D&D 5E "I Forgot I Had It"

[Dannyalcatraz]

Have you ever forgotten you had something in your inventory that would have been clutch had you just remembered to use it?

In 45 years of gaming? More times than I care to remember…so to speak.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Consumables can be really hard to manage! I find the trick is to not bother trying to find the “right moment” when I “really need it”. If I do that, I’ll always be thinking “what if I need it even more later?” And even if that perfect opportunity arises, chances are I’ll have forgotten it by then anyway. Instead, I look for any opportunity to use my consumables. Even if it’s not the best opportunity, at least I’ll have gotten some use out of it, which I won’t if I try to save it.

Doesn’t always work, but it does help.

One thing that I find helps me to remember is listing everything my character has in separate columns - I keep a separate "Gear" sheet with individual headings for Armor, Weapons, Ammo, Clothes, Adventuring Gear (backpack, pouches, torches, rope, etc.), Permanent Magic Items, Wands/rods/staves, Potions, Other Consumables, and Random Items (things that aren't on the PHB equipment list)...
Unlike on my main character sheet, all the consumables, random items and things that would be useful in a fight are listed at the top, and my regular weapons, armor and gear are near the bottom.
I make a point of looking over it at the start of each session, since I'm one of those guys that likes to totally destroy boss monsters through creative uses of a roll of string, a bag of flour and a bent copper piece...

 

[Azzy]

Have you ever forgotten you had something in your inventory that would have been clutch had you just remembered to use it?

It's like a recurring nightmare.

 

[p_johnston]

So I don't have any good stories of me personally forgetting (More because I don't play as much than because I remember) but I have a good story about some of my players forgetting their abilities.

So we decide to do a short adventure (3-4 sessions) in between campaigns as a kinda palet clenser and so my group decided to get silly. Without knowing anything about the adventure they all decide to roll clerics. Just 6 different types of clerics. The particular adventure I had chosen had quite a few undead in it so I was rather worried it would be to easy in sections.
Cut to session 3 where the party is jumped by ghouls. Two characters are trapped under rubble, two are fighting the original ghouls, and two are trying to hold off the ghouls coming in from the outside.. Proceed to spend a good 2.5 to 3 hours in a series of brutal knock down fights against all ghouls and ghasts that nearly kill the party before they emerge bloody, beaten, but victorious. After the session I looked at my party of 6 CLERICS and simply asked them "why did no one try to turn undead?" Turns out they had all forgotten.

The adventure was the first chapter of Strange Aeons converted to 5e for anyone who was wondering.

 

[Azuresun]

A painful lesson I've failed to learn over and over again. It cracked me up when I learned PF2 has a feat you can take that let's the DM just tell you when you're chasing a total red herring.

...and if nobody has that feat, the DM isn't allowed to tell them?

Once, the player of a captured PC in my game remembered she had a Dimension Door device just after the party had gone to great lengths to rescue her from her prison cell....

Lister: "Why don't we scrape away this mortar here, slide one of these bricks out, then using a rope weaved from strands of this hessian, rig up a kind of a pulley system so that when a guard comes in, using it as a trip wire, gets laid out, and we put Rimmer in the guard's uniform, he leads us out, we steal some swords, and fight our way back to the 'bug!"

Kryten: "Or we could use the teleporter."

Lister: "Or, in a pinch, we could use the teleporter."

— Red Dwarf

 

[Seramus]

...and if nobody has that feat, the DM isn't allowed to tell them?

Interestingly, I've known many DMs who, when players go THAT deep down the red herring rabbit hole, often change the story to make the red herring matter somewhat. Not enough to win the plot, but enough to make an impact.

 

[Lanefan]

Interestingly, I've known many DMs who, when players go THAT deep down the red herring rabbit hole, often change the story to make the red herring matter somewhat. Not enough to win the plot, but enough to make an impact.

I'll sometimes flesh out the red herring with a bit more plot of its own if that's what they're intent on following up, but it likely won't have much if anyhting to do with the original plot which will keep on truckin' in the background.