When making monster reference cards for my Hawkmoor campaign I did some research on stat blocks across the various editions. That culminated in the creation of a spreadsheet based on the humble Orc so they could be readily compared. The gray rows are the stats from the original edition that is (almost) common across all editions.
When I look at this it strikes me that the Basic stat block is both the most useful and nicely succinct. I expected 5th edition to be the most convoluted, but it is 3/3.5 that is overly complicated. Why no 4th? Meh.
The final reference card form ended up looking like this:
And this version is formatted for a standard 2"x6" bookmark:
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Hawkmoor is a classic high-fantasy retroclone that emulates LBB+GH plus some of my favorite mechanics from various editions presented in an "old-school" way. It is named after the capital of Sinder, a frontier state that stands between the demonic arctic hordes of Cholizar and the warmer southern lands. It is based on Tarniss, the grim fantasy world of Dungeoneer. A co-op boardgame of the same name is also in development.
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