wrecan
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Results for tag: design
Posted by:
wrecan
on Aug 18, 2012 at 12:25:19 PM
For those of you who have been following my articles on the formatting for monster stat blocks an adventure blocks (read them here:
   ), you know that stat block formatting is something I have some definite opinions about. There is some exciting news out of GenCon, which you can hear with your own ears at this podcast, thanks to the good folks at the Tome Show.They recorded a GenCon panel called "D&D Next Panel: Monsters, Magic Items, and DM Mischief". The panelists were Jeremy Crawford, Mike Mearls, Chris Perkins, and James Wyatt. The panel discussed many things, as one can see from the panel's title, and it's well worth the listen. But buried in the middle there was the following exchange about stat blocks, which you can hear beginning at 22:55 through 25:05 in the...
Posted by:
wrecan
on Jul 21, 2012 at 03:00:36 AM
This is my fourth blog article discussing what makes a good stat block. First I discussed Fourth Edition power blocks. About a month ago, I discussed the formatting of stat blocks for creatures. Two weeks ago I asked you to choose from amongst a variety of new and old stat blocks for use in a Monster Manual, a format I will call "monster blocks". In this article, I discuss the formatting of what has become known as "adventure blocks". James Wyatt, I believe, coined the term "adventure block" in this article from 2006. An adventure block is a stat block built to be used in the midst of a published adventure, rather than in a book dedicated to full-length explanations of monsters. An adventure block should, ideally, be much shorter than the corresponding ...
Posted by:
wrecan
on Jul 7, 2012 at 09:39:04 PM
Vote for the creature stat block you would like to see! In my last substantive blog article, I spoke about designing a good monster stat block. In this article, I would like to compare the stat blocks through the ages. For this purpose, I chose a single creature that has appeared in each edition through the years: the djinni. I chose this creature because it is somewhat iconic, and it is a creature that is difficult to reduce to a stat block because it has spell-like abilities that can be used out of combat. All of these scans are from my own books, except for the 4e djinn, which I screen-captured from the Compendium. You can click on any of the stat blocks to see a larger version. Please note that I am only discussing the mechanical stat block. As we will ... |
