Spell Slots are for creatures that will recover spells and participate in 2+ encounters monsters never last that long, so getting rid of Spell Slots is genius!
My sister said that the 'Skull Guy' in the thumbnail looked like he's singing. I asked her if she knew what a Lich was. She said no. I told her that's how Liches cast spells. They sing them. :D
I have a major antagonist wizard in my game atm. I will give them full spellslots and other stuff because they are very much about complexity of how they can screw with the party with glyphs, guards and wards, scrying etc. For any other not-so-important magic monster, I will now abandon spellslots completely. This method is much better than trying to track an additional list on top of all my lists.
Im very glad that you share my opinions on NPC spellcasters almost word for word. Especially number 5 and 8. Many people forget that NPCs arent PCs and dont have the same rules applied to them. Makes thing more dynamic, flavorful, and interesting for the PCs to fight since they cant metagame as effectively. Great tips!
Great video coach! you arrived just when I needed, I am planning put an Eberron adventure with lots of spellcasters, and also another one shot based on one big spellcaster. You helped me a lot!
6:38 This isn't actually true. The rule is: "Bonus Action- A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven’t already taken a bonus action this turn. You can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action." So the only restriction on casting multiple spells in a turn is if you cast a spell as a Bonus Action. You can Action Surge and cast two Fireballs, for example. And any spells cast using a Reaction are fine too.
Yeah. My group had to deep dive the rules for this, but that seems to be the case for sure. It really just limits on bonus action spells. Kinda weird, but whatever.
@@sebastianleiva9278 If you cast Healing Word, you wouldn't be able to cast the other spells because Healing Word is a Bonus Action. You could double Fireball and Counterspell on the same turn as long as you Action Surged and didn't cast a spell as a Bonus Action, though.
Spellcasters can definitely be hard to run, so I greatly appreciate this video to help ya boy out bc I might just need it! Edit: your 1st tip gave me some crazy ideas for recharge mechanics when I run my spellcasters… 😈
I love spellcaster enemies. Partially because it lets me use saving throws instead of all attack rolls, but also because some spells are great at shaking things up. I mostly stick to spells that don't require concentration, unless they are "you can use your action to keep using the spell" stuff or a specific debuff/buff I intend to use
Interesting, but I would quess that for most people none of the things you described are the biggest problem. It is the spell lists of casters. How to make sure that the lich who planned for milenia has a misty step to deal with a wall of force, but at the same time doesn't have the perfect reaction to everything the players are doing? I run a high level campaign and this is my biggest problem. It is easy to choose a few favourite/flavorful spells for my monster and keeping track of spell slots is trivial, I even know most spells by heart so I only rarely fail to remember what they are doing, but I still struggle to build proper spell lists. I tried giving the monsters only a couple of X/day spells, which is fine for the beasts and demons of the world, but an archmage should be able to have some tricks up his sleeve. I also tried not giving them a spell list at all and figuring out what they cast on the spot only a few favourite spells, but that felt unfair. It would be great if you could share any solution you have to this or if encountered this problem at all.
This tip is a bit out there but you seem advanced enough for this Make up spells on the fly I did this for an ANCIENT ORC SHAMAN, I had some spells... but this was an EPIC caster of nature. I cant possibly think of all the things this villain has studeied for their whole lives like you said, SO I thought of CONCEPTS of what magic they could do, thats all. So when the players got there they spread out and happened to all be standing next to vine type things I drew on the map (with no thoughts what so ever... they had no mechanics to them... untill NOW) So First round the shaman jams their staff upside down into the earth and the vines animate and attack all tagets at once standing near the vines, it was an attack roll, cuz that seemed fair, it was 3d10 damage... cuz that sounded right. they made a Str Save = fail = grapple, and fail by 5 or more = restrained, then he laughs as the base of the vines start to emit a poison gas.... ALL of that... literally all of it... i completely made up on the spot. Go for it :)
I have another solution if you want to keep Spell Slots: during your game prep map what spells are going to be prepared for each slot, for example: a wizard preparing 3 1st levels as magic missile and one as mage armor, mirror image for 1 2nd level, and 2 2nd level with shatter, and both 3rd level as fireball
Love this. Your emphasis on flow in encounters is so key for my table and the way I run games. I discovered early on that I just could not run a good exciting combat encounter from a full stat block and that 5e monsters generally don't lend themselves to exciting combat as is. Learning from Matt Coleville and then running with similar ideas I have come to many of the same conclusions that you have about combat and I am still learning more from you! Thanks for the great content!
Can't wait to let out my desire to make new class combos and interesting characters by making enemies with full class details, and some npcs be characters too.
