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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5751109" data-attributes="member: 54877">My solution in late 3E was to do something very similar to the 4E monster blocks, but built out of the 3E pieces. Basically, I'd put every caster in a faction, set the spells by faction, provide a few key characters worked out by the levels that would matter, and then flavor them differently to keep it interesting. So my human and elven evil mages allied with the neogi all cast the same spells. A 5th level mage cast the same spells as the 3rd level equivalent, plus the extras. I also standardized most of the magic items. I even went so far as to copy the most critical spells into the Word document. After all, if I get all the main information for such a caster on one page and print, I can keep reusing it, right? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> It was a lot of work to do, but a net decrease in work if I used the creature several times. But I did wonder at the time about a possible solution that would be a compromise between the RAW 3E and 4E. Use building blocks in the core rules that are broader than single items or spells, but narrower than complete creatures. You might have a set of spells (and equipment) that are appropriate for a "blaster" mage or a divination mage or whatever. Critically, the list would be short enough that each mage could have more than one. Then you build your creatures, quickly, out of those lists. (This is not the 3E monster adjusting guidelines or templates. Those are too fine for this to work.  Nor is it the 4E templates, though it comes closer to that.  If you could build a complete, valid creature out of nothing much but templates--and maybe a core racial stock--that would be close.) If you really want to just use something straight, you use the final product out of the monster manual, or maybe put together by someone else in an online tool. If you want to do some quick customization, you grab several building blocks and write them down (and software would help a ton here, too). But if you really want to delve deep, you can swap things off a package for something else, make your own packages, etc. What this method essentially says is that the monster in the monster manual is not the creature. Rather, it is some crib notes about what someone thought was the most important aspects of a few examples of those creatures.</blockquote>

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