D&D General When to know a rule?

[mamba]

Based on the PHB? It does say, right there, in black and white, when I gain a level, I gain spells known. Wizards automatically get two new spells in their spell book. There's no "quid pro quo" there's no const. There's nothing. I get whatever level appropriate spell my little heart wants.

they get spells, from the PHB and whatever other source we use. They do not get to make up a brand new spell and there can be spells outside those sources that enemies use…

My point was not that they get no spells at all, it was that there are spells they cannot get because they have no idea they exist, and yet someone else somewhere in the world knows those spells. The characters do not have universal knowledge about all the spells that exist

 

[mamba]

Because it, in my opinion, reflects poorly on the DM. It makes them seem petty at best, and malicious at worst. It doesn't inspire my eagerness to engage, but instead makes me question why this person is behaving in this way

tell me one thing of which you know every instance that exists in the world… why would this be different for spells / monsters / magic items / … in D&D

It is a lot more plausible for your char to not know everything than to do so. That has nothing to do with being petty

 

[FrozenNorth]

Fair enough. I tend not to put too much stock into the whole player/dm divide. We’re all playing the same game. Why wouldn’t we all have equal access to the rules of that game?

A good point. I am generally in favour of more transparency with the players rather than secrecy. In most cases, the benefit of sharing information outweighs the benefit of secrecy.

Say for the sake of argument that in your 5000 spells you have 100 interesting acid spells. When making my draconic sorcerer, I look at the PHB and XGE spells and choose fire as my element because the two acid spells on the sorcerer list aren’t enough to justify a acid-based black dragon sorcerer.

Wouldn’t being up front about the existence of spells led to a more interesting character overall? Wouldn’t the DM also benefit from a player looking over the spells and maybe finding combos the DM didn’t think of? Doesn’t sharing this information with the player also build trust between player and DM that the DM may need to rely on in the future?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

tell me one thing of which you know every instance that exists in the world… why would this be different for spells / monsters / magic items / … in D&D

Not even remotely what I was talking about, so no, I will not do that.

It is a lot more plausible for your char to not know everything than to do so. That has nothing to do with being petty

Of course it does. "Tee hee, there's this fancy Dwarven armor that just came out of Dwarrowdelve, but I'll never tell you what it does!" I already explicitly said that if it's just a thing that happens to be there, and the players haven't had any reason to hear about it, then that's whatever. But this is the players ASKING about it--which means the DM has already told them that it's there....while adamantly refusing to say even one word more than THAT it's there.

I don't expect an engineer's schematic diagram here. "Oh, some of it has better AC than equivalent armor, other types have the same AC but are a category lighter." Or, "Word on the street is that this fancy new armor material which is resilient against magic, but there are different theories about what that means." Both of those would be perfectly fine, without specifying more than the most barebones stuff. The given example was specifically about doing literally none of that, other than telling the players THAT it's there and then refusing to say anything more than its existence.

 

[GrimCo]

Based on the PHB? It does say, right there, in black and white, when I gain a level, I gain spells known. Wizards automatically get two new spells in their spell book. There's no "quid pro quo" there's no const. There's nothing. I get whatever level appropriate spell my little heart wants.

Personally, if i had player who went that pedantic route i would be totally cool with it. You get any spell from wizard spell list in phb your little heart wants. If it isn't in phb and on class spell list, you can't have it. I hate to invoke rule 0, tbh.

Thing is, for me at lest, those automatic spells are absctracted short hand. Characters don't get them from thin air. They do some research, talk to other casters etc. They just do it off screen ( between sessions).

I'm kinda baffled how this is even a discussion? Do casters in your game not get access to new spells when they level up?

In our latest campaign, they get them until level 3. For spells of level 4-9, they get only slots. Spells, they need to find, buy, beg, borrow or steal ( or make them themselves).

I don't think dm's have obligation to disclose everything in their world to players beforehand. Spells included. Phb spells are common knowledge. Things you could find in school library. Some spells are custom creations. Some are just forgotten, sitting in dusty filing cabinet in some long dead wizards basement. It's like technical documentation. You can probably find complete documentation for building light glider or turboprop plane on internet. But you won't find one to build F22.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Doesn’t sharing this information with the player also build trust between player and DM that the DM may need to rely on in the future?

