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

[Shardstone]

Nah, see I feel like Vecna especially is the kind of jackass that would absolutely retool and rebrand even the basic spells.

He would have a black Vecna Bolt that leaves people twitching on the floor instead of just dealing damage.

He would have Vecna Missles that deal necrotic damage and raise those killed as zombies.

He'd have Veclight, which is Daylight only it's the neuralizer from MiB that makes people forget.

I'd be a warlock who buys into the Venca, Inc. branding for sure.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is so unfortunate... and this has always been the biggest thing which made me question things-- why do people put so much stock in IP? So much of themselves in the brand?

I guess I can understand it intellectually to a certain extent... but emotionally I really am hard-pressed to grasp why and how so many people put what goes on with the brand onto themselves? That they tie their own stakes of what they do and play into what they are given by the rights-holder of the name 'Dungeons & Dragons'? I just don't get it. I really don't.

There have been like 7+ versions of some type of "Dungeons & Dragons" over the close to 50 years. Every one has had similarities, but also great differences. None of these games have been the same. And there have been so many hundreds of thousands of differences over the entire length of these 50 years and 7+ games called "D&D" that I just can't understand how people still tie their sense of self into so many of these individual bits that they almost find it to be a personal affront when they get changed down the line. It's just... it's inconceivable to me.

Dungeons & Dragons isn't a thing. It's a name. That's all it is. A name that has been put onto 7+ different games. And if you like one of those games more than another... that's great! You are so lucky to have found it! Enjoy your time playing that game! Play that one you like and not the others you don't! There's NOTHING wrong with that and even the designers have tried to make that point clear over the years-- they don't care which version of D&D you play... they just want you to play something. So play that what makes you happiest, even if it isn't what the "current" version is, or the one that more other people are playing. Because none of that is important.

But for the love of all things healthy... please don't link your sense of self to just the name and the brand. Because that's when you end up feeling "betrayed" and "abandoned" when the newest versions of the game with that name come out and aren't the ones you want to play. Let yourself go. Let the name go. Play the GAME you want... not the BRAND. Because you can't control what happens with the BRAND, all you can control is your happiness playing that one specific game.

Excellent point, but it's also true you can't control how many other people want to play the particular game you want. Every time the game moves somewhere you don't like, fewer and fewer people will keep playing the game you do like, because the majority almost always follows the leading edge. That's a real concern, even if there's nothing to be done about it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Third party still still less then a fraction of what WotC's audience is

Sure. What's your point? Good game design has nothing to do with popularity.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

How many times do you really go back to the Necromancer well 5 or 8 levels later?

Necromancer not much orc... goblin... hobgobin a lot. but I could use 3-5 necromancers from CR 5-CR19

 

[Bill Zebub]

While unique abilities are awesome, in the case of powerful beings with lots of abilities it makes sense to me to create unique powers for the most iconic/important ones, and then throw in a bunch of spells as contingencies.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Like the deeply important prestidigitation.

Which again, shouldn't be a spell you have to choose because you're magic and do magic things.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

While unique abilities are awesome, in the case of powerful beings with lots of abilities it makes sense to me to create unique powers for the most iconic/important ones, and then throw in a bunch of spells as contingencies.

I like to mix up class abilities and unique abilities... I like giving my guards second wind and action surge... but I also stole something from middle earth "sound the alarm: when initiative is rolled even in the surprise round the gurde gains 21 temp hp that go away at the end of there first turn"

 

[Voadam]

Just in case nobody mentions it to you: MoM absolutely does have the Conjurer, etc. It's under "Wizards" near the end of the book. I've done a side-by-side comparison of all of the wizard NPCs, and it's one of the reasons that I really like the new monster stat-block. They seem much, much easier to run. (Sure, they're not as close to their PC-equivalents anymore, but I don't personally care about that. If I want a PC-based NPC wizard, I can build it using PC rules).

Thanks!

Even though I was looking under C for Conjurer as in Volo's and missed them when looking for them in MotM I think the new format of having all the wizards under a "wizard" entry is a more functionally useful ordering for utility when wanting to look up NPC wizard options. At least once you know to look under W instead of C.

Giving the new ones a quick once over it seems unfortunate that the ubiquitous NPC wizard attack power arcane blast is not a spell that could be counterspelled or blocked by a globe of invulnearbility in a wizard duel the way an at will attack cantrip could. Narratively the wizard NPC go to magical attacks are where you would expect spell countermeasures to be effective. Also narratively given wizard colleges these are the NPCs you would most expect to work similarly to a PC, I can easily see Hogwarts/Strixhaven type plots where you are mechanically interacting with NPC wizards with the same training/teachers as the PC's one and the difference in anticipated mechanical interactions would be jarring.

 

[Reynard]

Necromancer not much orc... goblin... hobgobin a lot. but I could use 3-5 necromancers from CR 5-CR19

I don't like using the same enemies over and over again. It's boring.

I also think it is useful to have a bunch of maneuvers and special abilities on hand to give to otherwise generic monsters/NPCs to spice things up. If each of the 5 hobgoblins had a different "move" the fight would be much cooler.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Thanks!

Even though I was looking under C for Conjurer as in Volo's and missed them when looking for them in MotM I think the new format of having all the wizards under a "wizard" entry is a more functionally useful ordering for utility when wanting to look up NPC wizard options. At least once you know to look under W instead of C.

Giving the new ones a quick once over it seems unfortunate that the ubiquitous NPC wizard attack power arcane blast is not a spell that could be counterspelled or blocked by a globe of invulnearbility in a wizard duel the way an at will attack cantrip could. Narratively the wizard NPC go to magical attacks are where you would expect spell countermeasures to be effective. Also narratively given wizard colleges these are the NPCs you would most expect to work similarly to a PC, I can easily see Hogwarts/Strixhaven type plots where you are mechanically interacting with NPC wizards with the same training/teachers as the PC's one and the difference in anticipated mechanical interactions would be jarring.

That's the whole issue. The new statblocks no longer represent the character narratively. Instead, it's a gamist snapshot of what you expect them to accomplish in 2-3 rounds of combat. Its just not what I want out of a monster entry.