thought I'd save everyone the extra trouble).
(And in case it needs to be said, it is not my intent to provoke any actions or be non-compliant with the rules. Just know that anyone brings their "issues that don't actually affect them" here, I won't engage and most likely ignore. Thanks!)
Over the last few years, I've been looking for ways to create 4e content (for myself) in a manner that was efficient and aesthetically appealing. Obviously, resources (legal or otherwise) are difficult to find thanks to the restrictions of the thrice-damned GSL. Those that do exist are either lacking, incomplete, or just unsatisfying for what I want. So, like I often do, I figure out ways to do things on my own. (Why? It's not important. I just want to!)
So here I have an example of a monster stat block from the Monster Vault:
Except I made this with Excel (2021). The stats and information match exactly (or darn-near) as they appear in the original text of the manual (page 72, for those of you playing at home). I had to learn a few tricks to get the format and spacing right, including the hanging indents for paragraphs (which are not a standard function in Excel).
But the best part is that I can turn each stat block into an image that I can copy, save, and paste. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with this awesome new power, but I have begun saving them in a single OneNote document. At some point, I may convert older (pre-MM3) monsters to the cleaner format with fixed math (and better game design), as well as update all the blocks with the latest errata.
So aside from showing off my work here, I was wondering if this might be useful to anyone else. Obviously, I can't share my personal files that contain previously published stats. (And I'm not so sure that applies to monsters with converted statblocks if they were never (technically) published.)
If anyone has ideas, feedback, questions, or suggestions, let me know.
UPDATES
Uploaded zip file with the Excel (2021) version of the monster template I created, and the Asul fonts used (the fonts are available and free to use for anyone, but I thought I'd save everyone the extra trouble).
Last edited:
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