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

[Composer99]

Suffice to say that if you as DM feel like you need some sort of justification for magic outside of the PHB, come up with one, and if you don't, don't. (At any rate such magic must necessarily exist, given magical capabilities in the MM and magic items in the DMG, much less later books.)

If not having some kind of justification bothers any number of your players, either accommodate them or don't, and if you don't, they either live with it or leave.

All well and good.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

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

Just so. The only thing I'm against is the answer, "No, because PCs and NPCs are different".

 

[UngainlyTitan]

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.

An explanation from Whom?

 

[Lanefan]

Seeing is not the same as the full documentation of ritual.

No; but seeing it done as an arcane ritual is - or in the name of internal setting consistency should be - proof that the documentation exists somewhere. The PCs just need to find said documentation.

It matters also as to the type of campaign one is running.

Perhaps, but IMO introducing blatant setting inconsistencies is, if the players are paying attention, likely to put them off as they can no longer be sure how things work in the setting at the most basic mechanical levels.

We are not all playing the same game as you are.

We're all playing D&D, right?

 

[Zaukrie]

I guess I don't see the issue. The PHB does not contain all the rules of the world. Never has, never will.

 

[Lanefan]

Not all spells and rituals are written in spell books. No to mention the effect described could be created through a combination of ritual, spells, and magic item(s) the way I see it. I guess a PC could try to recreate that, but it is usually not worth the effort.

As long as the bolded is and remains true, all is good.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

We are empowered to make things. Monsters have lair abilities and other effects. We can make monsters.

Why couldn’t an npc have abilities we make that are not for players?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Fine, except if the PCs just saw someone use this previously-unknown ritual then that someone has a spellbook somewhere and that ritual's gonna be in it.

If this is an issue with your group, give the NPCs one shot magic items to use. Even if the players kill them and get their hands on a few of the items, they're an expendable resource.

 

[FarBeyondC]

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

Many thanks in advance for any thoughts!

This is very much an aside, but for the specific example mentioned, I'd probably go about it in one of two ways:

1. Give my BBEG an ability or trait that modifies the Scrying spell- to allow the sensor it makes to become visible and act as the origin point for any spells said BBEG could cast.
2. Give the BBEG an item (likely an artifacted version of the Crystal Ball of Telepathy) that lets them cast spells from the origin of the Scrying spell's sensor.

In the first case, specific justification(s) would depend on if it's a trait unique to the BBEG or not.

In the second case, specific justification(s) would depend on if it's possible in the current age of the setting to replicate the steps it took to create the artifact in question.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

No; but seeing it done as an arcane ritual is - or in the name of internal setting consistency should be - proof that the documentation exists somewhere. The PCs just need to find said documentation.

This could be an epic quest in itself. Some elements are only revealed to being that have signed special contracts with outsiders and others that wise do not enter into contracts with.

Perhaps, but IMO introducing blatant setting inconsistencies is, if the players are paying attention, likely to put them off as they can no longer be sure how things work in the setting at the most basic mechanical levels.

That depends on the table and the DM. There are nearly infinite assumptions as to how magic might work. You and I are unlikely to agree on them and this forum almost certainly will not. It would be unwise and unnecessarily limiting for a designer at Wizards or a third-party creator of an adventure to reach behind the curtain and explain.
There was a contributor on rec.arts.sf.written (I cannot recall the name) that used to advise would be sf writers to never explain how their magical doohickie worked, just show that it can do, because anyone that know more physics that you will realise that your explanation is silly and loose immersion in the story. This, I think goes double for magic.

I really do mean that this is very table dependant. If it bothers, you to introduce a mcguffin that you would not want to players to get but would feel obliged to let them have once introduced. I am not telling you to do that.
It is ultimately your game man.

We're all playing D&D, right?

Well, yes, over a broad enough definition of D&D but that does not mean that my campaign is compatible with yours or vice versa.