D&D 5E Apprentice Wizard- Arcane Burst power

[Yaarel]

Level two wizards don't get 3 HD.

Yes, of course. My oversight. I suppose it should be: Hit Points 10 (2d6)

But because the 3d8 is a typo, it might be that "10 (2d6)" got entirely garbled.

They don't have only two skills.
Your assumptions about what a zero level wizard is aren't supported by the rules.
Wizards have an ability to regain a spell slot on a short rest, this doesn't

I repeatedly said "abbreviated" "simplified"

More importantly, statblocks dont need to conform to player character sheets.

However, things like spells, weapons, magic items, etcetera do.

Because these are things that player characters normally employ.

Unless there is a bizarre narrative explanation for why not, players can use these treasures too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's no way to insist this is a second level wizards based on the evidence. Just like there's no way to insist this is a standard cantrip based on the evidence. It is more powerful because this NPC needs its imbalance to be made up for by the spell.

Yes, and I say that is IMO an unacceptable reason for said disconnect.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A good point. There isn't AFAIK a way to do this in core 5e- there are supplements like the Tower in Strongholds & Followers or a5e's Spellcrafting downtime activity. On the other hand, I don't think it should be an expected requirement of the system to provide a path for it... and I'm usually critical of what WotC doesn't cover :'D

I think it is an expected requirement of the DM to provide said path, especially if the PCs express an interest, and I would love it if the game provided assistance in that regard.

 

[J.Quondam]

I think the Hit Die is a typo, and should say 3d6 instead of 3d8. In any case, the Hit Points are correct.

I don't think it's a typo. In 5e, HP are determined solely by creature size and CON, not type or class. According to the MM (p.7), medium creatures use d8 as hit dice, and this appears to still be the case in MotM.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

At the end of the day I feel like if I threw an enemy wizard at my party, and they shot off some cool spell, and my wizard player said

"Hey, that's really cool. I'd love to learn how to do that"

Me telling them 'Tough crackers, maybe you should have made a monster instead of a player character, neener neener boo boo' feels like letting them down. It doesn't have to be something they can do next round, or even next level.. But if they(Their character) is serious about it, they should have a path towards learning it.

Why? As noted, pc's don't get legendary resistance, or lair actions, or other stuff NPC's do.

But if you want to let them? Make something up. That's 5E's default anyways. "OK, give up your highest level spell slots and I'll upgrade a cantrip"

Would you let fighters deal extra damage dice on all their attacks because a gladiator does it?

This obsession with making PC's and monsters the same seems borne out of 3e's madness (which should be noted was the only edition to do this). More crud on a overly fiddly stat block doesn't make the game more real.

 

[Meech17]

A good point. There isn't AFAIK a way to do this in core 5e- there are supplements like the Tower in Strongholds & Followers or a5e's Spellcrafting downtime activity. On the other hand, I don't think it should be an expected requirement of the system to provide a path for it... and I'm usually critical of what WotC doesn't cover :'D

It would be nice if the DMG provided help as far as making up content.

Speaking of Strongholds and Followers, Matt Colville has a video about better rewards. I'm browsing at work, and while ENworld bypasses the IT filter, Youtube doesn't, so you'll have to forgive me for not linking the video.

Anyway, I think this would be a good point for that video's lesson however. The reward is learning the new cantrip: Arcane Burst, and the prerequisite would be something like "Seek a way to advance your wizarding ability."

I think I'd leave it up to the PC to figure out what that is. Perhaps they could find a higher level wizard, and try to seek their tutelage, or maybe finding some great arcane library where they could perhaps spend some times studying some tomes around arcane magic.

I don't think the DMG really goes over homebrew much at all does it?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why? As noted, pc's don't get legendary resistance, or lair actions, or other stuff NPC's do.

But if you want to let them? Make something up. That's 5E's default anyways. "OK, give up your highest level spell slots and I'll upgrade a cantrip"

Would you let fighters deal extra damage dice on all their attacks because a gladiator does it?

This obsession with making PC's and monsters the same seems borne out of 3e's madness (which should be noted was the only edition to do this). More crud on a overly fiddly stat block doesn't make the game more real.

Not a big fan of 5e's default of, "make something up". I'm paying them for rules, not encouragement I don't need to rely on my own creativity.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It would be nice if the DMG provided help as far as making up content.

Speaking of Strongholds and Followers, Matt Colville has a video about better rewards. I'm browsing at work, and while ENworld bypasses the IT filter, Youtube doesn't, so you'll have to forgive me for not linking the video.

Anyway, I think this would be a good point for that video's lesson however. The reward is learning the new cantrip: Arcane Burst, and the prerequisite would be something like "Seek a way to advance your wizarding ability."

