Every Wizard needs Fireball. But what every squishy wizard also needs, what every spellcaster needs, is plot armor. If your character has an ability that features in the plot twists and hooks your DM has planned for the next month or two, chances are, your character is not going to get targeted with the Disintegrate spell. But how do you get this kind of plot armor? Consider one of these spells:
Sending / Animal Messenger - These are almost required in a campaign with a lot of political intrigue. It's hard to set up an elaborate conspiracy or triple cross without them. If your character is the only one in the party who can learn one of these spells, you're not getting killed off, bro.
Sending is considerably more powerful for being only one level higher. It's able to reach unlimited distances on the same plane, you can get a reply back, and you don't have to know or have been to the location the target can be found in. On the other hand, you do have to have met the person before, whereas you can use Animal Messenger if you only have a description. I am in a campaign with a Bard and a Druid and both spells still get some use even at higher levels.
Speak with Dead / Speak with Animals / Speak with Plans / Commune with Nature - Need to know which way the sneaky gnome went with your magic items, or what made these craterous impacts in the forest floor? Perhaps you can speak with your local squirrel / ivy / traveler smashed into a pancake. These spells are useful for getting clues for short-term mysteries and puzzles from beings or entities who might have been here just before you arrived, and gone neglected by people who attempted to cover up the evidence.
Legend Lore / Commune / Contact other Plane - These, on the other hand, can tie up loose ends of campaign-spanning arcs, helping the players figure out who's the BBEG and what he wants and how he's gonna do it. But the DM doesn't have to give away the whole story. They can be as cryptic or as leading as they want to be.
Scrying / Clairvoyance / Detect Thoughts - If the NPCs are really engaging, the players will want to keep tabs on them even while they're away. Therefore, learning or preparing this spell signals to the DM that you appreciate their content. The DM won't want to kill off your PC if they're the exclusive liaison to the Prince or the only member of the Thieves' Guild, so keeping your friends close and your enemies closer is a way to keep the DM from Fireballing the lot of you.
Scrying has the advantage of not needing to know where your target is located, but Clairvoyance doesn't have a save, so both have their uses. Detect Thoughts takes it one level deeper. Not only can you peer through an NPC's walls, you can see into their head.
Wish / Dream - These take it to a meta level. With these spells, a player almost steps into the role of the DM, and as a proud DM, you love to see it. Dream lets a player create a temporary reality, and inject one of your NPCs into it, reversing the usual roles of you creating a temporary reality and immersing the PCs into it. Wish allows the player to take it a step further, introducing a permanent change into your reality. You do still have veto power, or the chance to bend their wish around your hard boundaries, but it still encourages the player to flex their creativity.
On the other hand, the DM might not appreciate you springing these spells on them by surprise. Unless they have time to prepare content for them, they might feel flat-footed. Check with the DM first to see if they're okay with you taking the spell and that they're bought in to creating content for you to interact with.
I do not believe in plot armoring the PCs (it tends to encourage a hack'n'slay kill first, resurrect the bodies and ask questions later mentality). Now, that is not to say that inventive spell selection, usage or just general out-side-the-box thinking goes unrewarded. Just that stupid actions earn stupid (possibly deadly depending on how stupid the action) prizes.
Every Wizard needs Fireball. But what every squishy wizard also needs, what every spellcaster needs, is plot armor. If your character has an ability that features in the plot twists and hooks your DM has planned for the next month or two, chances are, your character is not going to get targeted with the Disintegrate spell. But how do you get this kind of plot armor? Consider one of these spells:
If as a DM, I've backed myself into a corner so that one of these spells would be required to advance the plot, my problems go way beyond not being able to Disintegrate one particular character
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I could see this going the other way - having potentially game breaking abilities might paint a target on your character's back!
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Every Wizard needs Fireball. But what every squishy wizard also needs, what every spellcaster needs, is plot armor. If your character has an ability that features in the plot twists and hooks your DM has planned for the next month or two, chances are, your character is not going to get targeted with the Disintegrate spell. But how do you get this kind of plot armor? Consider one of these spells:
If as a DM, I've backed myself into a corner so that one of these spells would be required to advance the plot, my problems go way beyond not being able to Disintegrate one particular character
C'mon, how could political intrigue possibly work without a magical means of communication? My imagination could never devise such a scenario.
Magical items like sending stones would do it, and in some ways make more sense -- 'it must be the wizard sending these messages, the monk has no ability to do so!'
