The player should be telling the DM what the PC is doing to find out how to learn that spell if they're interested, not asking how it can be accomplished.
D&D 5E Apprentice Wizard- Arcane Burst power
I accept that NPCs and monsters have ways to model the use of magic and combat skills that are different than the PCs. I embrace the idea that non-player spellcasters have access to spells that PCs don't have access to. Doesn't it get boring to players to always know what spells and abilities are in play?
My only problem with arcane blast is that it's boring. I dislike damage-only cantrips for players and they're even worse for monsters.
My only problem with arcane blast is that it's boring. I dislike damage-only cantrips for players and they're even worse for monsters.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
And as a DM, when I turn to the rulebooks to find out how a PC can do this...they are silent.
But that doesn't mean you have to tell the player that it can't be done, right?
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
It's a TTRPG, you don't HAVE to do anything. Perfect DMs solve all problems.
The game's rules, though, don't give anyone a way to do it.
pukunui
Legend
Sure they do. The 2014 DMG has a whole section on creating custom spells.
cbwjm
Seb-wejem
I do like things like magic in dnd to follow rules so that something that can be done, by an apprentice wizard especially, should be able to be done by any wizard. Arcane burst should be a wizard cantrip which is what I'd make it. I didn't realise it could be melee as well as ranged, I'd remove the melee attack from the ability and make it just a ranged cantrip attack.
I’m just saying it’s the PC’s problem, if it is a problem. Let the player figure out how they’ll try to solve it.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
This isn't a custom spell. It's a spell (or effect or attack or something) that already exists in the game, it's just not in the player's hands. And there's no good reason for it not to be in the player's hands.
And beyond that, it's a pretty pathetic excuse to not do some basic design work.
If you give a city guard a sword, that sword isn't special. It's a sword. If you beat the snot out of that city guard, you can swipe his sword and stab him with it, and the rules tell you how to do it and what happens without asking the DM to figure it out on the fly. The rules do the work. The DM is supported.
This is an apprentice wizard, capable of something that your hero wizard cannot do. The apprentice wizard isn't special. Anything a generic apprentice wizard can do should be on the table for a PC wizard. The rules cut corners here. They do not do the work. They do not support the DM.
Note that this is not the same as saying that all NPC abilities must be usable by the PC's. Slap this ability on a monster or make it part of a dark cabal of mystics and you don't really have the same problem.
This is saying that the designers failed to account for basic questions that arise from their chosen design.
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