D&D 5E New Spellcasting Blocks for Monsters --- Why?!

[Hussar]

@Irlo - that's a fair point. Looking at the 5e stat block for Bandit, I have zero idea how many crossbow bolts each one carries. So, in those 20+ round combats that people talk about, it's not unreasonable that they would run out of bolts. A Scout gets 2 bow shots/round. No idea what how many arrows. How many rocks does a Cloud Giant carry? AFAIK, no ammunition is ever listed in a Stat Block.

Guess everyone who uses a stat block with a ranged weapon attack is fudging. If my lizardfolk chucks a javelin, can he attack with a ranged javelin attack in the next round? Who knows? Guess we're just going to have to fudge it.

Oh, right, the stat block must never be changed unless it's a martial stat block, in which case, it's perfectly fine to ignore the rules. This only applies to casters. I forgot that bit. Sorry.

 

[James Gasik]

Obviously there's a line to be drawn. If the game presents you with a blank space, the DM is left to their own devices to fill it up. I think this is perfectly acceptable, I've done it myself. In 4e, I was running a season of Encounters where the players kept encountering members of an undead "ghost legion". Their stat blocks stated they had a ranged attack, that uses a crossbow, but they were also equipped with a long sword and a shield. This might have been to save space (some soldiers could be infantry and some could be archers), but at the time, I thought it was perfectly legitimate for them to use both.

One of my players asked me how they could switch weapons so easily without taking actions to stow and draw them. I gave this some thought, and decided that, since they are ghosts, they can sort of let go of their weapons, and they just float in the air following the ghost around until they grab them again. It still cost an action to switch weapons, but this way I didn't need to have them just drop weapons on the ground or use other actions to stow/sheath them properly.

During another season, the players came across a fortified wall, which had crossbowmen perched on it. One player ran up to the wall, and then cried out in dismay when he was fired upon. "You can't fire a crossbow straight down", he said, "the bolt would fall out."

I had nothing indicating that this was meant to be a factor in the combat (nor is it even a rule), but I decided that the Duergar had solved this problem with an engineering modification to their crossbows. The player was still annoyed about it, but I told him if he wanted to pick up a crossbow that could fire in a downwards direction, there were some free ones laying around, lol.

So where is the line to be drawn, exactly? Obviously some fudging is part and parcel of the DM's job, and is somewhat necessary to running the game. But obviously, just arbitrarily deciding "the Paladin did too much damage, I should give the bad guy 30 more hit points" seems a bit unnecessary.

Because once you do that, do damage rolls become meaningless? Are lucky critical hits something the DM has to allow to occur? And what about fudging in the player's favor, by making enemies easier to kill behind the scenes, to avoid the game being derailed by an untimely demise or TPK*?

*Before any "death needs to be a consequence!" guys appear out of the aether to get on my case, let me explain what I mean. If we're on a time sensitive adventure, and it has 7 planned encounters, and your four man party turns into a three man party due to the dice, such as murdering the Cleric when there's no chances to take even a short rest in order to heal, the adventure is probably over at this point. The players probably can't complete the adventure, and depending on how high the stakes were set, the campaign itself could be at risk. So I'm talking about deciding not to murder a player at this time in order to keep the game from crashing to a screeching halt.

Whether or not that's something that should be done, I leave up to an individual DM to decide.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Except there is movement and action choices.

Yes, there are. So unless the DM uses a flowchart, or relies on dice, the "fudging" problem remains, because the DM has to make decisions. Does he make those decisions to help a party in trouble, or is he intentionally making it harder? Why did the 3-Int monster suddenly switch attacks to the Wizard who was concentrating on the polymorph spell?

The DM invariably makes decisions that makes things easier or harder. Where is the actual line drawn? Spells known? The number of minions that join the fight? Decisions made just before the fight begins, versus just after?

My line is with dice rolls: I don't like the DM altering dice rolls. But I also recognize that this is an arbitrary line, and a matter of personal preference. I'm not going to get up on a soapbox and claim it's qualitatively different than other DM decisions.

I feel like there's some unnecessary badwrongfunning going on here in regards to a certain "competitive" play style.

Funny, I feel like the badwrongfunning is coming from those playstyles. Proponents could say "naw, not for me" without vilifying other approaches.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Given the responses to some of the fudging threads earlier this year/late last year, I think it's more common than you give it credit for--but not as common as I, personally, would like

I think it's more common among players of earlier editions....the stereotype of the nerdy (male) RPG veteran who is into crunch and system mastery...and Enworld seems to skew heavily toward that group, so it wouldn't surprise me if there is non-representative support for it here.

 

[Bill Zebub]

@Irlo - that's a fair point. Looking at the 5e stat block for Bandit, I have zero idea how many crossbow bolts each one carries. So, in those 20+ round combats that people talk about, it's not unreasonable that they would run out of bolts. A Scout gets 2 bow shots/round. No idea what how many arrows. How many rocks does a Cloud Giant carry? AFAIK, no ammunition is ever listed in a Stat Block.

