D&D 5E Radically shrinking stat blocks

[FitzTheRuke]

Ah! I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought the statblock section you provided was a block you were critiquing, and not your own example.

Ah that makes sense, no, I was saying this:

Shortsword/Shortbow. 5ft Melee or 80/320ft Ranged Attack: (+5) for 6 (1d6+3) piercing damage.

Is, (IMO) much better than this:

Shortsword/Shortbow. Melee or Ranged: (+5) Reach 5ft or Ranged 80/320ft. Hit: 6 (1d6+3) piercing damage.

You don't need to repeat information to get the same thing across.

 

[Quickleaf]

Ah that makes sense, no, I was saying this:

Shortsword/Shortbow. 5ft Melee or 80/320ft Ranged Attack: (+5) for 6 (1d6+3) piercing damage.

Is, (IMO) much better than this:

Shortsword/Shortbow. Melee or Ranged: (+5) Reach 5ft or Ranged 80/320ft. Hit: 6 (1d6+3) piercing damage.

You don't need to repeat information to get the same thing across.

I'm kind of tempted to leave out the melee/ranged language entirely. I know there are corner case stat blocks where it does matter, but it's basically putting rules language on what seems self-evident. "Shortsword" and "Melee Attack" are redundant, because all shortsword uses by a monster are melee attacks by definition.

That might be getting into the question of new GM accessibility and stats being scattered across databases, where designers want to repeat certain phrases within the stats just in case a GM didn't read that section of the book / doesn't understand the word "melee" / etc.

I could easily see it being reduced further to:

Shortsword (5 ft) / Shortbow (80/320 ft): +5 hit for 6 (1d6+3) piercing.

or just

Shortsword / bow (80/320 ft): +5 hit, 6 (1d6+3) piercing.

 

[Steampunkette]

Shrinkage is not automatically a good thing, as any guy who jumps into a cold swimming pool can tell you.

I definitely think having the CR/XP on the top line is beneficial. The rest is kinda interesting but not super useful. Particularly dropping the ability to adjudicate ties based on attribute values for example, or making it more difficult for people to parse condition and damage immunities. Poison(ed) is kinda weird when it's also going to be next to "Fire, Cold" for different demons and stuff.

Also the only reason the skeleton's sword/bow stuff can be "Streamlined" is a lucky break where the attributes and dice line up perfectly. Most monsters don't have that for all their actions/attacks/options.

Compare your 'Streamlined Version" to the A5e version.

This? This works -great- for me. Because A5e's Grapple and Shove rules are based on Proficiency+Str or Dex. So having the DC 12 there means I don't need to do math to have skeletons do more than "Walk Forward, Hit with Sword".

If I "Had" to shrink this stat block I'd mostly just move stuff around. Move HP to the same line as AC but offset to the right. Have Maneuver DC off to the right of Speed just below HP.

But yeah, moving some stuff around is great, cutting some stuff is great, but trying to shrink it all for the purposes of making it smaller, especially at the cost of clarity, is not the vibe.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm kind of tempted to leave out the melee/ranged language entirely. I know there are corner case stat blocks where it does matter, but it's basically putting rules language on what seems self-evident. "Shortsword" and "Melee Attack" are redundant, because all shortsword uses by a monster are melee attacks by definition.

That might be getting into the question of new GM accessibility and stats being scattered across databases, where designers want to repeat certain phrases within the stats just in case a GM didn't read that section of the book / doesn't understand the word "melee" / etc.

I could easily see it being reduced further to:

Shortsword (5 ft) / Shortbow (80/320 ft): +5 hit for 6 (1d6+3) piercing.

or just

Shortsword / bow (80/320 ft): +5 hit, 6 (1d6+3) piercing.

I like the first of those two best - it's true that 5ft could be seen as the default, and therefore not needed, but keeping it has a consistencey that I like. Your ditching of the word "damage" works for me as well, as it's also very obvious.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Shrinkage is not automatically a good thing, as any guy who jumps into a cold swimming pool can tell you.

I definitely think having the CR/XP on the top line is beneficial. The rest is kinda interesting but not super useful. Particularly dropping the ability to adjudicate ties based on attribute values for example, or making it more difficult for people to parse condition and damage immunities. Poison(ed) is kinda weird when it's also going to be next to "Fire, Cold" for different demons and stuff.

Also the only reason the skeleton's sword/bow stuff can be "Streamlined" is a lucky break where the attributes and dice line up perfectly. Most monsters don't have that for all their actions/attacks/options.

Compare your 'Streamlined Version" to the A5e version.

View attachment 378338

This? This works -great- for me. Because A5e's Grapple and Shove rules are based on Proficiency+Str or Dex. So having the DC 12 there means I don't need to do math to have skeletons do more than "Walk Forward, Hit with Sword".

And with A5e including sign language with every character's language list, Skeletons can communicate even though they can't speak! Which can make encounters with them even more interesting. Though that's a slightly different subject.

