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

[Micah Sweet]

the dungeon master

To each their own, but that's not good enough for me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The Monster Manual

Again, not good enough. You want an explanation that functionally puts it out of reach of the PCs? That's fine. But there needs to be an in-universe explanation to work for me.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Again, not good enough. You want an explanation that functionally puts it out of reach of the PCs? That's fine. But there needs to be an in-universe explanation to work for me.

Do you need that information up front? Not all tables will need it and those that do it is also quite easy for the DM to make something up.
There are a number of good suggestions in thread as to how to make it not available to the PCs.

 

[Mad_Jack]

"Well, unfortunately, the party just killed the only guy who had the answer to that question..."

Honestly, though, I've never really had any of my various players over the years seriously take issue with why some NPC could do something they couldn't... They're generally satisfied with "Well, I didn't bother to make up reasons beyond the fact it seemed cool." A lot of them have been folks who've run their own games, sometimes more than I have, and they're well aware that sometimes it's more fun if you don't know how the magician did the trick and willing to just run with "A wizard did it." or "Well if my character was a lich who'd spent 100 years standing on their head in a monastery in Limbo, I could do that too, but I'd rather be out adventuring".

If and when the issue does come up and someone requires a more concrete answer, I give them an answer entirely dependent on what the thing in question is in that one specific instance. It could be a spell that the party's not aware of. It could be a magic item. Maybe the person or monster had an innate ability. And maybe the party just doesn't have an answer to the question at this particular time, and if they decide to look into it they might discover it could take years of research to learn how to do it themselves. One time years ago the party's necromancer wizard became obsessed with how one of the bad guys was able to command so many undead, and I decided her ongoing research over her next couple character levels attracted the notice of the demonic entity that the bad guy had sold his soul to - which ended up with me retconning my overarching plotline to make that entity the one behind a bunch of previously unrelated stuff that had happened.

Obviously, I'm firmly in the camp of not necessarily needing to have a pre-established according-to-rules mechanical justification for everything that narratively happens in the game.

 

[DarkCrisis]

 

[Swarmkeeper]

They don't have to be created using the same rules as PCs (I like the pre-MMotM statblocks just fine), but I do believe an NPC designed to emulate a person should have abilities that are potentially duplicatable and can be learned by the right PC. To do otherwise puts gamism first to a degree I don't care for, and ruins immersion for me.

So the abilities/spells of NPC/monster humanoids should be duplicatable by the right PCs?
But abilities/spells of NPC/monster non-humanoids aren't necessarily duplicatable by any PCs?

That makes sense. Not my preference, but I can see how one might want that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do you need that information up front? Not all tables will need it and those that do it is also quite easy for the DM to make something up.
There are a number of good suggestions in thread as to how to make it not available to the PCs.

I don't need it up front. I can come up when it needs to, I just need an explanation to be available.

I also don't explicitly want stuff NPCs can do to be unavailable to PCs. That's up to them.

 

[bedir than]

Again, not good enough. You want an explanation that functionally puts it out of reach of the PCs? That's fine. But there needs to be an in-universe explanation to work for me.

Has there ever been a version of D&D where 100% of magical powers were acquirable by players?

 

[Irlo]

Looking for some input on how you DM's justify in-game mechanics or magical effects that some npc's may have, but aren't listed in the PHB? For ex., you want your BBEG to appear in hologram/projected form before the pc's and kill one of his own minions with Power Word: Kill. His projected image then sits and has a conversation with the PC's, inviting them to join his forces.

Fun idea but there's nothing in the PHB to allow this specifically. How does one justify the fact that this individual has access to magic that isn't available to the PC's

It doesn't require metagame justification any more than using a monster that's not in the MM needs justification. In the fiction, as has been mentioned in several responses, there are many ways for creatures to have magical powers - spells learned by research, spells granted by pacts, by gods, magical innate abilitites. Pick one that makes sense for the character.

and what might you say to the party wizard who says they want to learn to do that?

I say, "Cool. Tell me how you go about learning that."

 

[Micah Sweet]

Has there ever been a version of D&D where 100% of magical powers were acquirable by players?

Not explicitly as far as I recall. But I don't believe that the opposite was ever explicitly true either (maybe 4e, but I really don't know). The point is, the game doesn't contradict that idea, and that's a good thing for me.