D&D 5E Spells in Stat Blocks are Terrible

[Uller]

I'm running Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle...there are multiple wizard NPCs of around 8th level. I would definitely not want all their spells printed out in their room description or monster entry in the back. Listing magic missile, shield, sleep, burning hands, invisibility, melf's acid arrow, fireball, hold person, and firewall is sufficient. Printing them out is a waste of space. This isnt 4e where a caster NPC has just two or three spell like powers. A spell crib sheet might be handy for those who cant remember the major details of spells.

If spells are printed out in monster descriptions that's a deal breaker for me. I'll go back to OD&D.

 

[Nebulous]

Second point. Even if we all agree that it's dandy for NPCs and some monsters to use actual spells from the PHB, the lack of any kind of capsule description to accompany them is awful. Even with a few bare notes about the save needed, damage/effects, area, and/or targets, the utility of the stat block increases and my need to open up a PHB decreases dramatically. So, if the monster has Burning Hands, tell me the basics up front - 3d6 damage, dex save for half, etc. - so us DMs don't need to borrow the PHB to run the bad guys.

See, personally, i have no problems with this whatsoever. It just doesn't bother me having to reference, sometimes, probably even RARELY, a spell in another book. Most of the common ones would all get memorized anyway.

 

[Nebulous]

After playing a lot of 4E, I'm quite ready to go back to spells in stat blocks. There are some major advantages with the system, of which the main one is that it gives the creature versatility.

One of the problems I had with 4E was that monsters were very limited in what they could do. Typically they had one main attack and one special attack. The trouble came when the players did something to negate the special attack - at that point, they lost most of their effectiveness. Having a list of spells allows monsters more versatility depending on the situation. A monster that can cast thunderwave, web and fireball is more interesting than one that only thunderwaves.

Of course, I also detest having to memorize hundreds of spells to use them with monsters... but, with any luck, most monsters will stick to a relatively small list of spells which we'll memorize easily because they're used so much.

The things I really wanted eliminated from monster stat blocks - and doesn't appear in 4E or 5E - were feats. Feats are tremendously more obscure than spells, and are a major pain in running 3E and PF.

One minor benefit of having monsters use spells is that, as the DM, I get to read spell descriptions rather than just taking my players' word for what spells do...

Cheers!

I agree with everything Merric says. Removing monster feats from 5e (and 4e) is a blessing. I cringe when i see it in Pathfinder now. I guess if i see a monster spell listing for Web, Fireball and Thunderwave, as a DM i'm not even going to look it up. I've played a long time. I know what these things do, and i can make up damage and the DC on the fly, the players won't know the difference. I can tweak range, duration, radius, anything. New players to D&D won't have that advantage, and yes, they'll have to spend more time poring over the rulebooks. But then again, i have VERY fond memories of poring over D&D rulebooks.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

See, personally, i have no problems with this whatsoever. It just doesn't bother me having to reference, sometimes, probably even RARELY, a spell in another book. Most of the common ones would all get memorized anyway.

My experience is that this is really not the case. In 2E/3E, spellcaster NPCs caused us to FREQUENTLY (as in multiple times/session) reference the PHB and/or other, later spellbooks, and it significantly slowed play.

On top of that, people's memories are unreliable - plenty of spells got run wrong for years because we tried to work from memory and thought we were right but weren't (and by all accounts this was common in other groups too!).

Further, we'll be dealing with new spells, which have been modified, and many of which have unpredictably variable effects depending on spell slots.

There really is no excuse for not having capsule summaries of the main combat spells a creature uses. Every spell would be excessive, but ones it is likely to use? No excuse.

 

[Thaumaturge]

There really is no excuse for not having capsule summaries of the main combat spells a creature uses. Every spell would be excessive, but ones it is likely to use? No excuse.

That you like.

There clearly are excuses. I've read some of them here.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Evenglare]

I like the spell lists. Sure more information is nice but not needed. Many times I swap out spells on a spell list anyway. It is a minor thing to look up a spell and I can have that prepared ahead of time because as DM I know what encounters and monsters the PCs will face.

It's a minor thing if you are talking about 1 monster, but many? Every page flip is a second and though that doesn't seem like much it adds up. Alot. As a DM I have no idea what monsters my party is going to face. I generally try not to railroad them, so I guess if you were doing a set story path in a campaign and can prep for every eventuality then yeah it probably isn't a problem for you. For me and many others it is though.

 

[KarinsDad]

My take is that spells in monster stat blocks is fine as a general rule. Once I start playing the game on a consistent basis, I'll start remembering most of the spells.

It's just that initial learning curve.



However, I'd like to point out that we are now in the Internet Age.

WotC should have a 5E Compendium with not only the monster listed with spells in the stat block, but also with a check box that allows someone to view the stat block with the spells expanded (and a check box to allow someone to print with the spells expanded or without the spells expanded).



With 4E, I personally find it fairly easy to cut and paste monsters out of the compendium, put them into Word, possibly modify them there, and then print them out for use as opposed to trying to keep a given page of two different monster manuals open behind my screen. It does require prep time, but 4E has maybe 4 encounters per session. 5E will probably have 2 to 4 more encounters per session, so having good 5E Compendium tools is a must.

 

[Bawylie]

Given that we're getting a free PDF, "flipping" time is cut down to "type/search" time.

What used to be a big problem now appears to be a minor annoyance.

 

[Emerikol]

Despite often disagreeing with Obryn, I'm not without sympathy on this issue. I do have some nuances.

I do not believe most monsters should use spells. I believe if an eel has an electrical attack that it should not be shocking grasp. It should just be inlined just like 4e does it. On the other hand, I believe any genuine spell caster should use spells exactly the way PC casters do. I agree with Obryn again though that a tiny stat block like entry for each spell would obviate the need for lookup in most situations.

Now one of my rules is that I never lookup things. If the player is not prepared then he suffers for it. As DM, I am prepared. So obviously I do lookup this stuff in advance and add it to my notes. I think the MM helping me out would be nice.

 

[Crothian]

It's a minor thing if you are talking about 1 monster, but many? Every page flip is a second and though that doesn't seem like much it adds up. Alot. As a DM I have no idea what monsters my party is going to face. I generally try not to railroad them, so I guess if you were doing a set story path in a campaign and can prep for every eventuality then yeah it probably isn't a problem for you. For me and many others it is though.

So, the PCs can run into any monster in existence with no forewarning? Then who is making the choice of what they run into? Is it a random table that will include all the monsters? Will it allow for first level characters to run into monsters well above their ability as most would be?

Even with random table the DM should have an idea of what the monsters the group will run into. Most random table have a small set of appropriate monsters. One is not going to find an arctic based monster on a desert random monster chart. For people who run modules then the monsters are set and while the PCs have many choices there is foreknowledge the DM has on what they are going to encounter.