Confirmed: Magic items and summoned monster stats in PHB

[Mallus]

What is the difference between 'not keeping track of arrows' and not keeping track of other minutiae, like gold, hit points, the distance between a PC and his foe, and so forth?

The difference is they're not all minutiae.

It's not about 'caring about the story'.

No. It's about not getting bogged down in non-significant details that don't add to the play experience. It's about streamlining.

It's not about making the game better.

Sez you.

Anytime the fudging might actually work against them, you'll find that they are exacting sticklers for every little minutiea.

I find the opposite in the groups I game with. Then again, I game exclusively in high-trust environments.

For me, as a player, I feel like when I fudge my hitpoints, or my ammunition, or 'forget' to keep track of my encumberance, as so many players I know do - I feel like I'm cheating myself.

That's cool.

Some players feel like that, and some of them don't.

Exactly.

For me as a DM, I feel like the archer who tells me how boring it is to keep track of ammunition is unconscioiusly cheating his friend with the greatsword by stealing the spotlight in his desire to always be successful.

It's not cheating to enjoy the game differently from someone else. The trick is how to reach accommodations so that players with differing play priorities/verisimilitude requirements can game at the same table. 'Cause you know, ours is not a large and growing hobby --unless you're referring to our ages and waistlines.

 

[Wormwood]

I find the opposite in the groups I game with. Then again, I game exclusively in high-trust environments.

You took the words right out of my keyboard.

Different groups, different expectations.

 

[Hussar]

I can't be the only D&D player who has looked at his 15th level character sheet and noticed the flask of oil and torches I bought at 1st-level.

And probably that same 2 weeks of iron rations as well.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The Ramayana? The Old Testament?

We must be reading different books, then, not only because (as should be obvious) all stories are by necessity composed of incident and detail (minutia), but because (for example) there are parts of the OT which are entirely comprised of "X begat Y, Y begat Z, Z begat A, etc." I suppose that these works were chosen because, with EN World's "no religion" policy, they cannot be discussed in detail. Suffice it to say that even a casual examination of either work will discover it to be no less minutia-filled than any other story.

Because not all bean-counting is of equal importance? Some things are significant, others less so, some not at all. Moreover, certain aspects of play lose significance as character's level, as the game moves from The Black Company to the Justice League in medieval drag.

Funny, but the "I can't be bothered to count ammo/rations" crowd seldom qualifies this as "once I reach Justice League in medieval drag level".

But, of course, that doesn't answer the question as to why rations and ammo are "unimportant" bean counting, but hit points and gold pieces are not. If you only care about what is "dramatically appropriate" on the basis of your "story", then why should you care exactly how much money the PCs have available to them? If you want the PCs to be able to buy something, they simply have the money. Likewise, why bother bean-counting hit points? If you want them to drop, they drop. If it isn't "dramatically appropriate" they do not. Likewise, rather than roll damage, the DM (or players) simply decide how long a fight should last. Indeed, if your primary concern is the "dramatically appropriate" narrative you are creating, why bother rolling dice or having game rules at all? Why is any of the bean-counting important to any degree at all?


RC

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

What is the difference between 'not keeping track of arrows' and not keeping track of other minutiae, like gold, hit points, the distance between a PC and his foe, and so forth? It's not about 'caring about the story'. It's not about making the game better.

Those other things aren't minutiae, IMO. Arrows are. Personally, I DO track arrows, as I actually fall more towards the simulationist side of things. However, I can't recall ever actually running out. In 29 years of playing. So it doesn't bother me to leave this aside.

As for the main topic of the thread, any item a player needs to adjudicate and/or refer to should be in the PHB. I'm 100% behind the idea of putting magic items and summon monster stuff in the PHB. I feel empowered to tell my players "you can't get that" for whatever reason, or to make the call that magic items can't be bought or sold (however illogical that may be - historically, everything was bought and sold). If I think the stats in the summon or polymorph spells are bad, I'd house rule them - but then I'd give the players those stats.

The days are long since past where you could try to keep your players from owning or reading the DMG or the MM in order to keep them in the dark. Most of the people I play with have been playing ar DM'ingfor so long it's foolish to even try.

 

[hong]

We must be reading different books, then, not only because (as should be obvious) all stories are by necessity composed of incident and detail (minutia), but because (for example) there are parts of the OT which are entirely comprised of "X begat Y, Y begat Z, Z begat A, etc." I suppose that these works were chosen because, with EN World's "no religion" policy, they cannot be discussed in detail. Suffice it to say that even a casual examination of either work will discover it to be no less minutia-filled than any other story.

But not, of course, ammunition.

But, of course, that doesn't answer the question as to why rations and ammo are "unimportant" bean counting, but hit points and gold pieces are not. If you only care about what is "dramatically appropriate" on the basis of your "story", then why should you care exactly how much money the PCs have available to them? If you want the PCs to be able to buy something, they simply have the money. Likewise, why bother bean-counting hit points? If you want them to drop, they drop. If it isn't "dramatically appropriate" they do not. Likewise, rather than roll damage, the DM (or players) simply decide how long a fight should last. Indeed, if your primary concern is the "dramatically appropriate" narrative you are creating, why bother rolling dice or having game rules at all? Why is any of the bean-counting important to any degree at all?

Is this a trick question?

 

[Raven Crowking]

I quickly checked through my copy of the book, and I think that Legolas was involved in the following fights:

1. The fights in Moria
2. The fight with the Urik-Hai during which Boromir died
3. The battles at Helm's Deep
4. The battle of the Pelennor fields
5. The battle at the Black Gate

In the above fights, I could only find references to Legolas running out of arrows or scavenging for them during the Uruk-Hai fight and at Helm's Deep. So, I wouldn't say that there was anything "always" or "explicit" about Legolas running out of arrows or scavenging for them.

Perhaps you would find it different if you read the chapters in question rather than quickly scanning them?

EDIT: Excepting, of couse, the Black Gates, which is told with Pippin as the POV character, and says almost nothing about what the other members of the Fellowship did.

RC

 

[Wormwood]

The days are long since past where you could try to keep your players from owning or reading the DMG or the MM in order to keep them in the dark.

Of course, this entire subject could have been avoided if Wizards had moved out of the dark ages and actually released the game in one book.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Of course, this entire subject could have been avoided if Wizards had moved out of the dark ages and actually released the game in one book.

If they did so, it would interfere with their plan to sell you the PHB II, the MM IV, and the DMG XXIX.

RC

 

[Mad Mac]

I DO track arrows, as I actually fall more towards the simulationist side of things. However, I can't recall ever actually running out.

Same here. Arrows are dirt cheap, anyone who is a dedicated archer keeps a mountain of them, they can scavenge them back after the battle or take them off enemies, ect. I've never seen anyone run out of ammo. Tracking Silver arrows, sure, or arrows of slaying or whatever. But regular arrows? I've always done it, but I'm willing to admit it's a complete waste of time.

It's not like there's a balance problem if the Archer specialist can spend all his turns shooting instead of punching. That's the default balance assumption, after all. And keeping track of the whopping 5 gp the character might need to buy 100 arrows every level or so is not exactly a critical bit of accounting, either.