Blog (A5E) Spellcasting Monsters in Level Up

One of our goals with the Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition Monstrous Menagerie was to make enemy spellcasters less of a pain to run. With an updated stat block format, we've made it possible to run a complex battle without looking up spells in another book or online resource–all while working as expected with existing spells and features like counterspell and antimagic field.

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As an example, here's our NPC priest stat block:

In Level Up, if a monster or NPC's spell is likely to see use in combat, we include it as an action (or reaction, or bonus action) in their stat block. For instance, in the priest's stat block, spirit guardians is fully detailed as an action, just like their mace attack. You don't need another book or an online tool to run a monster.

Spells are spells​

The spirit guardians action is listed in the priest’s Spellcasting trait, which means that it's a spell. It interacts with the usual spellcasting rules: a rival priest can cast dispel magic on it, and the priest can't cast it and healing word in the same turn. It doesn't break or ignore any of the usual rules of the game.

Our stat block also notes that spirit guardians is a concentration spell (so whack that evil priest and force a concentration check!), and we list its spell components of V, S, and M (someone cast a silence spell!)

Guidance for the Narrator​

We don't convert every spell into an action. That would lead to unmanageable, multi-page stat blocks. If it's a utility spell or it's not usually worth casting in combat, then it appears only in the monster's spell list and not as an action. You might find a clever use for a utility spell - or want to look up additional rules, like how to cast a spell with a higher slot. In that case, you'll have to consult the spell description. Most of the time, though, you can run a monster quite efficiently without consulting another book.

Powerful spellcasters have a lot of options! That's a feature of the game, not a bug. Our most complex spellcaster, the lich, has 22 spells prepared, of which nine are detailed in its stat block. Still, the lich stat block fits handily on one page spread - with room left for a section of combat advice.

Between our various stat block changes–the curated list of spells in the stat block, the notes for concentration and components, and the combat advice–Level Up lets you run every spellcaster, even a complex and high-level one like a lich, with zero prep.

We're proud of our spellcaster format. Rather than inventing new tech that changes the way the game works, we've polished the presentation to provide maximum usability. We think it's going to be the state of the art for quite some time.

 

[WinnableBadger]

I mean, if you want characters to not be murked by anything higher level than them, bounded accuracy is great. Players can fight such a wider variety of things at every level, you can focus less on levelling your monsters and more about what monsters fit the location, and pulling from that huge list.

 

[Zaukrie]

I prefer your way over WotC's way......

 

[WinnableBadger]

We actually considered this option before we started writing the book! We thought about converting every caster to, basically, an "innate" caster with spells castable x/day instead of using spell slots.

I think both approaches could work perfectly well. For a big, complex caster like a lich, though, we decided that we slightly preferred to keep the spell slots.

Spell level is another tool for us to sort spells for the Narrator's convenience. When you're not sure what the lich should do, it's not a bad idea to just have them cast the highest-level attack spell they still have slots for. An innate-casting lich, however, doesn't have spells listed by level; they have a giant list of a dozen or more 1/day spells that you need to scan through to find the best spell. Not a big deal, but I thought the spell-slot approach was a bit better for user interface.

That said, I generally prefer the innate spellcasting format for most monsters. The only slot casters are the creatures with a story reason to be part of the same magical traditions as the characters (NPC priests and mages and so on, plus the mummy and the lich and maybe a few more).

I have never really thought about it that way. I like that the high level (6,7,8) spells are effectively once a day castings of disintegrate, finger of death and power word stun. But then they also have the possibility to be used as upcasted fireball and teleport if necessary. I guess this strikes the balance between being easy to run and simple to delve into.

 

[Timespike]

Acererak might just object to his name being deleted, as might Vecna. I'd delete the Nameless Horrors feature instead.

Acererak and Vecna are both WotC IP. At least in my opinion, this is a nice way of differentiating our liches from WotC's, but as it says in the beginning of the book, the lore is just suggestions and is subject to the needs of the individual Narrator or setting writer. I wouldn't call a header in the lore section a "feature" either; it has no mechanical weight.

 

[lichmaster]

It's a good improvement on what we have right now. I also did something very similar for a 3.5 game I ran a while back, just to make the creatures faster and easier to reference during play.

Same here. I actually did it since AD&D 2e, and then in 3.5. The fact that WotC presents this as a major innovation is kinda ridiculous for me. Should have been a lesson learned at least a decade ago, and a de facto standard by now. But it's still good it's now becoming the norm.

That said, the lich is a little ridiculous. It's true that an epic enemy like that can be complex, but 4e did complex epic enemies without resorting to quite that level of intricacy. Instead of four different level 4+ spells, the lich could have two or even just one that it could use four times. Now, you might say that it's a spellcaster so it should work more or less like a player character spellcaster (with slots), but the lich already has arc lightning, which is not a spell even though it looks like one, and it has paralyzing touch, which again could easily be a spell instead of a lich's special ability.

