Aenghus
Explorer
I ran a 3.x campaign for years and initially followed the monster creation rules to the letter. At low levels it was OK, but at high levels the work-benefit ratio went way down as the amount of work to stat up monsters and PCs kept climbing, and most of them died in their first encounter with the PCs. And the guidelines didn't work as advertised, so I was better off going with my gut much of the time.
I vastly prefer the 4e philosophy of monsters different to PCs and the standard monster stat block being simple. I can roleplay NPCs with little aid, but I need all the help I can get in running multiple monsters in combat. I can easily customise the rare NPC or monster to be more complex. For me, it's much easier to add extra features to a functional core mechanic than have a massively complex stat block I need to pare down in most cases to be usable.
I am deliberately prioritising in-game functionality over outside game functionality, as the major bottlenecks I encounter with handing monsters and PCs is in the game, when I am very busy and have no time for extraneous detail such as bloated stat blocks.
I vastly prefer the 4e philosophy of monsters different to PCs and the standard monster stat block being simple. I can roleplay NPCs with little aid, but I need all the help I can get in running multiple monsters in combat. I can easily customise the rare NPC or monster to be more complex. For me, it's much easier to add extra features to a functional core mechanic than have a massively complex stat block I need to pare down in most cases to be usable.
I am deliberately prioritising in-game functionality over outside game functionality, as the major bottlenecks I encounter with handing monsters and PCs is in the game, when I am very busy and have no time for extraneous detail such as bloated stat blocks.