Need DMing organization tips

[MiniMoose]

Hey so I started DMing my campaign last night and need a quick tip for organization. I made two clerics for my team to fight, and I had no idea how to make the toons without making a whole character sheet. I tried putting all the relevant info on a word doc, but it took me forever to find stuff. So, I was wondering if you guys had any helpful tools (like an excel sheet template) and where I could download it to help this. Thanks!

[Critical]

Hey so I started DMing my campaign last night and need a quick tip for organization. I made two clerics for my team to fight, and I had no idea how to make the toons without making a whole character sheet. I tried putting all the relevant info on a word doc, but it took me forever to find stuff. So, I was wondering if you guys had any helpful tools (like an excel sheet template) and where I could download it to help this. Thanks!
Statblock like those in MM?

[Evard]

A quick and dirty thing a DM showed me (I was going to sub for him a couple times) was to make the stats for enemies, give them abilities (fast healing etc..), and any spells or extra things you want them to do.

Cleric:
Ac: X
Ref: Y
Will: M
Fort: D

Spells: as standard cleric + 2 castings per level
Fast Healing: as trolls

And there you go... X, Y, M, D can be any number you want it to be... What he did was make it where for the characters to hit ac they would have to roll 17-20 or 15-20 depending on how hard he wanted it to be. Since he knew what the players had for attacking it was easy to plan it. If the save for the wizards spells was 22 then he could give the cleric a save v/fort a +15 therefor making it a bit harder for the wizard to hit fort (he always gave each baddie 2 hard to hit saves and 1 save that sucked... and sometimes had them switch every round in battle :D)
Remember the players have to abide by the rules but you don't :P. In 3.5 the challenge rating doesn't really work most of the time and his method worked just fine for a group of optimizers and a group of optimizers.

This means you don't have to worry about making a character just making the loot + numbers for the stats.

[valadil]

"Toons?"

I use a stat block similar to Evar.

Fort Sword +N, 2d6+10 /19-20x2
Ref HP
Will Init
AC

I'll follow that with a paragraph of feats and or spells available. For simplicity's sake spellcasters are almost always spontaneous. I usually do one line of spells per level, starting with the highest. They're prefixed with spells/day and DC.

It's pretty efficient and I can usually get 4 characters on a hand written page.

[lsfreak]

If you type stuff up repeatedly, the routine of finding stuff will sink in. Granted, spells do get quite a bit more complex. Whenever using a spellcaster, I go over it several times before the session starts to make sure I've got it down. This is how I generally lay out a statblock:

Classes - MoveSpeed, Initiative, Sensory stuff, Hidey stuff
HP
- special HP stuff [regen, fast healing]
AC23(sources) (Touch AC)
- Special AC stuff [Law Devotion]
- Special AC stuff [Uncanny Dodge]
Fort/Ref/Will
- Special Save stuff [+5vs enchantment]
- Special Save stuff [Evasion]
StrX DexX ConX IntX WisX ChaX
Comprehensive list of feats, for reference
Comprehensive list of skills, for reference
+x/x/x weapon DMG
- special modifiers to the attack [favored enemy, knowledge devotion]
- attack options for this attack [sneak, power attack]
[additional attack entries if they use multiple weapons, for regular attack/rapid shot/multishot, etc]

- special actions [Robilar's Gambit]
- special actions [Improved Trip +8mod]
- special actions [AoO whenever ally strikes threatened target]
- special actions [Earth Devotion]
[broadly split up into attack modifiers/options, out-of-turn options, special on-turn actions]

Pre-Buffed Spells:
List of Spell Modifiers [metamagic, save DC increases]
Spells per Day - Save DC
1st level:
- Spell 1 (Reflex half/No SR)
- Spell 2 (No/Yes)
- Spell 3 (Swift, touch, Fort or exhausted else fatigued)
2nd level:
[I write myself notes on anything I think I might not remember but that will come up]

[Sc00by]

I've recently started DMing too and I've found that I have to create charaters to the depth detailed by IsFreak above in order to fully understand what they can and can't do and how they are going to achieve what I want them to achieve.

I tried winging it off a postage stamp and that didn't go well... :smallannoyed:

In fact I like to have statted out a monster from the MM too, mostly they have poor feat choices I've seen cases where HP and to hit/damage bonuses are recorded incorrectly and Dragons need as much building as an NPC or they'll suck... :smallamused:

I have a friend that has been DMing (pretty much constantly) for around 30 years and he can run pretty much anything off the top of his head. I haven't, so I can't... Although it's already (almost a year on of once a week) getting a little easier...
All i need now is a memory so that the enemy caster starts play invisible and flying like he was supposed to and it'll all go swimingly! :smallbiggrin:

[Swordgleam]

Just practice. Make enough NPCs and monsters and you'll get a feel for what's what - what kind of defenses are hard to hit and what are easy, what abilities are useless and which ones lead to near-TPKs. Then you can make stuff up on the fly for all of that.

[Navigator]

First, if you're serious about getting organized, use Heroforge (http://www.nzcomputers.net/heroforge/) and if you want to use NPC wealth, try my Wealth Tool (http://cs.oswego.edu/~farina/hics.html). Also on the Heroforge site is something called MonsterForge, which is excellent for advancing Hit Dice on monsters.

And then, copy everything over to a plain document. Try to conform to a particular kind of stat block, and put all relevant information in the appropriate sections, as stated above. For example, if the creature/character has freedom of movement, include that wherever his Speed and/or Grapple check is. If they have damage reduction, include that by AC and/or HP. If you stay consistent and do it a few times, it'll take very little time to prepare for session, and you'll have solid notes.