D&D 5E Radically shrinking stat blocks

[sevenbastard]

Your skeleton layout is interesting... You've prioritized Darkvision in the upper right, and omitted CR/XP entirely. You've broken the "melee attack" from the weapons line listing shortswords and shortbows...not sure why. And you seem to list saving throws as a "slash" after the modifier.

During the game I really don't need to know the creatures CR so I don't have it on my Stat blocks.

The dark vision in the corner really should also list the creatures Perception score. Some monster I build have that called out. Honestly I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about layout it kind of evolved organically and got better over time as I stated out higher CR monsters and learned from my low CR monsters. Dark vision though is easy to see with the black box just a quick reminder ( but come on its 5e everyone has dark vision )

I call out the diffrent weapon to reminder me what the creature has and to keep it consistent. If a creature has claw then bite for example.

I should probably do a slash on AC as 15/17 to remind me the Skelton doesn't have its shield when using its bow.

Honestly excited to rebuild my stats for 5.5 with more practice. Not excited to rebuild all of the spells

 

[Voadam]

I will forever be a fan of how early D&D did just that.

Full stat block in the MM:
View attachment 378391

And how they typically appear in-line for adventures:

View attachment 378392

I got real annoyed at the 1e full stat block.

Magic resistance should be listed under special defenses when appropriate, not a full line on every stat block.

Psionics should be listed under special attacks or defenses like spells, not full lines on every stat block.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Just catching up on this thread. When developing Forge of Foes, we thought a lot about what GMs actually need to run a monster – not from the standpoint of a published monster but an improvised monster. How important are specific saving throws or skills? How much can you make up on the fly?

Lots of GMs have different needs but I've found I really don't need much. I was really taken by how simple monsters can be in Numenera and Cypher – pick a number between 1 and 10 and you have everything you need.

We have a table in Forge of Foes called the "monster stats by CR" table. More and more, I just whip up monsters from those stats and then improvise a mechanic or often just rely on flavor.

I even worked out a macro on my laptop where I can type "fof12" and I get CR 12 AC/DC 17 HP 175 Atk/Prof +9 DPR 77 Atks 4 × 1d6 + 16.

In my game notes, I often just type:

Child of Ibraxux Cult Fanatic CR 2 AC/DC 13 HP 45 Atk/Prof +5 DPR 17 Atks 2 × 1d6 + 6

and that's what I run with.

For more professional stat blocks, I really love the stat blocks from Tales of the Valiant which simplify a lot of things I just don't use in my games:

You'll notice that this Black Flag cult fanatic hits way harder and has a lot more hit points than our Forge of Foes one. Monster Vault monsters definitely have sharper teeth. This seems to be mostly at lower CRs.

Here's an example at CR 9:

Forge of Foes:
CR 9 AC/DC 16 HP 145 Atk/Prof +8 DPR 59 Atks 3 × 1d6 + 19

CR 9 Bone Devil from Monster Vault:

The core stats are almost exact.

For me, The Monster Vault stat block is superior to the one in D&D 2024 where they packed 18 numbers into a table at the top when I really only need six.

BTW, you can get a creative-commons-released version of our Monster Stats by CR on our Lazy GM Monster Builder Resource Document.

 

[mearls]

And FWIW, if you haven't looked at Forge of Foes and are interested in this thread's topic, it's a must buy. I've found it invaluable.

 

[Quickleaf]

Just catching up on this thread. When developing Forge of Foes, we thought a lot about what GMs actually need to run a monster – not from the standpoint of a published monster but an improvised monster. How important are specific saving throws or skills? How much can you make up on the fly?

Lots of GMs have different needs but I've found I really don't need much. I was really taken by how simple monsters can be in Numenera and Cypher – pick a number between 1 and 10 and you have everything you need.

We have a table in Forge of Foes called the "monster stats by CR" table. More and more, I just whip up monsters from those stats and then improvise a mechanic or often just rely on flavor.

I even worked out a macro on my laptop where I can type "fof12" and I get CR 12 AC/DC 17 HP 175 Atk/Prof +9 DPR 77 Atks 4 × 1d6 + 16.

In my game notes, I often just type:

Child of Ibraxux Cult Fanatic CR 2 AC/DC 13 HP 45 Atk/Prof +5 DPR 17 Atks 2 × 1d6 + 6

and that's what I run with.

For more professional stat blocks, I really love the stat blocks from Tales of the Valiant which simplify a lot of things I just don't use in my games:

View attachment 378413

You'll notice that this Black Flag cult fanatic hits way harder and has a lot more hit points than our Forge of Foes one. Monster Vault monsters definitely have sharper teeth. This seems to be mostly at lower CRs.

Here's an example at CR 9:

Forge of Foes:
CR 9 AC/DC 16 HP 145 Atk/Prof +8 DPR 59 Atks 3 × 1d6 + 19

CR 9 Bone Devil from Monster Vault:

View attachment 378415

The core stats are almost exact.

