D&D 5E DM's: How Do You Justify NPC's Having Magic/Abilities That Don't Exist in the PHB?

[pemerton]

I'd prefer a game that derives its fiction from its mechanics entirely

This has come through in many of your posts across multiple threads.

The RPG system that I personally associate most strongly with this approach is Rolemaster, followed by RuneQuest. I suspect GURPS is similar in this respect but I'm not very familiar with it.

There is a family of systems that also closely follow this model - Burning Wheel and its offshoots like Torchbearer - but they make relevant, in their mechanics, things that I believe you would regard as too metagame.

 

[James Gasik]

In reply, I feel that your post is like saying hp are meat.

Or, as @TwoSix suggested upthread, that the action economy of the game is also the reality of the fiction, such that it's some weird stop motion world.

To address the NPC gladiator matter more directly: when the GM rolls a successful hit with a gladiator attack, and rolls the bonus damage dice, how many blows did the gladiator strike? What does that correspond to in the fiction? Does it matter whether the damage dice result is low or high? Does it matter whether the hp loss to the victim drops them from (say) 50 hp to 40 hp or (say) 11 hp to 1 hp?

D&D combat is so unrelentingly fortune-in-the-middle - ie we can't say anything very definite about what is happening in the fiction, either action or consequence, until all the dice are rolled - that trying to treat any particular mechanical component as representing something in the fiction seems ridiculous to me.

To try and illustrate the point another way: there was a version of the 5e playtest rules that gave martial PCs bonus damage rather than bonus attacks. Does anyone think that the fiction of what PC warriors do when they fight opponents would be different in a rules framework that went down that pathway? It seems clear to me that these are all just different mechanical devices for permitting players to play puissant warriors.

Believe me, I'm fully aware that hit points aren't meat. But they do represent the totality of one's "staying power". The grit, guts, determination, stubborn resolve, morale, god's-given luck, and anything else that lets you minimize damage that doesn't have a dedicated mechanic (like resistance, Armor Class, and temporary hit points). But if one guy can erode your staying power more quickly than another, that's something people in-universe will notice. And come up with some way to describe. In both the examples of the Gladiator and the Draconic Sorcerer, we have very simple descriptions: one's a "Brute" and the other has "Draconic Power".

It comes down to this: either you see largely D&D's narrative as being merely somewhat informed by the mechanics, and everything is sort of kind of abstract (so people really don't return to full fighting trim from the brink of death in 8 hours, and other strangeness), or you feel that the effects of the game's mechanics are actually observable in-universe to some degree. Most people fall somewhere in the middle on this, I'm sure, and I'm not advocating one over the other. But if a character, PC or NPC, has an ability that dramatically impacts the game world, then since this is a role-playing game, I fully feel that those who witness this ability in action know something unusual has gone on.

Be it a Barbarian being twice as hard to take down in combat when they rage, a Rogue managing to completely escape the blast of a fireball, or a doughty gladiator doing the kind of damage one would expect from a large-sized opponent (and doing so in a way entirely different than Battlemaster Maneuvers or Barbarian Rage).

Saying "it's just how the game is, there doesn't need to be an explanation" affects my ability to immerse myself in my role and just takes me out of the fantasy, and makes me all too cognizant of the fact that "it's only a game". I don't care if you say "no, your character doesn't actually see the Gladiator pick up a longsword and do 2d8 damage with it", just tell me what my character does witness, thanks.

 

[pemerton]

But if one guy can erode your staying power more quickly than another, that's something people in-universe will notice.

But PCs have other vehicles for buffing damage: the increased crit range of a Champion; manoeuvre dice; feats and fighting styles; etc.

The gladiator also has multi-attack that varies between melee and ranged attacks. I don't know of any 5e class that directly has this same thing - but again, there are feats that give bonus attacks for different sorts of weapons and weapon categories.

And this is before we get to the possibility that the gladiator is just lucky. I mean, we don't know that the gladiator can, in some abstract sense, "erode your staying power more quickly than another" combatant can. The NPC combat stats are designed to support the use of the NPC in a combat, not to serve as a statistical model of the NPCs' behaviour across a range of imagined and unimagined fictional circumstances. So what we know that this gladiator, here and now in this fight, is brutal to the PCs.

If someone is intending to run an arena-based game with many many NPC gladiators, they might want to mix up the statblocks a bit.

 

[Thommy H-H]

I mean, I don't know about you guys, but in the games I run, the PCs don't have some in-setting version of the PHB to hand that lets them distinguish between something they might learn in the course of adventuring and something a random person or monster they meet can do.

Sorry, but it just seems really odd to me to imagine a universe where the people are aware they're following some predetermined career path that opens up as they kill more enemies. "I can't wait until I kill enough kobolds to be able to swing my sword twice as fast!" is not a satisfying narrative for me, and I don't think that's ununsual. The burden of proof is on those who believe arbitrary game rules must have a precise correlation in the fiction imo.

 

[Lanefan]

Most items used to create magic effects can be assumed as such. Most player powers are not created by the items (there are some but there are a lot more that are not).

Your "if" seems to be you wanting everything explicit...

When it comes to items being used against the PCs, then hell yes I want it explicit. More importantly, I want it consistent: if the enemy can use it the logical and reasonable default is that the PCs - or other enemies, or whoever - can use it as well; and if this is not the case then the module had better tell me why, every time.

like if you dont say heroes use the restroom then they must not.... because you want it to be silly.

