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Message: <blockquote data-quote="malkav666" data-source="post: 5069744" data-attributes="member: 70565">On the topic of the dragon statblock. I prefer the PF ones. Yeah there is a lot of information and special abilities listed within it. And a 4e block has much much less. But thats kind of the point for me. A dragon in my games  would likely be a key encounter, if not the major one  in an entire campaign arc.With a good amount of options for a monster I can pick and choose that best fit my encounter, and if I don't use every single ability its not a big deal. I could even play two dragons of the same types with varying abilities played in combat (or if I was real mean I could have one encounter with both of them simultaneously) and they could be entirely different encounters in every sense of the word. Now I am not saying that you cannot get varied encounters in 4e D&D. I have DMed the system and I know that to be false. I just find it pick what I want to serve in a major encounter with an entire buffet of choices.What I am saying is that I feel its easier to get that variance in PF. There are a lot of ways I could play that dragon, and it is really convenient to have that list of abilities with which to build my encounter. In 4e your dragons could be played very differently from a placement and battlemat perspective, but with just a handful of special abilites, the only real variance will be when it gets bloodied (for Bloodied breath), when it spends its action points, and if it gets lucky and gets a recharge on one of its abilities. With the PF dragon I have a good amount of abilities listed, and spellcasting which is already nicely codified BY LEVEL, so I can easily swap out features and not have to worry about effecting the CR.Now both systems have dragons and I have fought and ran dragons in both systems. Initially they were both very rewarding. But in 4e after the first couple, it became a matter of more of the same and waiting for a couple of key moments in the fight that kind of ended up defining the dragon fight (the above mentioned bloody breath, and the action points), once those variables occur its pretty much a grind down with occassional breath weapons.Now with some preperation i am certain DMs can mod the 4e dragons, and make them varied and interesting encounters. But at that point they are doing the same type of work as PF DMs. It really just ends up being a matter of preference.My opinion is that yes, 4e dragons can be used right out of the book by most DMs, and PF dragons require a little more knowledge of the system to use right out of the book (or some prep). But I also find PF dragons to be have more robust options right out of the book for the encounter.So I am left with modding a 4e dragon and adding features to make it interesting or choosing which of the PF features I want to use to make it interesting. The amount of time that I have personally spent designing encounters with dragons in both PF and 4e were similar, but thats because I don't usually use dragons as a random encounter, but rather as important ones. And I tend to spend some time on those and make sure that it will be memorable one.I think a better comparison on statblcks between the editions would be something along the lines of say and orc or a bugbear. There is not much difference in length there. PF monsters get there special stuff in terms that can be described in spells, feats, and special abiltiies printed under the block, and 4e monsters get there special stuff described only in special abilities posted in the block. I find it easier as a DM to customize monsters in PF by switching out feats and spells, than it was for me in 4e to design new abilites using damage by level guildlines. Now I fired 4e before the monster builder came out and I have seen some praise for the tool in making doing some of things I am describing easier, but as I have never used it I will not offer any comments on it.But in the end Pathfinder is a game about killing things and taking their stuff. Its not the only game in this genre. I feel it is a good game. But the only real way for you to find out is to try it yourself. Don't be intimidated by stat blocks!love,malkav</blockquote>

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