D&D 5E New Spellcasting Blocks for Monsters --- Why?!

[EzekielRaiden]

Meh. That is far, far too mich to read. But needless to say, I disagree with pretty much everything I did read in the first two or three sections. To me there are quite obviously large amounts of 4e dna in 5e. It’s not really subtle. But the presentation is such that we can pretend it’s not there so we don’t get 4e cooties on 5e.

"I didn't read your post because it was too long" is hardly a good argument. I even gave a much shorter summary, just in case the length was a problem.

5e has skin-deep similarity to 4e. Hit dice vs healing surges, cantrips vs at-wills, Proficiency vs half-level bonus (a particularly important difference!), magic items, six saves vs three defenses, and one-hour "short" rests as opposed to five-minute short rests, in each of these places the superficial similarity to 4e is present, but as soon as you look at what these things actually do and why they are present you can see that they work against anything 4e was trying to achieve. Hit dice are a sorta-kinda useful sprinkling of extra healing on top of the necessary but totally unbounded healing from other, almost always magical, sources. Cantrips are exclusive to casters and a major source of disagreement because of it. Proficiency isn't applied universally, so characters necessarily fall behind on anything they aren't specifically focusing on (particularly noticable with saves, since normal characters get only two, but it also applies to skills, with Stealth being the most pointed example.) Because magic items are allegedly optional, rather than actually being optional as they were in 4e when using the "inherent bonuses" rules, 5e characters are often starved of them, again affecting the class balance. Using rolled saves instead of static defenses makes support focused characters significantly harder to write and play, and overall favors spellcasters because you can always have a handful of different saves to target. And the one-hour short rest is all by itself a major reason why short-rest-based classes in 5e are underpowered compared to long-rest-based ones.

The only areas where the similarities are more than skin deep are skills (though that one depends HEAVILY on how the DM chooses to run it), Backgrounds (which actually do work very similarly to 4e Backgrounds+Themes; I preferred the 4e way but the 5e way isn't bad), and Feats (which SO DAMN MANY of the DMs out there will instantly tell you are not only optional but forbidden at their tables.)

In pretty much every other way, 5e differs radically from 4e.

 

[Charlaquin]

Meh. That is far, far too mich to read. But needless to say, I disagree with pretty much everything I did read in the first two or three sections. To me there are quite obviously large amounts of 4e dna in 5e. It’s not really subtle. But the presentation is such that we can pretend it’s not there so we don’t get 4e cooties on 5e.

That is true of the design elements they did adopt from 4e, such as its action economy. However, many elements are exactly the opposite - superficial nods to 4e that don’t actually serve the same design function in any way. Hit Dice are an example of this, looking a bit like Healing Surges if you didn’t understand their design purpose, but actually functioning in a way that is directly opposed to what Healing Surges did for 4e.

There’s definitely a bit of both, some things smuggled in from 4e but disguised not to look like it unless you’re familiar with 4e, and some things made to look like 4e mechanics but totally undermining the design of the thing they resemble. The overall effect looks like a balancing act, trying to give 4e fans just enough to keep them from jumping ship, while gutting the 4e design from the game.

This change to monster stats does look genuinely 4e though. I think it’s a sign that they’re no longer scared of losing the h4ters. There is a critical mass of 5e players who started with 5e, so they no longer need to care what the people who have hangups about 4e think.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Nope, it is slowly reverting to 4ed. That is how the monsters in 4ed worked.

I loved 4ed, but that train has passed and left its mark for good or bad.

The thing that bugs me to no end with the old/new stat block is that it us a profound change in the starting philosophy of 5ed. Monsters were having spell like abilities and character like foes would have class abilities. Yes there were a few exceptions but most foes were following the basic guidelines. And all were fine.

Now every foes will have spell like abilities and that change in philosophy is deep enough to warrant a full new edition. But WotC is afraid of going 6ed because it does not know how people would react to it and 5ed sells so well still... Why take risks? Just change the edition bit by bit and see how far we can push the changes... When enough changes will have been swallowed by the players, they will send us a nice new edition that will look exactly like 5.xed...

I simply wish that 5ed be left as it was and that WotC had the courage to throw the edition the developing team has in mind instead of perverting further the game we had in 2015.

Let them throw at us 6ed and we will see what the players truly want. The 5ed philosophy or the new philosophy that the dev team wants to take.

Yes... they sneak in 4e into 5e, so subtely that we don't notice that in the end, we are back to 4e. Probably their plan all along. It was all a big trick, to make 4e popular.
Even if I don't like the changes. I like that they are doing changes. Right now I see them as tests and voicing dislike or like is a good idea.
5e has some rough edges but it is way too good at its core to throw away. From a business perspective, probably they decided it is better to update 5e instead of splitting the base with 6e.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes... they sneak in 4e into 5e, so subtely that we don't notice that in the end, we are back to 4e. Probably their plan all along. It was all a big trick, to make 4e popular.

I almost missed the irony in that first paragraph; I was about to try and argue with it

 

[Hussar]

"I didn't read your post because it was too long" is hardly a good argument. I even gave a much shorter summary, just in case the length was a problem.

