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?"

 

[Demetrios1453]

Still not as annoying as "Spell like abilities, Supernatural Abilities, and Extraordinary Abilities", so I'll take it

Thanks for dredging up that old memory, and the many, many gallons of ink spilled in the lengthy paragraphs attempting to explain what exactly affected each of those, and in what way...

 

[MichaelSomething]

How many people here have written up high level enemy Spellcasters?

 

[dave2008]

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.

I played a mix of 1e/BECMI, skipped 2e and 3e and came back with 4e because it finally felt like D&D again and then transitioned to 5e. But I do miss some of the brilliance of 4e from time to time. So I guess my ideal version would be a mash-up of 4e, PF2E, 5e, and my own homebrew (since no edition of D&D has ever provided some of the things I want).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I played a mix of 1e/BECMI, skipped 2e and 3e and came back with 4e because it finally felt like D&D again and then transitioned to 5e. But I do miss some of the brilliance of 4e from time to time. So I guess my ideal version would be a mash-up of 4e, PF2E, 5e, and my own homebrew (since no edition of D&D has ever provided some of the things I want).

A heavily homebrewed 5e (or a slightly homebrewed Level Up) does the job for me.

 

[dave2008]

How many people here have written up high level enemy Spellcasters?

I have no idea how many, but I have. Here a few examples:

• Eclavdra (standard, CR 20)
• Elminster (standard, CR 21)
• Iggwilv (standard, CR 15)
• Iggwilv, the Witch Queen (standard, CR 24)
• Merlin (standard, CR 20)
• Mordenkainen (standard, CR 16)
• Morgan Le Fay (standard, CR 13)
• Azalin Rex (Elite, CR 19)
• Worm that Walks (Legendary, CR 23)
• Acererak (Mythic, CR 25)

 

[Teemu]

How many people here have written up high level enemy Spellcasters?

For 5e? Yeah, I have, and I dislike the process more than I like it. It’s pretty time consuming because if you follow the (until now) default way of doing things, you comb through the spell lists trying to find the right spells that are suitably threatening without possibly making some players’ turns invalidated (forcecage a non-teleporter?). It’s weirdly restrictive in an edition where you have much more freedom in designing non-caster enemies. You’re not expected to select from a pre-written list of abilities for a brutish elemental monstrosity for example!

 

[dave2008]

A heavily homebrewed 5e (or a slightly homebrewed Level Up) does the job for me.

A5e has a few to many character options for my personal, taste but since I DM that is not really an issue for me. I could make it work for me with the same house-rules (or slightly modified versions of them) that we currently use for O5e.

 

[CM]

Disclosure: My players and I agreed (mostly) to ban Counterspell years ago. It's not fun for either side.

As a fan of 4e monsters, I like the idea of self-contained spell blocks in monster stat blocks, but I dislike the idea that (for NPC type spellcasters at least) they are following some other type of magic rules that players can't counterspell. If it looks, smells, sounds, and burns like a fireball, call it a fireball. Now if it's an elemental that throws a flaming boulder that explodes, with effects identical to that of fireball, I understand and agree you can't counter that. If it's an NPC called an evoker with a burst of fire ability that flies 100 feet and explodes in a 20-foot radius, telling the player "sorry, your counterspell fails" is playing in bad faith.

Now if there's some backstory as to why this happens - the enemy is using dark magic, the shadow weave, or has some other plot-based reason their spells are not counterable, that's fine for the story and can give the players a mystery to solve, but since Wizards is busy removing all of that sort of fluff from the creature stat blocks, the players should be able to trust that, in general, enemies follow the same basic world assumptions.

 

[Mark Craddock]

It's a shame I have to buy two extra books to get this now or have to wait until the full release in May

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’d go the opposite way from some folks here, and expand Counterspell, but I love lightsaber duels and force duels in Star Wars Saga Edition.

What I am looking at is to allow any spellcaster to try to counter a spell by expending a reaction and a spell slot. You make a Spellcasting check against their spell save DC.

Martials can interrupt Spellcasting by taking the slightly modified Mage Slayer feat, or by guarding against Spellcasting as a bonus action, which allows them to make an opportunity attack when a creature within their reach casts a spell.