D&D 5E The use of Monster Stat Blocks in Adventures

[meomwt]

I dislike flipping between books - or even between pages of books - to get information for an encounter. It slows down the game. Mrs meomwt complains when I have to do it as well.

ATM, I'm prepping chunks of T1-4 for our fortnightly game, and I put the statblocks for bad guys into the encounter text. If I need to add any extra conditions or spells, I can add those as well. It makes my life a little easier at the table.

If I were running any of the published adventures, it seems that I would have to have a cheat-sheet of monsters printed out so as not to page-flip between books and appendices.

 

[joshinminn]

I'd buy monster cards for each adventure. Picture on one side, stats on the other. Like spell cards.

 

[Henry]

I've never seen anyone do this, but I would prefer having abbreviated stats in a sidebar, near their reference in the adventure. That way, you have something to go on, that doesn't break the flow of the text. I really hate having nothing but the creature type, a la Out of the Abyss, and I have to create my own reference sheets separate from the adventure.

If nothing else, just a stat block with AC, hit points, abbreviated attack and damage, Challenge rating, and ability saves. If the creature has special abilities or spells, reference those back to the appendix or monster manual, because the majority of creatures don't have those. It would be easy enough to separate proficiency bonus from ability bonus, so that one block would have both their saves and bonuses for easy reference. That would take up maybe seven lines?

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I've built an InDesign template, and use that to create stat block index cards. They work as both a reference and a way to track initiative.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[fjw70]

I prefer having atleast a summary of the monster stats when they are encountered in the module.like others have said I hate flipping to an appendix or another book for monster stats.

Maybe each adventure should have a PDF supplement that shows monster stats by location so that it can used with the adventure and wouldn't take any page count of the printed book.

The monster card idea is a good one too. Would love to have those as a DM.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Disclaimer: I come from an old school background, and played 1e as my preferred edition up until 5e came out.


This is what I do when I design my games. Putting in all info just takes up too much space for my tastes, so I put in just enough to get the important things right there for easy reference. If I'm taking up more than a couple inches of real estate, then the text block is too big, IMO

A page from my upcoming Felk Mor superdungeon: (edited to put the new image)

 

[abirdcall]

I'd buy monster cards for each adventure. Picture on one side, stats on the other. Like spell cards.

I would love adventures that came shrink wrapped with a fold out map and monster and NPC cards.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I copy and paste the monsters stats on initiative cards that I use from a PDF of the MM I have, or if I have one the modules we are playing, or in the case of HotDQ from the supplement with the monsters. In the modules itself I'm fine with an abbreviated 5 Orcs with their HP totals, but moderns games seem to really frown on random HP for monsters as well as PC. I love it, this one is the leader since he's max HP, sometimes a weak foe goes down early due to bad HP and the enemy line breaks, etc.

In a perfect world WotC would have a MM index card sized deck I could buy and printable cards for adventure specific monsters. I'd be happy to pay for the MM deck but some monsters would have too big a stat block but you could abbreviate.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Well, I for one prefer the 4e way of bringing all the mechanical info of an encounter together in one place. Let's face it, there's no sensible way you run an adventure using or referring only to one place. And if I have to use (at least) two different information sources, it's most convenient to limit it to two sources with one giving the complete information to run an encounter.