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 )
I haven't played as a player for years and years, and just started a new campaign on the weekend (which is why I am haunting these forums - I am absurdly excited).
Anyway, pretty much the first thing I sent the DM with my character info was that if anyone needs to die, I'm up for it. I know some folk get upset, but damn, a cool death is a worthy end!
As a DM (mostly for teenagers), I don't have plot armour as such... but I do tend to have a few options in a hard fight to help them out if required.
(e.g. a desperate stand outside a church / sanctuary door, with the rogue trying to pick the lock before the rest were overwhelmed went REALLY well - they just made it. But if it had looked more dicey, the level zero priest cowering in the vestry might have found the courage to unlock the door, and if really needed, might have turned out to be lugging a set of prayer beads with Healing Words on 'em. Happily I didn't need any of that, but it's nice to have an out. Wouldn't have stopped 3 death saves, though. If it happens, it happens).
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.
===//===
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.
First, I'll point out that it's obvious you don't enjoy running/playing games with heavy mystery/intrigue elements to begin with. You flat out stated as much. That's fine, play your game your way, but it should also be noted that your input isn't really relevant on this matter because you specifically avoid the entire subject in practice.
Second, and relevant to the subject, is the issue of how spells like the ones being discussed make things easier to solve various mysteries and circumvent DM planning. Removing these kinds of "easy fixes" is why you see so many movies and shows that are set in the eighties or other periods before cell phones and the internet became commonplace. A sending spell is comparable to just calling your ally on their cell phone and warning them of an assassin coming after them so you don't have to rush to get there in time. Speak with animals or speak with dead can be compared to going through somebody's recent social media posts to find out if somebody was threatening them before they were murdered. Instead of factoring these things into the story, writers get lazy and don't want to deal with the extra level of complexity and just say, "Screw it, we can tell the same set in 1985 with less work and also put in a few easy retro-jokes about Reaganomics and how the USSR is still a real thing."
Every DM and their group plays Dungeons and Dragons at least a little bit differently than any given other, but for many players and DMs the "high fantasy" aspect is a major feature of the experience. People want to forget about the real world for a few hours and imagine a world full of wonder, whether that takes the form of a wizard flinging fire and lightning from their fingers and wyvern riding warriors bravely assaulting a dragon's lair or a mystery plot in a Hogwarts-inspired magical academy. Unlike back in "the old days," players now are familiar with things like instantaneous telecommunication and how convenient it is so of course a completely new wizard player is going to read the description for sending and say, "Cool, it lets me send a magic text message." Somebody that watches a lot of modern crime dramas where investigators have ready access to security camera footage are going to quickly figure out they can get similar results from a speak with animals/dead spell.
A good DM plans for those things. Sure, PCs can ask the murder victim who killed them, but the assassin struck from behind, or used a poisoned arrow from range, or they were wearing a mask and all the victim's departed spirit can provide is a vague description of height and build. The target of a plot (or another PC near them) can be alerted by magical communication but the assassins/thieves/etc are using magic to conceal themselves from scrying and normal detection. It's just an extra layer of complexity, and if you're running a game that focuses on mystery and intrigue it gives both players and DMs more tools to work with to make the game more involved and enjoyable. It just takes a bit more effort to do correctly, just like flying a helicopter is more complex than riding a bicycle. So if you're a DM for a group of people that want to metaphorically fly helicopters, you're going to have to come up with something more complex than an obstacle course made for bicycles or they're just going to fly right over it unless you also have a metaphorical storm for them to fly through, maybe with another helicopter to come in and shoot missiles at them or something.
And for plot armor to a specific character with those kinds of abilities, I disagree on that being a good idea for either the DM or players. From the DM's perspective, using the previous analogy, they should make sure there are other options if something happens to the party's only helicopter pilot. The players shouldn't depend on one PC to do all the heavy lifting; it's supposed to be a team based game so everyone should have their own unique skills to bring to any given situation, be that a fight with a dragon, pulling off a heist caper, or solving a murder. That's why there are different classes to begin with, variety is the spice of life and such.
