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

[Helldritch]

That sounds like a truly awesome session. In fact, 24 combat rounds, I am betting that was more than one session.

1 session. About 2.5 hours with an other encounter. We are very disciplined. For a bit, I used an hourglass to put pressure but I no longer need to. A round is about 3 to 4 minutes to play at the tactical level. We only describe critical strikes. But yes it was fun even foe the dead PC's players.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

If the party allows that to happen, it deserves to die IMO. As most people state, combat typically only lasts a few rounds, 5-8 typically is a long combat. At one spell per turn, the Volo's Evoker will use maybe half a dozen of its 16 spell slots.


Nope. I have always used spellcasting foes with spell slots and the fights are challenging and exciting, not TPK (in general, if bad luck or bad strategy leads to a TPK--so be it).


Why are you looking at MotM? They changed the HD...

The Evoker in Volo's was CR 9 with 12 HD, not frickin 22 HD. Why they decided to nearly double the hit points from Volo's to MotM is crazy... 5E already suffers from hit point bloat, so I guess they figure why not just layer on some more.

BEFORE:
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AFTER:
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The Volo's Evoker worked well as a CR 9 foe. I've used it, and it was hardly a party killer.

Meanwhile, the MotM Evoker is a hot mess. It deals 4d10 + 3 damage, implying 17th level-type cantrip damage, which it can do three times in a turn for way more damage than a PC could deal with similar attacks. And yet the spell save DC 15 implies a caster-equivalent level of 9-12 due to the +4 proficiency bonus.

Oi... make up your mind already, WotC.

Wow. Didn't see that. This is a quite some single target damage.

 

[Nuclear Monkey]

The assumption that new players don't want lore is a mistake by 5E. However, I agree the game does need more detailed instructions on how to actually play it.

Yeah, The Monsters Know What They're Doing is probably one of the best DM aids out there.

 

[Minigiant]

Simple, the dragon was using flyby attack pattern while it's breath was recharging. And it recharged only three time in 24 rounds. I was very unlucky with it. Anyway, a dragon will not turn around easily so it used its only magic missile to kill the wizard while the cleric was down and the barb was trying to put Keogtom's ointment on her. The second wizard had fell too and the group was now relying on torches to see the dragon. Allowing him to use a bonus action to hide in the shadows between attack rounds. It even took time to get the bodies further away to avoid reviving spells from the cleric. Result three dead, three very exhausted PC and the dragon was hurt enough to flee to get back. Characters had to retrace their steps to a smaller tunel where the dragon would be hard pressed to fit. The dragon almost caught them before they could reach it but they got lucky and they entered the 5 feet tunnel with the almost fully healed dragon attacking them with its breath weapon. If they had taken a day's rest aka long rest, they would have been killed for good. But they had the good idea of fleeing right now but it also meant going in the fleeing dragon direction to get to the small tunnel.

So you added spells to a monster and used lower level spells to kill half the party...


..and that proves my point that the spell slot paradigm of 5e is not made for many uses and if a monster gets down to lower level magic that they will kill the party wrong?

Because it sounds like if you weren't unlucky then the players would be making new PCs.

 

[Reynard]

Oookay. Personally, if I was going to attack my own argument l would focus on the assertion that content is now being purchased more for play than for reading. I think this is true, but unlike the rest of my argument I don’t really have evidence to back it up. I wouldn’t mind getting a read from the members of this forum on whether they think that this is true or not.

I mean, in that case, you could actually just bring it up as a point of discussion, rather than present it as you did.

One way to examine whether books are designed for use versus reading is to examine their utility. As far as I can tell, newer 5E books are attempting more utility than earlier ones. Even though they aren't especially useful, the flowcharts present in later adventures shows an intent at least to be more user friendly. Layout design of information presentation also seems clearer.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think you are looking at caster NPCs the wrong way.

Generally PC wizards are designed so that slots at wizard level x are balanced against other characters level X across eight encounters on average.

Monsters are balanced to be within a power window for their CR when facing a party in one encounter.

The typical wizard PC is actively going in expecting multiple fights in the day and spaces their slot expenditure out with that in mind. If they are expecting one fight per day or are facing being overwhelmed then the rational move is to nova instead. The default baseline though is multiple encounters within one adventuring day for PCs.

The typical monster/NPC wizard facing a party is either targeting just the party (expecting one fight) or being jumped by the party and seeing death coming in as they are overwhelmed in the fight. In either case novaing is a rational tactic for an NPC mage in the baseline expected encounter. Exceptions like an NPC mage fighting in one skirmish after another in an active war battlefront where they would need to pace out their slot resources are not the default NPC encounter assumption for the party that CR is based on.

So an NPC mage should be expected to nova with their spell slots (if they have them) and the CR evaluation should be designed to expect that.

So different considerations for PC wizard power expectations per PC level versus NPC CR calculation using the same spell slot chasis that is common to wizards.

That is the default 5e design.

Switching to tracking X/day spells may be more convenient to run in many circumstances but it is not inherently more balanced for CR purposes if NPC mages go full out with the powers on their stat blocks the way noncaster monsters do.

I’d rather NPC spells all be recharge based, TBH.

 

[Charlaquin]

The assumption that new players don't want lore is a mistake by 5E. However, I agree the game does need more detailed instructions on how to actually play it.

I don’t think WotC is making such an assumption…?

 

[Reynard]

I don't think NPCs should even use spells from the PHB. I think what they do can be called "spellcasting" while still providing unique capabilities fashioned specifically for the creature and its context.

And, no, I don't think the PCs should automatically be allowed to learn those "spells."

 

[Reynard]

I’d rather NPC spells all be recharge based, TBH.

I have used this method regularly for about a year and it works great.

 

[Undrave]

If the player read the stat block first, they weren't metagaming, they were cheating.

What if they bought the same book as you before they knew you'd run the adventure? What if they heard about how annoying it was online?