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

[GMforPowergamers]

And then when they finally did something to save martial characters, The Tome of Battle was panned for...uh...reasons.

yeah that book saved 3e for my group... we would have walked away if not for it.

and with the (tragic) loss of a good friend, my group is again considering leaving D&D

 

[James Gasik]

yeah that book saved 3e for my group... we would have walked away if not for it.

and with the (tragic) loss of a good friend, my group is again considering leaving D&D

I'm sorry to hear that, I had something similar occur last year.

 

[Minigiant]

I think the issue of the thread is questioning that assertion, not assuming it.

Nah.

NPC built like PCs have too little defense and too much offense for their CR.

This is because PC's heavily lean to damage and control, PC defense tend to lean to magic items, and PCs only get HD equal to their class level and are this always too low in HP.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, sure we learned by trial and error. Hundreds of hours of crap gaming to finally learn the game meant that the overwhelming majority of those who tried DnD back in the day, left the hobby entirely.

There’s a very good reason why DnD’s size basically stagnated for decades. Lack of clarity in advice is a big one.

Add to this the notion that the DMG is somehow word of god being handed down from the mount, and even the slightest bit of advice becomes a deadly insult to egos.

1e certainly had no problem with a very strong voice but everyone forgets that. 2e had less and then 3e was basically so dry and bland that no one bothered to read it. A tradition that 5e picked back up after the huge pushback to 4e’s strong voice DMG.

 

[Voadam]

The comparison for the old stat blocks versus the new ones is best done by looking at versions in the Monsters of the Multiverse compared to their old versions.

From spot checking they seem to be the same CR, and look to me to be roughly equivalent in offense, with the new stat blocks having about twice the hp of the old wizard caster ones and fewer possible magical defenses.

The Evoker for example is CR 9 for both versions with a constant 15 AC from mage armor.

In the old version it is a 12th level caster with 1 slot for chain lightning/wall of ice, and a bunch of slots for cones of cold and counterspell, fireball, lightning bolt, and misty step. It has 66 hp.

The new version has 123 hp and no counterspell as its defensive changes (also no misty step or stoneskin).

Offensively it has an at will three shot multiattack ranged attack arcane blast that is not a spell for 25 hp each. It also has a usually every other round (recharge 4-6) scultped explosion for 9d8 not spell damage of choice of energy and knocked prone to a 20 foot radius sphere that carves out three friendlies, save for half. It also gets one wall of ice and two lightning bolts per day as decent combat spell options.

For the old one you need to know core spells and how to use slots. For the new one you need to figure out the new powers. The new one is generally simpler to manage on a resource management track.

If I was running a 12th level party and having them face a BBEG with 3 hench mages for artillery I would probably want to use the new version over the older one.

If I was using an evoker as the BBEG for a level 6 party I might prefer the older statblock for more dynamic options.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, sure we learned by trial and error. Hundreds of hours of crap gaming to finally learn the game meant that the overwhelming majority of those who tried DnD back in the day, left the hobby entirely.

There’s a very good reason why DnD’s size basically stagnated for decades. Lack of clarity in advice is a big one.

Add to this the notion that the DMG is somehow word of god being handed down from the mount, and even the slightest bit of advice becomes a deadly insult to egos.

1e certainly had no problem with a very strong voice but everyone forgets that. 2e had less and then 3e was basically so dry and bland that no one bothered to read it. A tradition that 5e picked back up after the huge pushback to 4e’s strong voice DMG.

4e's voice was strong, but very different from 1e's voice.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nah.

NPC built like PCs have too little defense and too much offense for their CR.

This is because PC's heavily lean to damage and control, PC defense tend to lean to magic items, and PCs only get HD equal to their class level and are this always too low in HP.

If PC hp is so low, why are base CR encounters such a cakewalk? If the answer is healing and reviving the downed, the same thing should apply to intelligent NPCs.

 

[Minigiant]

If PC hp is so low, why are base CR encounters such a cakewalk? If the answer is healing and reviving the downed, the same thing should apply to intelligent NPCs.

That's multiple issues really.

It really comes own that PCs and Monster are built for different tactics.

PCs are built to be force of offensive combined arms. They are like the Humans in an Fantasy Strategy game. The footmen act as a blocker for the archers and a anvil for the cavalry. PCs are indivdually squishy but if they are allowed to combine arms, they churn though foes. That is the issue with MM casters and archers built like PCs as enemies. They are squishy because a tank is supposed to tank for them. Hence No Tank = Cakewalk Tank = TPK.

The other issue is monster are boring in tactics without a lot of DM help. They are the Dwarves of Strategy. They have one tactics and lose if you exploit their weakness.

Then you have the monsters who are just understated. They are the Goblins of Strategy games. They will lose without help and only self to drain resources.

Or like I said from the first pages, WOTC created a CR system then proceeded to not follow their own guidelines because of Traditional Feel and Ease of Reading.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's multiple issues really.

It really comes own that PCs and Monster are built for different tactics.

PCs are built to be force of offensive combined arms. They are like the Humans in an Fantasy Strategy game. The footmen act as a blocker for the archers and a anvil for the cavalry. PCs are indivdually squishy but if they are allowed to combine arms, they churn though foes. That is the issue with MM casters and archers built like PCs as enemies. They are squishy because a tank is supposed to tank for them. Hence No Tank = Cakewalk Tank = TPK.

The other issue is monster are boring in tactics without a lot of DM help. They are the Dwarves of Strategy. They have one tactics and lose if you exploit their weakness.

Then you have the monsters who are just understated. They are the Goblins of Strategy games. They will lose without help and only self to drain resources.

Or like I said from the first pages, WOTC created a CR system then proceeded to not follow their own guidelines because of Traditional Feel and Ease of Reading.

IMO, they should have thrown out the CR guidelines, and stuck with traditional feel and ease of reading coupled with actual advice on how to use the monsters they made. WotC really seems to have an aversion to explaining themselves in their own products.

 

[Reynard]

IMO, they should have thrown out the CR guidelines, and stuck with traditional feel and ease of reading coupled with actual advice on how to use the monsters they made. WotC really seems to have an aversion to explaining themselves in their own products.

EDIT: This is absolutely wrong. I wrote it off memory and did not check. @James Gasik set me right.

Leaving the original up for posterity.

Emphasis mine.

This has never been a thing in a core MM. Even the 2E MM -- one of the best -- didn't do that, it just told you how the monsters fit into the world. The CR system was an attempt to provide a tool to help GMs judge the encounters they built, which previous editions had just ignored or told the Gm to roll randomly so you might run into 3 orcs, or 300 (no, that is not an exaggeration). So, CR isn't perfect but it is an attempt to provide the GM with some information D&D has never really provided, and almost no other games even attempt.