I have mixed emotions about the list. The ideal is for the DM to generate the basics of the story, and let the players figure out for themselves where to go, what to do and in what order. Those kinds of spells make the game all too simple. They are all about easy communication and learning things the DM usually doesn't want them to know. They take the surprise out of nearly everything, they make mysteries almost impossible, and they wreck the horror genre almost entirely.
The only way the bad guys have to fight back and avoid having their plots revealed or foiled is to use the same methods on the player characters. Use scrying to keep tabs on them at all times, use magical messages to pass around information, find out the details of the player character's backstories to get leverage to use against them, and so on.
In highly political games of espionage, counter espionage, counter-counter espionage and assassination, it's pretty much may the player with the highest intelligence, and the characters with the highest mental scores against the DM. You end up with a one on one struggle between the most clever player and you as the DM. If you get outsmarted, will you be able to allow the players to win with grace? Few people seem able to manage that. Most people keep the BBEG coming back over and over no matter what, give them an unlimited supply of minions, and enough resources that they could easily rule the world had not the player characters gotten involved.
At it's heart, D&D is a high magic fantasy game that revolves around combat. Roleplaying is something you do while fighting. Exploring is something you do to find things to fight with, and test your mettle against the elements. The rest of it is downtime. The characters normally win in the end, they get the treasure, and move up in levels. A bare minimum of social interaction goes a long way. The only people the characters need to interact with are the ones in control of the plot points needed to make the story happen. It's the same with the places they visit. They don't need to go anywhere unless there's something important in there to find. Shopping in the market is not worth the trouble, that's the whole point of having a Lifestyle cost.
At Tier 4, if you have nothing better to do, that's the time when those political games can work. It's usually better to retire the characters, but some people just can't let go. The stakes can be high enough to matter, the players rule nations and can throw armies against their enemies.
I could see this going the other way - having potentially game breaking abilities might paint a target on your character's back!
If your ability it to one-shot the boss, then you'd be right. That makes hours of the DM's planning useless. If your character dying would nullify half the DM's notebook, that's plot armor, at least a little.
Magical items like sending stones would do it, and in some ways make more sense -- 'it must be the wizard sending these messages, the monk has no ability to do so!'
Or... you know, do it like actual people in the real world engage in political intrigue? Who, to the best of my knowledge, have no magic?
Every Wizard needs Fireball. But what every squishy wizard also needs, what every spellcaster needs, is plot armor. If your character has an ability that features in the plot twists and hooks your DM has planned for the next month or two, chances are, your character is not going to get targeted with the Disintegrate spell. But how do you get this kind of plot armor? Consider one of these spells:
If as a DM, I've backed myself into a corner so that one of these spells would be required to advance the plot, my problems go way beyond not being able to Disintegrate one particular character
Like I said, check with your DM. DMs clearly have polarizing opinions about these spells. Here's one. I for one really like these spells. And most of them give the DM some kind of out, in terms of saves (which the DM might decide the saving throw bonus is +15 for on the fly), "creative" interpretations by the DM, or just outright "no" for non-standard wishes.
As a DM, I love these spells. They allow you to take paths that you haven't thought of in fun and creative ways. And if you haven't roleplayed a cow yet, you're definitely missing a good time lol.
But I feel like many players will only take them if they know the DM they are playing with for some time (and generally if the players themselves are creative and/or experienced), as many DMs have problems with divination or other things that inherently give the players new paths to find answers that are not usually built in the story.
Some DMs prefer to use modify memory and dominate person on the PCs to keep them in the storyline they built, than to have the PCs bypass a whole dungeon by a clever cast of one of those spells. But that is a matter of preference, I guess.
Like I said, check with your DM. DMs clearly have polarizing opinions about these spells.
"Clearly"? LOL. Not really, no.
Again, I'm speaking as a DM, and I could not care less if a player has any of these spells (with the obvious exception of wish, but even then I'm not particularly interested in running a campaign with characters of a high enough level to cast it), because none of them would have any impact whatsoever on whether I "go easy" on that player or not. Nor have I seen anyone in this thread spout these "polarizing opinions" you're claiming.
If you want to cast speak with animals and ask a squirrel for a clue, that's a fun RP moment and nothing more, because that squirrel is never going to be the only way you can get a clue.
I honestly find it hilarious that you think a DM would be all, "Oh no, I'd better not kill the ranger, because they're the only one who can speak to animals."
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
You seem kind of upset about this. You can either encourage use of these spells, or not. No one is forcing you. Play the game the way you like.
