overgeeked
B/X Known World
They're wrong and being silly. Shrug and let them be mad.
-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
D&D General When to know a rule?
- Thread starter bloodtide
- Start date
Corinnguard
Hero
You ought to give them a test, and see if they actually do know all of the rules and published spells in the game. Make them back up their claim with a knowledge check.
Example:
Sally makes Seza n half elf wizard(enchanter) folk hero from Shadowdale. So to start she gets Uncle Trapsnaper's Book of Spells, a bunch of common spells in my world. She also gets the smaller Elflore book, Enchantment book, folk hero and Dalelands books. Giving her a mix of about 200 spells her character knows about. The player can still only pick three cantrips and six at first level spells to put in the characters spell book.
The groups first adventure is Lost Mine of Phandelver. Seza finds a spell scroll or spellbook every so often in treasure or from defeated foes. And a couple goblin, drow and 'evil' type spells. When the character finds a physical copy of a spell, the player gets a copy of the spell write up.
Each time Sally levels up Seza, she can pick from all the spells she knows for the spells to put in Seza spell book.
At some point the group will choose to have down time. Seza can spend downtime researching any common spell she has seen or heard of in game. Or she can do research on common spells of a 'type', such as race, background or location. This is only for the knowledge of the spell, the player gets the spell write up. To add the spell in the game the character must still make a scroll, add it to her spellbook or such.
Uncommon spells are a bit harder. Not only does this research talk longer and cost more, but it has the additional set component. The character must find a set source for the spell. The most obvious is another spellcaster with the spell, though there are other ways.
Rare and above spells are always treasure.
Sally makes Seza n half elf wizard(enchanter) folk hero from Shadowdale. So to start she gets Uncle Trapsnaper's Book of Spells, a bunch of common spells in my world. She also gets the smaller Elflore book, Enchantment book, folk hero and Dalelands books. Giving her a mix of about 200 spells her character knows about. The player can still only pick three cantrips and six at first level spells to put in the characters spell book.
The groups first adventure is Lost Mine of Phandelver. Seza finds a spell scroll or spellbook every so often in treasure or from defeated foes. And a couple goblin, drow and 'evil' type spells. When the character finds a physical copy of a spell, the player gets a copy of the spell write up.
Each time Sally levels up Seza, she can pick from all the spells she knows for the spells to put in Seza spell book.
At some point the group will choose to have down time. Seza can spend downtime researching any common spell she has seen or heard of in game. Or she can do research on common spells of a 'type', such as race, background or location. This is only for the knowledge of the spell, the player gets the spell write up. To add the spell in the game the character must still make a scroll, add it to her spellbook or such.
Uncommon spells are a bit harder. Not only does this research talk longer and cost more, but it has the additional set component. The character must find a set source for the spell. The most obvious is another spellcaster with the spell, though there are other ways.
Rare and above spells are always treasure.
TwoSix
Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer
I feel like this really comes down to psychological preference.
At its core, not having access to character specific metagame information is disempowering.
Depending on your preferences, you can find that disempowerment enervating ("I have no idea if my character concept will actually be good...") or you can find it exciting ("I can't wait to see if this character concept will actually work!")
At its core, not having access to character specific metagame information is disempowering.
Depending on your preferences, you can find that disempowerment enervating ("I have no idea if my character concept will actually be good...") or you can find it exciting ("I can't wait to see if this character concept will actually work!")
In all fairness, I don't really see someone worrying about whether or not their Wizard will be good unless the DM bans or nerfs half the spells in the PHB (and maybe not even then!).
TwoSix
Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer
Depends. If the wizard has 5,000 possible spells to receive, but might only get to pick from 200 of those 5000 based on their initial concept (as per the example in post 183), I can certainly see some FOMO getting involved there.
FOMO, sure, but we know most of the PHB spells are pretty good!
As I copied from Xanathar's, it's ultimately up to the DM what new spells to add to the game and to decide how players get them.
This thread seems to be centered on "DM deciding what spells to add is OK" but "DM deciding to not make those spells available to everyone is Not Ok". Me, I have the opposite problem- I own several books with tons of new spells. My players tend to stick with the PHB ones because those are the ones they know. My plan to get them to try out new spells is to seed the game with wands and scrolls with spell effects from these outside sources and see if they like them.
Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Maybe some spells are just a bad fit, like that time in 2e when I found a scroll of Quimby's Enchanting Gourmet.* Maybe they'll think Snilloc's Snowball Swarm is pretty neat, but turn up their noses at Snilloc's Cream Pie.**
*100% a real published spell.
**100% not a real spell. Maybe. Ask Dave Collins.
What is fomo?
Like a lot of my houserules, it is about both role play and balance.
Some players will look through all the spells and pick whatever spells perfectly match their character concept or they like. They care nothing for role playing or world building. If they are told a spell is a drow spell they will say something like "cool story bro", and then pick the spell if they want too. There character can pick from every spell in the game multiverse...because they say so.
Limiting spells by race, background, location and such makes each stand out more. If you pick X , you get X type spells. It works great for balance as the targeted players can't just make whatever random thing they want with abandon. If you really want the 'criminal' spells, then you need to pick that background, not the noble background.
Seems to me it's more about how much--and what--information about a given spell is enough to make reasonable decisions about, say, trying to find it. I don't think anyone has said the DM should share all the spells; I think people have said that if you give information that some non-standard spell exists, you should maybe provide something more than "it exists" (or at least make that something more available).
Fear Of Missing Out
So what's the minimum information here? Can I say that the Priests of Arkhan in my campaign setting have a cantrip that deals force damage? Do I have to say what it's target area is? Do I have to say what components it has, or what rider effects it has?
Let's say Firebolt wasn't in the PHB. Could I say "there's a rare arcane cantrip that does fire damage" and have that be enough?
Similar Threads
D&D General
Inspiring Improv