Great video. I will definitely implement most of these strategies into my campaigns. I would add that feats are a great way to sprnkle in some flavor and complexity to casters. Maybe just add one feat per caster such as spell sniper or war caster stc.
While watching the part about some monsters having Legendary Actions, I started thinking about giving some monsters Legendary Reactions, essentially giving the monster a second reaction. To make it a little more fair, perhaps they can't use it two rounds in a row. For example, Round 1 Reaction+LR, Round 2 Reaction, Round 3 Reaction+LR. To add more flavor, these Legendary Reactions could be limited to a specific set of things the monster could do. For example, a legendary swordsman reacts to an attack roll by not just parrying, but disarming the attacking player and making an attack against them. Just an idea that crossed my mind while watching the video. Might be useful to someone.
With all the digital tools I am more of a fan of normal spellcasting for enemies. At first I would have loved this advice, but I think I have found I like the complexity.
Great video Coach! I’ve personally have been using some very helpful 5e spell apps on my phone when DMing. Not only can you create (NPCs) characters and save spells based on their “class”, the spell slots but also a full description of the 5e spell. Spell Slots 5e & D&D Spells 5e Nonetheless love your material Coach, always have, always will!
Great video! Spellcasters are a lot of fun to battle. One more tip is: Don't feel restricted with spell levels. Give the necromancer wizard Circle of Death instead of Fireball even though that's actually a 6th level spell, it's not stronger. The evil chronurgist can have Time Stop even though it doesn't have any other spells above 4th level.
Here's my buffed up Kadroth for RotFM "s-IMP-ly Divine!" : (round 1) action: casts Spirit Guardians; bonus action: summons 2 imps to enter the fray "Bow Down Before Me!" : (round 2) action: casts Command (have pc grovel) "Levistus... I'm sending you a soul!" : (round 3) action: casts Banishment Prehensile Rebuke: uses his tail as a reaction like a spear-- trigger melee damage I Need Help in Here!: (1d4)cultist(s) come to Kadroth’s aid appearing in the doorway rolling their own initiative Rejuvenate Me!" : Bloodied Action: when reaching ½ HP, Kadroth can life drain any nearby cultist to regain (3d6) HP
With enough common sense or experience you could probably work that out without much trouble. There are tables for damage in xanathar (or maybe in the dmg) on how much damage can kill, wound or scratch characters scalated per tier of play.
BTW I don't know if he's ever mentioned it in regards to PC's... but I make a list of my actions, bonus actions, and reactions for my own characters. Especially spellcasters and multiclass characters that can have a lot to juggle.
If you have a Wizard in the party how do you handle spell books using this simplification? Do you just have the PC get a spell book of appropriate CR & hand wave the hombrewed stuff as unique to the villain? Or do you do something else?
I needed this so much, I'm pretty new and I'm ready to surprise my overconfident PCs with a spicy unexpected magic surprise. I feel really confident now thank you!
This is great advice. I do very much the same which is divide the spells into three categories: buffs, control and damage. Usually buff spells I don't worry about and figure they've already cast it and add it to their stats. Then pick probably one control spells, one aoe spell and one direct damage spell. Another thing I might do is consider some of the stuff encounter design instead of monster design and maybe even not worry about the control spell as I might have a special trigger for something like that to happen at a certain time in the encounter.
When I started DMing I had an enemy cast a spell 3 times and my friend asked, "how many spell slot these guys have? They cast that spell a few times already?" So, yeah. I wish I could just cast spells willy nilly.
Aaargh thank you!!! I just ran a terrible combat last night where I had a level 6 wizard and trying to track all his spells and spell slots was a nightmare. These tips will really help me in the next session. Thanks!
Monsters do indeed follow spellcasting rules. There are reasons that 5e creatures can do things that are similar to spells and not actually be spells or spellcasting. Eladrin as an example can feystep as a bonus action, which is almost exactly a misty step spell. But isn’t. And so they can cast a spell and feystep as part of the same turn. But yea the DM can do W/E they want, so long as it keeps the players engaged while preserving trust. You start sending casters with unlimited spell slots who can cast multiple leveled spells on their turn, I don’t see that going well for the party or the DM.
Never had an issue with it, but then again I don’t spam the same spell over and over, would be burning and I don’t do OP stuff, so of course there are prerequisites But you are also talking to someone who would NEVER run a monster stat block RAW and always add my own tweaks
irony is that your monster "cheat sheet" is almost identical to the layout of the actual monster stat block! Cheat sheets might be more useful to things with massive spell like abilities like vampires or ancient dragons but ordinarily there is nothing on a stat block that shouldn't be there nor isn't in an immediately useful way.