I think what might have gotten the goat a bit here was the fairly generalising way you wrote the OP. Sort of implies that every DM thinks this way. I have a gentle chuckle at:
Sending / Animal Messenger - These are almost required in a campaign with a lot of political intrigue.
...but I can see how some might take umbrage at the idea this is as universal as your OP implies it is. Fairly natural human response to having someone else tell them how they feel. Especially as things like not targeting a player because of future plans is exactly the sort of "rail roading" many DMs pride themselves on never doing.
If your character has an ability that features in the plot twists and hooks your DM has planned for the next month or two, chances are, your character is not going to get targeted with the Disintegrate spell.
...
If your character is the only one in the party who can learn one of these spells, you're not getting killed off, bro.
...
Therefore, learning or preparing this spell signals to the DM that you appreciate their content.
...
The DM won't want to kill off your PC if they're the exclusive liaison to the Prince or the only member of the Thieves' Guild, so keeping your friends close and your enemies closer is a way to keep the DM from Fireballing the lot of you.
You seem kind of upset about this. You can either encourage use of these spells, or not. No one is forcing you. Play the game the way you like.
I think what might have gotten the goat a bit here was the fairly generalising way you wrote the OP. Sort of implies that every DM thinks this way. I have a gentle chuckle at:
Sending / Animal Messenger - These are almost required in a campaign with a lot of political intrigue.
...but I can see how some might take umbrage at the idea this is as universal as your OP implies it is. Fairly natural human response to having someone else tell them how they feel. Especially as things like not targeting a player because of future plans is exactly the sort of "rail roading" many DMs pride themselves on never doing.
Then that's on him. First of all, DMs were not the target audience for the OP. It was addressed to players. And it explicitly called out that some DMs would like this and others wouldn't.
Then that's on him. First of all, DMs were not the target audience for the OP. It was addressed to players. And it explicitly called out that some DMs would like this and others wouldn't.
Sure, but you did that at the end, after multiple mentions of how much DMs do X or Y, and if players think DMs don't target them for plot reasons, that potentially sets up some very negative game experiences when they find a DM who does target them just as much. The expectation that the DM will give players a pass - will bend the rules to let them live - is actually a very touchy subject, leading to some very bad feelings.
That that I mind! I thought it was a nice post. I had a bit of a chuckle over the wording, but it's all cool. I'm just saying it's not really that unexpected that some folk would react in a stronger manner. You've described a DM style that some other DM's actively pride themselves on avoiding, and implied that's how DM's do it (until the last line). If you'd written this as how *you* do it, and how *some* DM's do it, then I don't think the conversation would have quite gone this way.
I think it's great to pride yourself on never fudging roles and never metagaming. I aspire to some of that. But I'm not there yet. Yes, I fudge rolls. Yes, I show favoritism to the players who put more effort into aspects of the game I enjoy.
If a DM can't advance the plot without these spells, they have a lack of imagination. If players can't think of a way for their characters to approach a problem without these specific spells they also have a problem.
These spells can be very useful but aren't the only ways to go about things, and a DM can also find a middle ground where they're allowed to be useful but not solve all of the party's problems.
Also I find that DMs either give the party plot armor or they don't. If a DM is willing to kill off players they'll generally kill a player whenever it fits regardless of who that player is, if they do give plot armor they'll find a way to keep the player from dying. If there's favoritism going on the root of it is probably NOT because one player took sending and the other took sleet storm.
As DM I never give any charactes any plot armor regardless what their abilites or spells are. IE If there is 4 characters in mortal danger and I have to choose one, I use purely dice to determine who to select. Too bad if that charceter was only one that had sending, speak wiht dead, lgends of lore, scrying, etc. If that character dies then rest have to go without those after that (and there is always some ways to go )
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Every Wizard needs Fireball. But what every squishy wizard also needs, what every spellcaster needs, is plot armor. If your character has an ability that features in the plot twists and hooks your DM has planned for the next month or two, chances are, your character is not going to get targeted with the Disintegrate spell. But how do you get this kind of plot armor? Consider one of these spells:
Sending / Animal Messenger - These are almost required in a campaign with a lot of political intrigue. It's hard to set up an elaborate conspiracy or triple cross without them. If your character is the only one in the party who can learn one of these spells, you're not getting killed off, bro.
Sending is considerably more powerful for being only one level higher. It's able to reach unlimited distances on the same plane, you can get a reply back, and you don't have to know or have been to the location the target can be found in. On the other hand, you do have to have met the person before, whereas you can use Animal Messenger if you only have a description. I am in a campaign with a Bard and a Druid and both spells still get some use even at higher levels.
