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

[Minigiant]

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.

That's my point.

Npc Mages are expected to nova. But they have resources of a PC designed not to nova.

Therefore if you give them full slots, either they never use 50% of their slots or they use cheesey tactics to spend all their slots and TPK the party.


So why give them 100% of their slots if they can't use it without TPK?

 

[Nuclear Monkey]

if the goal was to make the monster easier to run, why didn’t WotC go with a simplified (or basic) and complex (or advanced)? Some of the comments here have been that the DM can add whatever they want. But wouldn’t it require less prep to just know what the preferred deletions are?

 

[Helldritch]

You shouldn't use your limited experience as the criterion for how the game should be designed, built, and played. Just because you are privileged, yes, PRIVLEGED enough to be able to carve time out of your day to prep and play D&D does not mean everyone should be. And D&D is not mean just for people like you. It is meant for everyone to enjoy it as they want, or to put it down as you want.

As for how many people will play in 3 years? Give me a break with the arrogance. Even if players leave and come back, the game is growing faster and harder then ever before, and people are sticking with 5E and only spreading it out. This idea that new blood doesn't matter is contrived if not silly.

Dragonlance isn't bringing in real feat chains. That is another hyperbole by you, one of many in this post. It is hard to take some of these opinions seriously when you guys exaggerate so much and try to use arguments like "If I can do it so can you!" No, man, that has never been true of most things and never will be. Respect other people's time, and respect the people who are actually keeping the game afloat with their interest.

So I am privileged to be good at time management... I was forced to take a course in time management in college exactly because I was not managing my time well. Almost failed college and I would not have had my university degree without that course. So no, I am not priviledged, I simply took time to learn how to do it out if necessity.

And yes, D&D is for everyone that cares to try it. I know, I have introduced hundreds of people into the hobby over the 40+ years I have been playing. So give me a slack with the scorn.

How many will play in 3 years? I don't know. But there was a big boom in popularity for D&D in '80s and when it fell, boy was it hard for some to find players and for players to find DMs. There are reasons for tournament events to have disappeared. So how long will the popularity lasts? I do not know. But what I know is that once your player base moves on to an other system...

I encourage you to read the Dragon Lance UA and the threads about it. You will see that the feat chains aka feat taxes is pretty much what it was...

And I never meant disrespect. But it is true, I learned time management from a course. If I could do it, so can you. These courses are available online. Give them a try. Applying some of their advice is easy and proves to be very efficient. I went from:" Why do this today when you can do it next month to do it now and be done with it." Strangely, since that course, I went from wondering when I would have the time to what will I do with my time.

 

[Nuclear Monkey]

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."

I think one great thing that came out of Explorers Guide was a unique magic type with its own spells attached to it. With the direction that Spelljammer seems to be going, I think it would be awesome if each setting had its own unique magic and spells (and a mechanic through which the players could learn those spells). I think that would be a blast to run and to play.

 

[Minigiant]

if the goal was to make the monster easier to run, why didn’t WotC go with a simplified (or basic) and complex (or advanced)? Some of the comments here have been that the DM can add whatever they want. But wouldn’t it require less prep to just know what the preferred deletions are?

Because having a base with an optional complexity variant is bad for some reason.

 

[DND_Reborn]

IME it is always easier to remove things you don't want then add more you do want.

I mean, they could have made the new Vecna, and just kept the spellcasting as it used to be. If a DM wants to use it, the spells (and spell list, for whatever it is worth) are already there. If they don't they can focus on the other features Vecna has.

Everyone wins?

 

[pogre]

Eh, the less counterspelling the better. It's a do-nothing mechanic. Both side have expended a ressource, but nobody's any closer to being defeated. It dosn't progress the game state.

It can create a lot of tension at my gaming table - ymmv and all that.

If you check out the finale of the CR you can see how counterspell can add something.

 

[Nuclear Monkey]

Because having a base with an optional complexity variant is bad for some reason.

Based on having run some of the WotC published adventures, I think they believe the DM should always be required to do a lot of prep.

 

[Undrave]

With Vecna, what do you keep? What do you remove? And when you have done your work, you take the DMG and check if your intuition was good and If the resulting CR is close to what the devs tried to reach. And if you are off, you start again until you get it right. Harder than just saying, what prestigidiation? No way, Vecna earned that finger of frost. No shield spell? No way, I'll remove expeditious retreat... This is what the new stat block is imposing on us. Like it or not, they have not made our life easier, quite the contrary and they have lowered the versatility of the casters once again. The game is poorer this way than the other way around.

lol CR is garbage. You can add whatever you want to Vecna, he's still only gonna get so few actions i na fight it doesn't really matter so long as you don't improve his action economy.

 

[Undrave]

It can create a lot of tension at my gaming table - ymmv and all that.

If you check out the finale of the CR you can see how counterspell can add something.

I can think of situations where it would for sure. I just don't think it should be treated as a core, essential, component of the game, ya know?