D&D 5E Changes to D&D's Spellcasting Monsters: Streamlining Your Way To Bliss

WotC's Jeremy Crawford talks about the way they are changing spellcasting monsters in D&D.

• Making the game more fun, easier to learn, shorting "the pathway to getting to your bliss".
• Making monsters easier to run.
• "Rumors of the death of spellcasting [in monsters] are not true". Innate spellcasting has been streamlined with spellcasting into a single trait.
• Spellcasting options are consolidated whenever possible.
• Removing options that a DM is unlikely ever to use.
• In some cases, new magical abilities in the monster statblock which exist alongside a list of spells they can cast.
• For example, the mind flayer's mind blast is not a spell, and other abilities are magical but not spells and aren't as easy to interact with with things like counterspell.
• Things which make archmages say "How is this functioning, and why can't I stop it?"

 

[DND_Reborn]

Streamlining things doesn't make it better, so we'll see where this falls.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

"Streamlining Your Way To Bliss".

Sweet. So they've chucked all the rules and everything's down to keywords and tags that give you dis/advantage on appropriate checks? No. Well, not so much for the streamlining or the bliss then.

That sort of thing is the only way I’d ever accept less than a dozen core classes, tbh.

Cut out the individual PC complexity, and I’m fine with flavoring my Warrior as a swashbuckler.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I'm all for making monsters easier to run.

The thing that's bugging me is that some NPCs now have powers that work exactly the same as existing spells, but have different names and are not technically spells. Why not just use the same name and call out that you're reprinting the spell for convenience. That way DMs who already know how the spell work don't need to read through that chunk of monster text.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The life of a high-level wizard is too easy, so making it harder for them, or making the player actually think about what their PC will do, is a good thing.

Also, as usual, D&D is bringing up the rear on implementing ideas that have been around for years in other game systems.

Also also, these changes are going to make the "old school" voices even louder and crankier as they hobble on their walkers into the sunset.

 

[Von Ether]

"Why can't my PC wizard make flying castles like NPC wizards do?" Is a complaint I've had with D&D for many editions. Mostly when I was using that as a reason NOT to play D&D.

Now that I run D&D, I appreciate that NPC/Monsters can be designed on different rails to liven them up without having to jump through hoops of PC character style creation. That's just me. If you like to do that sort of thing or you get sense of pride for utilizing your system mastery, enjoy.

Me, I don't got that sort of time anymore.

 

[Paragon Lost]

You know, when 5e first came out I was really impressed with it. I liked how flexible it appeared and streamlined among other things. The on going changes and focuses that they've been doing in the last year plus though is making it clear to me that 5e really is no longer for me. (sigh)

Guess I'll go back to focusing on other rpgs like MY0, GURPS, Savage Worlds and BRP based rpgs. Though I'll continue to watch, it will be interesting to see what the next edition looks like.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

So, as many suspected, it's basically what Matt Colville once advised around how to design spellcasting NPCs: less spells that are unlikely to be used in combat and replacing the cantrips and lower level spells that a creature might be more apt to rely on with special actions so the DM doesn't have to look those up.

 

[pukunui]

"Rumors of the death of spellcasting [in monsters] are not true".

I feel this is somewhat disingenuous of Jeremy. "Spellcasting" is still there, but spell slots appear to be gone, and not all of an NPC caster's combat spells have been converted into special abilities, so they might still cast fireball like a PC caster, but they can no longer upcast it using a higher level slot for more damage. I think that's the only thing that really irks me about these changes.

 

[dave2008]

"Rumors of the death of spellcasting [in monsters] are not true".

I feel this is somewhat disingenuous of Jeremy. "Spellcasting" is still there, but spell slots appear to be gone, and not all of an NPC caster's combat spells have been converted into special abilities, so they might still cast fireball like a PC caster, but they can no longer upcast it using a higher level slot for more damage. I think that's the only thing that really irks me about these changes.

You can still use the version prior to this book. They are not getting rid of that version. So there is that. In general I like the changes, but I do agree that spellcasting monsters/NPCs (ones that are based on a class) should use the standard PC mechanic. So anything that had innate casting before, I'm good with the change, but true spellcasters - I will use the old version I think. Which, thankfully, I still can as DnD Beyond will have separate entries for both.

 

[dave2008]

Also, as usual, D&D is bringing up the rear on implementing ideas that have been around for years in other game systems.

Actually D&D had this back in 2008 with 4e. Not sure how that relates to other systems, but it has been a D&D thing for about 14 years.