Speak with Dead / Speak with Animals / Speak with Plans / Commune with Nature - Need to know which way the sneaky gnome went with your magic items, or what made these craterous impacts in the forest floor? Perhaps you can speak with your local squirrel / ivy / traveler smashed into a pancake. These spells are useful for getting clues for short-term mysteries and puzzles from beings or entities who might have been here just before you arrived, and gone neglected by people who attempted to cover up the evidence.
Legend Lore / Commune / Contact other Plane - These, on the other hand, can tie up loose ends of campaign-spanning arcs, helping the players figure out who's the BBEG and what he wants and how he's gonna do it. But the DM doesn't have to give away the whole story. They can be as cryptic or as leading as they want to be.
Scrying / Clairvoyance / Detect Thoughts - If the NPCs are really engaging, the players will want to keep tabs on them even while they're away. Therefore, learning or preparing this spell signals to the DM that you appreciate their content. The DM won't want to kill off your PC if they're the exclusive liaison to the Prince or the only member of the Thieves' Guild, so keeping your friends close and your enemies closer is a way to keep the DM from Fireballing the lot of you.
Scrying has the advantage of not needing to know where your target is located, but Clairvoyance doesn't have a save, so both have their uses. Detect Thoughts takes it one level deeper. Not only can you peer through an NPC's walls, you can see into their head.
Wish / Dream - These take it to a meta level. With these spells, a player almost steps into the role of the DM, and as a proud DM, you love to see it. Dream lets a player create a temporary reality, and inject one of your NPCs into it, reversing the usual roles of you creating a temporary reality and immersing the PCs into it. Wish allows the player to take it a step further, introducing a permanent change into your reality. You do still have veto power, or the chance to bend their wish around your hard boundaries, but it still encourages the player to flex their creativity.
On the other hand, the DM might not appreciate you springing these spells on them by surprise. Unless they have time to prepare content for them, they might feel flat-footed. Check with the DM first to see if they're okay with you taking the spell and that they're bought in to creating content for you to interact with.
Also detect magic
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I do not believe in plot armoring the PCs (it tends to encourage a hack'n'slay kill first, resurrect the bodies and ask questions later mentality).
Now, that is not to say that inventive spell selection, usage or just general out-side-the-box thinking goes unrewarded.
Just that stupid actions earn stupid (possibly deadly depending on how stupid the action) prizes.
If as a DM, I've backed myself into a corner so that one of these spells would be required to advance the plot, my problems go way beyond not being able to Disintegrate one particular character
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I could see this going the other way - having potentially game breaking abilities might paint a target on your character's back!
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
C'mon, how could political intrigue possibly work without a magical means of communication? My imagination could never devise such a scenario.
Magical items like sending stones would do it, and in some ways make more sense -- 'it must be the wizard sending these messages, the monk has no ability to do so!'
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
I have mixed emotions about the list. The ideal is for the DM to generate the basics of the story, and let the players figure out for themselves where to go, what to do and in what order. Those kinds of spells make the game all too simple. They are all about easy communication and learning things the DM usually doesn't want them to know. They take the surprise out of nearly everything, they make mysteries almost impossible, and they wreck the horror genre almost entirely.
The only way the bad guys have to fight back and avoid having their plots revealed or foiled is to use the same methods on the player characters. Use scrying to keep tabs on them at all times, use magical messages to pass around information, find out the details of the player character's backstories to get leverage to use against them, and so on.
In highly political games of espionage, counter espionage, counter-counter espionage and assassination, it's pretty much may the player with the highest intelligence, and the characters with the highest mental scores against the DM. You end up with a one on one struggle between the most clever player and you as the DM. If you get outsmarted, will you be able to allow the players to win with grace? Few people seem able to manage that. Most people keep the BBEG coming back over and over no matter what, give them an unlimited supply of minions, and enough resources that they could easily rule the world had not the player characters gotten involved.
At it's heart, D&D is a high magic fantasy game that revolves around combat. Roleplaying is something you do while fighting. Exploring is something you do to find things to fight with, and test your mettle against the elements. The rest of it is downtime. The characters normally win in the end, they get the treasure, and move up in levels. A bare minimum of social interaction goes a long way. The only people the characters need to interact with are the ones in control of the plot points needed to make the story happen. It's the same with the places they visit. They don't need to go anywhere unless there's something important in there to find. Shopping in the market is not worth the trouble, that's the whole point of having a Lifestyle cost.
