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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    DrowGirl

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    Question XP Rules for Monsters With Innate Spellcasting

    What rules, if any, govern how monsters with innate spellcasting such as dragons or Solars use spells with XP components? If a Solar casts Miracle, what resource is expended? Do they have some daily or weekly XP budget, or do they take negative levels after so many uses or something to that effect?

    And for that matter, do NPCs in general have rules governing magic item creation and where they get the XP for that? I can't imagine every enchanter out there just happens to also be a mercenary adventurer going out and raiding dungeons all the time to keep up their business; and if they actually all are, I shudder to think of the ecological consequences for the monster species they must hunt.
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  2. - Top - End - #2
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

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    Default Re: XP Rules for Monsters With Innate Spellcasting

    The starting point would be the SRD's entry for the Spells special ability, which any spellcasting (as opposed to (Sp) or (Su)s) monster has:

    Quote Originally Posted by SRD
    Spells
    Sometimes a creature can cast arcane or divine spells just as a member of a spellcasting class can (and can activate magic items accordingly). Such creatures are subject to the same spellcasting rules that characters are, except as follows.

    A spellcasting creature that lacks hands or arms can provide any somatic component a spell might require by moving its body. Such a creature also does need material components for its spells. The creature can cast the spell by either touching the required component (but not if the component is in another creature’s possession) or having the required component on its person. Sometimes spellcasting creatures utilize the Eschew Materials feat to avoid fussing with noncostly components.

    A spellcasting creature is not actually a member of a class unless its entry says so, and it does not gain any class abilities. A creature with access to cleric spells must prepare them in the normal manner and receives domain spells if noted, but it does not receive domain granted powers unless it has at least one level in the cleric class
    So going off that, monsters have to come up with XP where it's required too.

    That said, Solars have Wish at will as a spell-like ability, and ...

    Quote Originally Posted by SRD
    A spell-like ability has no verbal, somatic, or material component, nor does it require a focus or have an XP cost.
    Wish includes making nonmagical items of 25,000gp each, so it can self-generate expensive stuff. As for XP, Wish allows it to duplicate the Distilled Joy spell. It takes a while, but generates 2 XP for item crafting purposes. And Wish can accordingly be used to get around the material or XP components of any spell, since it duplicates the effects and it's (Sp).

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Troll in the Playground
     
    sleepyphoenixx's Avatar

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    Default Re: XP Rules for Monsters With Innate Spellcasting

    Quote Originally Posted by Schadenfreuda View Post
    What rules, if any, govern how monsters with innate spellcasting such as dragons or Solars use spells with XP components? If a Solar casts Miracle, what resource is expended? Do they have some daily or weekly XP budget, or do they take negative levels after so many uses or something to that effect?
    They follow the same rules as casters with class levels. NPCs have as much or as little spare XP as the DM decides they have.

    And for that matter, do NPCs in general have rules governing magic item creation and where they get the XP for that? I can't imagine every enchanter out there just happens to also be a mercenary adventurer going out and raiding dungeons all the time to keep up their business; and if they actually all are, I shudder to think of the ecological consequences for the monster species they must hunt.
    D&D is a roleplaying game, not a simulation. The rules are an abstraction for the players to interact with the game, not how the game world actually works (unless you're playing in a OOTS-like campaign at least).
    Joe Commoner can't become level 8 in a few weeks by going out to kill a CR 1 animal every day (a PC could) and NPC crafters don't need to go murderhoboing to collect the souls of their enemies as crafting fuel. Not by default at least.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: XP Rules for Monsters With Innate Spellcasting

    Quote Originally Posted by Schadenfreuda View Post
    What rules, if any, govern how monsters with innate spellcasting such as dragons or Solars use spells with XP components? If a Solar casts Miracle, what resource is expended? Do they have some daily or weekly XP budget, or do they take negative levels after so many uses or something to that effect?
    This isn't addressed anywhere for creatures in general as far as I know, but it is addressed for two specific types: deities and dragons.
    Quote Originally Posted by D&DG p.29
    As characters of around 60th level, deities can freely pay even large XP costs. Consider that a deity has a safe cushion of around 30,000XP it can use every week for creating magic items and casting spells with spells with experience point costs.
    Quote Originally Posted by Drac p.24
    A dragon typically has a cushion of 100 to 600 XP times its spellcaster level. It can use these XP in spellcasting without risking the loss of a level.
    Obviously deities are a special case, so presumably the dragon figure is a better guide to RAI for other creatures. Having said that, true dragons often get better stuff than other monsters (most types get triple standard treasure for example) so this should maybe be considered the maximum rather than the average.

    Quote Originally Posted by Schadenfreuda View Post
    And for that matter, do NPCs in general have rules governing magic item creation and where they get the XP for that? I can't imagine every enchanter out there just happens to also be a mercenary adventurer going out and raiding dungeons all the time to keep up their business; and if they actually all are, I shudder to think of the ecological consequences for the monster species they must hunt.
    You do get XP for activities other than fighting monsters, but in most cases it's much slower. Exactly how this works has never been spelled out as far as I know. Tbh, how the world works in the background is always a bit of a handwave, from the fact that an ecosystem couldn't support nearly as many giant monsters as a typical D&D world seems to have, to the completely nonsensical demographics rules in the DMG. Don't examine this too closely, as they say on TV Tropes.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Telonius's Avatar

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    Default Re: XP Rules for Monsters With Innate Spellcasting

    There's a rule about this for summoned creatures. The "Spell Description" portion of the SRD says this about Summoned creatures:

    A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have, and it refuses to cast any spells that would cost it XP, or to use any spell-like abilities that would cost XP if they were spells.
    This is true for Summoned creatures only. Called creatures, or creatures you encounter normally, don't have that.

    There is a line in the "Monsters and Class Levels" section that might apply.

    Monsters And Class Levels
    If a creature acquires a character class, it follows the rules for multiclass characters.

    ...

    Level Adjustment and Effective Character Level
    To determine the effective character level (ECL) of a monster character, add its level adjustment to its racial Hit Dice and character class levels. The monster is considered to have experience points equal to the minimum needed to be a character of its ECL.

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Zanos's Avatar

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    Default Re: XP Rules for Monsters With Innate Spellcasting

    Quote Originally Posted by sleepyphoenixx View Post
    D&D is a roleplaying game, not a simulation. The rules are an abstraction for the players to interact with the game, not how the game world actually works (unless you're playing in a OOTS-like campaign at least).
    Joe Commoner can't become level 8 in a few weeks by going out to kill a CR 1 animal every day (a PC could) and NPC crafters don't need to go murderhoboing to collect the souls of their enemies as crafting fuel. Not by default at least.
    They're an abstraction, but they're not without grounding in phenomena observable in character. It's recognized that crafting magic items or casting XP component spells drains some sort or vital essence, and that attempts to do so will fail if you don't have enough. NPCs recognize that spells like Wish or Permanency are limited by forces other than spell slots.

    That said, SLAs don't have any components, including XP. Supernatural abilities also probably don't. If a creature is casting actual XP spells you need to make up some nonsense for how much it can spend; the dragon example is probably a reasonable guideline for a very powerful and ancient creature.
    Last edited by Zanos; 2022-05-20 at 02:36 PM.

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