Thoughts on Adventure Design (Part 2)

In yesterdays post I talked about dividing modules to separate the Map and Overview from the Encounters so that multiple Encounters sheets can be drafted for the same Map and Overview. This time I'm thinking about those Encounters and more specifically the use of Monster Manuals. I love Monster Books but they aren't useful in quickly populating a dungeon. This is an idea for a supplement to that. A pdf that would be super-useful in populated an adventure. 

5E srd has some prepared stat blocks that enable a GM to simply state GOBLIN in their adventure. This is a decent start but I don't like it for three reasons. 

  1. The Stat block should be in the adventure, you shouldn't depend upon cross-referencing to another book. That is great design to create slimmer books but horrible design for usability at the table. I know some folks like hardcover books but they are limiting as the kind of thing I'm talking about works far better in PDF where you can copy/paste to quickly populate a module.
  2. The Stat blocks have too much info. Does the GM really need to know the Knights skills? Or their passive perception? or even all of their weapons when they are most likely to use their most damaging go-to weapon?
  3. One GOBLIN is insufficient. Back in 4E's monster manual they listed different varieties of each beast to create variety to the encounter. This is the best thing in 4E and they didn't carry it forward. Imagine if that GOBLIN was actually a page or two of WEAK GOBLING, VETERAN GOBLIN, SKIRMISHER GOBLIN, WARRIOR GOBLIN. So the GM could just copy/paste out one or all to create a group of goblins, or to put a different Goblin in different rooms to customize encounters.
So this supplemental book would be a pdf, full of statblocks, with multiple statblocks per beast. include a table of weapons used by the group, and tactics and you have a very useful entry. Yes this book will be a lot longer, and it'll be a dull read, but it should be super-useful and super-fast when it comes to populating an adventure. 

Yes there are probably online generators that do all of this (they have them for RuneQuest which had far more complicated stat blocks, but I've never seen them for D&D). If there are generators it should be easy to cook up what I'm looking for.

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