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<blockquote data-quote="pauldanieljohnson" data-source="post: 8531262" data-attributes="member: 6871928">I've been playing around with this quite a bit. I did a 5e conversion of The Standing Stone, which required updating various spellcasting NPCs from 3e to 5e. Prior to this change, it was really just a process of updating the spellcasting to match 5e class parameters, but this change disrupts that a lot. In a good way.Now I generally look at each spellcasting NPC (or monster) and determine what their signature spells are. Those become Actions (or Bonus Actions, et cetera). All the &quot;other&quot; spells go into the spellcasting Action. This laundry list of &quot;other&quot; spells is intended to focus on utility spells rather than combat spells, the logic being that the DM shouldn't often need to run to their Player's Handbook to find the rules they need for a monster's Action -- instead it's all spelled out (pun intended) in the Action itself.One of the cool things is that, when converting a spell into its own Action, you can play around with it a bit. You can up the casting level, change the description or damage type, or do whatever you want to tweak it into a unique Action for that monster, rather than just being a humdrum casting of the same old spell.But, in order to embrace this change, you really have to walk away from the notion that NPCs and monsters follow the same spellcasting rules that players do. If you're stuck trying to map PC concepts like spells known, spell slots per level, and so forth to a monster's stat block, you're setting yourself up for frustration.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pauldanieljohnson, post: 8531262, member: 6871928"] I've been playing around with this quite a bit. I did a 5e conversion of The Standing Stone, which required updating various spellcasting NPCs from 3e to 5e. Prior to this change, it was really just a process of updating the spellcasting to match 5e class parameters, but this change disrupts that a lot. In a good way. Now I generally look at each spellcasting NPC (or monster) and determine what their signature spells are. Those become Actions (or Bonus Actions, et cetera). All the "other" spells go into the spellcasting Action. This laundry list of "other" spells is intended to focus on utility spells rather than combat spells, the logic being that the DM shouldn't often need to run to their Player's Handbook to find the rules they need for a monster's Action -- instead it's all spelled out (pun intended) in the Action itself. One of the cool things is that, when converting a spell into its own Action, you can play around with it a bit. You can up the casting level, change the description or damage type, or do whatever you want to tweak it into a unique Action for that monster, rather than just being a humdrum casting of the same old spell. But, in order to embrace this change, you really have to walk away from the notion that NPCs and monsters follow the same spellcasting rules that players do. If you're stuck trying to map PC concepts like spells known, spell slots per level, and so forth to a monster's stat block, you're setting yourself up for frustration. [/QUOTE]

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