A complete non-sequitur.

I call that agenda driven assumptions.

Er...wha?

 

[Lanefan]

Exactly this. Wizard magic is just a small portion of the magic that can exist.

Indeed. There's also Clerical magic (divine), Bardic magic (sound), psionic pseudo-magic, and inherent magic (e.g. supernatural abilities).

And each of those have their own distinct paradigms for how they work; and their own classes and-or species that make use of those paradigms.

Something not using one of the arcane-divine-sonic paradigms and yet still behaving like a spell breaks the structure that the game - and by extension the game's physics - is built around. No thanks.

 

[Lanefan]

The logic is clear. It's the same logic that explains why Aragorn wields Anduril, Flame of the West; why Boromir's sword is sent over the Rauros with his body, rather than being looted by Legolas to upgrade his poxy Elven knife; why Captain America is the one who uses the shield, and Magneto is the one who wears the psi-resistant helmet.

Not my fault that Legolas missed his chance to upgrade his gear. But, if that's what the character would do - and leaving the sword with Boromir would be in character for all three of them - then so be it.

As for Cap, we've now seen numerous others use his shield, including enemies. Magneto wears the psi-shield hat because he has to, to stave off Charles' repeated forays into his mind; there's nothing anywhere that says nobody else can use it, provided they can get it off him.

4e is not, at its core, a game about upgrading your PC by taking the gear of defeated foes.

Then what tangible reward do I get for killing them, if I can't take their stuff?

More seriously, if I-as-character am arbitrarily banned from taking their stuff that's hardly the least bit realistic.

It's got a different orientation. (In terms of game structure, this difference is expressed via the treasure parcel system, which is not directly connected to encounters and certainly not combat encounters, but rather is only indirectly connected to encounters by being directly indexed to levels gained.)

So, a different version of wealth-by-level. Didn't like it in 3e, don't like it here.

And of course it's trivial to come up with post hoc, in-fiction explanations should they be needed: the weapon only works in the hands of a Hobgoblin warrior anointed by the blood of a sacrifice to Maglubiyet (like a Hobgoblin version of a Dwarven Thrower or Holy Avenger); or only someone schooled in the macabre arts of <whatever makes sense at the time> can wield this <whatever item is in question>.

Now and then, sure. But every bloody time? That gets tedious in a hurry, never mind how contrived it looks from the player side.

 

[Lanefan]

Sorry, but it just seems really odd to me to imagine a universe where the people are aware they're following some predetermined career path that opens up as they kill more enemies. "I can't wait until I kill enough kobolds to be able to swing my sword twice as fast!" is not a satisfying narrative for me, and I don't think that's ununsual.

It is, I'm afraid. Consider a trainee Fighter talking with a grizzled veteran of many adventures:

Neophyte: "I wanna be like you someday: fast, accurate, tough, all that. How'd you get so good?"
Veteran: "Well, I did a lot of training and practice here, just like you've been doing; and then I put in a lot of blood and pain and sweat in the field. It's sad, you know, but it really is true: the more fights you win, the easier it gets to win them. It's just a different form of practice, only quite a bit more dangerous."

The burden of proof is on those who believe arbitrary game rules must have a precise correlation in the fiction imo.

Well, howzat?

 

[Thommy H-H]

It is, I'm afraid. Consider a trainee Fighter talking with a grizzled veteran of many adventures:

Neophyte: "I wanna be like you someday: fast, accurate, tough, all that. How'd you get so good?"
Veteran: "Well, I did a lot of training and practice here, just like you've been doing; and then I put in a lot of blood and pain and sweat in the field. It's sad, you know, but it really is true: the more fights you win, the easier it gets to win them. It's just a different form of practice, only quite a bit more dangerous."

Well, howzat?

Right, but that's exactly what I mean: that's taking the game mechanics and abstracting them into an in-universe narrative. The hypothetical characters in that scenario aren't talking about taking levels in Fighter or getting an Extra Attack: they're using generic terms that we understand don't directly map onto the procedure of rolling particular dice.

By the same argument, how does a character distinguish in-universe between something they could learn X months down the line adventuring and something an NPC just did that they can't? From the character's perspective, both of these things (say, the PHB spell fireball vs. 'Fiery Blast (Recharge 5-6)' on some villain's statblock) are currently unknown abilities. They don't know - or shouldn't know, I would argue - that one is available to them as they gain experience and one isn't.

And even as a game structure, tbh, how are players even picking up on the fact that Fiery Blast (or whatever) is more damaging than a regular fireball? Or that it recharges rather than uses a spell slot? Or that the gladiator is rolling extra dice for damage without a feat that's in their book? Just...don't tell them.

 

[Garthanos]

if the enemy can use it the logical and reasonable default is that the PCs - or other enemies, or whoever - can use it as well;

Reasonable? how?, that is not how magic focuses work? Why are you assuming something is a magic item that creates an independent magical effect when those are rare and expensive and focuses are cheap and common and do not work that way. You are making unreasonable assumptions.

Basically every spell casting PC at level one had a cheap non-magic focus item in their inventory, the assumption is unreasonable.

You want it to be silly bad wrong fun and are making incorrect and unreasonable assumptions AND demanding you be told every time otherwise.... no Lan its not a magic item just cause he used it doing some sort of magic you do not know, move along.

The adventure will tell the DM if it is a magic item (those are the exception).