D&D 5E (2014) New Spellcasting Blocks for Monsters --- Why?!

[MonsterEnvy]

To me, 5e is a revision of 4e. They play almost exactly the same. The design goals are very close to the same. And that's why we're seeing EXACTLY the same criticisms today that we saw fifteen years ago. The only thing is, it took some people are really long time to recognize that these design goals were there all the way along, just phrased in just the right way to avoid issues.

It's more like 3rd with some aspects of 4th.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because Monsters and NPCs don't run by the same rules as PCs, and haven't all Edition. The stat block is not an exhaustive simulation of everything the character Vecna may be capable of outside of combat, it's a facade meant to simulate a 12-18 second fight with that character.

The facade is getting less believable.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To be useful to me personally as a DM, an NPC statblock needs to reflect the NPC's actual stats. Combat-only statblocks that are a subset (or, in some cases, a superset) of what the NPC is capable of out-of-combat don't do me any good, because it is important to me that how an NPC fits into the setting reflect their capabilities. If I need to determine the out-of-combat capabilities of a printed NPC spellcaster before I can use it, then using the printed NPC doesn't save me any time or effort.

Yes, my insistence on harmonizing NPCs' mechanical abilities with their role in the setting is idiosyncratic. And yes, 5e has always had lots of NPC entries that I find less than useful. But WotC's increasing use of the types of statblocks I find least useful means 5e is drifting away from supporting my playstyle. For what is ostensibly a big tent edition, that's disappointing to me. I'd prefer they find ways for the edition to support a wider range of playstyles over time, and make the tent even bigger, rather than shrinking it.

Thank you! I think this is what I've been trying to say for the last year.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As a player, I really don't know what to do with the setting implications of PC and NPC spellcasters using different types of magic. If I'm up against a Rakshasha or an Abjurer, does my PC spellcaster know that NPC spellcasters have primary attacks that trivially bypass those foes' anti-spell protections? Is it good IC strategy to go hire or dominate an NPC spellcaster to trivially deal with these enemies, or am I supposed to play my character as unaware of the differences? When my character sees an Abjurer's Globe of Invulnerability stop my cantrips, but my Globe of Invulnerability doesn't stop NPC spellcasters' "cantrips", what sort of IC conclusion is my character supposed to reach about what the Globe of Invulnerability spell actually does?

The answer to these questions are going to be up to how an individual table views the relationship between the mechanics and the game world. I don't see any way around sitting down with each new DM and asking them whether/how they use old-style vs new-style spellcasting NPCs, how they conceive of the nature of spellcasting in their game world, and the extent to which they expect PCs to have an IC awareness of the differences.

WotC appears to have no interest in providing coherent settings and support for same, instead relying on narrative advice and the DM making up stuff if they don't like the scant material they provide.

Unfortunately, it also appears that this is what most gamers want now.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They're just removing the 2e cover over the 4e engine that 5e has been all along.

The 2e cover is what made me like the game and give it a chance after I gave up on 4th ed. If you're right, it basically means WotC deceived its customers.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because they are awesome I would guess?! That and this is the type of design people have been asking for. You just have to accept that your viewpoint is outdated

Saying something is outdated implies that it has been replaced by an objectively superior alternative. That is simply not the case, and quite frankly telling someone their views are outdated is insulting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm with you on a portion of that. It's not that hard or complicated to pull key attacks out of the spell list of a fully kitted out Vecna and put them in the action list - then you serve both the ease of use and the more complex options of a more experienced player group. It's also not that difficult to include, for example, both the leaning into traditional racial archetypes with fixed ASIs and have the floating ASIs.

But with both examples you really can't serve both options/preferences if you only present one of them.


But on this, you lose me. Supporting multiple editions is just dividing up their resources while splitting their market. A better plan is to support a bit of both with the same edition - and 5e, to date, had been doing that with reasonable success.

WotC has been doing an increasingly poorer job of serving both in the last few years.

 

[Stoutstien]

Let's be honest. Anything DM facing has always been a distant afterthought for WoTC. If there didn't include the updated racial options in MToM it wouldn't sell enough copies to warrant printing. I give them some leeway here because the DM pool is extremely diverse in skill, style, and need when it comes to what they want out of context but they also basically don't t provide much past the bare bones and those bones aren't exactly well formatted or presented in a way that is easy to access.
they are slinging different stuff and seeing what sticks and unfortunately they don't have a good way of getting any actual credible feedback. DMs who have the table time rarely care about that stuff because they can completely modulated it to work without a second thought and those who aren't confident doing that don't normally recognize incongruent design philosophies.

 

[dave2008]

I did play a lot of 4e and I do think that 5e has a 4e engine. So much of 5e is a direct development from 4e.

Frankly I’m baffled by arguments to the contrary. How can it not be mostly 4e under the hood?

I think there are things from 4e, just not the engine. I also agree that somethings are a development from 4e, but that doesn't mean it still has a 4e engine. To me, these are important core things in 4e that are not in 5e:

• Powers
• Unified AEDU structure across classes
• Healing surges and healing control
• Roles (PCs and Monsters)
• Progress rate (aka not bounded accuracy)
• tactical combat
• Paths and Destinies
• Combat advantage and stacking bonuses (aka not advantage / disadvantage)

 

[dave2008]

Let's be honest. Anything DM facing has always been a distant afterthought for WoTC.

I don't know that to be the case. DMs traditionally buy a lot more content then players, so they try to marked to DMs. I am 99.999% a DM and I have bought more 5e books than any other edition because a feel like there is a lot more stuff marketed to me.