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

[dave2008]

I agree, and for me personally the 5E take on all of those is a direct improvement (especially Advantage/Disadvantage and bounded accuracy). It the parts thst are still like 4E (like Monsters not playing by PC rules) are a direct improvement on my 3.x experience.

I don't 100% agree that all are a direct improvement, but see where you are going.

Because you skipped 3.x, I dunno how aware you are, Dave, that in 3E all Mosnters play entirely by PC rules, including Skill points and Feat distribution, with a direct parallel to player level in all aspects. Made tinkering with Monster stats sort of Hellish, but made it pretty easy to allow a player to do something off the wall (I had a friend play a Hill Giant once).

I am aware and so glad I didn't play that edition. I really can't imagine making monsters for 3e / PF

 

[Charlaquin]

Yep, I just have to many other side projects at the moment and it is really a task beyond my meager talents I think. I like making monsters, that is what I am best at.

If you do end up working on it and want some help on it, I’d be interested.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't 100% agree that all are a direct improvement, but see where you are going.

I am aware and so glad I didn't play that edition. I really can't imagine making monsters for 3e / PF

In my experience, a lot of people didn't and let the professionals take care of the heavy lifting. 4E made the wise decision make very easily build able Monsters, and 5E kept a lot of the philosophy there.

 

[Ondath]

I am aware and so glad I didn't play that edition. I really can't imagine making monsters for 3e / PF

I started DMing with 3.5 and later Pathfinder, and I have to admit that edition had swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. Generating the simplest monster took a while (and character creation itself lasted half an hour for a level 1 character, compare that with 5E's much more streamlined process). That said, I think you can keep verisimililutude without requiring the monsters to be built with the exact same rules. For instance, NPCs of a certain race don't need every single racial trait that the PCs get, but a few emblematic ones are enough to give the sense that this is an NPC of a specific race (think of Elf NPCs getting Fey Ancestry).

Hell, pre-3E editions also built monsters and PCs with different rules, but they clearly had verisimilitude in mind when designing monsters. Except, the verisimilitude didn't come from designing every aspect of the monster with the same rules as the PCs, but from adding entries to the stat block that show the monster's logic in its world. Think of the entry notes like Intelligence Level, # Appearing, Day-Night cycle etc. These clearly painted the picture of a world where monsters had ecologies and lived their own lives when they were not being fought in an encounter. You can clearly have this while designing your monsters with different rules (hell, AD&D monsters didn't have any ability scores!). But they need to follow the fundamental logic of the game universe. In the case of spellcasting, that can mean using the same spell slot system (or at least also having a list of spells that they'd reasonably have alongside spells designed for combat effectiveness) and their spells interacting with the magic system in a reasonable manner. The new spellcasting blocks go against these assumptions by (1) really reducing the spell selection and (2) having spells-but-not-spells that break the magic rules. I can almost tolerate (1), but (2) is what really grinds my gears.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Gatekeeping isn’t about putting your own preferences above others. It’s about wanting barriers to entry to keep others away.

 

[Ondath]

Gatekeeping isn’t about putting your own preferences above others. It’s about wanting barriers to entry to keep others away.

I'd argue that saying "And good riddance to an entire demographic whose playstyle I disagree with! The game should completely abandon them." with a straight face counts as wanting barriers of entry.

 

[Parmandur]

I started DMing with 3.5 and later Pathfinder, and I have to admit that edition had swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. Generating the simplest monster took a while (and character creation itself lasted half an hour for a level 1 character, compare that with 5E's much more streamlined process). That said, I think you can keep verisimililutude without requiring the monsters to be built with the exact same rules. For instance, NPCs of a certain race don't need every single racial trait that the PCs get, but a few emblematic ones are enough to give the sense that this is an NPC of a specific race (think of Elf NPCs getting Fey Ancestry).

Hell, pre-3E editions also built monsters and PCs with different rules, but they clearly had verisimilitude in mind when designing monsters. Except, the verisimilitude didn't come from designing every aspect of the monster with the same rules as the PCs, but from adding entries to the stat block that show the monster's logic in its world. Think of the entry notes like Intelligence Level, # Appearing, Day-Night cycle etc. These clearly painted the picture of a world where monsters had ecologies and lived their own lives when they were not being fought in an encounter. You can clearly have this while designing your monsters with different rules (hell, AD&D monsters didn't have any ability scores!). But they need to follow the fundamental logic of the game universe. In the case of spellcasting, that can mean using the same spell slot system (or at least also having a list of spells that they'd reasonably have alongside spells designed for combat effectiveness) and their spells interacting with the magic system in a reasonable manner. The new spellcasting blocks go against these assumptions by (1) really reducing the spell selection and (2) having spells-but-not-spells that break the magic rules. I can almost tolerate (1), but (2) is what really grinds my gears.

For 1, a facade that will hang around for 12-18 seconds of combat doesn't need a deep selection, and they never have followed the rules as PCs all Edition. The only rules about Spellcasting are HP healed or damaged, anyways. For a PC, that's HP healed or damaged in a Standard Adventure Day. For a Monster, it's damage dealt or healed in 12-18 Adventure Seconds.

 

[Ondath]

For 1, a facade that will hang around for 12-18 seconds of combat doesn't need a deep selection, and they never have followed the rules as PCs all Edition. The only rules about Spellcasting are HP healed or damaged, anyways. For a PC, that's HP healed or damaged in a Standard Adventure Day. For a Monster, it's damage dealt or healed in 12-18 Adventure Seconds.

But that's the fundamental difference in perspective between a gamist style and a simulationist style. If you look at the monster/NPC in a gamist way, obviously that monster will matter only during the span of that encounter, so the deep selection makes no sense. The simulationist sees that monster/NPC as a real entity in the game world. The simulationist might not object to changing how the information on the stat block is presented if it will make running the monster/NPC during the encounter easier, but the simulationist would like at least some extra entry somewhere that fleshes out the monster/NPC's place in the world. The ecology entries in AD&D provided that, and you could safely ignore them and use the bottom 6-7 lines to run the monster in combat. Personally, I'd be fine if the utility spells were moved out of the spell block to the text section of a monster's entry in the MM. But again, this isn't what we're getting. We're just getting the game construct and nothing else to flesh the creature as a real entity.

 

[Parmandur]

But that's the fundamental difference in perspective between a gamist style and a simulationist style. If you look at the monster/NPC in a gamist way, obviously that monster will matter only during the span of that encounter, so the deep selection makes no sense. The simulationist sees that monster/NPC as a real entity in the game world. The simulationist might not object to changing how the information on the stat block is presented if it will make running the monster/NPC during the encounter easier, but the simulationist would like at least some extra entry somewhere that fleshes out the monster/NPC's place in the world. The ecology entries in AD&D provided that, and you could safely ignore them and use the bottom 6-7 lines to run the monster in combat. Personally, I'd be fine if the utility spells were moved out of the spell block to the text section of a monster's entry in the MM. But again, this isn't what we're getting. We're just getting the game construct and nothing else to flesh the creature as a real entity.

D&D isn't really a simulationist game at all, and only made an effort at trying for a brief time that ended 15 years ago. It wasn't true before 3E, and isn't true afterwards.

 

[Reynard]

12, I think

My point in asking, of course, was to underscore that just because you are able to parse it doesn't mean the new GM can.