D&D 5E Apprentice Wizard- Arcane Burst power

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
I guess my problem with that is, you're always going to have issues like this. Like...literally always, unless NPCs never use resources that aren't specifically things PCs could use already. Which puts us right back into the nightmare of 3e DMing, where every single fight is effectively creating multiple new PCs to throw at the actual PCs.

Something has to give. There has to be some allowance for abstraction and convenience here, simply to spare the DM's sanity. Just as HP are an abstraction over actual injuries, an abstraction that usually doesn't conform at all to how real injury works; just as 6-second rounds of combat are an abstraction that rarely conforms well to how an actual fight would work (just watch a fencing match!); just as initiative, and discrete chunky levels (though I know you choose to embrace that abstraction and say "no, this bizarre behavior really is how things work and folks know that"), and discrete CRs, and martial characters with resources rather than universally at-will abilities, etc.

"This NPC uses a magical action that isn't a spell accessible to you" or its non-magical equivalents, as long as such things are used relatively unobtrusively, still caring about diegetic stuff but not being totally constrained by "only and exclusively what PCs could use," is fundamentally necessary for both DM ease-of-use and DM creativity. If that path is absolutely verboten, you've just made DMing both significantly harder and far less diverse and extemporaneous.

I don't run D&D, so the comparison is far from perfect, but if I had to run things this way in my Dungeon World game, a good half of all fights the players have had not only would have been forbidden, but would have been genuinely impossible to implement. Solely to acquire just the tiniest bit of extra diegetic effect, practically a grace note, it would have sacrificed a huge swathe of the most enjoyable combats my players have faced.

Of course, DW actually does have generalized structures for how to construct moves, e.g. the "roll+MOD, on 10+ choose three, on 7-9 choose two" model or the "roll+MOD, on a 10+ gain 3 hold (or similar), 7-9 gain 2 hold, spend hold 1 for 1 to do any of the following" model, alongside a couple other basic formats, so drafting a new move that covers something relevant is literally as easy as picking the format you like best for this application and filling in options. But, again, imperfect analogy is imperfect; the point was simply that harping so hard on diegetic requirements to the exclusion of all else can have far more serious costs than folks seem willing to recognize.

Or, if you prefer? The reason we even speak of "diegetic" elements at all is because there is the question of whether the music in our audiovisual entertainment is diegetic or not. If film was not allowed to use non-diegetic music, it would be massively impoverished; consider the many beautiful scores of John Williams (Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Jaws, Superman, ET, Harry Potter, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park). An absolute requirement of perfect diegetic fidelity is just as dangerous as a total slap-dash "who the frick cares about being diegetic???" would be--perhaps moreso, because at least the latter can end up accidentally diegetic, while the former is not allowed to be even accidentally non-diegetic, even if doing so would be of benefit.
You're right in that you have to decide where these things matter to you. I have no issue abstracting statblocks for NPCs, but I don't want an archmage to be possessed of powers that no PC spellcaster could possibly learn, no matter what they did, simply because of something orthogonal to the fiction like game balance. There should be a path to power for any ability a comparable NPC possesses.
 

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EzekielRaiden

Follower of the Way
You're right in that you have to decide where these things matter to you. I have no issue abstracting statblocks for NPCs, but I don't want an archmage to be possessed of powers that no PC spellcaster could possibly learn, no matter what they did, simply because of something orthogonal to the fiction like game balance. There should be a path to power for any ability a comparable NPC possesses.
Well, the path to comparable power is...pretty much by definition "homebrew," if the entity in question was homebrewed. And if it wasn't, it really isn't that common to have some particularly noteworthy thing.

That is...this "Arcane Burst" thing? I mean it's basically just a variation of eldritch blast. And there's multiple ways to pick that up. It's also pretty much just a force-damage equivalent of fire bolt (other than, I guess, not being susceptible to counterspell?) Not exactly hard to pick that up either.

So I would presume that the next step is, "Well, sure this is a toy case that probably isn't causing that much of an issue, but what about more involved stuff?" On the one hand, as stated, a lot of that is going to be homebrew and thus necessarily the solution is more homebrew in that case. On the other...how often is this sort of thing actually an issue for officially-published creatures? Like, sincerely, how often is it going to happen that there's a magician whose powers otherwise map cleanly to PC spells, but this one thing doesn't, while still being both actually interesting/worthwhile/meaningful for a player to use, and something that makes sense as fitting into the daily-levelled-slots resource mechanic of "neo-Vancian" spellcasting?
 

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Well, the path to comparable power is...pretty much by definition "homebrew," if the entity in question was homebrewed. And if it wasn't, it really isn't that common to have some particularly noteworthy thing.

That is...this "Arcane Burst" thing? I mean it's basically just a variation of eldritch blast. And there's multiple ways to pick that up. It's also pretty much just a force-damage equivalent of fire bolt (other than, I guess, not being susceptible to counterspell?) Not exactly hard to pick that up either.

