D&D 5E "I Forgot I Had It"

[overgeeked]

If the DM knows the players have a solution to a problem in their possession, are they obligated to say something about it?

No. The character is the player's obligation, not the referee's. If the player can't remember how a class feature or spell works, the referee should remind the player and help them out to keep the game moving. But the referee can't be expected to remember the whole world plus every random bit of cruft the PCs pick up on their journey.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Forgetting inventory items have never been an issue that I can recall, however forgetting class features or spells has happened.

I've noticed that forgetting inventory and forgetting class features/spells seem to have switched places as to which happens more frequently as the editions have gone by - in 3.5 and before, carting around huge warehouses of stuff in bags of holding was much more common, and thus forgetting what you owned was a fairly common thing if you didn't make an ongoing effort to curate your ever-growing collection of junk.

 

[Bill Zebub]

 

[ECMO3]

Have you ever forgotten you had something in your inventory that would have been clutch had you just remembered to use it?

Not that epic, but here are a couple things from a recent game:

Last session I was gathering some green slime into a jar for my Rogue-Arcane Trickster to use with his catapult spell. DM said I needed to roll a 15 SOH to get it in there without getting it on me. Rolled a natural 5 (12 on the check). So I get green slime on me, take damage and then take more damage to burn it off and then the Sorcerer says to me - "Don't you have some awesome mage hand that you could use to scoop that up" .... I am constantly bragging about how awesome my mage hand legerdemain is.

Also last session we were fighting some acid creatures and we were fleeing. I was holding up the rear because I am the fastest to give everyone else a head start. I am not the most durable character though. So I get hit 3 times, lose most of my hit points and then remember I have absorb elements. Now in my defense on this one we were playing on a VTT that usually pops up your available reactions if you are hit and it did not pop up absorb elements (something with the bad guy's damage was coded wrong).

Other examples:

Forgetting to impose disadvantage on an ability with Hex.

An example from another character - weplayed with a Rune Knight who never used any of his runes. He basically got them for the passive abilities and just plain never bothered to use them even though they were either free or reactions. He would get them back on a short rest and we would go multiple days without using them. At one point after we were nearly TPKed he talked about it and decided he would use fire rune the first attack he hit with after a short rest and then use the stone rune on the first enemy turn after a short rest.

 

[Maxperson]

In discussing this situation with a few people on our Discord, I did get a reasonable question that I'm surprised nobody asked me here:

Did I as DM remember they had the heartstone?

The answer to that question is "No." And even if I did remember, I didn't actually realize it cured diseases until the player said so. But that raises a follow-up question:

If the DM knows the players have a solution to a problem in their possession, are they obligated to say something about it?

To flat out say something? No. However, as the DM I understand two things which affect what I would do. 1) the PC is in a life threatening situation and could panic to a degree that would allow the PC to forget about the item. 2) the PC is there 24/7, goes through their backpack, etc. and so would be a lot more likely to remember such an item than a player who plays once a week for a few hours and spends most or all of the rest of the time thinking about real life things.

I would at the very least give the PC a roll, and depending on the PC and item in question, would just tell the player if I don't think there is doubt.

 

[Raith5]

The goliath in our party had long said he wanted to get a pet dire wolf cub. So when we encountered one (we were 2nd or third level) he was very excited and tried to animal handle it (-1 on the skill), he failed that so tried food and failed, then he failed tried to wrestle it, when he failed to wrestle he was knocked unconscious by it, so the rest of the party intervened and had to kill it. The goliath was pretty upset

Of course he had two potions of animal friendship in his bag...

And the cherry on top (for me) was that the reward for dealing with the threat in the caves was bag of tricks (which has something like a 1 in 8 chance of summoning a dire wolf). We are now 11th level and a direwolf has never been summoned. It is a gift that keeps on giving.

 

[Lanefan]

Same for the feat that lets you automatically detect a clue when you walk into a room. For some, it undermines the enjoyment of actually sleuthing and using your noggin. While others are happy to move the game along, or just be the person who delivers the clue based explosion.

Though "explosion" is freakin' hilarious here, did you perhaps mean "exposition" instead?

 

[Seramus]

Though "explosion" is freakin' hilarious here, did you perhaps mean "exposition" instead?

Yes! Hahaha.

 

[glass]

If the DM knows the players have a solution to a problem in their possession, are they obligated to say something about it?

"Obligated" is a strong term. But if I think the players have forgotten something that their PCs would have remembered, I remind them - things that happened a week ago for the PCs could be several months for the players, and the PCs are possibly smarter and definitely more motivated than the players. If something is borderline, I might ask for an Int or Wis check (whichever is better for each character) to prompt the reminder. Well, if something is borderline I'd probably still just tell them, but if something is borderline of being borderline I'll call for the check.

Assuming of course I remember, which is by no means a given for the reasons mentioned above.

(Given which forum we are in, I should mention that I mostly run PF1 and PF2 these days and have never actually run 5e, but if I were to do so I doubt it would change anything about the above except possibly the DC of the check if one were required.)

EDIT: Sorry for the necro. Not sure how I ended up reading a thread from August without realising it,

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Have you ever forgotten you had something in your inventory that would have been clutch had you just remembered to use it?

I could write a book entitled "opps my PCs forgot"

but yeah it happens... keep in mind at least every player had to forget not just 1 and that is what makes it the most funny, and since I normally allow Int checks if I remember for this to happen in one of my games I have to have forgotten too.

now your example was odd cause it was soo soon. But most of mine are "I had this for weeks" then forgot stories...

an oldie but a goodie was when a player forgot he had multi classed... he was a paliden monk with some prestige class. He forgot he had lay on hands for like 3 or 4 levels