D&D 5E Spellcasting Monsters, Spell Slotlessness, Bonus Actions, and Intent

[Micah Sweet]

ability to run a single big bad without dozens of adds, so it does not get "action economy-ed" to death by 5 PCs.

I'd rather have the adds, or a decent in-fiction explanation for messing with the action economy, or (preferably) both.

 

[Azzy]

It was an exercise in insanity trying to create a high level NPC using the PC rules as was expected in 3/3.5e. Even mid-level ones were tough.

Agreed. After DMing 3/3.5e, I never want to go back that kind of madness.

 

[SkidAce]

It was an exercise in insanity trying to create a high level NPC using the PC rules as was expected in 3/3.5e. Even mid-level ones were tough.

Its why we never did it.

Wrote down what we needed to interact in combat, made decisions about anything else they had if we needed it for story later.

 

[Remathilis]

On the other hand, 5e (2014) has downtime rules, and I have run and/or played in games that passed years in downtime. So I guess if you can get the party to buy in to the idea of taking ten years off....

Maybe if they are all elves and there is no pressing need to save the world...

That said, I tend to make "turned into a monster" NPCs unless it's a using a specific PC option or it's a temporary thing. If a player wanted to be lich, vampire or lycanthrope, that is something they would have to use some PC option like dhampir or shifter, but if they want to be a straight up MM style monster, they become an NPC.

 

[Epic Meepo]

Telling people who disagree with you to play a different game is not as effective a rhetorical tactic as one might suppose.

My apologies. I didn't see the D&D 5E tag on this thread, so I was mistakenly assuming a broader discussion of in-setting character advancement in different game systems was on the table. I'll save that for a general thread.

 

[Sorinth]

I wouldn't necessarily take away a player's character sheet if they became a lich. Heck, there's a 3pp necromancer class I favor that has becoming a lich as it's capstone!

But you aren't suggesting that the DM needs to find or make a 3rd party class/subclass/feat for every single unique ability that ever comes up in their games right? In which case the point stands that there will be some things not available to PCs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But you aren't suggesting that the DM needs to find or make a 3rd party class/subclass/feat for every single unique ability that ever comes up in their games right? In which case the point stands that there will be some things not available to PCs.

Again, why not? I just don't see any in-fiction reason why PCs and NPCs can't learn each other's abilities (because they're the same in-fiction) and setting logic trumps game balance almost every time for me.

 

[Sorinth]

Again, why not? I just don't see any in-fiction reason why PCs and NPCs can't learn each other's abilities (because they're the same in-fiction) and setting logic trumps game balance almost every time for me.

So at session 0 you present 300+ homebrew options to the players?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So at session 0 you present 300+ homebrew options to the players?

I have a 500+ page houserules document, so...

 

[Sorinth]

I have a 500+ page houserules document, so...

Sounds horrible to me, but hey to each their own