NPCs don't follow the same rules as PCs, never have in 5e, and that's ok.

[KorvinStarmast]

They ARE writing a better DMG. Are we not allowed to get any kind of content or incremental improvements until that one gets published 2 years from now? Screw that.

My post was more of an expression of my long running frustration with some of the DMG's numerous shortcomings.
I doubt that they are writing a better one, given what the team has produced for the last two years, but if my cynicism is wrong, and they are, so much the better.

[Brookshw]

Are we not allowed to get any kind of content or incremental improvements until that one gets published 2 years from now? Screw that.

I would prefer they provide whatever complete re-writes they intend in the entirety rather than drip feed / sleeper play test them; the nonsense that arose after the introduction of IHS under TOB - which, as a precursor to 4e where "effect" was defined, would have been a non-issue, but where in 3e it was undefined, was - showed why that is desirable.

(I'm also unconcerned with the "changes" they've made so far in 5e)

[PhoenixPhyre]

You're not supposed to be reacting based on knowing what (sub)class somebody is. That's metagaming even when that information is clear-cut, which it very often isn't.

I agree. Personally, a world in which the entire possibilities of (humanoid) power sets are conveniently identical to those power sets that are suited for PC adventurers and adventuring is one that is as flat as a board game. It's the most video-game-like option--it's an isekai anime, and not one of the good ones. It encourages (and mandates, in fact), entirely mechanical thinking.

PC-class abilities are one tiny slice out of the entire weird wild range of possibilities. Most of which are dramatically not suited for adventuring. Things like "a spell caster who doesn't have spell slots at all and only does rituals, but can do really big rituals...if he never leaves his tower." Things like the necromancer whose entire power is bound up in his minions but can't cast a spell to save his life. The elven lady who can cast scrying at will, but has no power outside her forest. The priests who have no clue about weapons or armor and can only cast a few spells, most of which don't appear on the spell list. Because "Ease Delivery <Cow>" isn't exactly an adventuring spell.

Just looking at priest-figures for a second--my setting has
* priests of beings that aren't gods and so cannot grant clerical spell access. These are similar (in concept) to celestial warlocks, except their power set and "spell list" are utterly different. Most never have more than one, long-rest spell slot for "actual" spells; the rest of what they do are "miracles" granted at the will of the patron somewhat akin to Divine Intervention, except different. Including miracles such as total possession into something like an Avatar state. Or someone who can't cast even the simplest spell but can, if the entity wishes it and has the power to spare, call aid from the Heavens.
* priests of religions, not of gods. Most priests who serve religious organizations, even those that do worship the true gods, aren't clerics. They're priests, sort of (kind of, vaguely) like warlocks whose patron is the church. They're taught mysteries, effectively gaining "invocations". But most of them can only cast the simplest spells, and that only infrequently.
* priests of gods who don't wield divine or magical power at all. If you see a "priest" of the sun god (who is also one of the war gods), they'll be in full armor with weapons. And you won't see them cast spells hardly at all. They're closer to a fighter. Except some of them (depending on the individual) might have a presence that repels unholy (as defined by the church) things.
* priests of the god of magic, who are basically wizards (including learning spells via study and carrying a spell book). Except that their spells are some combination of wizard, cleric, and spells that aren't even in any of the books. And innate powers (often for the higher ranking ones), such as selectively dampening magic all around them. Not antimagic field, per se, but something similar.
* and you do have a few actual clerics. But even then, NPC clerics tend to have much more focused power sets. One whose calling is destroying undead might have a super-charged Turn Undead....but only a couple spells (and those suited to destroying undead). Ask them to heal and they'll look at you blankly. That's not their job. Or a healer-cleric who might not even be capable of casting anything damaging or hurtful--doing so would sever her connection to her god(dess).

And the same goes for arcanists--people practicing wizardry[1] don't generally think of themselves as "wizards". They think of themselves as
* geomancers
* pyromancers
* daemonologists
* sages
* etc.

Adventurers must be generalists (relatively). All-rounders. Because the demands of adventuring are general and unpredictable. But that doesn't hold for everyone. And a true specialist can and should (IMO) develop powers that no generalist can come close to. And vice versa--that specialist will be much more limited than a generalist.

D&D is first and foremost (by its own claims) a game about adventuring and adventurers. That's what all PCs are. That's all that the PHB describes. But that doesn't describe anything like a world that could be real.

[1] a name for the slice of arcane magic that focuses on words and symbols, including sorcerers and many (but not all) warlocks, as well as a multitude of other practitioners of many different varieties, most of which aren't playable classes.

I would prefer they provide whatever complete re-writes they intend in the entirety rather than drip feed / sleeper play test them; the nonsense that arose after the introduction of IHS under TOB - which, as a precursor to 4e where "effect" was defined, would have been a non-issue, but where in 3e it was undefined, was - showed why that is desirable.

I agree with this. Basically, what they did is released a patch version (5.0.y) that made breaking changes. And that's bad practice. And leads to a lot of confusion. I have a strong hunch that PCs are going to see a lot of changes around what counts as a spell and how counterspell (etc) work, including a lot more of these "spell-like" abilities. Yes, including wizards. But they should have (IMO) waited until 5.5e came out (which is really 6e, since there will be breaking changes and backward compatibility will be notional only, just like it was with 3e to 3.5e. You can use it, but it will be jank and not fit).

[Psyren]

I would prefer they provide whatever complete re-writes they intend in the entirety rather than drip feed / sleeper play test them; the nonsense that arose after the introduction of IHS under TOB - which, as a precursor to 4e where "effect" was defined, would have been a non-issue, but where in 3e it was undefined, was - showed why that is desirable.

You're not helping your case though. Had they done what you wanted, we'd likely never have gotten ToB at all, they would have simply waited until 4e to introduce the martial powers system there. No matter what you think of ToB's quality, that would have overall been a loss for the game as a whole.

[Brookshw]

Had they done what you wanted, we'd likely never have gotten ToB at all

And I'm absolutely fine with that.

[Psyren]

And I'm absolutely fine with that.

Well I'm not And I'm not even a big fan of the book, but I'd rather have the ideas from it than not.

[Brookshw]

Well I'm not And I'm not even a big fan of the book, but I'd rather have the ideas from it than not.

Gasp, people disagree on their personal preferences!? Surely you jest

[Anymage]

I agree with this. Basically, what they did is released a patch version (5.0.y) that made breaking changes. And that's bad practice. And leads to a lot of confusion. I have a strong hunch that PCs are going to see a lot of changes around what counts as a spell and how counterspell (etc) work, including a lot more of these "spell-like" abilities. Yes, including wizards. But they should have (IMO) waited until 5.5e came out (which is really 6e, since there will be breaking changes and backward compatibility will be notional only, just like it was with 3e to 3.5e. You can use it, but it will be jank and not fit).

I'd mind the whole thing a lot less if they were clear about what other bits they were tinkering with under the hood, so the whole thing was easier to work around. It's when we get half formed rules and we have to try to decipher the context they'll exist in that makes me feel like I'm paying money to do their playtesting for them, and doing extra work to round off the rough edges on top of that.

Credit to WotC where it's due, though. Out of all the critters in the book you have a few PC races that are noticeably above the curve, a few holdouts who insist that NPC spellcasters are wrong if they don't run on spell slots, and this tempest in a teapot about how nonspells interact with Counterspell and other antispell defenses that are less game warping than Counterspell. I just again wish they were better at communicating the fuller picture.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'd mind the whole thing a lot less if they were clear about what other bits they were tinkering with under the hood, so the whole thing was easier to work around. It's when we get half formed rules and we have to try to decipher the context they'll exist in that makes me feel like I'm paying money to do their playtesting for them, and doing extra work to round off the rough edges on top of that.

Credit to WotC where it's due, though. Out of all the critters in the book you have a few PC races that are noticeably above the curve, a few holdouts who insist that NPC spellcasters are wrong if they don't run on spell slots, and this tempest in a teapot about how nonspells interact with Counterspell and other antispell defenses that are less game warping than Counterspell. I just again wish they were better at communicating the fuller picture.

Very much 100% agreed on all accounts.

[Telok]

You're not supposed to be reacting based on knowing what (sub)class somebody is. That's metagaming even when that information is clear-cut, which it very often isn't. React instead to what they do. Counterspell if they're casting a spell, do something else if they're not.

See, thats a misunderstanding, we wouldn't care about "class" as you mean it. Since "person wearing armor & weilding a sword" is meaningless, because its a bag of hit points with random unknown abilities & defenses, we can't expect anything but basic magic weapon damage (usually force & radiant too) to have any effect. Bunches of them can't be grappled or it has no effect, disarming them often has no effect, heat metal spell stopped being used for no effect too often, can't expect vision blocking or terrain stuff to make a difference.

We never expected armor & sword to equal "pc fighter" like you claim. But the Calvinball nature of the npcs/monsters described that way makes what they are completely meaningless. We only know for anything introduced as "person wearing armor & weilding a sword" that it has hit points, ac, saves, and does damage. We can't expect to talk to it, sneak past it, run away from it, or anything thats not rolling an attack for damage. Since the damage is "cr appropriate" it can put down anyone in the party in two or three attack actions (except the barbarian who goes down in 3-4 unless there's a crit in there somewhere). Since its playing Calvinball we can't know or expect ac attacks, saves, or just unavoidable damage until after we're being hit by it.

So "person wearing armor & weilding a sword" doesn't mean a coherent npc who walks around and swings a sword or anything. It means "bag of hit points that does an unknown type of damage". The effect this has on gameplay is bad. Every interaction and all combat devolves to "walk in and roll attacks"*. At least with the npcs described as "person wearing robes & carrying a spell component pouch/holy symbol" we know it can talk and will mostly cast spells. We get use use actual tactics and can even reliably talk at them. We had this issue in 4e where we didn't know or care what we were fighting because it had stopped mattering. With no expectation of what npcs can or will do, when the npcs follow no tropes & have no restrictions, you reduce them to formless bags of hit points to be burned through as fast as possible.

As players we don't care if a npc is "like a pc fighter" or "like a pc cleric" like you seem to think. We care if we know anything but that there's 3 or 4 of them, they have hit points & ac, and will burn through 1/3rd to 2/3rds of the cleric's hit points each turn. That's what more of these npc stat blocks look like to me, more like a hit point sack with random damage abilities from 4e than a fictional character that abides by the rules/tropes of a fictional setting.

Edit: forgot the *
* we intentionally & openly refrain from overuse of banishment, force cage, and the like. That stuff sees play maybe once a session instead of being spammed twice, three times, a fight. Bcause it does start warping the game & screwing over the babarian, fighter, & ranger.

[Pixel_Kitsune]

See, thats a misunderstanding, we wouldn't care about "class" as you mean it. Since "person wearing armor & weilding a sword" is meaningless, because its a bag of hit points with random unknown abilities & defenses, we can't expect anything but basic magic weapon damage (usually force & radiant too) to have any effect. Bunches of them can't be grappled or it has no effect, disarming them often has no effect, heat metal spell stopped being used for no effect too often, can't expect vision blocking or terrain stuff to make a difference.

You've brought this up before. You essentially don't RP in combat, you just aim at it as a strategy game.

That's fine, not how 5e is really designed, but fine for your table.

But that's your table, not the overall design philosophy.

[Anymage]

If "a humanoid in armor wielding a sword" is a blank slate that you can't project anything practical onto, I'm hard pressed to see how "a humanoid in robes with a spell component pouch" is much different. You might normally expect the latter to be vulnerable to Counterspell (which has been discussed as a problem spell) and would let PCs with racial magic resistance have an edge on saves (something I just touched on, and that has support even from a lot of the "most of the changes are okay" crowd), but their spell selection would be a blank slate outside of maybe expecting wizard staples like Fireball. Outside of environmental details or environmental queues, most humanoid enemies are hard to pin down exactly beyond a very small number of archetypes. Even if your DM could stand to be a little more evocative.

Assume we all agreed to ignore Counterspell as being problematic, maybe worked around Globe of Invulnerability and Antimagic Field as similarly prone to shutting down whole categories of enemies, and then let all the other antispell effects that weren't hard counters take effect against nonspells. What else would you want done differently to make it feel less "calvinball"?

[Pex]

But more broadly - you're correct that there are more magical effects that replicate direct spells in these statblocks. That's indeed the design direction. But as JC made clear, that's intentional, and it's not new so much as an expansion of a concept that already existed.

We know it's intentional. That's part of the point. Being intentional is not a defense. Being intentional is the point of contention. People are not liking that it's intentional as a means of future 5E NPC design.

they're being a donkey cavity plain and simple

Heh. I appreciate that.

[Psyren]

Gasp, people disagree on their personal preferences!? Surely you jest

So long as you're clear that we do.

I'd mind the whole thing a lot less if they were clear about what other bits they were tinkering with under the hood, so the whole thing was easier to work around. It's when we get half formed rules and we have to try to decipher the context they'll exist in that makes me feel like I'm paying money to do their playtesting for them, and doing extra work to round off the rough edges on top of that.

You know nobody is making you pay for anything right? If you want to wait until 2024 for any updates, not only are you free to do that, it costs nothing!

We never expected armor & sword to equal "pc fighter" like you claim. But the Calvinball nature of the npcs/monsters described that way makes what they are completely meaningless.

What they are IS meaningless. The label on the statblock isn't there for the player, it's shorthand for the DM to know what kinds of encounters to drop them into. The player, again, should be reacting to what they see the NPC doing rather than metagaming based on a header.

[Xetheral]

I agree. Personally, a world in which the entire possibilities of (humanoid) power sets are conveniently identical to those power sets that are suited for PC adventurers and adventuring is one that is as flat as a board game. It's the most video-game-like option--it's an isekai anime, and not one of the good ones. It encourages (and mandates, in fact), entirely mechanical thinking.

PC-class abilities are one tiny slice out of the entire weird wild range of possibilities. Most of which are dramatically not suited for adventuring. Things like "a spell caster who doesn't have spell slots at all and only does rituals, but can do really big rituals...if he never leaves his tower." Things like the necromancer whose entire power is bound up in his minions but can't cast a spell to save his life. The elven lady who can cast scrying at will, but has no power outside her forest. The priests who have no clue about weapons or armor and can only cast a few spells, most of which don't appear on the spell list. Because "Ease Delivery <Cow>" isn't exactly an adventuring spell.

I think the dichotomy you're describing isn't borne out in practice. A game world can be full of a wild range of possibilities unsuited to adventuring while those abilities that are suitable to adventuring are generally well-understood IC. That can provide the wonder and depth of unbounded possibilities while still making the part of the setting the characters are in conflict with sufficiently grounded that the players' understanding of what is possible mechanically harmonizes with the characters' understanding of how their world works. Whether or not such harmony is valuable is, of course, entirely subjective. My point is that it doesn't have to come at the cost of depth of the setting.

To the contrary, I personally feel that such harmony can add depth. If "Ease Delivery <Cow>" is (e.g.) a homebrew second level spell, and the characters know the residents in the closest Hamlet travel to the farther Village for calving, the players and characters can make an informed choice that the Village is a much more likely place than the Hamlet to be able to find someone capable of casting Lesser Restoration to cure persistent poison. In contrast, if "Ease Delivery <Cow>" is simply a special ability that doesn't have any mechanical connection to any other part of the magic system, then it's standalone color that can't be meaningfully interacted with IC unless the PCs happen to have a cow about to give birth.

More broadly, I would note that such harmony is even more valuable in my preferred playstyle because it allows the players at my table to make more-informed strategic decisions. To permit a sufficient OOC understanding of a situation to make effective plans, I need my players to be able to have their characters meaningfully extrapolate capabilities of potential allies and opponents from limited observations. Let's say the PCs are trying to defend a region from a general invasion, but can't personally be everywhere at once. If they know that one at-risk village has a spellcaster that uses a spellbook and casts 3rd level non-adventuring spells, then one option would be to send a messenger with warning of the invasion and a copy of Fireball (and the necessary ink) to enable that caster to learn the spell and help defend that village while the PCs move to personally defend other villages. That sort of strategic decisionmaking doesn't work when the players can't rely on the NPCs' abilities being modelled in an understandable and consistent way. And I certainly don't think that such strategies constitute "entirely mechanical thinking". Instead, the harmony between their character's IC understanding that practitioners of wizardry are able to easily learn new spells from a written source and the players' OOC understanding of how that process works mechanically means that the strategy is entirely sound both IC and OOC.

That consistency is also not a straightjacket: occasional exceptions of NPC abilities that work differently are much more impactful when they're out of the norm rather than an everyday occurrence. If I include an NPC spellcaster whose abilities violate the player's expectations, that's notable when it's rare (and can lead to the characters deciding to dig deeper to understand the anomaly). Indeed, I think it's more wonderous to have an occasional notable exception than it is to lack any presumption of consistency in the first place. And from a design standpoint, I'd note that it's much easier as a DM to telegraph when something weird is going on when that weirdness stands out from the expectation of consistency.

I fully acknowledge that the mechanical inconsistencies in MotM are not novel. I already had difficulty using some of the original published statblocks because their mechanical abilities did not harmonize with the character's IC understanding of how the game world worked. (Drow and some NPC spellcasters being the hardest to use.) My objection to the changes in MotM are instead a question of degree. More of the statblocks have mechanical abilities where it is unclear what the PCs are supposed to understand IC about how they work. I hope that the designers are correct that these changes will bring more new players to the game than they chase away. But I fear that by making changes that cater to a subset of the playstyles 5e currently supports, they are running a substantial risk of making 5e's big tent substantially smaller.