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

[Hussar]

You are mixing two paradigms: rigid preparation and improv. If you’re DMing this way there might not be a list to edit. I might say, “I didn’t know what spells he had until he needed them.” Or maybe it was, “I wrote down a few of his spells, but left some empty spaces.”

Also, Vecna is way smarter than I am. If I’m prepping his spell list for him it’s a huge handicap.

Oh but now you are ruling by fiat if you use anything that isn’t specifically detailed in the stat block and there’s no point in playing your game because your players cannot trust you.

After all stat blocks are carved in stone and must remain inviolate or the game is meaningless.

So much for “rulings over rules”. Dms must be shackled to only what the designers wrote and are forbidden from using their judgement.

 

[Reynard]

I just see fudging as fundamentally refusing to play fair. The numbers are meaningless, the rules are meaningless. Nothing I as a player choose or attempt truly has any weight. For literally whatever reason the DM thinks is justified, the world can and will warp around their new concept. I will never be allowed to know how things actually worked out. My tactics and strategies always and eternally have the giant asterisk of "assuming the DM actually plays by the rules." Even if the DM never, not even once, chooses to do things that make life harder for me (such as adding HP to a boss, which is literally exactly the same as taking away damage from previous player rolls), they're still denying me the ability to earn my victories and learn to play better. I'll never truly know, and thus never truly he able to trust, that I succeed because I perform well; if it's hidden from me (as most advocates STRONGLY recommend, to the point of "never EVER tell your players you fudge, literally actively lie to them to conceal it") then I'm actively being deceived, and if it's only soft hidden, as in the DM admits to doing it after the fact but not while doing it, then I'll never really be able to feel like I'm playing a game. It will always feel, at root, like I'm being pulled through the DM's novella and any victories I earn are just what story beats she needed to tell.

That's why I cannot accept any form of fudging. If it's secret, it's unacceptable. If it isn't secret, as in, if the players can actually find out in the moment that it is changing and either respond immediately or learn how to respond in the future, then it's not fudging, and I have no problem with it.

I expect every DM to play fair. That means either playing with your cards face up (no concealment at all), or giving me the chance (even if it ends up not working out) to find out what the cards are. Anything else is not playing fair; it would be pretending that there are rules and limits, and then breaking those rules and limits whenever and wherever you feel like it.

I understand where you are coming from. You view the game, particularly the combat part of the, as a test of your skills. You don't want to have those skills invalidated by the GM changing the rules of the test on you mid-stream.

That is a totally valid way to play. I do think you would want to clearly communicate that to any GM you play with, though, because I don't think it is a common way to approach play in the modern day.

 

[Undrave]

Not every holy warrior in plate armor is a Paladin or a Cleric, and not every spellcaster who made a deal with Asmodeus is a Warlock. On the flipside, if I have a Lawful Good Cleric who wears plate armor and deals radiant damage when he hits someone upside the head (thanks to his level 8 Domain feature) and he is accepted into an order of holy knights, there's no reason he can't be called a Paladin, even if he isn't one.

My 4e Dragonborn Cleric was,in universe, a drill sargeant for an oder of Paladins. I took the Paladin MC feat to get 1 Divine Challengean Encounter and had that one Encounter 1 Cleric Prayer that marks a target. Fun character and synergized with the team's actual Paladin.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Oh but now you are ruling by fiat if you use anything that isn’t specifically detailed in the stat block and there’s no point in playing your game because your players cannot trust you.

After all stat blocks are carved in stone and must remain inviolate or the game is meaningless.

So much for “rulings over rules”. Dms must be shackled to only what the designers wrote and are forbidden from using their judgement.

That’s the irony, right? The only reason I wouldn’t want a DM to improv during combat is if I had some reason to not trust him/her.

The DM’s I do play with I trust. (And I think they trust me when I DM.) I trust that if they make something up during combat it’s in the name of fun.

If I just want to test my character sheet against a stat bloc, I don’t even need a DM. I can roll dice for both sides.

 

[Reynard]

That’s the irony, right? The only reason I wouldn’t want a DM to improv during combat is if I had some reason to not trust him/her.

The DM’s I do play with I trust. (And I think they trust me when I DM.) I trust that if they make something up during combat it’s in the name of fun.

If I just want to test my character sheet against a stat bloc, I don’t even need a DM. I can roll dice for both sides.

Except there is movement and action choices.

I feel like there's some unnecessary badwrongfunning going on here in regards to a certain "competitive" play style.

 

[Neonchameleon]

this is my measure of how I feel as a player... if the DM is trying to 'win' it is a big NO... and it doesn't matter if they have 100pg write up sealed and handed to us session 1 with all the stats of the guy who TPKed us session 25, or if he was winging it.

When I'm the DM I have the power to say "rocks fall and everyone dies". Why am I trying to win? There's no challenge or interest to it.

