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<blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 9173554" data-attributes="member: 3400">3e makes the big sea change in what the stat blocks are capable of doing. For the first time, they're the first real systematic stat block in that they have pretty much everything needed for the underlying system to function without cracking open many more books. Hit the monster with a stat debuff? You've got all the features out there that are based on it. You can see where everything comes from and modify it on the fly if you need to. It's a powerful shift.But it comes with a cost - LOTS of information and how to organize it. 3.0's organization was pretty bad, though more compact than what followed. My favorite 3e-family stat block was the Pathfinder one because it kept the chunks organized. Initial encounter values, defense, offense, etc. But it could run long for powerful creatures with a lot of abilities.4e tried to whittle those down under the assumption that a monster gets to deploy just a handful in an encounter before they're defeated and succeeded at making them shorter at the cost of putting everything through a pretty myopic lens.5e steps that back a little and I've been finding them pretty functional.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="billd91, post: 9173554, member: 3400"] 3e makes the big sea change in what the stat blocks are capable of doing. For the first time, they're the first real systematic stat block in that they have pretty much everything needed for the underlying system to function without cracking open many more books. Hit the monster with a stat debuff? You've got all the features out there that are based on it. You can see where everything comes from and modify it on the fly if you need to. It's a powerful shift. But it comes with a cost - [B]LOTS[/B] of information and how to organize it. 3.0's organization was pretty bad, though more compact than what followed. My favorite 3e-family stat block was the Pathfinder one because it kept the chunks organized. Initial encounter values, defense, offense, etc. But it could run long for powerful creatures with a lot of abilities. 4e tried to whittle those down under the assumption that a monster gets to deploy just a handful in an encounter before they're defeated and succeeded at making them shorter at the cost of putting everything through a pretty myopic lens. 5e steps that back a little and I've been finding them pretty functional. [/QUOTE]

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