Guess everyone who uses a stat block with a ranged weapon attack is fudging. If my lizardfolk chucks a javelin, can he attack with a ranged javelin attack in the next round? Who knows? Guess we're just going to have to fudge it.

Oh, right, the stat block must never be changed unless it's a martial stat block, in which case, it's perfectly fine to ignore the rules. This only applies to casters. I forgot that bit. Sorry.

If you had taken a time management course you would have filled in those details as part of session prep.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I barely write out stats at all. It's fudge all the way down.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Does he make those decisions to help a party in trouble, or is he intentionally making it harder? Why did the 3-Int monster suddenly switch attacks to the Wizard who was concentrating on the polymorph spell?

I always play the monster. If it's unintelligent it's going to attack the nearest target, or whatever smells most like lunch. And it might well start eating or attempt to drag off downed targets. It's the DM's job to play the monsters, not make tactical decisions to win (or lose) the battle.

Intelligent foes, even not very bright ones, are likely to focus fire on anyone they identify as a spellcaster, because they want to win, not because the DM wants to win.

If the party ends up fighting something I haven't prepared in advance, which is very infrequently, then it has Monster Manual stats, including spell selection. It makes a change really, since almost everything else is customised to some degree.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I barely write out stats at all. It's fudge all the way down.

Embrace the fudge.

 

[Hussar]

I always play the monster. If it's unintelligent it's going to attack the nearest target, or whatever smells most like lunch. And it might well start eating or attempt to drag off downed targets. It's the DM's job to play the monsters, not make tactical decisions to win (or lose) the battle.

Intelligent foes, even not very bright ones, are likely to focus fire on anyone they identify as a spellcaster, because they want to win, not because the DM wants to win.

If the party ends up fighting something I haven't prepared in advance, which is very infrequently, then it has Monster Manual stats, including spell selection. It makes a change really, since almost everything else is customised to some degree.

But, even then, that's a fiat decision. Why are they focus firing on the spellcaster? Do they actually know what a "concentration check" is? And, frankly, unless it's some sort of aura effect, how could you tell which one? In the middle of melee, with low lighting, and someone trying to stick a pointy metal thing in your neck, you have the awareness to tell that that guy who's fifteen or twenty feet away from you cast a spell that requires concentration? What does a concentrating warforged look like? Or a concentrating dragonborn? Or a concentrating owlkin for that matter. In my group, all three of those are casters (plus a tiefling bard and a dreamfolk wizard).

So, I have five casters in the party, all of which are equally likely to use a spell on their turn. How does the baddy know that that Spiritual Weapon that the Warforged dropped isn't a concentration spell, but, the spell that the wizard dropped is? Never minding that my baddy is a ghoul and likely can barely distinguish one humanoid from another. Exactly how much does a Mephit know about the intricacies of spell casting?

No matter what you decide, it's you, the DM deciding based on your best judgement. Which is great, but let's not pretend that it's anything other than that. I tend to randomly roll a lot of targeting to be honest. That's my best judgement. It's no better but also no worse than what you do. Just a judgement call.

Same as adding in something to the stat block which doesn't contradict established facts. Now, if we're contradicting established facts? That's different. That I totally get why players would get shirty about that. That's fine. Totally understand. But, deciding that a creature which, by the rules of the game, has something that isn't specified by the stat block and doesn't actually contradict anything in play? That's totally fair game.

 

[Bill Zebub]

But, even then, that's a fiat decision. Why are they focus firing on the spellcaster? Do they actually know what a "concentration check" is? And, frankly, unless it's some sort of aura effect, how could you tell which one? In the middle of melee, with low lighting, and someone trying to stick a pointy metal thing in your neck, you have the awareness to tell that that guy who's fifteen or twenty feet away from you cast a spell that requires concentration? What does a concentrating warforged look like? Or a concentrating dragonborn? Or a concentrating owlkin for that matter. In my group, all three of those are casters (plus a tiefling bard and a dreamfolk wizard).

So, I have five casters in the party, all of which are equally likely to use a spell on their turn. How does the baddy know that that Spiritual Weapon that the Warforged dropped isn't a concentration spell, but, the spell that the wizard dropped is? Never minding that my baddy is a ghoul and likely can barely distinguish one humanoid from another. Exactly how much does a Mephit know about the intricacies of spell casting?

No matter what you decide, it's you, the DM deciding based on your best judgement. Which is great, but let's not pretend that it's anything other than that. I tend to randomly roll a lot of targeting to be honest. That's my best judgement. It's no better but also no worse than what you do. Just a judgement call.

Same as adding in something to the stat block which doesn't contradict established facts. Now, if we're contradicting established facts? That's different. That I totally get why players would get shirty about that. That's fine. Totally understand. But, deciding that a creature which, by the rules of the game, has something that isn't specified by the stat block and doesn't actually contradict anything in play? That's totally fair game.

I wasn't even going to bother explaining this, but you did it better than I would have.

And there's also the whole "we humans don't always know why we make decisions, we just think we do" factor.