The Humble Monster Stat Block - Learning from 4E

[Herremann the Wise]

Hello Everyone,

I think perhaps the biggest step forward made from 3E to 4E is the humble monster stat block. The ability to play the monster out of the book without needing to flip pages or refer to the PHB for spells etc. has made the life of the DM significantly easier.

Fortunately/unfortunately for me depending upon your preference, I'm DMing a new Pathfinder game at the moment and the stat block issue has come up again. What I've tried to do is take the core of the 4E style and blend it in with the richness/overload of options so that likewise, everything I need to know is in the stat block. [See attached pdf for an example... I know, we've come a long way/too far from "orc 6hp"]

So a handful of questions for some discussion:
- Do you think the stat block change was the biggest step forward or was something else bigger/better?
- Do you have any suggestions for my hybrid stat block?
- What other features do you think 4E brings to the fore that previous editions could hybridize?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[mach1.9pants]

It was the biggest step forward in easiness for the DM that is for sure! I would love to see PfRPG putting out double stats. A full set with huge lists of spells with nothing but DCs and a simple set like 4E (and therefore less monster options). Then you could use which part you wanted the most. Not going to happen obviously, but it would be nice!

 

[pawsplay]

Fundamentally, this comes down to 4e monsters being simpler. It's actually quite easy to fit a 3.5/PF monster onto a notecard, if 1) you are interested in doing so, and 2) you treat spells and such as a special case, where each one of those gets its own card if it does something out of the ordinary.

Let's say you want to run the PCs up against a group of hobgoblins. For the warriors, stick to feats that don't do a lot of conditional stuff, except maybe for one or two schticks. The rest should be bonuses, proficiencies, etc. You can go up pretty high as a warrior before you run out of obvious choices: Alertness, Toughness, Weapon Focus, Iron Will, Point Blank Shot, etc.

For the group's caster, you can either let that be the complex case, or you can simply. The way to simplify within the game as written is to have the caster only prepare the same 1 or 2 spells over and over at each level. An alternative approach would be to create a template that adds a handful of spells. Let's say you create a 10th level evil cleric. You really only "need" a maybe 5-7 spells. If the cleric has been spying on someone, you could decide they always have scrying memorized, just in case. Then you go up and down their spell list and pick one spell for each level. If the spell has a long duration, you pick a second spell, also, that has a short duration.

End result: Each minor baddie has one to three basic combat options, while the boss monster has less than a dozen. It's just like 4e! Ta-da!

Other tips: Boss monsters love feats that increase saves. All monsters love to max out X number of skills. It's fine for NPCs to have one or two nice items and the rest be masterwork stuff or treasure, especially in a lower magic game.

EDIT: I actually made a blog post on this topic a while back.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/pawsplay/1102-what-3e-gamer-can-learn-4e.html

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I've found the easiest way to do spellcaster NPCs is to not look over what spells they could have and choose which ones to memorize, but just pick on the fly what they'd cast. They're all sorcerers, some just have spell books ;p

 

[Hellzon]

[See attached pdf for an example... I know, we've come a long way/too far from "orc 6hp"]

Even "orc 6hp" had a bunch of stuff that wasn't included in those two words. thac0 and saves, at least.

Pretty statblock. It's a very basic creature, of course, but a low-level caster shouldn't take much more space in that format.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Dude, not too shabby. In some ways I think it even improves on the stellar 4e format (with the condition summary and the full complexity of 3e's combat options, ferex).

Quite nice!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Pretty cool, yep. But... the Orc is pretty simple. Try the same with a fully fledged spellcaster? What would you try to do there?

My suggestion might be to _not_ list all the spells he has, just the 5-6 you can see him casting (and maybe ensure he can cast them more than once). And include any pre-combat buffs.

 

[mach1.9pants]

My suggestion might be to _not_ list all the spells he has, just the 5-6 you can see him casting (and maybe ensure he can cast them more than once). And include any pre-combat buffs.

Yeah good ideas. It is a good set of stats.

 

[Garnfellow]

A very promising proof-of-concept. I'd definitely like to see more.

 

[Voadam]

Its not the statblock that is the improvement, it is the monster design principles. Doing out a 3e demon with its full list of spell like abilities in a 4e stat block would not be significantly better for the DM than the late 3.5 or pathfinder stat blocks or even the original 3e MM ones. Throwing a 4e Demon into a 3e statblock (converted where necessary such as saves) would give you something you could use at the table easier in a 3e game.

Not the same rules as PCs, stats designed for a specific adversary combat role at a certain level, a few themed powers and done. KISS and themed makes for good at the table DM encounter tools.

I like the concept of monster roles a lot as an encounter design tool to shape the feel of an encounter, something easy to apply to 3e/PF.

Don't feel it is necessary to give monsters feats or limit the ones they have. Same for skills and NPC level appropriate equipment.