At Tier 4, if you have nothing better to do, that's the time when those political games can work. It's usually better to retire the characters, but some people just can't let go. The stakes can be high enough to matter, the players rule nations and can throw armies against their enemies.
<Insert clever signature here>
If your ability it to one-shot the boss, then you'd be right. That makes hours of the DM's planning useless. If your character dying would nullify half the DM's notebook, that's plot armor, at least a little.
Or... you know, do it like actual people in the real world engage in political intrigue? Who, to the best of my knowledge, have no magic?
:P
Like I said, check with your DM. DMs clearly have polarizing opinions about these spells. Here's one. I for one really like these spells. And most of them give the DM some kind of out, in terms of saves (which the DM might decide the saving throw bonus is +15 for on the fly), "creative" interpretations by the DM, or just outright "no" for non-standard wishes.
As a DM, I love these spells. They allow you to take paths that you haven't thought of in fun and creative ways. And if you haven't roleplayed a cow yet, you're definitely missing a good time lol.
But I feel like many players will only take them if they know the DM they are playing with for some time (and generally if the players themselves are creative and/or experienced), as many DMs have problems with divination or other things that inherently give the players new paths to find answers that are not usually built in the story.
Some DMs prefer to use modify memory and dominate person on the PCs to keep them in the storyline they built, than to have the PCs bypass a whole dungeon by a clever cast of one of those spells. But that is a matter of preference, I guess.
"Clearly"? LOL. Not really, no.
Again, I'm speaking as a DM, and I could not care less if a player has any of these spells (with the obvious exception of wish, but even then I'm not particularly interested in running a campaign with characters of a high enough level to cast it), because none of them would have any impact whatsoever on whether I "go easy" on that player or not. Nor have I seen anyone in this thread spout these "polarizing opinions" you're claiming.
If you want to cast speak with animals and ask a squirrel for a clue, that's a fun RP moment and nothing more, because that squirrel is never going to be the only way you can get a clue.
I honestly find it hilarious that you think a DM would be all, "Oh no, I'd better not kill the ranger, because they're the only one who can speak to animals."
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
You seem kind of upset about this. You can either encourage use of these spells, or not. No one is forcing you. Play the game the way you like.
I think what might have gotten the goat a bit here was the fairly generalising way you wrote the OP. Sort of implies that every DM thinks this way. I have a gentle chuckle at:
...but I can see how some might take umbrage at the idea this is as universal as your OP implies it is. Fairly natural human response to having someone else tell them how they feel. Especially as things like not targeting a player because of future plans is exactly the sort of "rail roading" many DMs pride themselves on never doing.
Then that's on him. First of all, DMs were not the target audience for the OP. It was addressed to players. And it explicitly called out that some DMs would like this and others wouldn't.
Sure, but you did that at the end, after multiple mentions of how much DMs do X or Y, and if players think DMs don't target them for plot reasons, that potentially sets up some very negative game experiences when they find a DM who does target them just as much. The expectation that the DM will give players a pass - will bend the rules to let them live - is actually a very touchy subject, leading to some very bad feelings.
That that I mind! I thought it was a nice post. I had a bit of a chuckle over the wording, but it's all cool. I'm just saying it's not really that unexpected that some folk would react in a stronger manner. You've described a DM style that some other DM's actively pride themselves on avoiding, and implied that's how DM's do it (until the last line). If you'd written this as how *you* do it, and how *some* DM's do it, then I don't think the conversation would have quite gone this way.
/shrug
I think it's great to pride yourself on never fudging roles and never metagaming. I aspire to some of that. But I'm not there yet. Yes, I fudge rolls. Yes, I show favoritism to the players who put more effort into aspects of the game I enjoy.
If a DM can't advance the plot without these spells, they have a lack of imagination. If players can't think of a way for their characters to approach a problem without these specific spells they also have a problem.
These spells can be very useful but aren't the only ways to go about things, and a DM can also find a middle ground where they're allowed to be useful but not solve all of the party's problems.
Also I find that DMs either give the party plot armor or they don't. If a DM is willing to kill off players they'll generally kill a player whenever it fits regardless of who that player is, if they do give plot armor they'll find a way to keep the player from dying. If there's favoritism going on the root of it is probably NOT because one player took sending and the other took sleet storm.
As DM I never give any charactes any plot armor regardless what their abilites or spells are. IE If there is 4 characters in mortal danger and I have to choose one, I use purely dice to determine who to select. Too bad if that charceter was only one that had sending, speak wiht dead, lgends of lore, scrying, etc. If that character dies then rest have to go without those after that (and there is always some ways to go )