D&D 5E Changes to D&D's Spellcasting Monsters: Streamlining Your Way To Bliss

WotC's Jeremy Crawford talks about the way they are changing spellcasting monsters in D&D.

• Making the game more fun, easier to learn, shorting "the pathway to getting to your bliss".
• Making monsters easier to run.
• "Rumors of the death of spellcasting [in monsters] are not true". Innate spellcasting has been streamlined with spellcasting into a single trait.
• Spellcasting options are consolidated whenever possible.
• Removing options that a DM is unlikely ever to use.
• In some cases, new magical abilities in the monster statblock which exist alongside a list of spells they can cast.
• For example, the mind flayer's mind blast is not a spell, and other abilities are magical but not spells and aren't as easy to interact with with things like counterspell.
• Things which make archmages say "How is this functioning, and why can't I stop it?"

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Solution: Sorcerers and bards only.

I was gonna say different schools and philosophies, Wizard mechanically is a player class not necessarily a NPC option

 

[HammerMan]

As a DM, one can always craft or make magic items that can possesses unique actions/"spell like attacks" like the stat blocks have.

one of my favorite things is to make special monster abilities, and given time and some good RP PCs can get them a special 'magic item' other supernatural gift.

 

[Teemu]

Then they would be carrying magic items. Like I said, I'm not opposed to the idea, it just seems internally inconsistent for a wizard to do magic in a way other wizards can't (as opposed to a sorcerer or other class with more innate or gifted powers, like cleric). Sure, a god could give a cleric power it hasn't given others....but how does a wizard have such powers without an item?

Don't wizards already do magic that's not spells? They can get a bunch of magical abilities that don't use spellcasting. I'm thinking of stuff like wizard subclass powers that are magic but not spells.

 

[Stormonu]

Yeah, no.

The more I hear about this book, the less I like the direction.

 

[Zaukrie]

To be clear, I love the direction for non-class based monsters / creatures having paranormal abilities. I'm not as convinced yet for class based NPCs (also, I don't think they have to follow the same rules, I just want the fiction to be consistent).

 

[Zaukrie]

That said, I've not used a standard spell block in my published items for a few months now (when it comes to spellcasters), so I agree a change is needed.

 

[pauldanieljohnson]

I've been playing around with this quite a bit. I did a 5e conversion of The Standing Stone, which required updating various spellcasting NPCs from 3e to 5e. Prior to this change, it was really just a process of updating the spellcasting to match 5e class parameters, but this change disrupts that a lot. In a good way.

Now I generally look at each spellcasting NPC (or monster) and determine what their signature spells are. Those become Actions (or Bonus Actions, et cetera). All the "other" spells go into the spellcasting Action. This laundry list of "other" spells is intended to focus on utility spells rather than combat spells, the logic being that the DM shouldn't often need to run to their Player's Handbook to find the rules they need for a monster's Action -- instead it's all spelled out (pun intended) in the Action itself.

One of the cool things is that, when converting a spell into its own Action, you can play around with it a bit. You can up the casting level, change the description or damage type, or do whatever you want to tweak it into a unique Action for that monster, rather than just being a humdrum casting of the same old spell.

But, in order to embrace this change, you really have to walk away from the notion that NPCs and monsters follow the same spellcasting rules that players do. If you're stuck trying to map PC concepts like spells known, spell slots per level, and so forth to a monster's stat block, you're setting yourself up for frustration.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Then they would be carrying magic items. Like I said, I'm not opposed to the idea, it just seems internally inconsistent for a wizard to do magic in a way other wizards can't (as opposed to a sorcerer or other class with more innate or gifted powers, like cleric). Sure, a god could give a cleric power it hasn't given others....but how does a wizard have such powers without an item?

Tradition features.

 

[overgeeked]

"Streamlining Your Way To Bliss".

Sweet. So they've chucked all the rules and everything's down to keywords and tags that give you dis/advantage on appropriate checks? No. Well, not so much for the streamlining or the bliss then.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"Streamlining Your Way To Bliss".

Sweet. So they've chucked all the rules and everything's down to keywords and tags that give you dis/advantage on appropriate checks? No. Well, not so much for the streamlining or the bliss then.

Streamlining? Absolutely. Bliss? That's in the eye of the WotC IP.