So I would presume that the next step is, "Well, sure this is a toy case that probably isn't causing that much of an issue, but what about more involved stuff?" On the one hand, as stated, a lot of that is going to be homebrew and thus necessarily the solution is more homebrew in that case. On the other...how often is this sort of thing actually an issue for officially-published creatures? Like, sincerely, how often is it going to happen that there's a magician whose powers otherwise map cleanly to PC spells, but this one thing doesn't, while still being both actually interesting/worthwhile/meaningful for a player to use, and something that makes sense as fitting into the daily-levelled-slots resource mechanic of "neo-Vancian" spellcasting?
From what I remember when I skimmed Monsters of the Multiverse, many spellcasting NPCs have attack abilities that used to be proper spells and are now some kind of vaguely-defined magical attack. The Apprentice Mage is one of those.

Basically while I'm ok with abstraction I don't love it, and would prefer it be minimized and used only when necessary. 5e monster design has evolved to increase the level of abstraction from where it was in 2014, leading to more situations where NPCs fictionally similar to PCs resemble them mechanically less and less.
 

Stalker0

Legend
Or they find the spell and it is a first level spell. "At will" on a npc statblock does not mean it is a cantrip in the sense that PC at will spells are cantrips. It just means that over the lifetime of this combat the DM does not have to track resource usage for this npc. The apprentice mage you faced had 3 slots if they used 3 times, or cook up some other explanation if used more.
This is another solid interpretation.
 

Ancalagon

Dusty Dragon
In a more general sense, I used to be a huge fan of using custom build NPCs with PC classes etc... but it's a lot of work for not that much payout. A lot of my NPCs, even fairly important ones, are just done with templates. They are easier to run and take no effort/prep time to build.

Could I have made Antoine Lavache, the incredibly arrogant paladin of the Silver Order, using the Paladin class, order of glory subclass? Sure. But there is a champion template that works well enough and took no time to build. And these templates are often easier to run as a DM.

one thing I do not like are templates where things that used to be spells are now magicalish actions , so things like counterspells don't work against them.
 

Quickleaf

Legend
In a more general sense, I used to be a huge fan of using custom build NPCs with PC classes etc... but it's a lot of work for not that much payout. A lot of my NPCs, even fairly important ones, are just done with templates. They are easier to run and take no effort/prep time to build.

Could I have made Antoine Lavache, the incredibly arrogant paladin of the Silver Order, using the Paladin class, order of glory subclass? Sure. But there is a champion template that works well enough and took no time to build. And these templates are often easier to run as a DM.

one thing I do not like are templates where things that used to be spells are now magicalish actions , so things like counterspells don't work against them.
With your NPC Antoine Lavache, did you add or change just one thing to the champion stat block to get more of a "paladin-ish" feel? Or did you use it exactly as written?
 

Ancalagon

Dusty Dragon
With your NPC Antoine Lavache, did you add or change just one thing to the champion stat block to get more of a "paladin-ish" feel? Or did you use it exactly as written?
I think I just used it as written. Now if something had popped up I would have made something up - say a 3d6 healing lay on hand for example.
 

rmcoen

Adventurer
Late to the party, but I'll add 2 coppers anyway.

TL; DR = Abstract way to represent the NPC's other skills, class benefits, training, experiments, background, racial benefits, etc. that don't matter for the three rounds you'll be fighting him.

No, I don't like how much more abstract the monster stat blocks have become. No, I don't like the move to "sorry can't counterspell, it's an ability not a spell" - screw that, I allow the counterspell.

But also No, the PCs don't have to have the ability to gain all the same powers and abilities. Most NPCs don't have PC class levels, but they could. And if the PCs really want NPC powers... well, let me whip up the NPC's class, and you can take it. The "apprentice wizard" isn't a "Wizard class (tm)", he's a "BBEG's Apprentice Fodder Mage" class, level 3. The PCs are welcome to enroll!

In most cases, though, the ability is almost completely identifiable, with a light "reskin". And nearly every DM allows reskins. Would I allow a player to reskin firebolt to do [Force] damage? Probably not, for balance reasons, but it isn't too big an issue - and I'm a sucker for a good Story, maybe the player had a warlock parent? - which leaves you with "reskinned firebolt, Evocation subclass ability" and totally understandable.

"But wait, it's a touch attack too!" Well, see line one [abstract], and many other posts. It's probably "shocking grasp" and "firebolt", abstracted down to a single element-less attack to save time and space. Meh and bleh, but simple.


I use statblocks for convenience and 75% of the foes the PCs encounter. I custom-craft the foes the other 25% of the time. The recent Swamp Witch fight the party had wasn't a "hag", it was a "Human Spore Druid 5 / Storm Sorcerer 5, with green skin and vines for hair". She didn't have Legendary Actions, she had a unique Reaction that allowed her to drink a potion immediately after being hit (and only limited potions - and the Arcane trickster was able to steal and drink one!), and a magic item that gave her spells a side effect when she used Sorcery Points (which is also acquirable by the PCs after the fight). But man, did she have a lot of abilities and powers that I had to try to remember and apply and pick from during battle! Plus her minions and traps. I can't do that every fight. Likewise, the lead assassin the PCs have fought was an Assassin statblock, but the leader of the guild is a Paladin (Vengeance) / Hexblade built from PC classes.


I'll wrap with this. Statblocks are suggestions and conveniences. Nothing says your bandit has to have 11 hp, while the leader has 62 hp and multiattack and parry. [And there's nothing in between??] Nothing says your Apprentice Wizard has to do [Force] damage, when you know in your heart it's a firebolt [Fire] and shocking grasp [Lightning]. Tweak, and play!
 

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