Oh, but my dear FrozenNorth, the player is supposed to trust the DM implicitly. Nothing the DM does is ever worthy of suspicion, because it is the DM who does it; the DM does not need to earn trust, they deserve trust simply because they are DM.

Or at least that's how a certain group of fans seems to see it. Me, I hear that stuff and want to run for the hills.

Personally, if i had player who went that pedantic route i would be totally cool with it. You get any spell from wizard spell list in phb your little heart wants. If it isn't in phb and on class spell list, you can't have it. I hate to invoke rule 0, tbh.

And what of divine casters? They have access to every spell on their spell list. The books even specifically say so.

I also really, really don't think you hate to invoke rule 0. Rather the opposite, actually.

Thing is, for me at lest, those automatic spells are absctracted short hand. Characters don't get them from thin air. They do some research, talk to other casters etc. They just do it off screen ( between sessions).

Well then, you won't mind me doing other rule-affecting things in an abstract, between-sessions kind of way that has no more justification than "oh I did downtime for that," right? (I of course do not at all expect you to say 'yes.' Because this exception is quite clearly opening a doorway to doing almost anything one wants with a fig-leaf excuse.)

I don't think dm's have obligation to disclose everything in their world to players beforehand

Good thing no one is asking for that, and several people (myself included) have explicitly said so. Repeatedly, in my case.

 

[Hussar]

and? This never happens with magic items? You never have any custom ones? The players always know what they can do from seeing them?

Meh. If you cannot see the difference here, there's no point in this conversation. You keep trying to bring up a bunch of extraneous elements that have nothing to do with my argument. Are we talking about equipment? Are we talking about magic items? News to me.

We're talking about the DM bringing in hundreds and hundreds of custom spells then absolutely refusing to let the players look at them and then getting huffy when the players insist that they would like to see them.

Would you play in this game? Looks like a perfectly legitimate thing for the players to ask. Five THOUSAND new spells and the DM refuses to let you see any of them? Because he figures that he knows the game better than everyone at his table?

There are so many warning lights going on here that I don't even know where to start.

But, sure, keep waving the actual issues aside and keep bringing up a bunch of hypotheticals that aren't part of the conversation. That's always productive.

 

[mamba]

I don't expect an engineer's schematic diagram here. "Oh, some of it has better AC than equivalent armor, other types have the same AC but are a category lighter." Or, "Word on the street is that this fancy new armor material which is resilient against magic, but there are different theories about what that means." Both of those would be perfectly fine, without specifying more than the most barebones stuff.

must have gotten the wires crossed with the main conversation then, I agree that learning a little more than just ‘it’s armor’ is no problem, in fact it is probably necessary if you want me to drop things and go looking for it

 

[TiQuinn]

Personally, if i had player who went that pedantic route i would be totally cool with it. You get any spell from wizard spell list in phb your little heart wants. If it isn't in phb and on class spell list, you can't have it. I hate to invoke rule 0, tbh.

Thing is, for me at lest, those automatic spells are absctracted short hand. Characters don't get them from thin air. They do some research, talk to other casters etc. They just do it off screen ( between sessions).

Honestly, you don't even have to be that cutthroat about it. The PHB does not say anything about automatically having knowledge of all spells. For wizards and sorcerers, it simply says that you get to choose new spells. You can interpret that as whatever spells are available across every source is fair game, or you can interpret that as you can choose new spells that you know about. The PHB also offers up the idea that wizards, in particular, can find new spells in dusty tomes, and scrolls, etc (in the Your Spellbook sidebar). Why would they need to do this if the existence of every spell was immediately known? Because the game has always offered up the idea that new spells can be discovered in the course of adventuring.

 

[Hussar]

they get spells, from the PHB and whatever other source we use. They do not get to make up a brand new spell and there can be spells outside those sources that enemies use…

My point was not that they get no spells at all, it was that there are spells they cannot get because they have no idea they exist, and yet someone else somewhere in the world knows those spells. The characters do not have universal knowledge about all the spells that exist

Of course they don't. That was the entire point. Thank you for agreeing with me. No DM would EVER allow a player to create brand new spells without vetting them. Let alone five THOUSAND spells.