Parties screwed without an Int-based PC?

[Herschel]

Exactly who thinks it is fun to sit around the table trying to figure out which way to go or which of these rusted swords are magical?

I am actually looking for an answer to the above question.

You contradict yourself in this post, but I'll cut to just the latter part:

Many people actually. Puzzles and riddles are an integral part of games I run, people have published and usually in games I play in.

I love giving some schlub an ordinary looking magic weapon while the BBEG has a really pretty and very mundane weapon. The underling was able not to have his weapon confiscated by the boss because it's ordinary looking and isn't a gimme for the PCs either. In a longer fight they may notice one lackey is hitting more often than the others, etc. but they can't just look at it and go "Hey, that's a magic sword because it has flavor text".

 

[Herschel]

Errr....?

It's true that a well-balanced party is the D&D archetype. But are you claiming that if the players don't cover all of the bases, the DM is powerless to not "screw them over"?

Keenath's post said it's up to the DM how badly the PCs will miss the areas they don't have covered. I find it hard to find fault with that sentiment.

I don't consider it "screwing them over" to challenge them on their weaknesses is all. They made choices on their characters. They made the choice not to be a well-rounded party. There should be repercussions to those choices and it adds an element of challenge that doesn't have to seem "over the top" to be a challenge.

 

[keterys]

I'm not sure what you are asking. As a DM, I'm going to throw in some Arcana stuff just to challenge them a bit. It won't be high DC stuff, but something to let them discover that Arcana is useful.

And if they're playing certain character archetypes, I hope they smash, sneak, or talk their way around it.

For example, my fighter might ask if I can use Religion to disrupt a ritual that you might be thinking of Arcana as used for - my rogue might see if he can sneak up and steal something vital or disrupt the ritual circle or something - my warlord might disrupt things with the aid of others or his powerful intimidation abilities.

And all of them, if faced with an initial setback, might just smash the ritual caster and/or circle.

In no case would any of those characters roll Arcana. I mean, my warlock, invoker, sorcerer, or bard certainly would... though both of the latter two might still try to figure a way to talk their way through, by distracting the caster for instance, but at the end of the day it's just not proper RP for any of those first three characters I mentioned to take Arcana. No matter how much you put it in the campaign.

 

[Herschel]

I see barely-trained characters make skill checks all the time. Low DC/easy stuff is fun to roll for if you have only a decent chance of success. Clerics making basic Arcana checks is fairly common IME for example. They're spellcasters and feel "up to it". Other skills may be applicable in certain situations, sure, but it's not like the players don't have fun with it too.

You make it sound like it's purely an adversarial relationship between DM and player and it's not. You talk about playing character archtypes, yet eschew the party archtype. What makes the former really any more likely than the latter? Anecdotally, most players I know have full backgrounds for their characters and tend to try to stay away from archtypes as often as possible and we see it all over threads here.

I generally don't game with people whose only concern is "winning".

 

[keterys]

Again, if you have a group of people who do not want to play a character with Arcana or one who uses Arcana. Which one are you going to say 'have less fun' to?

Much like there's no need for Stealth - it just changes the way the game ends up going - there is no need for Arcana.

I've played an all-martial party before - it was surprisingly fun, and worked quite well. Obviously, that party didn't try to make Arcana checks. The DM could have made us make Arcana checks, and we would have succeeded at some, but it wouldn't have made any sense, and wasn't what the group wanted to do.

 

[Jhaelen]

I don't consider it "screwing them over" to challenge them on their weaknesses is all. They made choices on their characters. They made the choice not to be a well-rounded party. There should be repercussions to those choices and it adds an element of challenge that doesn't have to seem "over the top" to be a challenge.

So far I agree. In my games the party is confronted with 'standard' situations. If they're missing a resource that is critical for a certain kind of situation they'll be at a disadvantage. Well, that's life!

You contradict yourself in this post, but I'll cut to just the latter part:

Many people actually. Puzzles and riddles are an integral part of games I run, people have published and usually in games I play in.

I love giving some schlub an ordinary looking magic weapon while the BBEG has a really pretty and very mundane weapon. The underling was able not to have his weapon confiscated by the boss because it's ordinary looking and isn't a gimme for the PCs either. In a longer fight they may notice one lackey is hitting more often than the others, etc. but they can't just look at it and go "Hey, that's a magic sword because it has flavor text".

And now I feel you're contradicting yourself. This is, imho, a perfect example for 'screwing them over'. It. just. makes. no. sense.

This is also not a puzzle - UNLESS, you make an extra effort to describe how one of the monsters seems to fight more effortlessly than the others. And here's why:
It's completely up to chance if the monster with the magical weapon will hit more often than the others. In fact, because of the magic threshold, it's quite possible the monster will have NO BENEFIT at all from using the weapon.

