Spellcasting Bad Guys Writeups

[Baptor]

I am a DM whose run 2nd, 3rd, and now 5th edition games. (Skipped DMing 4th, but not because I didn't like it.)

One thing I love is bad guy spellcasters. One thing I hate? Writing up bad guy spellcasters.

No matter what edition i've been in, statting out a full casters, especially at high level is a pain. Half the page is their spell list. It's cluttered and unwieldy. Not to mention that you never get to use half the list regardless of how the battle goes. I've never had a battle last long enough for a bad-guy mage to actually run out of spells, or even come close.

4th seemed to have a nice thing going on with those unique powers, but this ain't 4th.

Suffice to say I am reaching out to my fellow DM's to see if there is a better way. Anyone found a clean way to do a spell list that doesn't devour an entire sheet of paper? Anyone out there trying to make BBEG with "powers" instead of a spell list?

[dead_but_dreaming]

Cheat. BBEGs are smart, possibly smarter than the DM. They can be trusted to have just the right spells for the job, so prepare only a few, key spells and improvise the rest (the BBEG just happened to have them prepared, it turns out).

[Yorrin]

The way I did it in 3.5 was to give the baddies a spells known list kinda like a sorcerer, regardless of actual casting class, and then just pick from that list on the fly as the encounter demanded (staying within spell slot limitations). 5e practically has this built in with its prepared spells mechanic, so it should be a lot easier.

[pwykersotz]

Cheat. BBEGs are smart, possibly smarter than the DM. They can be trusted to have just the right spells for the job, so prepare only a few, key spells and improvise the rest (the BBEG just happened to have them prepared, it turns out).

I second this. Write down a few thematic spells to give you guidance, then wing it. Players can seldom tell the difference between 15 minutes of work on a spell list and 5 hours of work on a spell list. Just make sure that you don't perfectly counter EVERYTHING the players do. Make sure it remains a back-and-forth.

Fortunately, choosing spells in this edition is far easier thanks to the psuedo-vancian casting. Like Yorrin says, it's super easy to sorc it up in 5th, and the lack of Int providing bonus slots means you can just glance at the relevant level to see how many spells your caster gets.

[Baptor]

Good advice, thanks!

Also, do any of you bother with full casters as mooks or only as BBEG? I am concerned using mages as monsters too liberally may get complicated and/or game breaking.

[MeeposFire]

You could make monsters with fairly basic magic using abilities that give the flavor of being a caster but are not complicated. For instance instead of a monster using a bow to attack at range have him use a cantrip that deal similar damage. In melee have him use a shocking grasp type attack rather than an axe. Makes the monster magical but not difficult to run.

[pwykersotz]

They're perfectly good mooks past a certain level. Throwing a couple dark priests (as the NPC statted in the DM rules) along with a couple thugs once the party is level 3 or 4 is great. The NPC Mage is a CR6 though, so they have to start getting up there in levels before you throw that at them. But yeah, full casters are fine mooks, they'll probably just have one basic theme that they don't deviate from.

BBEG's tend to be fully realized casters, mooks tend to be more straightforward.