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

[UngainlyTitan]

And I'm saying D&D is a poor choice for The Princess Bride.

And I think you are missing my point, I think that the hit point model can be interpretated to work for that fight as long as you do not try to map the mechanics to the individual moves but to the phrases of the fight. I think that is the central point in the differences between us. Youl map successful strikes to physical contact and wounds. Character powers to a physical pattern in the fiction and I treat the mechanics as more the interpretative dance version of the fiction.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

I don't motivate it. NPC's and monsters get the abilities I think will bring appropriate challenge and the most fun to the table.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Think of it more as "they got it wrong" for you. Obviously that was a choice they made, likely to maintain the simplicity that is their top priority this edition and which is continuing to get more important as they design the new edition.

But it actually doesn't matter that much to me that NPC statblocks don't resemble PCs. Way back at the beginning of this thread, my claim was simply that a PC should in theory be able to acquire any ability an NPC who represents a person similar to a PC (like an archmage, or a gladiator) can do. It might be very difficult, or even impractical, but I believe it should be possible, and the DM should, IMO, be able to answer a player's question about that in an in-universe, non-gamist way.

That's still what I believe, but of course there are other schools of thought. Other games, particularly narrative sorts and genre-emulators, may operate under a different paradigm. And that's ok.

Out of curiosity, where do you draw the line between “monsters” that don’t use character rules and “NPCs” that do?

If I’ve got something that seems monstrous, but also seems kinda character-like, what test do you use for which it is, and thus which rules apply?

 

[Micah Sweet]

And I think you are missing my point, I think that the hit point model can be interpretated to work for that fight as long as you do not try to map the mechanics to the individual moves but to the phrases of the fight. I think that is the central point in the differences between us. Youl map successful strikes to physical contact and wounds. Character powers to a physical pattern in the fiction and I treat the mechanics as more the interpretative dance version of the fiction.

Hit points don't have to map directly to physical contact; near-misses and grazes are fine for most things. Only a few things, like poison or an effect that clearly represents being struck, really require contact. But if you make an attack roll, I do think that maps to the fiction directly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Out of curiosity, where do you draw the line between “monsters” that don’t use character rules and “NPCs” that do?

If I’ve got something that seems monstrous, but also seems kinda character-like, what test do you use for which it is, and thus which rules apply?

It would depend on the example, but most things that do not represent a physical aspect of a creature should theoretically be learnable, and for the rest, if you can apply that aspect to the PCs physicality, you can potentially do it. I don't make those kind of distinctions in story, and mechanically only as much as needed for the game to work.

 

[Pedantic]

Not to get in to this back and forth about the Princess Bride fight, but as someone broadly more aligned with Micah's stance, the biggest possible violation of immersion/connection to the setting (and occasionally agency, depending how it occurs) is messing with the mapping of time.

Actions need to be self contained and resolvable discretely, thus that any declaration of intent can be "I do/try this" or players are forced into authorial instead of character stances.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It would depend on the example, but most things that do not represent a physical aspect of a creature should theoretically be learnable, and for the rest, if you can apply that aspect to the PCs physicality, you can potentially do it. I don't make those kind of distinctions in story, and mechanically only as much as needed for the game to work.

Ah. So if it feels like a trained thing, e.g. casts a spell or makes a cool martial move, then theoretically anybody with roughly equivalent physiology would be able to learn it. But if it's intrinsic to it's physiology (e.g. shooting lasers out of eyes) then no. So it's not really the monster/NPC divide as much as the nature of the ability, and in general NPCs tend to have trained/learned abilities and monsters have either intrinsic abilities or trained/learned abilities that depend on their physiology. Is that it?

(And if that is it I will at least give you credit for having a consistent approach, even if I don't myself feel the need to abide by those constraints.)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Hit points don't have to map directly to physical contact; near-misses and grazes are fine for most things. Only a few things, like poison or an effect that clearly represents being struck, really require contact. But if you make an attack roll, I do think that maps to the fiction directly.

The attack role is an interesting one and it is one of the few areas that I preferred the TSR era approach of the 1-minute round, to me the attack = a single strike makes little sense, but I consider it a passage of arms that leaves the character that lost hit points at a disadvantage. I know you do not agree with me, but do you get where I am coming from.

 

[TwoSix]

Ah. So if it feels like a trained thing, e.g. casts a spell or makes a cool martial move, then theoretically anybody with roughly equivalent physiology would be able to learn it. But if it's intrinsic to it's physiology (e.g. shooting lasers out of eyes) then no. So it's not really the monster/NPC divide as much as the nature of the ability, and in general NPCs tend to have trained/learned abilities and monsters have either intrinsic abilities or trained/learned abilities that depend on their physiology. Is that it?

(And if that is it I will at least give you credit for having a consistent approach, even if I don't myself feel the need to abide by those constraints.)

Makes sense to me. What's interesting about the "Brute" ability is that it's really a "conceptual" ability, that is, it's reinforcing something intrinsic about the character and his position in the narrative. It maps to being something "physiological" to the character, even though it was probably a combination of innate ability and training. But it's not something you can just "learn how to do", like a maneuver.

 

[Lanefan]

I've run a lot of RPGs, in a variety of settings. I don't think I've ever designed a setting's physics. I have sometimes considered a setting's sociology and/or theology and metaphysics, because to me these are far more central to RPGing than physics. But other times I have let those things emerge more-or-less organically via play; or have established them by reference to a known exemplar or paradigm (eg Let's play Vikings or Let's play Middle Earth or Let's play Victorian-ear Cthulhu).

By gravity which of the following do you mean?

Things fall to earth - which has been common knowledge for all humans for as long as humans have existed; or,​

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All things fall to earth at a uniform rate of acceleration if air resistance is disregarded - which has not been common knowledge and as far as I know isn't obviously true in any FRPG I'm familiar with, given that none of them involve detailed calculations about falling things, ballistics etc; or,​

​

The same physical factor that explains how and why things fall to earth also explains celestial motion - which is actively false in many FRPG settings.​

All of the above. And while the inhabitants of a setting may believe celestial motion works in a way that it really doesn't (e.g. everything revolves around the Earth), that doesn't mean they're right.

I've seen D&D module with magnetic effects that to the best of my knowledge are not explicable in terms of real-world magnetism (eg "lodestones" that pull and trap characters wearing metal armour).

I've seen magnets strong enough that, were I wearing metal armour, I probably couldn't pull away from.

I just don't see any evidence that FRPG settings need the sort of detail or rules established in advance that you say they do.

I think they need those details, not so much to serve eventual player knowledge of said details (most players couldn't care less) but to serve as a solid underlying framework for you as setting designer/referee/GM in designing how and why things work they do that the players will encounter all the time - gravity, magic, etc. - and in being ready to answer questions that might be expected during play.

An example: in-character, a player wonders what causes wild magic to happen. Do you have an answer ready to rock that's consistent with everything else the player/PC has seen in the setting thus far?