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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 6767607" data-attributes="member: 6799649">We are discussing the rules in the PHB, not the houserules of one game. We cannot have a meaningful rules discussion if you include your own houserules and expect us to understand these as if they were PHB rules.In the actual rules, fluff has absolutely no authority from the rules. A DM can certainly institute a houserule to say that the game mechanic of 'class' is knowable by the creatures in the game, but he cannot come to this debate and claim that the 5E rules say the same thing.If the 'class' game mechanic is knowable by creatures in-game, then any creature's claim to be a certain class must be testable and falsifiable by those creatures, and those creatures still do not know about any other game mechanics, such as hit points or 'natural 20s'.My PC claims to be a 'fighter'. How can the creatures in the game test that? He can take two actions in one round, once per short rest? They don't know about 'actions', 'rounds', or 'short rests' as game mechanics. They could certainly say that they want a short rest, but that could mean anything from 30 seconds to a few days.Fighting Style? They can understand the idea, but they know nothing about '+1 to AC while wearing armour'. There could be some fluff which explains the crunch of a particular style, but there could be many fluff versions of the same game mechanic.They get an extra feat at 6th level? Really? Do I even have to debunk that?The creatures in the game can observe what creatures do, but cannot know the game mechanics behind them. What does a 'critical hit' look like to them? A hit that does 12 damage? They cannot know the game mechanics. Okay, a hit that does a lot of damage? How would that look any different than any other way to do a lot of damage? Fighters crit on 19 and 20? You might expect a fighter to do twice as many crits, but when observing any particular hit, they cannot know if it was caused by rolling a 19 or rolling a 20, or that a particular non-fighter rolls a lot of 20s.There is no way for them to observe the game mechanic of 'class', so there can be no direct mapping of game stats to observable events. Any conceit that the creatures 'know' about 'class' becomes fluff. They cannot know if the guy who claims he is a fighter is a Fighter in game mechanics. 'Paladin' as an in-game word cannot be tied to the game mechanic 'class', and a set of 'paladins' may be made up of individuals whose game stats may be paladins, multiclass paladins, multiclass non-paladins and non-paladins who have a similar combination of feats, abilities, magic, and so on.The idea that creatures in the game can say to my elven spy that she's "not a real monk" is absurd! She's never claimed to be one! If she had, they cannot observe what she does and deduce that she does or doesn't have the 'correct' game mechanics! They cannot observe her punching someone twice and conclude that she must have learned to do that in a monastery, since any experienced warrior can do that if they have the Extra Attack class ability, and there's no way for an in-game observer to tell the difference, and even that is making the absurd assumption that the observer knows what a 'combat round' is!The game rules itself do not make the game mechanic of 'class' knowable in-game, and although a DM might want to add such a houserule, it would be an absurd idea once you think it through.</blockquote>

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