Statblocks vs adventures: Where's the balance?

[S'mon]

Well, I like the 4e stat blocks (3e is terrible), but I'd rather they just reference standard MV/MM monsters, or at most print ONCE in the adventure. Half of Sceptre Tower of Spellguard seems taken up with the same 2 or 3 stat blocks repeated umpteen times.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

[MENTION=64825]wrecan[/MENTION]: Her spell list isn't to bad. Its made up of rather common and popular cleric spells. The only ones that a regular DM would probably needed a look up were Sticks to Snakes, Flame Strike, or Blade Barrier, and even then it is possible that a PC cleric could have those same spell prepared.

 

[RangerWickett]

You could certainly simplify stats a bit, but you'd also want to simplify PCs too. I mean, giving every attack spell its own target and attack roll line is silly. Go the Old School Hack direction, and make all attack rolls be 2d10 vs. Defense of 10, 12, 14, or 16. Hits do 1, 2, or 3 damage depending on whether the weapon is small, medium, or large. Monsters have 1, 5, or 10 HP, maybe 20 for a giant and 50 for a dragon.

Fit every monster onto the size of a power card, so the DM can shuffle between them during combat.

 

[wrecan]

@wrecan : Her spell list isn't to bad. Its made up of rather common and popular cleric spells.

Yes, but how many DMs memorized the ranges, durations and precise effects of each spell? I certainly didn't. I remember my players groaning every time they faced a caster (or a creature with spellcasting) because it would be a lot of time with me saying "Cause Serious Wounds!... okay... is that 2d8 or 3d8 damage... Now thie wizard goes... Melf's Acid Arrow!... wait, what's the range on that?... oh, okay... Shocking Grasp!... what's that 2d6+4? 1d8+3? hold on..."

I think drow were hated so much because they always cast so many spells!

 

[CuRoi]

Yes, but how many DMs memorized the ranges, durations and precise effects of each spell?

At one time I may have most of it memorized - especially things like the bread n' butter spells on that list. It wasn't any superhuman feat mind you, just repeatedly using the stuff - rote memorization. ADnD had the advantage also that hardly any of the spells exceeded a paragraph in length and spell lists were a bit shorter. Compared to say 3e where I STILL can't tell you (without looking it up) all the finer points and details of the commonly used spell Detect Magic. Of course, I'm getting old.

 

[delericho]

Fit every monster onto the size of a power card, so the DM can shuffle between them during combat.

This would definitely seem to be the best way to go.

 

[AeroDm]

Make no mistake: I'm very, very good at arithmetic, and generally fast as well, but I'm noticeably slowing down as I get older, and my players are far worse than me. Watching them trying to add up 5d6 is agony.

I think this is important because while it is a minor part of your rant, I think the heart of your rant gets to an issue of time and space. This portion of the rant is all about time.

Even people who are fast at arithmetic still slow down when faced with more or harder arithmetic. When you consider that the vast majority of people just aren't good at math, you start to see why the game slows down. More specifically, adding up a series of numbers takes more time than one might initially expect. The reason for this is that each number (or each number that breaks 10) actually tends to require another step. A simple example demonstrates this. If you want to add up 3 + 4 + 5 you don't merely sum them. You take 3 + 4 and create 7 and add to 7 the number 5 to create 12. What we see is that summing those three numbers actually result in 3, 4, 7, 5, 12 in practice.

The formula for this is 2 x [the number of variables] - 1. So that 5d6 is not slow because it involves five dice, but slow because it involves nine mathematical steps. For whatever reason, it is also harder for people to do any math that breaches the 10-threshold. This is probably because it implies another step (subtract 10) implicit in the math.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I think the stat block is a crucial element of running any adventure. I prefer to have all information on a single page monster "sheet" that I can track hit points as well as the use of all abilities and spells such that it is the only page I need to reference in regards to those abilities. [The DM screen picks up the slack for all general conditions and effects, although if an ability "Dazes", then that information is always on the monster sheet too.]

The best way of incorporating this is to have all full page stat blocks in a pull-out appendix to an adventure. This leaves the adventure to adventure stuff and stat blocks to the monster sheet or monster manual if the creature is straight out of the book.

A very important part of the monster sheet should be morale and roleplaying advice for the creature(s). For example a pack of wolves might have an aggressive alpha leader, with the other wolves focused on different things:
- one might "only" be looking for pack flanking opportunities,
- another hungrier one might just go after a single unarmored character until it's taken a chunk out of their leg, then they'll run off;
- while others might be timid/conservative or attack based upon the success of the alpha leader and run off if he's killed.
All this information should be on the monster sheet.

The ideal situation for me is not having to refer to any other books for ability/spell information.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[ExploderWizard]

Fit every monster onto the size of a power card, so the DM can shuffle between them during combat.

This works great. I use it for Basic D&D.

View attachment Monster card sample.xls

Here is a sheet of cards I made up for my last gameday adventure. I had them color coded so I could identify which group they belonged to at a glance. Printed them on cardstock and they will last a good long time.

 

[Hussar]

/tongue in cheek

You could all play on something like Maptools where all your monster powers are automatically added to macros, making all this sort of thing go away.

/tongue in cheek

I'm not really sure which direction is the right way to go.