The Zero Level Statblock

Behold: The Zero Level Statblock!

As a player, I recently found myself stuck without character sheets, and coincidentally, the playtest I was participating in had only two players, including myself. Consequently, I found myself managing eight zeroes without my usual comfortable Purple Sorcerer generated sheet in front of me.

As switching windows and tabs was rather ineffective and causing me to slow down the play, I began writing down the most frequently used stats that are called upon. It turned out that the template I came up with resembled the monster statblock since the DCC statblock is famously pared down to just what is necessary to run the monster.

As a result, I have created the following template for zeroes that I play with, whether as a player or a Judge:

Zero: Init +0; Atk weapon +MOD melee (1d4) and weapon +MOD missile fire (1d6+1); AC 10; HP 4; SV Fort +0, Ref +0, Will +0; AL

We are leaving out a few things that all zeroes share (HD 1d4; MV 30'; Act 1d20;).

In this example, I have replaced HD with HP in the same position. However, during play, I will place the HP last on my paper so that I can cross things out as they lose and possibly regain points: HP 4 2 1

This can be farther paired down by only listing stats that are not zero, where you can presume anything missing is zero.

The final piece I find inefficient is that it is a common thing in a funnel for a level zero who does not start with a ranged weapon to find one, and the same also applies to those starting without melee weapons. This could lead to situations where your statblock does not list the AGL mod. In that case, I think it might make sense to alter it in the following way: Atk weapon +MOD melee (1d4) and +MOD missile fire

By leaving out the weapon name, you could still include the +MOD missile fire, so that the AGL modifier stat is readily available, in-place, within the statblock.