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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ericlboyd" data-source="post: 3103629" data-attributes="member: 7000">Very good question. My answer depends on the strictures of the design. What I really want to do is spend the word count on the adventure and not on the stat blocks, but I want interesting, unique foes.No, I like longer, more complicated battles, but in moderation. I think the bulk of encounters should be with a smaller number of foes. This is strictly personal preference, but I don't think I'm the only designer with this preference.This is an excellent example. I absolutely agree that 9 unique Slave Lords is much more interesting than a single pit fiend. However, that's only half the story. The trade-off is 9 stat blocks vs. 0 stat blocks and whether the adventure gets more interesting because of the added word count. In 3.5e, I would probably recommend 3 unique Slave Lords as a good compromise, as the stat blocks are so darn long.However ... given another set of design constraints, say "you must detail every stat block" or "you must fit on a single sheet of paper", my argument would change entirely, as there would be an entirely new set of pressures on effective adventure design.If you look at this article:<a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060317a" target="_blank">http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060317a</a>you might infer why I bring this up. I have worked on 2 adventures which will be published in 2007 (one by Paizo, one not) where I selected the monsters and the environment. If you compare the two, you'll see I took 2 entirely different strategies towards maximizing my word count spent on the adventure. Neither is better, but both significantly impacted the resultant adventure.--Eric</blockquote>

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