D&D 5E Detect magic and Gargolye

[Zaruthustran]

This seems like a misalignment of expectations. Seems to me that the player assumed that Detect Magic = detect supernatural. Which is reasonable.

Is the player young, or an otherwise inexperienced gamer? 5E is relaxed in many ways but it still bears plenty of gamey elements, and spells are more gamey/specific than most elements.

Maybe ask the player to carefully read each spell, and offer to have them flip through the MM so he or she can see how monsters are carefully categorized. Talk about how in this game, a Gargoyle is no more "magic" than a troll or a Demon. Detect Magic is more of a "Detect Spells" and "Detect Magic Items", and not "Detect Supernatural creatures."

Probably best to chalk this up as a bit of friction as everyone becomes more familiar with the system.

 

[steeldragons]

There's also a spell, detect evil and good, which picks up a bunch of creature types. Can't remember which ones, but it's the standard group that those kind of spells detect.

Detect Evil/Good does specifically detect elementals...along with pretty much any other extraplanar creature, undead & aberrations. So anything infused with or linked to any sort of extradimensional energy, be that negative energy plane [undead], "far realms" [aberrations] or the more common, fae, elemental, higher [celestials] and lower [fiends] planes.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Would an undead creature be detected by this spell?

Even though the laws of physics are different in the game than in reality, they still have to be internally consistent. There's no way a skeleton could move unless it was getting energy from somewhere, and magic is an easy enough explanation for that, so I would think that magic would show up if you tried to detect it.

Do gargoyles eat? If yes, then they're just another creature with bizarre biology, like dragons. If no, then they must be animated through magical means, and that should be detectable.

 

[iserith]

Do gargoyles eat? If yes, then they're just another creature with bizarre biology, like dragons. If no, then they must be animated through magical means, and that should be detectable.

Elemental Nature. A gargoyle doesn't require air, food, drink, or sleep.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Elemental Nature. A gargoyle doesn't require air, food, drink, or sleep.

Then its magic. If you want to call it something else, you'd better inform your players, otherwise they have every right to expect something like that to ping as magical. (Unless you know that they've all carefully read through the PHB, MM, and DMG.)

 

[iserith]

Then its magic. If you want to call it something else, you'd better inform your players, otherwise they have every right to expect something like that to ping as magical. (Unless you know that they've all carefully read through the PHB, MM, and DMG.)

I have no strong opinion on whether it detects as magic or not, personally. It's a matter of the DM's ruling, not a rule, and thus sits in the realm of preference.

 

[steeldragons]

Would an undead creature be detected by this spell?

Detect Evil/Good? Yes. Divine Sense? Yes. Detect Magic...maybe.

Are these undead created by someone casting Animate Dead or Create Undead? If they were brought into being through necromanctic magic, then sure. They could detect...or probably more likely, the area they are in would detect as magical...focusing into auras of necromancy around their actual locations.

But they needn't be created only that way in all cases in all worlds.

Even though the laws of physics are different in the game than in reality, they still have to be internally consistent. There's no way a skeleton could move unless it was getting energy from somewhere, and magic is an easy enough explanation for that, so I would think that magic would show up if you tried to detect it.

That is reasonable. It is equally reasonable that there's just some wellspring/portal/rift to the negative energy plane, miles beneath the ground...or an evil deity/entity passed by during a new moon or there was a cosmic alignment or "miasma" from the nearby swamp or a "death giant" loogied on a cemetery just by chance...and skeletons and zombies popped up because of it.

Are they fueled by some kind of energy? Yes. Typically/traditionally, in D&D, that is negative energy plane [now meshed with the Shadowfell/Plane of Shadow].

Necromantic Magic can be said to harness/direct that energy....is that negative energy, in itself, magic? Could be...could be not. DM's choice.

Do gargoyles eat? If yes, then they're just another creature with bizarre biology, like dragons. If no, then they must be animated through magical means, and that should be detectable.

Or they're just supernatural creatures that don't require food/don't have "biology" in the real world sense. You seem to have a very clear idea of what "must be" and "what should be real" in a fantasy game/world. Which is great...for your games/world in which you are the DM. I am also clear in my vision and consistent [as one can be in a fantasy world of magic] in my world/games.

But it is hardly a universal truth that Detect Magic "should/has to/must for reality or consistency" detect elementals or undead.

Were you the warlock PC in question? hahaha.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Or they're just supernatural creatures that don't require food/don't have "biology" in the real world sense. You seem to have a very clear idea of what "must be" and "what should be real" in a fantasy game/world. Which is great...for your games/world in which you are the DM. I am also clear in my vision and consistent [as one can be in a fantasy world of magic] in my world/games.

It's the difference between "D&D is a world with different natural laws", and "D&D doesn't have natural laws". The former is to be expected, given the giants and dragons and whatnot. The latter... is really pushing the line between "fantasy world" and "fairy tale".

Everyone has their own threshold for suspension of disbelief. If things get too silly, then it makes for a bad story, and you fail to reach the goal of the game.

 

[steeldragons]

It's the difference between "D&D is a world with different natural laws", and "D&D doesn't have natural laws". The former is to be expected, given the giants and dragons and whatnot. The latter... is really pushing the line between "fantasy world" and "fairy tale".

I see what you're saying, though I am inclined to invoke KM's phrase that, ultimately, this strikes me as a distinction without a difference.

Everyone has their own threshold for suspension of disbelief. If things get too silly, then it makes for a bad story, and you fail to reach the goal of the game.

Absolutely agreed.

I would be very surprised if "Detect Magic not revealing a gargoyle" would be on, let alone crossing, anyone's line of suspension of disbelief.

 

[iserith]

I would be very surprised if "Detect Magic not revealing a gargoyle" would be on, let alone crossing, anyone's line of suspension of disbelief.

That is why I suspect the player's real objection is about something other than a gargoyle not detecting as magic.