D&D 5E Generating spellcasters

[Fenris-77]

Layer Mirror Image, Blur and Shield together. Players love it on themselves, but not so much on enemy casters.

@Horwath - that's my plan for offense, yeah. Bonus action activation with non-concentration added on top. Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon; Flaming Sphere and Blindness; whatever. The list you have there is midrange from a threat standpoint (at best), which is fine, but I'd power it up for a really experienced party,

 

[NotAYakk]

Here is a half constructed one.

Red Dragon Adept

AC: 16 (unarmored)

Resists: Fire
Elemental Affinity: Fire spells deal +3 damage.
Empowered Casting: The Dragon Adept may reroll up to 3 spell damage dice.

Metamagic: For each spell, the Dragon Adept may choose one of the following:
Quickened Spell: The Dragon Adept may cast a spell as a bonus action if they did not cast one as an Action.
Subtle Spell: The spell is cast without verbal or somatic components
Heighten: One creature has disadvantage on its first saving thow against the spell.

Spells: Slots 4 3 3 3 2 1
Cantrip: Fire Bolt: +6 vs AC, 3d10+3 damage
Spells Known:
Shield (1), Absorb Elements (1)
Hold Person (2), Misty Step (2), Scorching Ray (2), See Invisibility(2)
Counterspell (3), Fireball (3), Blink (3)
Wall of Fire (4), Greater Invisibility (4)
Circle of Death (6)

"Base" Strat: (for balance purposes)
Quickened L 5 Hold Person (4 targets) (75 pseudo-damage), twinned Fire Bolt (26 damage)
Quickened L 6 Fireball (11d6+3) (83 damage), twinned Fire Bolt (26 damage)
Quickened L 5 Scorching Ray (2d6+3 * 6 = 60 damage), twinned Fire Bolt (26 damage)

8 Strength (-1)
16 Dex (+3)
16 Con (+3)
8 Int (-1)
12 Wis (+1)
16 Charisma (+3)

Saves: +7 Charisma, +7 Constitution

Spell Attack: +7
Save DC: 15

Total: a bit under 100 DPR (offensive CR 15; attack bonus is 1 under, save DC is 3 under, so actually CR 14)

11d8+33 + 12 HP = 95 HP (CR 2)
AC is 21 with shield, so 8 high (CR 6)

Total CR: 10

Nastier tricks: Pre-buff with greater invisibility and blink and engage. Have allies trap them and wall of fire.

Each turn, reaction choices are shield, counterspell or absorb elements. Pick one that seems appropriate. Balance assumes constant shield use.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

There are quite a lot of warlock stat blocks in published sources (Volo's is full of 'em). You know what there isn't? Sorcerers (apart from the odd kobold).

Warlocks aren't great as anti-casters though.

Warlocks are simple and sorcerers are complicated. I predict that if they ever make the often asked for unnecessarily-complicated psion class, you will see a lot more NPC's built from psychic subclasses of other classes than psions.

I do agree that warlocks don't make good anti-casters (except giving melee monsters a ranged attack to counter any artillery duals).

 

[Jd Smith1]

I like the idea of a focus on counterspell support. That seems to be an economical way to counter the threat, especially for the less advanced races.

 

[cmad1977]

So it is becoming evident that my monsters need more spellcasting support.

Is there a source for pre-made spellcasters, particularly evils ones, level 9+? I hate to keep tossing identical NPCs at the party, but working up a good spell list is time consuming.

The key is spell lists. I need well-rounded spell lists.

If you don’t have Volos guide to monsters I recommend it. It has stat blocks for necromancer, evoker, archmage, etc. I found that really useful to throw into a session. It’s pretty easy to change out a spell or two on the fly(or ahead of time) to give them flavor.

Also maybe just lift the spell lists off of whatever MM creatures have spells. Find one that matches the ‘level’ of the spells you want cast and use that list?

 

[cmad1977]

Also: enjoy the horrified shrieks of your players when monsters start hitting them with things like
Finger of Death or Blight!
Delight in the awesome power of the Scry spell! If a spellcaster has a physical object of the target, like a lock of hair or bit of blood(or in my case a PCs eyeball), saves aren’t worth making and the heroes have no idea that the caster is WATCHING THEM!

 

[cmad1977]

I like the idea of a focus on counterspell support. That seems to be an economical way to counter the threat, especially for the less advanced races.

You could give a ‘monster’
Reaction: counterspell x times a day.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Instead of creating casters will spellslots (which I find dull to track) as enemies, I generally take monster from 4e that had spells-as-regular-attack instead and convert them to 5e by loading an existing creatures in a statblock generator and adding to it the desired actions.

Ex: Here I took the already generated regular goblin statblock and added some spells-as-attack to create a goblin caster. Took about 2 minutes.

 

[NotAYakk]

View attachment 117292

Need to spend more minutes. Vexing Cloud hits but does nothing.

And a circle seems off for a Cloud. I'd make it a 10 radius sphere.

Damage is 6.5-10 per round. HP is 14, AC is 15. That isn't anywhere close to a CR 1 monster. 1 offensively (1/2 base, plus 2 higher attack bonus), 1/4 defensively (1/8 plus 2 high AC), so about 1/2 CR, and on the weak end of 1/2 CR.


...

Ward: As a reaction the Goblin can reduce the damage from an attack or spell by 10 on itself or an ally it can see. Only one Ward can apply to a given attack or spell.

Hex: As a bonus action the Hexer can apply a Hex to a creature for the next hour. A Hexed creature cannot take reactions, has disadvantage on perception checks, and takes 1d6 additional damage from the Hexers attacks.

Stinging Blast: +6 vs AC, 2d6+3 (9) damage, and the creature takes 1d6+3 (6) damage if it moves on its next turn.

Blinding Blast: DC 13 Con save. On failure, take 2d6+3(9) damage and be blinded. At the start of each of the creature's turns it can repeat the save.

Vexing Cloud: Creates a spherical cloud 10' in radius within 30 ft that heavily obscures vision. Non-goblins who start their turn within the cloud must make a Con save (DC 13) or take 2d6(7) damage and be Poisoned until the start of their next turn.

There, upped to CR 1.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Need to spend more minutes. Vexing Cloud hits but does nothing.

And a circle seems off for a Cloud. I'd make it a 10 radius sphere.

Damage is 6.5-10 per round. HP is 14, AC is 15. That isn't anywhere close to a CR 1 monster.

Its an old work in progress version I had saved, I printed the more recent one and I must have deleted the importable file from my PC.
Anyway, its for homebrew-table use: no need to get technical with CR calculation and the difference between a sphere and a circle when I'm the one running it, I know what I meant. Its more or less the direct translation of a Burst 2 within 6 Zone from 4e, and on a failed save while in the zone, the party has -2 to hit. On the more recent version, the goblin can maintain the zone as a bonus action and move it.