But yeah, moving some stuff around is great, cutting some stuff is great, but trying to shrink it all for the purposes of making it smaller, especially at the cost of clarity, is not the vibe.

Those blocks are the best published ones, for sure.

 

[Quickleaf]

Shrinkage is not automatically a good thing, as any guy who jumps into a cold swimming pool can tell you.

I appreciate the sentiment of what you're saying. It's difficult to parse where the line here is between opinion and actual improvement, as there are definitely things that are improvements (CR/XP in the top line), and definitely things that are opinions, but there's a great deal of grey space. I'll try to offer clear succinct responses to your points...

Particularly dropping the ability to adjudicate ties based on attribute values for example,

I... does that come up much for you? I remember doing that back in AD&D where we'd compare ability scores themselves on rare occasion. But in modern D&D / 5e-alikes? I haven't seen other GMs do that and haven't done that myself. Could be I'm an outlier in that regard.

or making it more difficult for people to parse condition and damage immunities. Poison(ed) is kinda weird when it's also going to be next to "Fire, Cold" for different demons and stuff.

There are a TON of monsters (mostly constructs & undead) who basically justify an extra line in their stats for:

Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, poisoned

It seems like a no-brainer to condense that to one line for me, and I have no difficulty parsing the intent in the Skeleton case. Does condensing this to...

Immunities poison(ed), exhaustion

...make it harder for you to parse what's going on?

Also the only reason the skeleton's sword/bow stuff can be "Streamlined" is a lucky break where the attributes and dice line up perfectly. Most monsters don't have that for all their actions/attacks/options.

Wellll... yes it will not work all the time... but two things.... (1) There are a lot of monsters where there's "close enough" between two attacks that combining makes sense (imo) to save space (e.g. bugbears, cambions, iron golems slam/sword, maaany bite/claw monsters, etc). (2) This isn't as uncommon as you're making it out to be. Here is a list of 2014 5e monsters I can quickly think of that would be candidates for a similar streamlining of various attacks... primarily humanoids...

• Ettin (battleaxe/morningstar)
• Goblin (scimitar/shortsword)
• Hobgoblin (longsword/longbow)
• Kobold (dagger/sling)
• Lizardfolk (bite/club/javelin/spiked shield)
• Werewolf (bite/spear)

Compare your 'Streamlined Version" to the A5e version.

View attachment 378338

This? This works -great- for me. Because A5e's Grapple and Shove rules are based on Proficiency+Str or Dex. So having the DC 12 there means I don't need to do math to have skeletons do more than "Walk Forward, Hit with Sword".

If I "Had" to shrink this stat block I'd mostly just move stuff around. Move HP to the same line as AC but offset to the right. Have Maneuver DC off to the right of Speed just below HP.

But yeah, moving some stuff around is great, cutting some stuff is great, but trying to shrink it all for the purposes of making it smaller, especially at the cost of clarity, is not the vibe.

The Maneuver DC is cool.

This is getting into that grey area... because the Skeleton example is manageable enough that I can look at this and find what I need readily.... pretty much regardless of the layout / design choices.

The problem - for me - emerges when the designers get locked into this format for monsters of much higher complexity. That's when I notice - again, for me - the breakdown starting to happen. I have delays during play trying to visually track what I'm looking for due to clutter. I feel more mentally fatigued after running the big stat block monster in a fight.

I agree the goal isn't brevity for brevity's sake... but I just see the modern D&D design space repeating this format like it's a divine mandate... and - at least for me - it takes a willingness to radically redesign (and yes make mistakes along the way) to get to something better.

Ultimately - while discussing with simpler examples is helpful to establish baseline attitudes - my eye is on those 1/2 page, 3/4 page, and full-page monsters that are just... ugh, so awful for me to run.

 

[el-remmen]

Do you use printed monster stats and physically take notes on them?

Yes. Here is are a few quick photo of my session notes stat block section from my last session. I usually try to fit all stat blocks from one encounter on a two page spread though sometimes it takes up two two page spreads.

 

[Shardstone]

Hey @Quickleaf , have you seen what @mearls has done with stat blocks on his patreon? He has CRAZY SUPER CHANGED and shrunk them down. I think it'd be a good point of inspiration for this idea.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

This may be unpopular. But there is a real argument that saves and attribute bonuses can be merged. This argument is based on the asymmetric design of 5e.

Essentially, monsters have no need to have save proficiency, which is a PC mechanic. A monster's save should be based on the probability of success against the save DC of the expected PCs. So you can make an argument for a single modifier in the attributes table like Kobold Press' monster vault has.

Your goal is just to have some above 50% and some below 50% success. It doesn't matter how you get there.

 

[Quickleaf]

Hey @Quickleaf , have you seen what @mearls has done with stat blocks on his patreon? He has CRAZY SUPER CHANGED and shrunk them down. I think it'd be a good point of inspiration for this idea.

Thanks Shardstone! I'll have to check it out Mike Mearls has been on a tear with monsters recently.