All I'll say is that Identify makes the game less mysterious and speak with animals takes away basically any animal encounter as a combat (as they tend to just speak with them and politley work out a way past!). It's made a low-level campaign set in a forest difficult to make encounters for, as I know that if I put bears/wolves/beasts in the way, the character will talk it out. Not a bad thing, but if I want the world to feel dangerous, I need to work out other things!
All I'll say is that Identify makes the game less mysterious and speak with animals takes away basically any animal encounter as a combat (as they tend to just speak with them and politley work out a way past!). It's made a low-level campaign set in a forest difficult to make encounters for, as I know that if I put bears/wolves/beasts in the way, the character will talk it out. Not a bad thing, but if I want the world to feel dangerous, I need to work out other things!
Identify speeds things up but a character can identify an item over a short rest, so it's not like removing the identify spell would have a huge impact. Identify also doesn't pick up curses.
As for speak with animals, it allows characters to speak with animals. but a that doesn't mean that combat encounters with animals are impossible. Something could be afflicting the animals in the reason driving them to be more hostile than usual. Or the party just might not be able to persuade that bear to back down if the party is trying to travel close to its den. Or those wolves might be too hungry to give up on a meal etc. Speak with animals doesn't automatically make every animal your friend nor does it guarantee success in trying to win them over to not fight you.
I wanted to take a moment to say that I personally do not think that spells are needed to craft well done court espionage & intrigue.
In fact, I’d go so far a to say that any advisor/guardian of the Royal Family would likely have measures in place to prevent or counter the use of many magics around the Royals and upon Royal Properties.
I try to imagine what a figure like Walsingham might have put in place had they lived in a fantasy world.
And for those who may not be familiar with real life plots, intrigues, espionage stories from earlier times, when they didn’t have magic… May I suggest looking up the “Babington Plot” or similar historic cases. They can be very inspiring imho.
All I'll say is that Identify makes the game less mysterious and speak with animals takes away basically any animal encounter as a combat (as they tend to just speak with them and politley work out a way past!). It's made a low-level campaign set in a forest difficult to make encounters for, as I know that if I put bears/wolves/beasts in the way, the character will talk it out. Not a bad thing, but if I want the world to feel dangerous, I need to work out other things!
Speak with Animals does not charm the animal. If it wanted to eat you, it still wants to eat you. You can try to offer it a substitute meal, but most adventurers don't carry that much fresh meat. Even harmless animals aren't guaranteed to help you.
All I'll say is that Identify makes the game less mysterious and speak with animals takes away basically any animal encounter as a combat (as they tend to just speak with them and politley work out a way past!). It's made a low-level campaign set in a forest difficult to make encounters for, as I know that if I put bears/wolves/beasts in the way, the character will talk it out. Not a bad thing, but if I want the world to feel dangerous, I need to work out other things!
Speak with Animals does not charm the animal. If it wanted to eat you, it still wants to eat you. You can try to offer it a substitute meal, but most adventurers don't carry that much fresh meat. Even harmless animals aren't guaranteed to help you.
Yes. Also, animals have very low intelligence and even the spell description states that they are generally limited to communicating vague concepts. A squirrel can communicate that an orc killed an elf, but telling a pack of territorial wolves they should leave you alone is like putting an ice cream cone into the hands of a baby that can barely speak and telling them to not eat it. They're going to eat it, and the wolves are going to attack you. There are no critical successes on skill checks and you'd need something like a 40 to convince those simpleminded wolves that regard every other creature they encounter as food or a threat that you're somehow different. If the party does somehow manage to avoid the combat they still spent that spell slot because the wolves aren't going to wait ten minutes to parley while the druid ritual casts it.
And if you're just throwing random encounters at the party for the heck of it you should either write your games to have a reason for something to provide action (like maybe a villain compelling those animals to be extra aggressive, or intelligent antagonists acting on an actual agenda), or just set it in a cookie cutter dungeon with random monsters and traps in every other room because screw plot we're doing a hack and slash game.
All I'll say is that Identify makes the game less mysterious and speak with animals takes away basically any animal encounter as a combat (as they tend to just speak with them and politley work out a way past!). It's made a low-level campaign set in a forest difficult to make encounters for, as I know that if I put bears/wolves/beasts in the way, the character will talk it out. Not a bad thing, but if I want the world to feel dangerous, I need to work out other things!
