One of my players (our bard) noted that she recently had spells appear in her repertoire that weren't there previously and that she's getting a warning about being over on her spell and cantrip selections. I took a peek in the sheet and see that some of these spells are tagged as "Entertainer." Whaaa? No spell additions for an entertainer background.

Here's the D&DB sheet link.

Here's a screenshot from Manage Spells. There are several of these spells: Dancing Lights, Vicious Mockery, Charm Person, Detect Magic, Healing Word, Thunderwave,

If you try to remove these spells it throws a zombie beholder at you.

There's jiggery pokery afoot, lads! What say you!?

I would say the first thing to check is whether it is the Hat of Brilliance. It's the only homebrew item that I can see - and it's nearly always badly made homebrew that causes issues.

Try removing the item and see if it fixes it. If it does - you or whoever made it needs to fix it.

Edit: There's also the Glyph Key that's homebrew. Check that too.

Soooo...the Hat of Brilliance is an identical copy of the Helm of Brilliance. It's literally just renamed. And the Glyph Key doesn't have any magical properties (or any properties at all). It's the equivalent of adding a rock to the inventory.

Good guess though. : )

Yeah, this is really weird.  I notice that I can't click on any of the Bard-Entertainer spells and see spell descriptions, whereas I can click on the other spells and see a description.  I can't see the background chosen--probably only a moderator or staff can see that.  I''m wondering if there is some sort of weird homebrew background?

I believe ArwnsDaughter is probably correct. Are they perhaps running a homebrewed background? You can tell because it says “Bard-Entertainer.” Almost like someone is trying to hide extras but make it look normal. They might have even gotten away with it too if they had coded it properly. And if it wasn’t for those meddling kids and their dog.

I’m not actually accusing anyone of anything. They might be using someone else’s homebrew and not even realize.  But my money’s on a background.

I did try a search for public homebrew backgrounds but didn't find anything that looked appropriate. I can only assume that it was made by someone within the campaign - if it is a homebrew background.

Can backgrounds even give spells though? I had a quick look and it seems to only be able to add to the expanded spell list - not actually give spells? You still have to learn / prepare them.

The only thing I could think of if it isn't the items is that it's a homebrew subclass duplicate of the College or Lore but named the same to hide the extra spells. Like a subclass feature with "hide on sheet" ticked that provides spells?

Quote from Emmber >>

 

The only thing I could think of if it isn't the items is that it's a homebrew subclass duplicate of the College or Lore but named the same to hide the extra spells. Like a subclass feature with "hide on sheet" ticked that provides spells?

 I don’t think it can be though. The subclass features still lists the PHB as reference for the features. 

You're right - I just tested duplicating the College of Lore and comparing with the default and it removes the PHB reference.

So as far as I can tell it can only be the homebrew items. That or there used to be something on the character but it was removed and the spells never went with it?

I think only a mod can get to the bottom of this.

Thanks for the thoughts and insights y'all.

This has me completely stumped too. I do see the Hat (Helm) of Brilliance behaving as I'd expect when I play around with the sheet (it pulls the right spells into the castable list and those spells don't seem to be throwing off the overall counts). I think the best guess was Emmber's--that something was added by my dear player and then removed but something janky happened in the in-between or upside down. We're nearing the end of our second year on this campaign now so there's been a huge amount of addition, removal, and everything in between on these characters' sheets.

We definitely haven't homebrewed classes or backgrounds. This may be something we chalk up to a disturbance in the force and try to find a workaround for.

Thanks again, happy rolling, and stay safe out there. : )