D&D General D&D, magic, and the mundane medieval

[Maxperson]

In the attunement section of the DMG, it mentions that items that require you to be a spellcaster work as long as you can cast any spells at all, not just with having the spellcasting trait:

So spellcaster can reasonably be just anyone who can cast a spell with a feat or racial trait.

Which still leaves only those rare spellcasters. If the DM makes feats available, it's still only the PCs that get them. Farmer Joe can't take it and get cantrips, so spellcasting is still not available to the general public.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which still leaves only those rare spellcasters. If the DM makes feats available, it's still only the PCs that get them. Farmer Joe can't take it and get cantrips, so spellcasting is still not available to the general public.

Does it say somewhere that NPCs can't get feats, or is this an assumption?

 

[Maxperson]

Does it say somewhere that NPCs can't get feats, or is this an assumption?

First, feats are not even a default part of the game. Second, only classes get feats. NPCs by default don't have classes, though the DM can give those few special NPCs levels if he wishes. So yes, a very few NPCs can have feats IF the DM engages two options. By default no NPC can have one.

 

[humble minion]

Does it say somewhere that NPCs can't get feats, or is this an assumption?

NPCs in 5th ed don't have levels, ASIs, classes, or feats. They just have stat blocks. If the DM decides that stat block includes some limited spellcasting, then the NPC can cast spells. NPC rules are different (NPCs operating with PC rules was something i loved in 3rd ed, but which - after actually DMing high level 3rd ed - I cooled on over time)

 

[Hussar]

So, let us consider - Newton went to Trinity College, in Cambridge.
Even today, that college takes a whopping 200 students a year, and only some of them are mathematicians.
In 1650, the population of Europe was about 74 million people.

If European colleges were putting out a thousand mathematicians a year, it would still take 700 years for mathematicians to be one in a thousand people. Ergo, pre-Renaissance, mathematicians were not a one-per-village kind of thing.

The thing you miss is not that mathematicians need to be plentiful for people to learn and extend mathematics - what you need is for them to record mathematics, and pass it along. Mathematics was passed on and was advanced because they communicated through books, and then through colleges, not because you could easily meet a practitioner on the street.

Not sure why you quoted me here.

 

[Hussar]

There are a lot of options. From wizards are limited to PCs so one in millions, to there are mages that do magic that is far more limited than what a 1st level wizard can do, to there's a wizard on every corner.

Which makes a campaign really, REALLLY weird when we meet more than the one wizard that's in our group. If wizards are that limited (and note, I still have no idea why we're focused on wizards since clerics and druids would have just as huge of an impact on a setting) then how on earth have we met three of them by the time we're tenth level?

You can't have it both ways. You can't have "wizards and casters are so super duper rare that no one would see one" and "wizards and casters are so common that we bump into several every single adventure".

 

[Micah Sweet]

First, feats are not even a default part of the game. Second, only classes get feats. NPCs by default don't have classes, though the DM can give those few special NPCs levels if he wishes. So yes, a very few NPCs can have feats IF the DM engages two options. By default no NPC can have one.

Fair enough. However, since feats are the least optional optional part of the game, and I treat PCs as no different from NPCs, they certainly can have feats.

Plus, feats are just special abilities, and a lot of NPCs have those.

 

[pemerton]

If the DM makes feats available, it's still only the PCs that get them. Farmer Joe can't take it and get cantrips, so spellcasting is still not available to the general public.

Does it say somewhere that NPCs can't get feats, or is this an assumption?

Feats in 5e D&D are a component of PC building, like XP and levels. They're not things that exist in the fiction. The fact that feats aren't a component of NPC building tells us nothing about what NPCs can or can't do or learn.

NPCs in 5th ed don't have levels, ASIs, classes, or feats. They just have stat blocks. If the DM decides that stat block includes some limited spellcasting, then the NPC can cast spells. NPC rules are different

In other words, this. NPCs use whatever grand or petty magic a GM decides that they do.

 

[Maxperson]

Fair enough. However, since feats are the least optional optional part of the game, and I treat PCs as no different from NPCs, they certainly can have feats.

Plus, feats are just special abilities, and a lot of NPCs have those.

Sure. When discussing what an edition can do, though, I try to stick with what the books allow. By RAW, NPCs can only have feats if the DM invokes the feat option and the make an NPC with class levels option. Or creates a house rule.

 

[Maxperson]

Feats in 5e D&D are a component of PC building, like XP and levels. They're not things that exist in the fiction. The fact that feats aren't a component of NPC building tells us nothing about what NPCs can or can't do or learn.

We can't assume things not written. By RAW it is as I stated.

In other words, this. NPCs use whatever grand or petty magic a GM decides that they do.

If the DM wants to house rule it to be that way, of course he can.