5e has skin-deep similarity to 4e. Hit dice vs healing surges, cantrips vs at-wills, Proficiency vs half-level bonus (a particularly important difference!), magic items, six saves vs three defenses, and one-hour "short" rests as opposed to five-minute short rests, in each of these places the superficial similarity to 4e is present, but as soon as you look at what these things actually do and why they are present you can see that they work against anything 4e was trying to achieve. Hit dice are a sorta-kinda useful sprinkling of extra healing on top of the necessary but totally unbounded healing from other, almost always magical, sources. Cantrips are exclusive to casters and a major source of disagreement because of it. Proficiency isn't applied universally, so characters necessarily fall behind on anything they aren't specifically focusing on (particularly noticable with saves, since normal characters get only two, but it also applies to skills, with Stealth being the most pointed example.) Because magic items are allegedly optional, rather than actually being optional as they were in 4e when using the "inherent bonuses" rules, 5e characters are often starved of them, again affecting the class balance. Using rolled saves instead of static defenses makes support focused characters significantly harder to write and play, and overall favors spellcasters because you can always have a handful of different saves to target. And the one-hour short rest is all by itself a major reason why short-rest-based classes in 5e are underpowered compared to long-rest-based ones.

The only areas where the similarities are more than skin deep are skills (though that one depends HEAVILY on how the DM chooses to run it), Backgrounds (which actually do work very similarly to 4e Backgrounds+Themes; I preferred the 4e way but the 5e way isn't bad), and Feats (which SO DAMN MANY of the DMs out there will instantly tell you are not only optional but forbidden at their tables.)

In pretty much every other way, 5e differs radically from 4e.

Again, I think you're making much more about minor details and losing sight of the larger picture. So much of 4e is built right into 5e that you ignore.

Two step recovery, for one. The concepts of short and long rest. Sure, 5e short rests are longer, but, that doesn't change the fact that you have most classes based around encounters with just enough dailies to keep going for a full day.

You seem to think that there is a serious imbalance between classes which I just don't see. All the classes are built on one of three chassis, instead of a single chassis in 4e, but, still far more standardized than in earlier editions. Cantrips? Who cares about cantrips? I've almost never seen any issues with cantrips. Yeah, I think that fighters should get at will stuff too, fair enough, but, meh, that's a pretty minor thing. Magic items absolutely ARE optional and are completely unnecessary. Nor are they necessary for game balance. The classes do just fine without them.

Like I said, we're just not going to agree here. WHere you see major imbalances and big changes, I see minor stuff that I simply don't care about and don't impact the game. Nobody "falls behind" on proficiency because of bounded accuracy. You should almost never have a DC higher than 15 in an entire campaign, at any level. Which means that proficiencies work pretty much exactly like they did in 4e - about a 66% chance of success most of the time.

To me, 5e is a revision of 4e. They play almost exactly the same. The design goals are very close to the same. And that's why we're seeing EXACTLY the same criticisms today that we saw fifteen years ago. The only thing is, it took some people are really long time to recognize that these design goals were there all the way along, just phrased in just the right way to avoid issues.

 

[Undrave]

It should take me about the same. Apply that to a whole MM2 when it comes out... I do that with all casters in adventure books. That is a lot of work imposed on me and anyone else doing it.

Why tough? Most NPCs are disposable chumps. I can see doing the work on your BIG BAD like Vecna, but are you REALLY going to waste any time at all tweaking "Goblin Boogermancer #4" or whatever? To add more spells and not just swaps spells out on the fly? He's gonna be dead in like 3 round, 4 tops, and nobody will think of him afterward.

Is recharge a 5E mechanic or did it appear in 4E? I honestly don't recall.

It was in 4e. And stuff recharged on bloodied as well (Dragons often recharged their Breath Weapon AND used it automatically when being bloodied for the first time).

 

[Undrave]

If I was playing with a DM who changed things "mid fight", I would leave. Changing things after the session, or making changes for next time if it fits the world's narrative (like a caster swapping prepared spells) is fine--but in the middle of a fight? No way.

How'd you find out? If monster A never used feature B and the DM replaces it with feature C because he realizes feature B is useless in this instance, would you even notice?

DMs are Wizards... of Oz.

It's fine to care about versimilitude as a player but DMs are already looking at backstage, I don't understand why they should care about versimilitude further than how they present it to the players to percieve. It's like being a director on the Muppet Show and being mad you can see Kermit's pupeteer when you should be worried if he appears on camera or not.

 

[Undrave]

Vecna can cast 1 8th level spell (and 1 7th, and 1 6th) in a day. Sadly he has no 9th level spells.

And yes, no 9th.

just say he cast that 9th level spell before the battle

 

[Maxperson]

It is more interesting IMO. I just don't find a list of spells I will not use interesting.

He has all the spells I want him to have.

The reason I give my spellcasters the full complement of spells is for the same reason I memorize all my PC spellcaster spells carefully. Because I want to maximize my chances of having something useful to do in unknown future situations.

If the PCs do something unexpected or outside of the narrow spells shown in the OP, I'm put in a bad position. I know that Vecna would have many more spells than he is given, so what do I do? If I just give him the spell needed, then it just feels wrong to me because he didn't have that spell in advance, so it feels to me like I'm giving him what he needs to get out of jail free. On the flip side, he's a freaking spellcasting genius and would have a myriad of spells to get out of bad situations, so if I don't give it to him, I feel like I'm shortchanging him.

I don't want to be placed in a position where both giving him the spell he needs and not giving him the spell he needs feels wrong. If I give him a full list, then if he has the spell I can use it with a free conscience. And if he doesn't have the spell, I don't feel bad about leaving him in the bad situation. It's a lot more work and most of the spells won't be used, but it's worth the effort to me to not be placed in a lose/lose situation.

 

[Maxperson]

I will because I am human and make mistakes. If I can correct those I will. Like I said, it is something I very rarely do. I don't think the PCs should suffer for a mistake I (the DM) make.

I am also against absolutes in general when it comes to a game.

Yep. I always correct my serious mistakes.