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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6112926" data-attributes="member: 58197">I disagree. The evil cleric may only have a chance to cast three spells, but how do you know in advance which spells he's going to cast? For that matter, how do you know the players are going to fight him? They might decide to negotiate. They might hit him with charm person and have him roll a 1 on his save. They might beat the crap out of him, then offer to let him live if he'll cast raise dead on a PC who died earlier in the adventure. Having a full list of the cleric's spells allows the DM to handle situations other than a simple fight. It also enhances player understanding of the game world (if he casts harm on you, that means he's got access to 6th-level cleric spells, which means he can probably also cast raise dead and you might be able to browbeat him into doing it on your behalf).This is one of my beefs with 4E--the assumption that monster statblocks only need enough material for the situation where the monsters fight the PCs, mano-a-mano, straight up, to the death. It's one of the many ways in which 4E pushes the notion that combat should be a self-contained tactical wargame which is cordoned off from the rest of D&amp;D.Now, I do agree that spells should not be over-used in monster statblocks. The &quot;spell-like ability&quot; was one of the dumber ideas of the early editions, when it seemed like every other monster had an ability which mimicked a spell and required you to go look it up. Spell lists should be confined to honest-to-Demogorgon spellcasters; creatures which aren't spellcasters should have their abilities spelled (heh) out in the monster block. I expect to need the PHB spell section when I'm running a lich, but I shouldn't need it for a dragon.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 6112926, member: 58197"] I disagree. The evil cleric may only have a chance to cast three spells, but how do you know in advance which spells he's going to cast? For that matter, how do you know the players are going to fight him? They might decide to negotiate. They might hit him with [I]charm person[/I] and have him roll a 1 on his save. They might beat the crap out of him, then offer to let him live if he'll cast [I]raise dead [/I]on a PC who died earlier in the adventure. Having a full list of the cleric's spells allows the DM to handle situations other than a simple fight. It also enhances player understanding of the game world (if he casts [I]harm[/I] on you, that means he's got access to 6th-level cleric spells, which means he can probably also cast [I]raise dead[/I] and you might be able to browbeat him into doing it on your behalf). This is one of my beefs with 4E--the assumption that monster statblocks only need enough material for the situation where the monsters fight the PCs, mano-a-mano, straight up, to the death. It's one of the many ways in which 4E pushes the notion that combat should be a self-contained tactical wargame which is cordoned off from the rest of D&D. Now, I do agree that spells should not be [I]over[/I]-used in monster statblocks. The "spell-like ability" was one of the dumber ideas of the early editions, when it seemed like every other monster had an ability which mimicked a spell and required you to go look it up. Spell lists should be confined to honest-to-Demogorgon spellcasters; creatures which aren't spellcasters should have their abilities spelled (heh) out in the monster block. I expect to need the PHB spell section when I'm running a lich, but I shouldn't need it for a dragon. [/QUOTE]

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