Kerrick
First Post
I was thinking about monsters with both SLAs and integrated spellcasting (i.e., they can cast spells as an x level whatever) the other day, and I came to a decision: you can have one or the other, but not both. The reason? Well, there are a couple.
First and foremost, they're the same thing. Think about it for a second - SLAs are the ability to cast spells without having levels in a spellcasting class. Integrated spellcasting is... the ability to cast spells without having levels in a spellcasting class.
Second, eliminating their stacking nerfs the power of several overpowered creatures (angels, I'm looking at you!).
Third, creatures with SLAs and spellcasting can't possibly burn through all that power in a normal encounter (or ANY encounter, really, unless it lasts for hours of game time). Not to mention that with all that magical spellpower, many of their abilities become useless/superfluous, and thus never used.
The reason I'm mentioning this, though, is that I have one small question: What about dragons? They gain SLAs as they age, and they can also cast spells as sorcerers. I revised dragons so that they're more closely tied to the elements - their SLAs better reflect their elemental subtype - and they have a chance of spellcasting, as in 1E. I'd really like to keep both, but I'm not sure how if I institute the above rule. Do you guys think making their SLAs supernatural abilities would work?
First and foremost, they're the same thing. Think about it for a second - SLAs are the ability to cast spells without having levels in a spellcasting class. Integrated spellcasting is... the ability to cast spells without having levels in a spellcasting class.
Second, eliminating their stacking nerfs the power of several overpowered creatures (angels, I'm looking at you!).
Third, creatures with SLAs and spellcasting can't possibly burn through all that power in a normal encounter (or ANY encounter, really, unless it lasts for hours of game time). Not to mention that with all that magical spellpower, many of their abilities become useless/superfluous, and thus never used.
The reason I'm mentioning this, though, is that I have one small question: What about dragons? They gain SLAs as they age, and they can also cast spells as sorcerers. I revised dragons so that they're more closely tied to the elements - their SLAs better reflect their elemental subtype - and they have a chance of spellcasting, as in 1E. I'd really like to keep both, but I'm not sure how if I institute the above rule. Do you guys think making their SLAs supernatural abilities would work?