Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Which should be the correct strategy to use and should be rewarded... When a PC wizard gets attacked in melee they can rarely do much besides a Shocking Grasp to try and get away. If going melee is effective against player mages, it should also be effective against monster mages.
That was my thought process behind this 😁 I'm not necessarily saying the Caster enemies can't be strong, but I think giving them all the Spell Sniper feat I think is a little step too far. Maybe an exception for something very powerful like an Archmage or something but not your basic Mage.
#Open D&D
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Why? Name a single good reason (besides your idea of fairness) why a party should be able to totally short circuit a combat encounter just by standing next to someone? That to me sounds like a perfect recipe for a very boring fight. I'm all for rewarding an inventive use of tactics that achieves that but just doing exactly what every martial player does as standard isn't it. And the obvious counter would be "mages should always be at a distance" but all that does is make the martial players feel useless, again not much fun for the players
That certainly doesn't stop DMs from shutting down PC spellcasters using that same strategy. Funny how it's only "boring" when it's the monsters that get shut down...
What mage gets shut down by having an enemy within reach? How many do you know of that don't have Misty Step (or some other teleport) handy to simply re-appear 30ft away. Being that Misty Step is a Bonus Action, they can still use a ranged Cantrip to attack immediately after doing so. Not to mention that 5.5e gave Misty Step (or some variant of it), to darrn near everyone. Nevertheless, I agree that monsters and PCs should follow the same rules with the same advantages and disadvantages, which is why I give all NPCs PC classes.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
& if you're running a pre-existing module? Does literally every possible sentient and/or sapient creature in an encounter get a build? Or is it only named characters w/a stat block?
I'd love to see the PC levels of all the Wererats in the Waterdeep sewers, let alone every single possible non-commoner combatant in the Sword Coast.
If you use templates, how many copypasta rogues, barbarians, & fighters do you have per session? How do you determine what PC caster class to give to every magic user?
I am LEGIT curious how thorough you are w/this.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
You don't have to give every commoner a class, but if they are a rogue, then they get rogue levels. It's really not that hard. As DM you have a list of encounters, you also know (if you use random encounters) what the random encounters are. If you have a random encounter of 5 barbarians, you can make them all the same level and just use one character sheet for all five. It really isn't that hard. If they're facing a mage, you decide when you write the adventure what kind of wizard it is, etc.
Just as an example in the last adventure the characters completed in my current campaign, they were in a village hunting a witch. Turns out the witch was actually 3 hags with druid/sorcerer levels. So I used the Green Hag statblock, and added wildshape and the appropriate number of sorcerer spells as well. Even though all 3 had identical stats, I made each favor use of a different attack (the first loved using lightning bolts, another favor claw attacks, and the third Ray of Sickness) to give each personality. I had character sheets for the Sheriff's deputies (Reeves) - only need one sheet for all of them since they're identical, as well as an NPC Light Cleric (a rival of the PCs), and another character sheet for his 5 bodyguards. Everyone else in the town used Commoner statblock and the Hag's allies used their monster statblocks. The adventurer took 3 game sessions to run, and I had all the character sheets and encounters made up ahead of time, then gave the PCs the freedom to explore the village and conduct their investigation as they saw fit. Unless it is an important and recurring NPC, i use standard array for their ability scores.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
So I take it you never run an official module?
Because I was curious on how you stat out a ton of famous NPCs.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Why wouldn't you just use the official stat blocks that are designed to be run by the DM?
For all the reasons I've already listed. One set of rules that applies to PCs and NPCs alike. What's good for the goose, is good for the gander. There shouldn't be two different sets of rules, one for the DM and the other for the players, both should follow the same rules. It really is that simple. If a PC can have weapon masteries, then the NPCs they face get them too. If a PC can be counterspelled, then an enemy NPC should be able to be counterspelled as well.
The reason D&D currently has NPCs following different rules, is because the Devs couldn't be bothered to balance the game towards pvp, and with each new edition the game falls farther and farther out of balance. This is getting far off topic, and there are many other threads in this forum where this has been discussed ad nauseum.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
(Hasn't PVP been generally discouraged for a long time in DND culture due to its association with in-game solutions to out-of-game problems?)
To answer OP:
Arcane Burst is there so that an enemy spellcaster has something that can't be Counterspelled.
It's part of the remedying of the Counterspell debates of base 5e.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
You're treating potential maximum damage as if it's the average damage for a round of combat. Realistically, with a +6 to hit they're likely to only land 1-2 of those attacks per round and deal 12-18 damage per attack. That's hardly "a single mage resulting in a player going down every single round."
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The 2014 vs 2024 models have been talked to death wrt spells themselves, but I do think for most tiers the NPC casters shouldn't get a basic attack that's both melee and ranged. Making it ranged only encourages the DM to put a bit of thought into encounter layout and movement and allows for players to attempt counter-tactics against the enemies.