For me, The Monster Vault stat block is superior to the one in D&D 2024 where they packed 18 numbers into a table at the top when I really only need six.

BTW, you can get a creative-commons-released version of our Monster Stats by CR on our Lazy GM Monster Builder Resource Document.

Thank you for generously sharing some of your team's work as CC resources, Mike!

I've been following the TotV/Black Flag monster design, and I see some nice innovations alongside carrying traditional design choices over from 5e that lead to stat block bloat. I thought I'd take a backstab at a re-write of the Cultist Fanatic...

Key changes - probably obvious to you, but I'll spell them out for clarity's sake...

1. Tried to match formatting pretty closely to make it as close to apples-to-apples as I could.
2. Condense the basic stats (HP, AC, Speed, Senses, Stealth, Languages). There's an argument to leave white space here for hand-tracking HP with scribbled notes.
3. Merging Perception & Senses, with the philosophy NOT to present blank lines just cause it adheres to the proscribed template.
4. Avoiding repetition (e.g. Resistant Dark Devotion + Dark Devotion, or Unholy Weapons + fire/necrotic damage to dagger). I think the theory is "repeat important things so GMs don't miss it" – and also "thwart players/GMs who'd interpret the necrotic/fire as magical properties of dagger that PCs can loot" (which might be solved with a Treasure/Loot section of the overall monster entry explaining it's just a dagger). I experience an opposite effect with significant repetition in stat blocks, where it's just more text lines I need to sort through (whereas long-form writing like an adventure, repetition makes more sense to me).
5. Avoiding redundant text baked into 5e's original presentation (e.g. Multiattack redundant language).
6. Shrink action text without necessarily adhering to complete sentence structure. Controversially remove "damage" from attacks/action and instead just list the "damage type."

 

[Shardstone]

Just catching up on this thread. When developing Forge of Foes, we thought a lot about what GMs actually need to run a monster – not from the standpoint of a published monster but an improvised monster. How important are specific saving throws or skills? How much can you make up on the fly?

Lots of GMs have different needs but I've found I really don't need much. I was really taken by how simple monsters can be in Numenera and Cypher – pick a number between 1 and 10 and you have everything you need.

We have a table in Forge of Foes called the "monster stats by CR" table. More and more, I just whip up monsters from those stats and then improvise a mechanic or often just rely on flavor.

I even worked out a macro on my laptop where I can type "fof12" and I get CR 12 AC/DC 17 HP 175 Atk/Prof +9 DPR 77 Atks 4 × 1d6 + 16.

In my game notes, I often just type:

Child of Ibraxux Cult Fanatic CR 2 AC/DC 13 HP 45 Atk/Prof +5 DPR 17 Atks 2 × 1d6 + 6

and that's what I run with.

For more professional stat blocks, I really love the stat blocks from Tales of the Valiant which simplify a lot of things I just don't use in my games:

View attachment 378413

You'll notice that this Black Flag cult fanatic hits way harder and has a lot more hit points than our Forge of Foes one. Monster Vault monsters definitely have sharper teeth. This seems to be mostly at lower CRs.

Here's an example at CR 9:

Forge of Foes:
CR 9 AC/DC 16 HP 145 Atk/Prof +8 DPR 59 Atks 3 × 1d6 + 19

CR 9 Bone Devil from Monster Vault:

View attachment 378415

The core stats are almost exact.

For me, The Monster Vault stat block is superior to the one in D&D 2024 where they packed 18 numbers into a table at the top when I really only need six.

BTW, you can get a creative-commons-released version of our Monster Stats by CR on our Lazy GM Monster Builder Resource Document.

I also use Forge of Foes for the math of all my monster designs.

 

[SlyFlourish]

And FWIW, if you haven't looked at Forge of Foes and are interested in this thread's topic, it's a must buy. I've found it invaluable.

Thank you so much!

 

[DinoInDisguise]

And FWIW, if you haven't looked at Forge of Foes and are interested in this thread's topic, it's a must buy. I've found it invaluable.

I second this. Forge of foes has been the most influential 5e book I've bought, and has greatly improved my understanding of encounter design. I cannot recommend it enough.

 

[Argyle King]

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.

For me, I wouldn't like that way.

There are times when a game element modifies a particular type of attack (melee or ranged) or a particular weapon. IMO, being able to more-quickly parse out which numbers change and which numbers don't and being able to do that from a cursory glance is more user friendly than the extra conciseness.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

For me, I wouldn't like that way.

There are times when a game element modifies a particular type of attack (melee or ranged) or a particular weapon. IMO, being able to more-quickly parse out which numbers change and which numbers don't and being able to do that from a cursory glance is more user friendly than the extra conciseness.

I'm not sure how the above slows down parsing anything out at a glance, but okay. To each their own.