As much as I am still very, even extremely opposed to secretly editing things on the fly...this is the only defense I have ever seen of the practice which I can't immediately counter. So, at the very least, congratulations on giving me something to think about. I cannot say if this has changed my mind or not, but it's something I'll have to chew on for a while. That's no mean feat in this context, as I'm sure other folks around here could tell you. I am if anything RABID in my opposition to anything that even remotely looks like it could be considering broaching the subject of attempting to fudge.

I will say, IF you did this for me, I would enormously value it if you put in effort (preferably in advance, but in-the-moment improv is sometimes necessary) to justify how and why such a thing could be, and (assuming the players are successful at investigating it, which is not guaranteed) permitting the PCs to learn how to prepare against or co-opt such powers for their own use in the future.

I think part of it is that I do things consistently and can explain how and why. It's effectively as if my bosses have an extra rule "Ace in the Hole: As a boss this character gets one and only one plot coupon to redeem to make everything more interesting and challenging." that's consistent throughout the game even if it isn't in the official rules. I also always tie it to the known tastes and capabilities of the boss rather than having it come out of nowhere - and if I can't think of anything that works with that boss or their organisation then I don't use anything.

 

[Hussar]

Then again, in a recent thread you didn't see the issue with the GM deciding the DC of as kill check only after the player has rolled and announced their result, so perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised with you not getting this...

I don't think this was me, but, then again, I say a lot of things, so it's entirely possible. Although I think probably the context was more a comment that most of the skill checks in D&D are basically the "roll high" system with skill checks being largely 100% arbitrarily decided by the DM based on whatever the DM feels is "appropriate".

But, in any case, there's a difference between disagreeing with you and "not getting it". I do get it. I really do. I understand why people insist on making the stat blocks inviolate and insisting that you must never change anything. My point is that unless it's been established in the game, you can't really argue that you're changing anything. That warlock HAS those abilities potentially. But, since they're likely not going to impact most encounters, they get left off. I am not changing anything.

Or, to put it another way, would it be acceptable to leave blank spaces on the stat block that say something to the effect of, "Insert ability here when needed"?

See, to me, the stat blocks are not rules at all. They're simply short hand for what I can use in the game. They're not rules in the sense that I'm somehow cheating if I change the stat blocks. I am SUPPOSED to change stat blocks. It's expected. Heck, I use random HP rolls that are generated when I put the monster in the Combat Tracker in Fantasy Grounds. I honestly do not know how many HP any of my NPC's have until initiative is rolled.

Does that mean I'm fudging? Note, my players absolutely know this to be true since it applies to all NPC's - friendly or not. So, when they summon something, every single summoning will have different HP, every single time. Am I fudging or not?

 

[Hussar]

My 4e Dragonborn Cleric was,in universe, a drill sargeant for an oder of Paladins. I took the Paladin MC feat to get 1 Divine Challengean Encounter and had that one Encounter 1 Cleric Prayer that marks a target. Fun character and synergized with the team's actual Paladin.

Heh. That was one thing I truly adored in 4e - that the link between class and what you were in the game was so tenuous. My Human Rogue was a priest of Kord whom he believed he actually met while lost in the forest after eating some curiously colored mushrooms in his stew. Kord appeared before him and gave him a quest to create a temple of Strength where he would straighten crooked men and tighten loose women. He even carried the spoon that Kord used to eat the stew as a holy artifact.



One of my all time favorite characters. ((And, yes, I love the Mike Resnick Lucifer Jones stories, why do you ask?)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I understand where you are coming from. You view the game, particularly the combat part of the, as a test of your skills. You don't want to have those skills invalidated by the GM changing the rules of the test on you mid-stream.

That is a totally valid way to play. I do think you would want to clearly communicate that to any GM you play with, though, because I don't think it is a common way to approach play in the modern day.

Given the responses to some of the fudging threads earlier this year/late last year, I think it's more common than you give it credit for--but not as common as I, personally, would like

 

[Irlo]

I would be very surprised if (nearly) everyone uses short hand extensively when writing adventures and preparing for play. Does anyone prepare a complete list of the contents of the kitchen in the cult headquarters, or do you improvise knowing what you know about kitchens when PCs start to poke around looking for a bucket of lard? Do you write full descriptions of each room and area and door and section of floor and cobweb, or do you improvise descriptors as you go?

If NPC bandits (with a stat block from the Monster Manual in front of you) get disarmed of their scimitars by the PCs, do you improvise and allow them to draw a dagger to continue fighting, or do you stick to what's written? Is that improvised dagger a form of fudging? Can you say after initiative is rolled that one of them draws a mace instead of a scimitar? Do NPCs carry any equipment other than what's specified in the stat block? Do you know exactly how many crossbow bolts they're carrying?

If "cult kitchen" is a short hand notation that allows for improvisation of the specific contents of the place, and if "bandit" is short hand that allows me to assume a dagger that's not specified in the stat block, why wouldn't "necromancer" be a short hand notation that allows improvization of cantrips and necromantic effects?

To say all that is fudging or cheating just seems ... odd to me. I've never seen a written adventure, either professionally published or written by an amateur, that doesn't rely extensively on improvization to fill in gaps. It's DM judgment,