The incredible shrinking stat block!

[UnknownAtThisTime]

Especially for minions, the result is not bad, but I can not help but think that the time spent "simplifying" these is far from gained back in their simplicity of use.

 

[Quickleaf]

I do like the idea but am extremely resistant to it because it makes monsters a little less flavoursome.. it is the same thing I feel when i dont get to see an art picture of the monster in the MM... I have no idea (if i havent dealt with that mon before) what it looks like and if it fits the concept of my adventure... shrinking down the stat blocks and removing the cool flavor hurts my head.

Yeah, I don't like that either. Sure there could be a more expanded entry in the MM, that's what it's there for after all. However, in an adventure I think a compressed statblock makes more sense. That said, you'll notice I took one line to describe the monster's quick traits as an aide to role-playing; it's not much but it's more than what is done now.

Personally, I think the flavor/mystique of a monster should come across in the art direction, the flavor text, tactics. The stat block is there for ease of play. And IMO, the "hidden as stone pillar" & "tentacle grab/reel" features of the roper are what that monster is all about, so they are flavor in a sense.

Btw, the idea has evolved since the OP you quoted, check out my last post on the first page.

While statblocks can probably be compressed a fair bit, I like that everything is laid out in nice bite-sized chunks. Although it might seem trivial to unpack that a power entry could be used for both melee and ranged attacks, many monsters will have different attack and damage values for both, so the space saving is small and you have to remember that this particular power entry for this particular monster might be useable in more than one way.

What did you think of my latest roper stat block revision? "Bite sized chunks" was exactly what I went for. Anyhow, I'm tackling some more complex monsters this week, so we'll see if I come up with a good way to compress them.

I remember running an Encounters game and the players were pitted against (IIRC) Fell Taints. I had no clue how to describe a "Fell Taint" to the players, had never seen it in any of the Monster Manual books, and the Encounters format rarely provides descriptive text of what the players are facing off against. I would gladly sacrifice space used for the ability scores and miscellaneous skills to get a brief description.

I'm with you, that's a trade off I'd make in a heartbeat. Maybe that's something which should be included at the very top of a stat block, a snapshot description?

Especially for minions, the result is not bad, but I can not help but think that the time spent "simplifying" these is far from gained back in their simplicity of use.

Strange comment considering I'm doing the simplyfing

This is an experiment about possible new directions for the stat block to go in; consider these stat blocks as if they were published this way in an adventure. I'm not suggesting we go out and redesign a bunch of stat blocks in Gimp or Photoshop. That would be a waste of my time. This is about proof of concept and thinking outside the box with what DMs need from stat blocks during play.

I am planning on drawing the attention of WotC once this thread gets going, and maybe [MENTION=56746]mudbunny[/MENTION] can point it out?

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

Strange comment considering I'm doing the simplyfing

This is an experiment about possible new directions for the stat block to go in; consider these stat blocks as if they were published this way in an adventure. I'm not suggesting we go out and redesign a bunch of stat blocks in Gimp or Photoshop. That would be a waste of my time. This is about proof of concept and thinking outside the box with what DMs need from stat blocks during play.

I am planning on drawing the attention of WotC once this thread gets going, and maybe @mudbunny can point it out?

Hah, no I understand. I am just saying, as you know, that is a fair bit of work, and not something I would undertake as part of my game prep on a weekly basis.

It will be interesting to see if WotC has any interest, but I think your only real shot is in the minion area.

 

[mudbunny]

This thread looks interesting. I will check in every now and then.

Let me know when you think I should let WotC know and I will do that.

 

[Iron Sky]

For skills, I would probably do something like "Good skills: +8" "Bad skills: +2". For monsters I rarely need much more than that and I often find myself changing which skills they're good at on the fly to reflect how I've reflavored them.

Then all you do is figure out if it's a skill the monster should be good at or not and roll.

Come to think of it, you could do the same thing for attacks: "Good attacks: +8/6", Bad attacks: "+2/0" for AC/vs NAD powers. Presumably, monsters would be good at all their attacks except those denoted bad (melee attacks on artillery and strikers, ranged attacks on soldiers and brutes for example).

I pretty much ignore monster ability scores anyway, so this makes sense to me.

That said, it would be useful to maybe have a separate area below the mechanics that has the creature description and what their attacks look like to save my poor DM brain some work in making each attack interesting.

 

[Quickleaf]

For skills, I would probably do something like "Good skills: +8" "Bad skills: +2". For monsters I rarely need much more than that and I often find myself changing which skills they're good at on the fly to reflect how I've reflavored them.

I agree that's all a DM needs to know for a monster. It would be a kinda radical new direction, but I would happy with that.

That said, it would be useful to maybe have a separate area below the mechanics that has the creature description and what their attacks look like to save my poor DM brain some work in making each attack interesting.

Hmm. I am looking for a good example of a creature with obscure attacks. Preferably an elite or solo with traits, encounter powers, and recharge powers - IOW something fairly complicated.


I realized I hadn't yet redesigned a standard monster, so here is a frost giant. The red diamond signifies an encounter power, and it's meant to be checked off when used. Added a monster description at the bottom. Didn't save much space, but maybe it's easier to read?

 

[Iron Sky]

It is much easier to read; your eyes are drawn to the numbers you are looking for.

You could probably remove where it says "Coordinated Attack" and put "Trait" instead - it's more important to know what it is than what it's called.

Other than that, looks great!

 

[Quickleaf]

It is much easier to read; your eyes are drawn to the numbers you are looking for.

You could probably remove where it says "Coordinated Attack" and put "Trait" instead - it's more important to know what it is than what it's called.

Other than that, looks great!

Thanks. Good point about using "Trait" instead.

And I was thinking Intimidate is a kind of useless skill for a monster or NPC to have (it doesn't work on PCs anyhow), as are most knowledge skills. It should probably just be replaced with Endurance on this frost giant.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My advice here would be to take some lessons from the original stat blocks. Put the name of the power and type icon at the start of the line, I'm not sure which of these are powers, etc and had to refer to the original statblock to understand some of them. Maybe color codes or something to tell us action type and frequency of use? That would be cool, a red or green line indicating at-will/encounter for instance. Not sure about action type, but maybe that could be done by just putting some color at the edge of the statblock itself or shading each section with a low saturation shade that provides that information. Not sure how ugly that would look, but the more information that can be packed in with subtle cues the better (at worst you don't 'get it' and you're no worse off than if it wasn't there). As long as they are fairly subtle they won't tend to clutter things up much.

 

[Grydan]

I would find your stat blocks easier to read if they followed WotC's convention of name, then number/info, rather then number/info before name.

Speaking for myself, if I'm looking at a stat-block for something, such as AC, my eyes seek out the label AC then move to the right (given that most reading I do goes from left to right). Using your blocks, I'd constantly be mistaking the Fortitude defence for the AC.