Monday, May 11, 2009

WWTH Format Migration?

Yax over at Dungeon Mastering recently unveiled a new addition to the 4e DM Tools part of the site: A public monster database. I was immediately tempted to migrate all the Weekly What the Heck monsters over there for a few reasons:

    • Level 4 Lurker
    • Pyrosphynx Cub
    • Small fey magical beast
    • XP 175
    • Initiative +9
    • Senses Perception +3; low-light vision
    • HP 45; Bloodied 22
    • AC 19; Fortitude 16, Reflex 17, Will 16
    • Speed 6
    • Claw (standard; at-will)
    • +7 vs. AC; 1d6 + 4 damage
    • Undeniable Cuteness (immediate interrupt, when the pyrosphynx cub is targeted by a melee attack; at-will)
    • +8 vs. Will against the attacker; the attacker must target a different creature or end its attack.
    • Shattering Cry (standard; recharge 6) • Thunder
    • Close burst 2; +5 vs. Fortitude; 2d6 + 4 thunder damage, and the target is dazed until the end of the pyrosphynx cub's next turn.
    • Forest Camouflage
    • If a pyrosphynx cub is in forest terrain when it makes an initiative check at the start of an encounter, it can make a Stealth check to escape notice.
    • Align. Unaligned
    • Lang. Elven
    • Skills Stealth +10
    • Str 11 (+2)
    • Dex 16 (+5)
    • Wis 12 (+3)
    • Con 15 (+4)
    • Int 8 (+1)
    • Cha 15 (+4)
    • Equipment---
    • TacticsA pyrosphynx cub uses its shattering cry as often as possible, trusting in its forest camouflage and undeniable cuteness to keep enemies from attacking it effectively.
    • Created with DungeonMastering.com's DM Tools
  1. Get them all in a truly uniform format with the pretty symbols for melee, ranged, etc.
  2. Make it easier for my readers to save/print cards for these monsters (with free registration over at the tools site).
  3. Maybe draw some new readers by embedding a "source" link on the card somewhere (an idea I just came up with and haven't thought through yet).
I also had some concerns, which are in my comment at the announcement post and have to do with their site administration (I've already received a direct email from Yax allaying some of my fears). I was going to list some other concerns but as I typed them up I felt they were just silly.

I already entered the first WWTH monster I ever did over there (see right) and I'm pretty pleased with the look of the result. What do you guys think of this format compared to the hand-crafted html I currently have?

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