Need some help here. DM wackiness in action

[Pielorinho]

Spellcasters are not experts at their magic, in general. They are experts in their magic if they have the Knowedge(Arcana) and/or Spellcraft skills. Being able to cast a spell is not the same as knowing the details of it's function and operation.

I disagree with this, but that's more from a metagame perspective than from a rules-perspective (this is not, I think, something delineated in the rules themselves).

As a player, I know it's no fun in a game like D&D to have my magic work in a weird fashion. D&D sets up magic to work like technology: spells are standardized and specific in their effect. When your DM rules that purify magic works in a way that's different from how you understand it to work, it's frustrating.

Mystery and wonder are great elements of a game. But they should come from other places, I think: the motives of the enigmatic cult, the unearthly singing from the abandoned city, the powers of the strange demon, even the effects of the novel spells cast by enemy (or even friendly) NPCs.

Having one's own spells operate strangely is just frustrating. YM, natch, MV.

In this case, though, it shouldn't vary TOO much. The spellcaster has almost certainly seen purify food & water in action before: either she's cast it herself, or one of her superiors cast it. She ought to know whether it can remove big chunks of stuff, or whether it separates impurities from the water, or what.

But basically, this is a fun-issue. I find it more fun to let players be fully-informed on their own powers, unless their ignorance is an interesting plot-point.

Daniel

 

[KarinsDad]

Spellcasters are not experts at their magic, in general. They are experts in their magic if they have the Knowedge(Arcana) and/or Spellcraft skills. Being able to cast a spell is not the same as knowing the details of it's function and operation.

Hmmmm.

So, I do not know the affects of my spells without taking those skills?

I can understand that for other character's spells and magic, but for my own?

Do Fighters need weapon knowledge skills to tell them that when they swing their weapon and it bounces off their opponent's hide, that the opponent may be immune to their attack?

Additionally, if the character knew nothing about Alchemist's Fire, he'd have little information upon which to base a conclusion....

So, you find it unrealistic that adventurers in the game should know how standard items on the Adventuring Gear list should work?

I guess you need a skill to figure out how to light a lantern or pitch a tent as well.

 

[kreynolds]

I guess you need a skill to figure out how to light a lantern or pitch a tent as well.

You mean you don't? I thought you did! All the DMs in my group told me you did! I dumped over 15 points into both Lantern Lighting (Int) and Pitch a Tent (Int) already!! Those bastards!!!!

 

[Pielorinho]

You mean you don't? I thought you did! All the DMs in my group told me you did! I dumped over 15 points into both Lantern Lighting (Int) and Pitch a Tent (Int) already!! Those bastards!!!!

I thought Pitch a Tent was based off Con, not Int.

Daniel

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

Depends on who you have been camping with. I know some people who would be dead in an hour if the had to survive on their own.

I agree that the DM should have given some warning, especially if they had seen alchemists fire work before. In my campaign, the number of alchemical items the group ever used could be counted on one hand with fingers left over, and that was played over the course of two years. They just were not interested in them.

I like the way the idea was stated, that there is a difference between casting a spell, and knowing about spell. Take a sorcerer, who finds out when he is young that if he gets angry, he gets stronger, or that if something is rushing at him a barrier appears, or he dissapears to safety. How is he to know he can cast these spells on others unless he tries. How many movies did you see a bumbling apprentice who did not know all the nuances of his magic, did not know precisely what he was capable of, but could still cast. How many times have they summoned something that they did not properly anchor in a ward, and unleashed it on the world.

Granted that is a bit more in depth than D&D gets. The spell system really is more of a science. If you were going to do something like that, I would say that you would need only a number of ranks equal to 5 plus the spell level. So long as they kept up on their skills, there would be no problem, the rest would be experimentation. Of course that would be hard to do for anyone who has played a spellcaster to any degree before. It's hard to forget how magic missile works.