If you haven't noticed, WotC has changed how it handles spellcasting in monster stat blocks. Innate Spellcasting is gone, spell slot-based casting is gone, and the Spellcasting trait now shows up as an Action.
Starting in Community Pack 3.5, there will be two new options when programming a monster with spellcasting, which will adhere to this new format:
- x5CSpellCast - Standard spellcasting, with At Will, 1/day, etc.
- x5CSpellPSi - Psionics spellcasting, such as the gem dragons.
And to make it even easier, I've added some functionality that'll help when programming spellcasting for named NPC's. Just add the field "abText" to whichever of these two spellcasting abilities you've chosen, and put the proper name in that field.
By default, the abilities will read "The (full name of the monster) casts these spells..." When you use the abText field, it'll instead read "(abText) casts these spells..." This will significantly reduce the need to change the header, something that's been a pain point in the past.
Other than these changes, you'll want to pick the casting attribute and add the individual spells on the race, like you would for innate spellcasting. Now it'll all show up on the monster as an action, complete with the spell save DC, spell attack, etc. text if the chosen spells need those.
WotC has also started displaying proficiency bonus on the stat blocks, as well as listing bonus actions in their own section. I don't see how I can do those*, but I'd gladly take any ideas!
*I have an idea how to do PB, but it's not very pretty, and PB is already displayed prominently enough in HLC anyway.
EDIT: I added a third new option, "x5CSplCstMat". This is the same as x5CSpellCast, except it leaves out the text saying the monster needs no material components. Put another way, if the monster can cast spells but still needs the material components, use x5CSplCstMat.