As a DM am I required to tell a player if the attack they just did didn't cause damage? For example, in my campaign last week the party was up against an Iron Golem, which is immune to several types of damage including Psychic damage. One of my players is playing a Warlock with the ability to spend their bonus action to do 4 points of Psychic damage with no save or attack roll. Since my Iron Golem is completely immune I didn't reduce the hit points and didn't say anything to the player. After about 5 rounds he finally noticed that I didn't take any hit points off of the monster and he asked so that was when I told him that it is immune to Psychic damage. Well he got super pissed and started arguing with me that I have to tell him that it wasn't doing any damage because "his character would be able to tell that it wasn't being Psychically damaged."
On a side note this player Metagames, a lot, and will often know everything about a monster and blurt it out to the rest of party that may not have known, and for once he didn't have a monsters stat block memorized and it was actually a little fun to let him keep burning his bonus actions.
Depending on what is being done, what kind of attack or spell, I'd give a description that would insinuate resistance or immunity, such as "you feel your axe bite into thick skin, but not as deeply as you expected," or "the burst of flame spreads across the creatures frame and dissipates, yet its scales do not appear scorched."
Psionic abilities might be a tough one though, since the damage may be internal, mind-related. That said, as a DM I do somewhat agree with his argument that the character would know. I wouldn't argue that this is universally true, but each of these PCs are experienced combatants familiar with their abilities. While they may or may not be familiar with the creatures they encounter, they would at least have some expectation as to how their abilities should affect it.
I could see tying this awareness to their perceptiveness, whether rolled or passive, as a middle ground. I can understand being frustrated about metagaming. I have a player with a lot of in-game knowledge from previous editions, and will sometimes blurt something out. Fortunately, it's always been accidental, and he'll immediately follow up with a "wait, but my character has no idea."
Just a reminder though, that DMing doesn't have to be in opposition to the players, but rather both working in concert to create a game that's enjoyable all at the table.
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As a DM am I required to tell a player if the attack they just did didn't cause damage? For example, in my campaign last week the party was up against an Iron Golem, which is immune to several types of damage including Psychic damage. One of my players is playing a Warlock with the ability to spend their bonus action to do 4 points of Psychic damage with no save or attack roll. Since my Iron Golem is completely immune I didn't reduce the hit points and didn't say anything to the player. After about 5 rounds he finally noticed that I didn't take any hit points off of the monster and he asked so that was when I told him that it is immune to Psychic damage. Well he got super pissed and started arguing with me that I have to tell him that it wasn't doing any damage because "his character would be able to tell that it wasn't being Psychically damaged."
On a side note this player Metagames, a lot, and will often know everything about a monster and blurt it out to the rest of party that may not have known, and for once he didn't have a monsters stat block memorized and it was actually a little fun to let him keep burning his bonus actions.
I don't think there are any rules one way or another, but most DMs drop hints.
Depending on what is being done, what kind of attack or spell, I'd give a description that would insinuate resistance or immunity, such as "you feel your axe bite into thick skin, but not as deeply as you expected," or "the burst of flame spreads across the creatures frame and dissipates, yet its scales do not appear scorched."
Psionic abilities might be a tough one though, since the damage may be internal, mind-related. That said, as a DM I do somewhat agree with his argument that the character would know. I wouldn't argue that this is universally true, but each of these PCs are experienced combatants familiar with their abilities. While they may or may not be familiar with the creatures they encounter, they would at least have some expectation as to how their abilities should affect it.
I could see tying this awareness to their perceptiveness, whether rolled or passive, as a middle ground. I can understand being frustrated about metagaming. I have a player with a lot of in-game knowledge from previous editions, and will sometimes blurt something out. Fortunately, it's always been accidental, and he'll immediately follow up with a "wait, but my character has no idea."
Just a reminder though, that DMing doesn't have to be in opposition to the players, but rather both working in concert to create a game that's enjoyable all at the table.