I think I'd leave it up to the PC to figure out what that is. Perhaps they could find a higher level wizard, and try to seek their tutelage, or maybe finding some great arcane library where they could perhaps spend some times studying some tomes around arcane magic.

I don't think the DMG really goes over homebrew much at all does it?

Not really. They can't sell homebrew.

 

[Yaarel]

I don't think it's a typo. In 5e, HP are determined solely by creature size and CON, not type or class. According to the MM (p.7), medium creatures use d8 as hit dice, and this appears to still be the case in MotM.

"Hit Points 13 (3d8)"

d8 = 4.5 hit points, 5 hit points, or 8 hit points at level 1

One might expect "3d8" to become 18 Hit Points.

Maybe 4.5 x 3 = 13.5 rounded down


In any case, I am fine with DMs making up statblocks on the fly − this is kinda the point of statblocks − without needing to conform to the painstaking process of building a player character.

But the treasure should be available to players, including spellbooks and cantrip imitations.

 

[NotAYakk]

At the end of the day I feel like if I threw an enemy wizard at my party, and they shot off some cool spell, and my wizard player said

"Hey, that's really cool. I'd love to learn how to do that"

Me telling them 'Tough crackers, maybe you should have made a monster instead of a player character, neener neener boo boo' feels like letting them down. It doesn't have to be something they can do next round, or even next level.. But if they(Their character) is serious about it, they should have a path towards learning it.

Sure, and like anything else where a player has their character have a goal, this is an adventure hook. They don't know how it happens, but maybe they can get a clue with an arcana check.

If they want to go down that route as a party, you can do it. There is nothing super unbalancing about getting an ability like that after some in-game effort and possibly character resources being expended.

I'm not sure why you'd say "neener neener boo boo"?

I mean, if I see a ranged cantrip do 1d10+some mod of force damage, my first thought is going to be "Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast" unless I'm explicitly told otherwise. Cantrips don't get pluses to damage in most cases.

(And to be clear, we typically roll in the open in my games, so the damage calculation used would be obvious.)

So, they are using mechanical meta-knowledge in order to complain about a monster's abilities. That sounds like a them problem.

If they have an in-character reason to investigate what is going on, you ask for a knowledge check, etc. "What kind of spell was that" is a reasonable one to ask. Again, at this point your players are invested in this problem, which is an adventure hook and means as a DM you are justified in (a) using it to motivate adventuring, and (b) have the time budget to spend resources on mechanics or whatever.

This is no different than a custom magic item, a custom feat, a boon, or anything else you'd 'brew up as part of mechanical-story interaction?

I think the Hit Die is a typo, and should say 3d6 instead of 3d8. In any case, the Hit Points are correct.

No, not a typo: Monsters use the creature size for their hit dice.

Tiny: d4
Small: d6
Medium: d8
Large: d10
Huge and bigger: d12

Monsters (and NPCs by default) don't have character levels, so don't get character HD or HP.

Ability Scores are: 14, 11, 10, 10, 10, 10
I suspect the 14 is somehow "costing" higher scores elsewhere.
I think I like as a default array for a "typical" level zero: 13, 12, 12, 11, 11, 10
In any case, player characters can be above average.

In this case, this is an average humanoid (all 10s) with somewhat above-average intelligence.

Statblocks dont need to conform to player characters, but things like spells and cantrips do, especially if something bog standard the players are themselves, such as an Apprentice Wizard, which every lowest tier Wizard is.

That said, the statblock in fact is a simplified version of a level 2 Wizard.

No, NPCs spells and cantrips don't have to correspond to PC spells. And every single previous attempt in D&D to enforce they do so have always made spellcaster monsters a super pain to work with.

We have a OD&D, BECMI, AD&D 1st, AD&D 2nd, D&D 3e, D&D 3.5e, Pathfinder and early 5e examples of this being a pain. Every single time it sucks horribly to run a monster which uses PC spellcasting. It is tolerable if it is a rare "BBEG" foe, but even there it is annoying.

It is known.

There are some people who don't mind the annoyance, but the vast majority keep on running into this and we don't like it.

PCs in general are more complex than monsters, because you have the full attention of a player tweaking its bells and whistles. Spellcasters are more complex than non-spellcasters by custom in D&D, and wizards doubly so. All of this is a very good reason for the ability to make wizard-archetype foes that don't require the DM to handle the full complexity of the most complex PC class as just one of the many things they are doing at once.

Hence emulation.

I don't personally love how the emulation is done here, they could do it better, but emulation itself is a no-brainer.