Paralyzing touch and immunity to spells below level 5 are the definining features of a lich, and date back several editions ago. For compatibility and lore reasons I think it's a very good idea to keep them.
Still, it is a sentient spellcaster that willingly choose undeath: why should he forget to cast all his spells?
It should have had decades to research very rare and powerful spells too, which could be inscribed in his spellbook (which would be an exceptional find for a wizard, and a way to flex A5E's rare spells). Plus, it probably knows all spells of every level it has access to, not necessarily currently prepared, but maybe cast time ago and still valid: Glyphs of warding pretty much everywhere, the other Symbols, Clone, Contingency, etc. All this would be pretty much lost with innate abilities, or would have to be tailor made with some effort by a DM.

This is also one thing I miss from 2e's dragons, who were also quite high level spellcasters. That made them serious threats, much more than what they are today.

 

[lichmaster]

That said, I generally prefer the innate spellcasting format for most monsters. The only slot casters are the creatures with a story reason to be part of the same magical traditions as the characters (NPC priests and mages and so on, plus the mummy and the lich and maybe a few more).

Exactly this! For most creatures I make up magic attacks on the fly using GiffyGlyphs Monster Maker (which is really good btw). But for creatures that are true spellcasters with actual class levels, it makes more sense to me to keep spell slots.

 

[lichmaster]

Btw @duneguy , I know in the Monstrous Menagerie there will be guidelines on how to create monsters.
Having read your blog about monster math I know this is gonna be top quality stuff.
One thing that o5e really glossed over is how to evaluate spellcasting and innates when making monsters: will there be more precise/quantitative indications for this in a5e?

 

[duneguy]

Btw @duneguy , I know in the Monstrous Menagerie there will be guidelines on how to create monsters.
Having read your blog about monster math I know this is gonna be top quality stuff.
One thing that o5e really glossed over is how to evaluate spellcasting and innates when making monsters: will there be more precise/quantitative indications for this in a5e?

Yeah... I don't price out individual traits/features, for instance by saying that Petrifying Gaze is worth such and such an adjustment, since there are more traits/features than monsters. Instead, there are rules for determining how much damage or HP an effect is equivalent to, based on what condition (or other effect, like pushes and pulls, disadvantage on attacks, damage transference, and so on) it imposes, to how many targets, whether it's limited-use, etc. You multiply that out and come up with an amount that you should reduce your monster's hp or damage per turn to account for it.

 

[lichmaster]

Yeah... I don't price out individual traits/features, for instance by saying that Petrifying Gaze is worth such and such an adjustment, since there are more traits/features than monsters. Instead, there are rules for determining how much damage or HP an effect is equivalent to, based on what condition (or other effect, like pushes and pulls, disadvantage on attacks, damage transference, and so on) it imposes, to how many targets, whether it's limited-use, etc. You multiply that out and come up with an amount that you should reduce your monster's hp or damage per turn to account for it.

This is AWESOME! I was really hoping to get something similar, can't wait to read it all!

 

[Staffan]

Paralyzing touch and immunity to spells below level 5 are the definining features of a lich, and date back several editions ago. For compatibility and lore reasons I think it's a very good idea to keep them.

Immunity to low-to-moderate level spells is a defining feature of a lich? I can't find anything about that in 1e, 2e, 3e, or 5e, and it doesn't seem like the kind of thing a 4e monster would have. The only monster I can think of off-hand that has blanket immunity to spells below a certain level are rakshasa. And I guess Tiamat.

This is also one thing I miss from 2e's dragons, who were also quite high level spellcasters. That made them serious threats, much more than what they are today.

They really weren't, at least not the chromatic dragons. Black and white dragons never got more than 1st level wizard spells, greens maxed out at 2nd level spells, blues at 3rd level wizard and 1st level priest spells, and only red dragons got 5th level wizard and 2nd level priest spells. And that's when you're at Great Wyrm status – the only adult chromatic dragon with higher than 1st level spells was the red. Gem and metallic dragons had quite a bit more ooomph when it came to spellcasting though, but even they only learned spells randomly – the DM was supposed to randomly generate what spells a specific dragon would have, except for gold dragons.

3e gave dragons actual sorcerer spellcasting, but this was tuned to be a rather small part of its overall capabilities For example, an adult red dragon in 3.5e is CR 15, and casts spells as a 7th level sorcerer (meaning 3rd level spells because sorcerers get new spell levels at even levels in 3.5e). Now, you can do some fun things even with 3rd level spells, but they're mostly useful as buffs or sometimes divinations and protections. Though if you wanted to cheese a dragon, you could have it powered up with mage armor and shield for +8 to AC.