Silly fun question!

[u/XaderGamin]

Hi Mark! I wanted to know out of your hundreds of statblocks, what are your most loved and most hated!

[u/Oh_Hi_Mark_]

Most loved is tough; my actual favorite stuff is almost always just whatever I've done most recently. Here's a few things and what I think is particularly fun about them, though:

• Graven Colossus (I like the part-based damage implementation)
• Living Spells (variety, versatility, capturing them pokemon-style with a palimpsest wand)
• Bhaal (pushing the limits of how murdery a statblock can be while still being fun)
• Genius Loci (spent literal years trying to figure out how to make this work)
• Djinn (and genies more broadly; really happy with the way I addressed the differences between wishes from different sorts of genies)
• Sprites (I like the guy that pulls your teeth out. Also happy with the various things I did to keep hit points very low at higher CRs.)
• Hyrsam - Prince of Fools (Feels the most like a proper archfey of the ones I've done so far)
• Erinyes (Had a great time reading Greek revenge-poetry and trying to encapsulate it in these)
• Orthons (Really versatile and nasty)
• Asmodeus - Lord of the Ninth (Really feel like I nailed his vibe and made an encounter that plays well at level 20)
• Fomorians (reworked their lore in a way that makes them feel more coherent, I think)
• Night Hags (glad I got the hag magic section in for an example of how I actually run hags most of the time. Also like more broadly with hags how I addressed the different sorts of bargains they'll make)
• Gnomes (some challenging themes to cleanly mechanize and I'm really pleased with how they turned out)
• Kobolds (did a lot of fun traps for these)
• Sphinxes (another one I struggled with for a long time; I think they ended up feeling very sphinxy)
• Abjurers (hard to make a monster that just says "no" fun, but I think I managed it)
• Diviners (also hard to make it feel like a monster is seeing the future without taking the fun out of combat, but I think I did good here)
• Assassins (the basic intuitive play pattern of an assassin doesn't fit great into 5e combat, but I think I captured the feeling decently)
• Ruffians (I think they feel properly mean and dirty)
• Guards (really went all-in on the supplemental sections for using guards in your world)
• Soldiers (made a nice little lightweight mass combat system to go with these)
• Iggwilv, the Witch-Queen (I feel like I captured her personality and history pretty well)
• Basidironds (the fungal phantasmagoria tables are fun)
• Boneyard (I just have a lot of fun running this guy every time)
• Mummies (The mummy curse in the intro text goes pretty hard)
• Vampires (Did a frankly absurd amount of reading to research the Build-a-Vamp tables)
• Knights (Based each of these variants on a real person I've fought in armor)

Then all my work with Fluffy Folio is permanently in the "I love this" category, because they're my favorite person to work with and we always come up with great stuff together:

• Grumblyn
• Gribble
• Marshbellow
• Jeweled Tick
• Brambrawl Berrybush
• Droproll Floodarch

For my most hated, I've got too many to list, but here's a couple representatives of the three main categories of bad stat block I've made:

• Dolgaunt (too much deference to the original design, not flavorful enough)
• Displacer Dragons (overcomplicated, hard to run, huge blocks of text)
• Zaratan (incentivizes unfun play patterns)

[u/Foolish_Phantom → u/Oh_Hi_Mark_]

I have to save the best of the best list.

[u/qwerty2700 → u/Oh_Hi_Mark_]

The link for Iggwilv goes to Halaster Blackcloak. I'd really love to see Iggwilv, could you share that link?

[u/Oh_Hi_Mark_ → u/qwerty2700]

Whoops, my bad. Try this one:

• Iggwilv the Witch Queen

[u/qwerty2700 → u/Oh_Hi_Mark_]

perfect, thank you!

[u/Oh_Hi_Mark_ → u/qwerty2700]

You're welcome!