And if you don't give a hint, there's no reason at all for anyone to suspect it might be magical.

It's also extremely unlikely that the PCs will notice something like this in a single encounter with the monsters and the other monsters not having noticed in all the time they've been with the monster.

I'd also say it's unlikely that the weapon is completely plain-looking, in the first place.

I generally don't game with people whose only concern is "winning".

Strike the 'generally' and we have something in common.

The arcana skill is useful in a wide range of situations. My players think it's most useful for the monster knowledge it can provide (which is why they'd never neglect that skill).
Detect magic is useful because you can use it to identify conjurations, zones, rituals, magical effects. It's also useful because you can detect all of these AND magic items IGNORING BARRIERS!

It should not be useful because you have no other way to find out that the sword you're wielding is actually magical.

 

[Keenath]

This is true no matter which skill is missing.

If no PC in the group has Perception, does the DM just automatically allow them to perceive ambushes?

No, because there are explicitly written rules in the book about when you make perception checks to detect ambushes. Or rather, you don't make checks, because the ambushers generally make stealth checks against your passive perception, but same difference -- there are times written into the book where perception checks are required to avoid a negative outcome.

However, the book does not require the DM to include lurker monsters all the time and base campaign-altering events on perception rolls, so from that perspective it definitely IS up to the DM to decide whether or not to screw the party for their skill selections.

If no PC in the group has History, does the DM just automatically hand out historical documents instead?

Not at all, but it is up to the DM to possibly decide that throwing out a lot of required History rolls is a bad idea when nobody is trained in it. So again, there IS a certain DM choice there, but it's totally off the subject.

It's not a matter of screwing the PCs. It's a matter of the DM have to adjusting the game because the players screwed themselves.

The point I'm making is that the rules do not anywhere require you to have Arcana trained in order to locate or identify magic items, unlike (say) getting Monster Knowledge about dragons, or figuring out what that glowy energy field is for.

The original question was, "Is the party going to be short on magic items if there isn't a high intelligence arcana user?", and my answer is "No, because nothing in the book says you need to have a high arcana check to find or identify magic items, because the book doesn't require that magic items look just like other items before you turn on your mage-o-vision; nor does the book say how long it takes to handle a non-magic items and determine that it is not magical." Therefore, it's up to the DM to decide whether magic items in his game world are obvious or not, and whether or not a few moments of handling is sufficient to determine the presence or absence of magic in an item. Depending on the answers to those questions, a low-Arcana party may or may not be screwed, but it is not required by the rules as written.

In my game, I have two Arcana trained characters, one of whom is a wizard with a massive Int bonus, and I still treat magic items as totally obvious; a magic sword among mundane swords is a Corvette among Toyotas.* But that's just me, and another DM could make another selection however he wants to; I'm not saying it's wrong or right, only that if the party lacks a strong arcana character, the DM's choices could definitely cause problems or avoid them.

* Please don't think too hard about the metaphor. I don't want to hear, "Well, actually, some of the high end Toyotas..."

 

[Keenath]

This statement is a straw man based on the assumption the players didn't have the CHOICE of an INT-based character, which is clearly false. That's the only way a DM would be "screwing over" the players.

I fail to see how my statement is a strawman, since it's not based on that assumption at all.

See my above post. Since the DM is making decisions about how his campaign world works, those decisions are going to interact with players' choices and may be detrimental to the party. I only used the word "screwed" because that's what the original poster asked, and the answer is -- it's up to the DM.

The question wasn't about "Is it okay to put Arcana tests in front of a party that lacks Arcana?" It was about a very specific application of the skill as regards finding magical items -- an application that is NOT specifically mentioned in the book.

 

[Nail]

Errr....?

It's true that a well-balanced party is the D&D archetype. But are you claiming that if the players don't cover all of the bases, the DM is powerless to not "screw them over"?

I don't consider it "screwing them over" to challenge them on their weaknesses is all. They made choices on their characters. They made the choice not to be a well-rounded party. ...

Who made that choice, exactly? Which one of the players made the choice to not be a 'well-rounded-party'?

 

[Keenath]

I don't consider it "screwing them over" to challenge them on their weaknesses is all. They made choices on their characters. They made the choice not to be a well-rounded party. There should be repercussions to those choices and it adds an element of challenge that doesn't have to seem "over the top" to be a challenge.

I don't think I understand what distinctions you're drawing. Challenging a weakness might be "If you can't make the necessary stealth checks here, you'll have to fight the hobgoblin guards." Screwing the party would be "If you can't make the necessary arcana checks here, you can't have the reward for winning that fight." Or, more extreme, "If you can't make the stealth checks here, you can't complete the mission; you just lose."