(First you decide what level the monster is, then you use that number to see what powers and stats it has these are in "()" blocks to help out)
Monster-wise it is kind of a pain to really tell how powerful its going to be without working through the numbers. I don't see any abilities in there that are way out of line. At 26+ level if it manages to get in close with the party it could be a big pain in their rears though. Put 2 on the party defender and he could spend a lot of the encounter stunned, slowed, and weakened, lol.
Is there really a reason for this? lol. I mean when it comes to any ACTUAL encounter you would know what level it is, right? I guess maybe its a bit more compact than having several stat blocks, but since you still have to fill in all the to-hit numbers I am not real sure the format is all that useful.
Monster-wise it is kind of a pain to really tell how powerful its going to be without working through the numbers. I don't see any abilities in there that are way out of line. At 26+ level if it manages to get in close with the party it could be a big pain in their rears though. Put 2 on the party defender and he could spend a lot of the encounter stunned, slowed, and weakened, lol.
The idea is that several monsters created like this would allow me to make adventure modules that could be used by any DM for any level party. The DM would just go through before the session and as they are reading it work up the stats with a calculator, a little extra prep time, but a more flexible adventure that can be used at any level.
I suppose. I might not be the best person to comment on that since I really don't generally find modules and such overly useful with the style of game I run. It could work, though I'm not sure radically different leveled encounters on identical terrain is that great. But then I'm a terrain head.
I'd do a terrain block in a similar way. Though I'd probably just break it into three sections. Heroic, Paragon, and Epic. That way it would still be a challenge no matter what level the players are.
Really don't see the point. Instead of neat compact 4E stat blocks you offer to go back to 3.x huge walls of text with lots of info I don't need at all? Not a good idea IMO.
Its either that or I can release each adventure for every three levels which would be ten different modules that I have to customize. Ah well either way it'll sell to a broader audience.
For example, if you want to include a Garguantuan flying beast, you'll have some serious issues if it's scaled to first level
What you could do, is make each module Tier based, you can arguably scale most things at least a few levels.
As for the manual calculation; that's annoying. But, you can indeed create one module, and run the calculations yourself (or get a little program to do it for you) and provide the module for each level in the Tier.
The concept is interesting, but it won't work... not every creature can be scaled to every level.
For example, if you want to include a Garguantuan flying beast, you'll have some serious issues if it's scaled to first level
What you could do, is make each module Tier based, you can arguably scale most things at least a few levels.
As for the manual calculation; that's annoying. But, you can indeed create one module, and run the calculations yourself (or get a little program to do it for you) and provide the module for each level in the Tier.
Yeah, I think you've hit on the snag that is fairly tough to get past, at least in 4e, there are simply different "styles" of challenge at different tiers. No doubt some things like the example zombie the OP posted can represent an enemy that can challenge the players and be interesting at almost any level. The issue is really more a THEMATIC issue than a mechanical one. 4e just uses certain mechanics in a thematical way, flying mainly shows up at paragon tier, teleporting at epic tier, etc.
I think personally I would find it difficult to create an adventure module that would both scale well to all tiers and feel equally interesting and flavorful. Adjusting within a tier and especially within 3-4 levels OTOH might benefit a little from this modular approach. At the same time, standard DMG level scaling is already a pretty good tool for that.
The question is is the modular approach better than maybe just saying "OK, at levels 1-5 use THIS guy as the skirmisher, and at levels 6-10 use this other guy as the skirmisher". Pits could be deeper, traps more vicious etc within that kind of level range and it wouldn't be bad, you could use the same map and story line.
Your intended goal is to have not to worry about the actual level of the Players.
My advice would be, do worry, but in a broad range. An Adventure in the abyss or the elemental chaos may feel to tough for heroic heros anyway, scaling it wouldn't feel right.
Maybe you could settle for a range for an adventure of about 2 Tiers. For example Heroic and Paragon. You could create every Encounter/Monster 2 times each Tier, for a total of 4 Encounters. That isn't more work for you then the "several different monsters stuffed in one template" approach above.(I'm not done yet)
So for example your adventure has Encounters for level 3,8,13,18. Now in Each Encounter you make one monster type as substitute. Each Encounter will cover a level range, for example the encounter Level 8 will cover 6-10. Instead of adjusting all the numbers of all monsters, you increase the difficulty of the Encounter by adding more of the substitute monster, up to level 10. On the other hand you can decrease the difficulty by removing the already given substitute monster and making an easier battle.
One disadvantage of this method is that the difficulty of the fights may not change at the same pace while increasing the level. Another disadvantage is that you indeed would have to make several monsters.
The advantages however are strong in my opinion. I'm certain that your adventures don't "sell" at all if the DM has to fill out dozends of numbers for each monster, look up abilities in the monster manual and most of all have to figure out the formulas for those numbers using the DMG. DM who can do this made up a similiar monster in rougly the same time. So the advantage of the method above is: The DM can take those encounters and play, no further preparations on his part (That's what an adventure is for after all). Another advantage, the DM can look at the monsters and decide that his players can take one more of the substitute monsters. And you already did most of the work for this approach, as your "multi level" template can be used to flesh out the monsters at specific levels.