Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
I think the opposite. With the statblock of the Cleric that was shown a while back, we will see more and more magic like powers that aren't spells and can't be affected by magic resistance, dispel magic and counterspell in a further nerfing of the caster classes.
The player races don't have it any longer. So the new monster abilities that we saw from the preview would hit them fully. These abilities also can't be counterspelled as they are not spells anylonger. That was a change they made to the caster monster blocks.
I don't think they want to nerf caster classes but strengthen the monsters so that they are a threat again. If you run a magic user as a monster it often is hard to say how hard they hit. Will it be counterspelled or not? Has your player counterspell prepared at all? So I guess it is a try to make monsters easier to run. But it is of course a nerf to spellcasters with counterspell or to that races that had magic resistance.
When you give magic like attacks that can't be counter spelled it is a direct nerf to casters. Wizards and Sorcerers in 5th have a CC and buff/debuff role when you start to knibbel at that you're removing paret of their viability. Maybe that's a bit too dramatic of a way to put it, but hey it's Sunday and I'm in a good mood :)
I will say, if that ends up being the case, I will strongly dislike it.
Imagine how cool it would be as a Wizard to be able to take the enemy's Necrotic Fireball or whatever and put it in your spellbook.
They also aren't giving the monsters counterspell, which is a direct buff to casters. If the change seems like a net nerf, that indicates the DM wasn't using counterspell against you enough.
No monster I've ever seen has Counterspell. They *can,* if you modify them, but you can modify these theoretical new monsters too.
Just in the monster manual there is:
My mistake. I've definitely seen each of these. Though, that's not a lot, and they're basically all in the upper range of CR for no apparent reason. Having it on hags feels weird to me. I'm veering off topic here.
There aren't actually that many monsters where Counterspell is particularly valuable, and most of them are fairly high CR.
I use it on casters against the party. You're twisting my words. Not the first time.
I think the spell change to Genasi is mainly a publisher one.
Their utility cantrip was a compendium option and later a Xanathar option. Now it's probably a PHB option instead. Triton got the same treatment, it's to eliminate cross-reference with other books, that are not PHB.
Essentially is you just want mechanics, as a new group, you get the new book and the PHB and you are set.
If you then want to expand, you can grab setting specific books or something. It's makes a decent amount of sense I guess. It might make the initial buy-in for new groups a bit more manageable.
I suspect a similar product will arrive for spells and for Magic the Gathering.
No, I'm not twisting your words, I'm just pointing out that "You get to counterspell less but also get counterspelled less" is not a net nerf.
Are players getting magical attacks that can't be dispelled, counter spelled or stopped by Globe of Invulnerability? Isn't this what people are complaining about 4th always harping about? Every class had magical attacks ,I never played 4th, So I don't have a yardstick.
They already have them. For example, Storm Herald and Wild Magic barbarians, a couple Channel Divinity effects such as Radiance of the Dawn, Arcane Archers and Rune Knights, Sun Soul monks, Divine Smite, ...
Meh, not to the damage output we saw on the Priest. And all of the PC ones are limited in usage by or a point system or a times of day system. Because using a monk as an example is being very generous. Maybe if they had double the number of KI points. The priest one was more like a boosted non stoppable cantrip.
They used to just reprint the spells alongside them in the same book though, so there still wasn't any undue cross-reference. Not sure why they couldn't have just done the same thing here as well.
Is that exhaustive? There are over 300 monsters in the MM (searching online is unclear as to how many there are), many of which have spell like abilities. If (arbitrary numbers here) 10% of monsters that you face lose counterspell but you lose the ability to use it against 30% of monsters, that's still a nerf. Your logic only applies if the number of monsters that had counterspell was the same as the number that counterspell was useful against. That you have only listed four out of several hundred suggests that this is still a nerf. Maybe that's actually a.good thing, I don't know, but it's still a nerf.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It's a fair point that playable races can be made into enemies, although at best that is still merely breaking even - any that can cast counterspell will be roughly balanced by the player not having it, but some wouldn't have had counterspell to begin with, and now the playyer has been nerfed against them.
As for how many MM creatures get used as adversaries, setting aside that Pantagruel666 brought it up, while I don't have precise figures, I'd say at least three quarters of the adversaries I've fought have been taken directly from the MM. Of the remaining proportion, which is between 10-25% by my estimate, I'd say that the majority are modified forms of MM creatures (eg they've taken a Kobold, tweaked it a bit and called it a Dragonshield Kobold). For example, in my last session, the party fought Anchorites of Talos (unique to the series of adventures, so far as I'm aware), skeletons, minotaur skeletons, flesh golems, bards, war priests, magic hammocks that were just rugs of smothering which were renamed and blackguards. That's nine different kinds of adversaries, only one of which wasn't taken directly from the MM (mechanically at least). Homebrew is not something that's accountable for. Newbies will probably take almost uniquely from the MM, more confident will do more homebrewing. Regardless, Pantagruel666 brought it up, not me. It was just a convenient constraint to show how players losing conterspell is a bigger nerf than monsters.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Any monster with either Spellcasting could have counterspell:
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting