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For creatures that have spells that do some damage roll plus primary casting ability modifier, what is that modifier? Is there a default stated somewhere, like divine spells always use Wisdom? Given that creatures have their own rules for their bonuses, I'm not sure I can reverse engineer the bonus from the Spell DC or Spell Attack.
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For creatures that have spells that do some damage roll plus primary casting ability modifier, what is that modifier? Is there a default stated somewhere, like divine spells always use Wisdom? Given that creatures have their own rules for their bonuses, I'm not sure I can reverse engineer the bonus from the Spell DC or Spell Attack.
Unless the Spells are Innate, which always use CHA, I use the creature's highest mental stat, as I assume that is their "Key Ability" for casting.
Do you have a caster in the party? It may be easiest and most fair to just determine what the player maximum for the creatures level is, and use that.
For the vast majority of encounters, that should match a player characters modifier.
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Thanks, all!
I use the creature's highest mental stat, as I assume that is their "Key Ability" for casting.
That's what I've done in every case until now. It usually makes sense. In this specific case...
The +6 seemed high for a Creature 9 to have only a +19 spell attack, and he's sort of a cleric-ish representative of Dahak. So I went with the wisdom bonus as his divine spellcasting stat in this case.
I was just wondering if there was any specific guidance anywhere that I'd overlooked. This is sort of an edge case. As you suggest, that highest ability seems like the logical choice most of the time. I'm just surprised it's not part of the stat block and there's no default by tradition.
For creatures that have spells that do some damage roll plus primary casting ability modifier, what is that modifier? Is there a default stated somewhere, like divine spells always use Wisdom? Given that creatures have their own rules for their bonuses, I'm not sure I can reverse engineer the bonus from the Spell DC or Spell Attack.
I looked over Core and the Bestiaries and unfortunately there's no clear cut rule (except for Innate Spells, which always use Cha), and even worse in some cases the books just confuse you more.
The prime example being Dragons, where the bestiary says with spellcasting Dragons you might increase different mental stats (Int/Cha for Chromatic; Int/Wis/Cha for Metallic; Wis/Cha for Primal) to "reflect their mastery of magic". So...which is their spellcasting stat? Who knows. Take your pick.
They really should errata this at some point, and I'm curious as to how it's handled in PFS (if they've even realised the issue).
One thing to note is most enemies don't live long enough to get down to cantrips, except for the lowest of levels. Don't think I've ever actually cast a cantrip from a monster.
One thing to note is most enemies don't live long enough to get down to cantrips, except for the lowest of levels. Don't think I've ever actually cast a cantrip from a monster.
I was actually curious so I went through the Core Rulebook. The non-cantrip spells that use the spellcasting ability modifier for stuff are:
false life
glyph of warding*
illusory creature
spiritual guardian
spiritual weapon
weapon of judgement
*glyph of warding is an exception because all the modifier interacts with is how many glyphs you can have active.
Then I went through the Bestiary and Bestiary 2 to see if any monster had any of them as non-innate spells:
false life: Lich
glyph of warding: none
illusory creature: lamia matriarch, dark naga, worm that walks cultist
spiritual guardian: none
spiritual weapon: drow priestess, gnoll cultist
weapon of judgement: none
Of these, the Lich is described as a "wizard", so I'd use Int. The Drow Priestess is a Cleric, so Wis. The Gnoll Cultist is likely also a Cleric, but it's not specified.
So that leaves the three monsters that get illusory creature. Not a big deal, overall.
Of course there might be more in modules, and as the game progresses and we get more spells and creatures the list might expand so it'd be nice to have a ruling. And obviously if we go into cantrips there's a lot more, so it'd be even nicer.