If you want the world to feel dangerous, you put stuff in the woods that isn't there in the real world, i.e. not beasts. I think talking through any encounter can be a fun way to resolve it.
My general experience with these spells is that they are ways a lot of my content is circumvented rather than tools I'm relying on them to use. Because if I rely on my players to think of a particular thing, they won't. That's just how it goes. My reactions vary from amused and impressed to mildly annoyed that a good chunk of my prep was for nothing, but I can generally recycle content that isn't used so I don't get too attached.
On the plus side, spells like these can make otherwise mundane tasks seem much more fantastical and empowering to the players. That's a good thing in my book. If you want to run intrigue and mysteries without any magic, there are plenty of systems better designed for that. In D&D, wizards are gonna wizard.
Plot armour nor targets on backs should be a thing when it comes to the PCs. I assume that was a joke, no worries, but that aside I just want my players to be engaged and while 5E offers magical options to many classes it feels kind of silly to accord brownie points to the caster players for taking spells that can be used creatively while the non-casters and particularly the non-casters with few interesting skill proficiencies are sitting right there at the table too.
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My general experience with these spells is that they are ways a lot of my content is circumvented rather than tools I'm relying on them to use. Because if I rely on my players to think of a particular thing, they won't. That's just how it goes.
Well I don't tell players to learn and use these spells. But if they use them once, I can reasonably expect them to use them again, and I can set up plots where at least one of the ways for them to solve it is to use a spell. It won't be the only way.
Plot armour nor targets on backs should be a thing when it comes to the PCs. I assume that was a joke, no worries, but that aside I just want my players to be engaged and while 5E offers magical options to many classes it feels kind of silly to accord brownie points to the caster players for taking spells that can be used creatively while the non-casters and particularly the non-casters with few interesting skill proficiencies are sitting right there at the table too.
Partly a joke, but when it comes down to the decision to fudge or not to fudge, I may be swayed.
Not only casters can get plot armor. That's just the focus of this post. A rogue who's the only trusted contact of the thieves' guild, a noble bard who travels in royal circles, a rich backstory whose characters I weave into my story.
I don't devise ways for my PCs to solve problems, and never assume they'll have a particular spell available. I just create NPCs, places, and actions and then let them do what they want.
They recently used a Circle of Teleportation cast by an NPC to travel somewhere where they had no idea where it would lead. They came out in a dark, 15ft square room, with one exit blocked by a vast stone door (DC25 Athletics to move it). I didn't know how they'd get out of it - I just knew that if the barbarian didn't manage to lift it, they'd figure something imaginative from their collective skillset.
Partly a joke, but when it comes down to the decision to fudge or not to fudge, I may be swayed.
Not only casters can get plot armor. That's just the focus of this post. A rogue who's the only trusted contact of the thieves' guild, a noble bard who travels in royal circles, a rich backstory whose characters I weave into my story.
I'm going to say it shouldn't matter nonetheless. I certainly have favourites, but I don't play favourites. Your table, your call though.
The thing is that casters have it easier, or rather they have a far more versatile arsenal. Doesn't take a rogue to get an in with a thieves' guild, even if a particular set of skills helps. Doesn't take a bard's silver tongue to mingle with the blue bloods either (and bards are spellcasters too), or a fighter to impress a local warlord, or even a ranger to survive in the wilds. But getting around magic for specific purposes, that can be pretty hard to do.
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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.
If that’s possible, the DM needs better notes.
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I haven't played as a player for years and years, and just started a new campaign on the weekend (which is why I am haunting these forums - I am absurdly excited).
Anyway, pretty much the first thing I sent the DM with my character info was that if anyone needs to die, I'm up for it. I know some folk get upset, but damn, a cool death is a worthy end!
As a DM (mostly for teenagers), I don't have plot armour as such... but I do tend to have a few options in a hard fight to help them out if required.
(e.g. a desperate stand outside a church / sanctuary door, with the rogue trying to pick the lock before the rest were overwhelmed went REALLY well - they just made it. But if it had looked more dicey, the level zero priest cowering in the vestry might have found the courage to unlock the door, and if really needed, might have turned out to be lugging a set of prayer beads with Healing Words on 'em. Happily I didn't need any of that, but it's nice to have an out. Wouldn't have stopped 3 death saves, though. If it happens, it happens).
