I wasn’t sure where to put this but I guess I am technically asking for tips and you GMs know what I am talking about but it is my first time GMing more than a one shot and after planning the final combat I looked back at all the monsters and realized most all of them not only cast spells but a lot of them I would just take away their ability to do so but with so many spells it would seriously effect the difficulty of the combat not to mention that one of the monsters is pretty much meant to stand back and cast the entire combat. Any tips?
You need to write down an initiative list in combat. Stat blocks for creatures can be printed out. If you have multiple of the same type, you can use individual cards and mark off spell slots and X/rest resources. I would also reconsider having all the enemies in combat be casters, unless they're all inherently from a species which has spellcasting built in.
You can always draw little marks showing how many spell uses a monster has and cross them out as you use them. Personally, I typically keep track of those things mentally, but I imagine that wouldn't work in high levels. It works great at level 5 though.
Most monsters spells are something like 1/day. It’s not too hard to remember if they cast it yet or not. Then throw in that they’ll be dead in 3-5 rounds. It ends up not being as much bookkeeping as it seems like it will be. But otherwise, StabbyTC’s note cards is the way to go. Or just a word processor open on your computer. Type out the spells under each enemy, and erase them as you use them.
An alternative to keeping track of spells per NPC is to keep a piece of paper printed with little boxes to represent a pool of spell slots for multiple casters of the same type.
For instance, if your boss encounter includes 6 clerics at level Four plus a Boss monster who is a level Twelve Wizard, have 24 boxes next to the words "Level 1" and 18 boxes next to the words "Level 2" for the Clerics. Just check off the boxes instead of tracking spell slots for each cleric. Have separate piece of paper for the Wizard boss. Also, if you are afraid that you have too many spell slots, track approximations of each Cleric (in this example). So if the party succeeds in KO/killing 3 clerics, check off half the spell slots immediately.
Hope this helps.
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I wasn’t sure where to put this but I guess I am technically asking for tips and you GMs know what I am talking about but it is my first time GMing more than a one shot and after planning the final combat I looked back at all the monsters and realized most all of them not only cast spells but a lot of them I would just take away their ability to do so but with so many spells it would seriously effect the difficulty of the combat not to mention that one of the monsters is pretty much meant to stand back and cast the entire combat. Any tips?
You need to write down an initiative list in combat. Stat blocks for creatures can be printed out. If you have multiple of the same type, you can use individual cards and mark off spell slots and X/rest resources. I would also reconsider having all the enemies in combat be casters, unless they're all inherently from a species which has spellcasting built in.
You can always draw little marks showing how many spell uses a monster has and cross them out as you use them. Personally, I typically keep track of those things mentally, but I imagine that wouldn't work in high levels. It works great at level 5 though.
Most monsters spells are something like 1/day. It’s not too hard to remember if they cast it yet or not. Then throw in that they’ll be dead in 3-5 rounds. It ends up not being as much bookkeeping as it seems like it will be. But otherwise, StabbyTC’s note cards is the way to go. Or just a word processor open on your computer. Type out the spells under each enemy, and erase them as you use them.
An alternative to keeping track of spells per NPC is to keep a piece of paper printed with little boxes to represent a pool of spell slots for multiple casters of the same type.
For instance, if your boss encounter includes 6 clerics at level Four plus a Boss monster who is a level Twelve Wizard, have 24 boxes next to the words "Level 1" and 18 boxes next to the words "Level 2" for the Clerics. Just check off the boxes instead of tracking spell slots for each cleric. Have separate piece of paper for the Wizard boss. Also, if you are afraid that you have too many spell slots, track approximations of each Cleric (in this example). So if the party succeeds in KO/killing 3 clerics, check off half the spell slots immediately.
Hope this helps.