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?"

 

[dave2008]

This is true for the casters in Monsters of the Multiverse, since they're all revised versions of existing NPCs, but it won't be the case for new spellcasters going forward (e.g. Kelek and Iggwilv/Tasha from The Wild Beyond the Witchlight).

True, fortunately I already have two stat blocks for Iggy (that I made myself) so I don't need to worry about that!

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Henceforth, I'll thank other posters on this board, when they post something I like, with the immortal words "Thank you for opening my pathway to bliss".

 

[dave2008]

I try to purge from my mind the memory of that edition ever existing. It's existence made me one of the many who switched to Pathfinder.

It was the edition that brought my back to D&D. A lot of good things in that edition. Pretty close to my ideal. If I had the time I would mix 4e & 5e to make my perfect edition.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So basically, the way 4e did it? Kinda.

Everything old is new again.

No, that would be a smart, complete choice.

These monsters still have spell lists you have to do use a different book to look them up from

 

[TerraDave]

This seems pretty practical. Combining two blocks of spells into one, and implying instead of calling out slots.

You can always do some reverse engineering on the fly. If there is fireball, and there is a 4th level spell(s), you can always burn that to upcast the fireball.

 

[Erdric Dragin]

• Removing options that a DM is unlikely ever to use.

This is NOT for them to decide. One of the reasons D&D falls short from earlier editions, they cater to the casual far, far too much. But casuals make them more money so...yeah...another work of art from the beginning destroyed by capitalism and commercialism.

 

[Erdric Dragin]

Yeah, no.

The more I hear about this book, the less I like the direction.

Every edition change and shake up in the middle of an edition does this. This problem with extreme divisiveness between all D&D gamers can end if WotC allowed support for ALL editions. Personally, if I owned this company, I would create departments to supplement the older editions on the side. Everyone's happy, and you get x5 the cash since you're making money from making more material for every edition.

But we don't live in a perfect world so the best thing they need to do is open up the DMs Guild to allow content creators to publish PDFs for older editions and not just 5e (like how PF Infinite allows publishers to do 1e and 2e content).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

DELETE COUNTERSPELL YOU COWARDS!!!

That's really my main input here.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is NOT for them to decide. One of the reasons D&D falls short from earlier editions, they cater to the casual far, far too much. But casuals make them more money so...yeah...another work of art from the beginning destroyed by capitalism and commercialism.

Good grief, really?

If that's your logic, things went south in the 1970s (early 1980s at the latest), and pretending they only just went wrong in 2014 or later is shenanigans, frankly. D&D has been "catering to casuals" since what, the Red Box or earlier?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It was the edition that brought my back to D&D. A lot of good things in that edition. Pretty close to my ideal. If I had the time I would mix 4e & 5e to make my perfect edition.

Heh, and mine would be a combination of 2E AD&D and 5E. I played a lot of AD&D, did not switch editions until 3.5 was released, and then skipped 4E for Pathfinder 1E. Came back to D&D with 5E because Pathfinder grew too complicated and convoluted and their 2E was awful too.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

• Removing options that a DM is unlikely ever to use.

This is NOT for them to decide.

. . . They . . . they own the game. Of course it's up to them to decide what's worth printing in the books and what's not based purely off of how many DMs use any specific aspect of it.

One of the reasons D&D falls short from earlier editions, they cater to the casual far, far too much. But casuals make them more money so...yeah...another work of art from the beginning destroyed by capitalism and commercialism.

No "works of art" are being "destroyed". The previous versions of these monsters and races still exist. You can still buy Volo's and Mordenkainen's and get access to the previous versions of them. They're out there for you to use if you want. The original standard for 5e rules are still out there, and will continue to be after the 2024 updates to them come out.

You can't "destroy" something by letting it continue to exist. That's like saying that D&D 3.5e was destroyed by 4e, or that 4e was destroyed by 5e. If you can still play it, it's not "destroyed".

Something no longer being the status quo and something being destroyed are entirely different situations. It's ridiculous to claim that anything is being "destroyed" now. Can we please stop with this overblown hyperbolic doomsaying?

 

[Krachek]

DELETE COUNTERSPELL YOU COWARDS!!!

That's really my main input here.

Counterspell is good tactically,
but makes a lame show!

 

[pauldanieljohnson]

Can we please stop with this overblown hyperbolic doomsaying?

Absolutely not. We are morally obligated to vilify a for-profit, publicly traded corporation for being involved in "capitalism and commercialism".

 

[beancounter]

Given enough time, they'll streamline D&D into a card game.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Given enough time, they'll streamline D&D into a card game.

oops I dropped this ;-)

Dragonfire

Assemble your party, and begin the adventure along the famed Sword Coast.

boardgamegeek.com

 

[beancounter]

oops I dropped this ;-)

Dragonfire

Assemble your party, and begin the adventure along the famed Sword Coast.

boardgamegeek.com

Nice! Much better than the one I played as a kid.

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[CM]

I tell you, it all started going downhill when you didn't need bat guano to cast fireball anymore. (j/k)

 

[Vaalingrade]

Heh, and mine would be a combination of 2E AD&D and 5E. I played a lot of AD&D, did not switch editions until 3.5 was released, and then skipped 4E for Pathfinder 1E. Came back to D&D with 5E because Pathfinder grew too complicated and convoluted and their 2E was awful too.

Like the stat block for a spellcasting monster?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Like the stat block for a spellcasting monster?

No, in needing 50 splatbooks to make a viable character that was not left behind by everyone else, especially in Pathfinder Society. There was a good reason that Adventurer's League had the +1 rule.

 

[Demetrios1453]

• Removing options that a DM is unlikely ever to use.

This is NOT for them to decide. One of the reasons D&D falls short from earlier editions, they cater to the casual far, far too much. But casuals make them more money so...yeah...another work of art from the beginning destroyed by capitalism and commercialism.

I mean, they're the designers. It's 100% for them to decide. You can agree or not, but as they create and publish the material, there isn't a way for you to forbid them from making that decision...