First, I'll point out that it's obvious you don't enjoy running/playing games with heavy mystery/intrigue elements to begin with. You flat out stated as much. That's fine, play your game your way, but it should also be noted that your input isn't really relevant on this matter because you specifically avoid the entire subject in practice.
Second, and relevant to the subject, is the issue of how spells like the ones being discussed make things easier to solve various mysteries and circumvent DM planning. Removing these kinds of "easy fixes" is why you see so many movies and shows that are set in the eighties or other periods before cell phones and the internet became commonplace. A sending spell is comparable to just calling your ally on their cell phone and warning them of an assassin coming after them so you don't have to rush to get there in time. Speak with animals or speak with dead can be compared to going through somebody's recent social media posts to find out if somebody was threatening them before they were murdered. Instead of factoring these things into the story, writers get lazy and don't want to deal with the extra level of complexity and just say, "Screw it, we can tell the same set in 1985 with less work and also put in a few easy retro-jokes about Reaganomics and how the USSR is still a real thing."
Every DM and their group plays Dungeons and Dragons at least a little bit differently than any given other, but for many players and DMs the "high fantasy" aspect is a major feature of the experience. People want to forget about the real world for a few hours and imagine a world full of wonder, whether that takes the form of a wizard flinging fire and lightning from their fingers and wyvern riding warriors bravely assaulting a dragon's lair or a mystery plot in a Hogwarts-inspired magical academy. Unlike back in "the old days," players now are familiar with things like instantaneous telecommunication and how convenient it is so of course a completely new wizard player is going to read the description for sending and say, "Cool, it lets me send a magic text message." Somebody that watches a lot of modern crime dramas where investigators have ready access to security camera footage are going to quickly figure out they can get similar results from a speak with animals/dead spell.
A good DM plans for those things. Sure, PCs can ask the murder victim who killed them, but the assassin struck from behind, or used a poisoned arrow from range, or they were wearing a mask and all the victim's departed spirit can provide is a vague description of height and build. The target of a plot (or another PC near them) can be alerted by magical communication but the assassins/thieves/etc are using magic to conceal themselves from scrying and normal detection. It's just an extra layer of complexity, and if you're running a game that focuses on mystery and intrigue it gives both players and DMs more tools to work with to make the game more involved and enjoyable. It just takes a bit more effort to do correctly, just like flying a helicopter is more complex than riding a bicycle. So if you're a DM for a group of people that want to metaphorically fly helicopters, you're going to have to come up with something more complex than an obstacle course made for bicycles or they're just going to fly right over it unless you also have a metaphorical storm for them to fly through, maybe with another helicopter to come in and shoot missiles at them or something.
And for plot armor to a specific character with those kinds of abilities, I disagree on that being a good idea for either the DM or players. From the DM's perspective, using the previous analogy, they should make sure there are other options if something happens to the party's only helicopter pilot. The players shouldn't depend on one PC to do all the heavy lifting; it's supposed to be a team based game so everyone should have their own unique skills to bring to any given situation, be that a fight with a dragon, pulling off a heist caper, or solving a murder. That's why there are different classes to begin with, variety is the spice of life and such.
All I'll say is that Identify makes the game less mysterious and speak with animals takes away basically any animal encounter as a combat (as they tend to just speak with them and politley work out a way past!). It's made a low-level campaign set in a forest difficult to make encounters for, as I know that if I put bears/wolves/beasts in the way, the character will talk it out. Not a bad thing, but if I want the world to feel dangerous, I need to work out other things!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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Identify speeds things up but a character can identify an item over a short rest, so it's not like removing the identify spell would have a huge impact. Identify also doesn't pick up curses.
As for speak with animals, it allows characters to speak with animals. but a that doesn't mean that combat encounters with animals are impossible. Something could be afflicting the animals in the reason driving them to be more hostile than usual. Or the party just might not be able to persuade that bear to back down if the party is trying to travel close to its den. Or those wolves might be too hungry to give up on a meal etc. Speak with animals doesn't automatically make every animal your friend nor does it guarantee success in trying to win them over to not fight you.
I wanted to take a moment to say that I personally do not think that spells are needed to craft well done court espionage & intrigue.
