The Kapre Advantage (Part 1)

In Dragon magazine's latest Ampersand (DDi exclusive) article, Mr.Bill Slavicsek revealed the statblocks for some monsters appearing in HS1: The Slaying Stone. The monsters themselves were not new (kobold dragonshield, ankheg, and gray ooze all appear in published monster Manuals), but it was still quite a reveal. You see, they showcased a new format for the statblocks themselves, which is the same format that they will use for the upcoming Monster Manual 3.

That got us really excited over here at Nosfecatu Publishing, and we immediately set about checking out ways to go with the new statblock. And as it turns out, it actually looks better than our previous monster statblock template. But hey, you be the judge: Here's the kapre, coming on as a full article at the upcoming issue of Combat Advantage by Emerald Press, in both the old and new formats!

Old format (click on image to enlarge):

New Format (click to enlarge):

Notes:

• The whitespace increases the readability of the new format, and the separate lines for attack and hit helps too.
• All in all, it's easier to think of the best combination of actions that you'll have the monster do while DMing because of the way powers of certain action types are grouped together.
• Drawback: The statblocks generally take more space, and they are harder to fit in a page of pdf.
• I didn't know where to put the aura description, so I placed it in traits, which seemed most appropriate.

The kapre and it's huge cousin, the kapre titan, will be seen with the classic statblocks once Combat Advantage comes out (for free!). Be sure to check it out - for in it you will find notes on the kapre mythos and how they can be adapted into any D&D 4E game.

Meanwhile, we're hard at work on Asuang: Shapeshifting Horrors. Each asuang presented in the upcoming e-book will have the new formats (since we like them that much). If things go well, we could start discussing the monsters in-depth by next week's update. Our day jobs are paticularly booked this month though, much to My Lord and Master's dismay, so that's not guaranteed to happen. But rest assured - we're doing our very best to churn out our second product as soon as we can. :)