D&D 5E (2014) Counterspell

[Scorpio616]

By definition, a challenge rating indicates (on average) how challenging a given foe is. If you beef up the foe, shouldn't you beef up the CR?

Only if the spells actually beef up the foe. More ways to do the same damage don't increase CR. Since the shield only increases AC for a single round, that's only an AC boost of 1.666 (5 AC / 3 round time window CR is based off of.) if it only has one shield spell. That might be enough to adjust CR, but the increase might also be lost to the rounding on the CR table depending on how much wiggle room there was in the CR set by Wotc*. Fireball may or may not even be beef up unless it deals more than half the damage of dragon's full attack routine.

*MM Ogre has a modest bit of wiggle room for more AC since while it round to a CR 1, wotc put it at CR 2 presumably due to damage output.

 

[KarinsDad]

Only if the spells actually beef up the foe. More ways to do the same damage don't increase CR. Since the shield only increases AC for a single round, that's only an AC boost of 1.666 (5 AC / 3 round time window CR is based off of.) if it only has one shield spell. That might be enough to adjust CR, but the increase might also be lost to the rounding on the CR table depending on how much wiggle room there was in the CR set by Wotc*. Fireball may or may not even be beef up unless it deals more than half the damage of dragon's full attack routine.

*MM Ogre has a modest bit of wiggle room for more AC since while it round to a CR 1, wotc put it at CR 2 presumably due to damage output.

Sure, but spells are the bread and butter of PCs. If you have a party of just melee types, sooner or later they will get their butts handed to them just due to probability. Spells (and special abilities) are what make PCs more capable than NPCs. So an NPC that is given decent spells, by definition, should be more capable than an NPC that does not.

For example, Spiritual Weapon. Yeah, it doesn't do a lot of damage, but forcing the concentrating PC wizard to roll Cons saves on a lot of rounds can lower the effectiveness of the party.

Misty Step can get an NPC out of Web instantly. Feather Fall can prevent the damage that the players were planning for a stopped flying creature. Invisibility can allow a monster to escape and Greater Invisibility can be devastating. The list goes on and on.

Sure, if the DM gives the monster less worthwhile spells (like Color Spray), then it's not going to make much of a difference.


Edit: Another point on your dragon comment. The advantage of area spells like Fireball are that they can be used at range so that the melee PCs cannot fight the dragon while the dragon still (typically) gets to attack multiple PCs. It's actually often disadvantageous for a dragon to get into melee range with PCs. Granted, any Fireball spells should be level boosted based on how high of level spells any given Dragon can cast. Having an ancient red casting a 3rd level Fireball is kind of silly.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Granted, any Fireball spells should be level boosted based on how high of level spells any given Dragon can cast. Having an ancient red casting a 3rd level Fireball is kind of silly.

Technically, the rules imply that dragons can't have level boosted spells, based on the general rule for innate spellcasting and the lack of any exceptions mentioned for the dragon's version of the ability.

I don't like that, but I'd rather stick to the rules on that. Would anyone care to provide a convincing argument to let me allow it without houseruling? (I'd really appreciate it).

 

[KarinsDad]

Technically, the rules imply that dragons can't have level boosted spells, based on the general rule for innate spellcasting and the lack of any exceptions mentioned for the dragon's version of the ability.

I don't like that, but I'd rather stick to the rules on that. Would anyone care to provide a convincing argument to let me allow it without houseruling? (I'd really appreciate it).

I haven't had time to look this up (basically because our new DM has my copy of the DMG, MM, PotA, HotDQ, and RoT books), but the MM is one area where I don't really consider changing monsters to be "house rules".

Monsters have always been guidelines for creatures. DMs can and should go out of their way to change them up once in a while. For example, putting a Troll into the game where its regeneration stops working due to cold, not fire. It's not that the DM is housefuling Trolls in general, it's that he's adding in a new type of creature that does not exist in the MM.

With regard to Dragons when I was DMing, every Dragon got 2x Cha spells (somewhat equally distributed over spell levels to simulate them acquiring new spells as they got older). 5E Dragons without spells are, to me, just big brute lizards. I don't consider this "unfair" or under the label of "house rules", I consider it populating the campaign world with monsters that make sense for me as a DM and which emulates more closely monsters from earlier editions of D&D (Dragons had a ton of spells in earlier editions).


So it's not that "dragons can't have level boosted spells", it's more of a question of "why wouldn't a DM give them level boosted spells?". The game is called Dungeons and Dragons. Dragons should be the epitome of bad asses and not just the "Monster Du Jour" that the PCs beat the crap out of today. Every Dragon fight should be memorable and nail biting at a table, at least IMO.