In fact, I’d go so far a to say that any advisor/guardian of the Royal Family would likely have measures in place to prevent or counter the use of many magics around the Royals and upon Royal Properties.
I try to imagine what a figure like Walsingham might have put in place had they lived in a fantasy world.
And for those who may not be familiar with real life plots, intrigues, espionage stories from earlier times, when they didn’t have magic… May I suggest looking up the “Babington Plot” or similar historic cases. They can be very inspiring imho.
Speak with Animals does not charm the animal. If it wanted to eat you, it still wants to eat you. You can try to offer it a substitute meal, but most adventurers don't carry that much fresh meat. Even harmless animals aren't guaranteed to help you.
Yes. Also, animals have very low intelligence and even the spell description states that they are generally limited to communicating vague concepts. A squirrel can communicate that an orc killed an elf, but telling a pack of territorial wolves they should leave you alone is like putting an ice cream cone into the hands of a baby that can barely speak and telling them to not eat it. They're going to eat it, and the wolves are going to attack you. There are no critical successes on skill checks and you'd need something like a 40 to convince those simpleminded wolves that regard every other creature they encounter as food or a threat that you're somehow different. If the party does somehow manage to avoid the combat they still spent that spell slot because the wolves aren't going to wait ten minutes to parley while the druid ritual casts it.
And if you're just throwing random encounters at the party for the heck of it you should either write your games to have a reason for something to provide action (like maybe a villain compelling those animals to be extra aggressive, or intelligent antagonists acting on an actual agenda), or just set it in a cookie cutter dungeon with random monsters and traps in every other room because screw plot we're doing a hack and slash game.
If you want the world to feel dangerous, you put stuff in the woods that isn't there in the real world, i.e. not beasts. I think talking through any encounter can be a fun way to resolve it.
My general experience with these spells is that they are ways a lot of my content is circumvented rather than tools I'm relying on them to use. Because if I rely on my players to think of a particular thing, they won't. That's just how it goes. My reactions vary from amused and impressed to mildly annoyed that a good chunk of my prep was for nothing, but I can generally recycle content that isn't used so I don't get too attached.
On the plus side, spells like these can make otherwise mundane tasks seem much more fantastical and empowering to the players. That's a good thing in my book. If you want to run intrigue and mysteries without any magic, there are plenty of systems better designed for that. In D&D, wizards are gonna wizard.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Plot armour nor targets on backs should be a thing when it comes to the PCs. I assume that was a joke, no worries, but that aside I just want my players to be engaged and while 5E offers magical options to many classes it feels kind of silly to accord brownie points to the caster players for taking spells that can be used creatively while the non-casters and particularly the non-casters with few interesting skill proficiencies are sitting right there at the table too.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Well I don't tell players to learn and use these spells. But if they use them once, I can reasonably expect them to use them again, and I can set up plots where at least one of the ways for them to solve it is to use a spell. It won't be the only way.
Partly a joke, but when it comes down to the decision to fudge or not to fudge, I may be swayed.
Not only casters can get plot armor. That's just the focus of this post. A rogue who's the only trusted contact of the thieves' guild, a noble bard who travels in royal circles, a rich backstory whose characters I weave into my story.
I don't devise ways for my PCs to solve problems, and never assume they'll have a particular spell available. I just create NPCs, places, and actions and then let them do what they want.
They recently used a Circle of Teleportation cast by an NPC to travel somewhere where they had no idea where it would lead. They came out in a dark, 15ft square room, with one exit blocked by a vast stone door (DC25 Athletics to move it). I didn't know how they'd get out of it - I just knew that if the barbarian didn't manage to lift it, they'd figure something imaginative from their collective skillset.
I'm going to say it shouldn't matter nonetheless. I certainly have favourites, but I don't play favourites. Your table, your call though.
The thing is that casters have it easier, or rather they have a far more versatile arsenal. Doesn't take a rogue to get an in with a thieves' guild, even if a particular set of skills helps. Doesn't take a bard's silver tongue to mingle with the blue bloods either (and bards are spellcasters too), or a fighter to impress a local warlord, or even a ranger to survive in the wilds. But getting around magic for specific purposes, that can be pretty hard to do.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
If that’s possible, the DM needs better notes.