Metagaming.. What counts?

[garhkal]

Personally, I would not allow that. The DMG outlines how scrolls and spellbooks must be made of fine paper and use special ink. Skin isn't going to be able to retain that magical energy since it's a living, changing cellular structure (minerals and electrolytes going in and out, bio-electrical charges in the mitochondria, etc - it's just not stable enough to hold the energy of the spell. And of course, good luck tattooing someone with wyvern blood and arachnid poison as part of the formula!

Damage to a spellbook's pages can render the spell unusable. That should hold the same for skin that gets abraded, cut, bruised, or otherwise damaged during combat. Sweat, grime, blood and other substances that get into the skin during the course of regular adventuring may contaminate the power of the special ink.

If we consider the skin as a scroll, then the spell disappears when cast. So that would mean another tattoo needed as it fades.

H, it's a 6th level spell, that allows them to put some spells (like in a spellbook, not a scroll) on their body, so they don't have to carry the spellbook with them.

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

Oh wow, I never saw that one. Where is it from? What source book I mean?

[Meph]

I had an issue with a bit of meta gaming this week and had a player get really pissed at me because of my ruling. My group encountered an exceptionally large Black Pudding. They had encountered a small Black Pudding at the beginning of this campaign when they were much lower level. Because of their level I told them, after the battle and out of character, that I had ignored their resistance to slashing weapons AND that they split into 2 puddings if hit with a slashing weapon. They never encountered that ability. So fast forward to this week, the Fighter refuses to attack it because he "knows it will split if he slashes it". Now this guy doesn't EVER avoid attacking anything, he jumps right in there. Now why this fighter who is proficient in all weapons doesn't have any other weapons is beyond me, but all he had was his long sword. I explained to him that he knew nothing about it's ability to split but he argued that he did, because I told them about it after the fact last time. It turned into a big argument which ended with ultimately attack it and splitting it. After that I allowed him to understand what happened and avoid attacking it again, but it set the tone for the night. He was pissed off all night after that.

[garhkal]

Oh wow, I never saw that one. Where is it from? What source book I mean?

It's home made..
And i booboooed.. IT's 7th not 6th level..

Kei's Tattoo of Keeping
Alteration School
V/S/M
Touch range
AOE 1 person
Duration Perm
Casting time, 1 turn + level of spell being affixed.

The Wu-Jen Shagui devised this spell as a way to keep his spells with him, without having to keep lugging his spell book around, and thus losing it (had already lost 4 books by 9th level).
When cast, the mage/wu-jen tattoos the spell onto his own (or another person's) body, so unless the body is destroyed, he won't lose the spell.

If cast on himself, it takes up 5 square inches of skin, +1 inch of skin per level of the spell to be inscribed, and Must be one the mage knows that is 6th level or under. While the tattoo is on the caster's body, he never needs worry about not having a spell book to re-memorize the spell, and though a Dispel magic will render the tattoo unusable for this for d4 days, it won't erase the tattoo from the body.

If cast on someone else, ie to allow THEM to keep their spells on their personage, BOTH the recipient and the wu-jen must know the spell, and it takes 4 square inches +1/level. It also limits the spell that can be put on the body to 4th level or under.

Being immolated in a fireball, that one fails their save (immolation means you took at least 50% or more of your HP in damage), or getting hit in melee, has a 10% chance to erase off one tattoo, due to scarification..

The material components for this are; a shot of bamboo soaked in the mage's blood (d6+2hp worth) for 1 full day, and ink worth not less than 400gp PER level of the spells being tattooed. In addition, the ink must be infused with the tears of a virgin (2 drops), a vial of blood from a Tu-Lung dragon, and a pint of giant squid ink.

So one casting of this spell, gets 1 Spell put on your body. As per some sources, over the ENTIRE body, you have 3,100 or so square inches of skin. BUT not including the face, hands, back (a caster can't really reach his own one, can he), butt, scalp (unless bald), and the like, you are generally only getting 1800 square inches worth. So being reasonable, one could have 10 first, 10 second, 10 third and 10 fourth level spells inked, very easily. BUT VERY Costly too..

Thinking on it, the 5 square inches +1 sqin /level may be too small.. I might need to up it to 50, +10/level...

I had an issue with a bit of meta gaming this week and had a player get really pissed at me because of my ruling. My group encountered an exceptionally large Black Pudding. They had encountered a small Black Pudding at the beginning of this campaign when they were much lower level. Because of their level I told them, after the battle and out of character, that I had ignored their resistance to slashing weapons AND that they split into 2 puddings if hit with a slashing weapon. They never encountered that ability. So fast forward to this week, the Fighter refuses to attack it because he "knows it will split if he slashes it". Now this guy doesn't EVER avoid attacking anything, he jumps right in there. Now why this fighter who is proficient in all weapons doesn't have any other weapons is beyond me, but all he had was his long sword. I explained to him that he knew nothing about it's ability to split but he argued that he did, because I told them about it after the fact last time. It turned into a big argument which ended with ultimately attack it and splitting it. After that I allowed him to understand what happened and avoid attacking it again, but it set the tone for the night. He was pissed off all night after that.

That might have been your mistake. Explaining to them OOC what they had encountered after the fact. Some players i know, seem to no matter what, regard anything told OOC to them, as knowledge their "Character acquires".
Other players just hate the DM telling you "You didn't do X to it because of Y" after the fact.

[Meph]

That might have been your mistake. Explaining to them OOC what they had encountered after the fact. Some players i know, seem to no matter what, regard anything told OOC to them, as knowledge their "Character acquires".
Other players just hate the DM telling you "You didn't do X to it because of Y" after the fact.

I disagree here, it's definitely not my mistake. I let them know that I toned the first encounter down because of their level but their character's still would have never known that. Meta gaming is meta gaming...they took knowledge from outside the game and applied it to the game as knowledge their characters would not have known. How is it any different from the player reading the Monster Manual? It's nothing as a DM that you can stop but you don't expect the players to apply that knowledge in game. It's entirely different if they may have encountered something similar before but their characters would have just recognized the Pudding as a larger version of the one they previously encountered.

It was never a scenario of me telling them that they didn't do something, it was simply me telling them that I toned it down to make it challenging but not to kill them. The Fighter arguing with me at the table about it really pissed me off. He wasn't pissed because of the ability, he was pissed because I refused to let him apply knowledge that his character had no way of knowing.

[garhkal]

I disagree here, it's definitely not my mistake. I let them know that I toned the first encounter down because of their level but their character's still would have never known that. Meta gaming is meta gaming...they took knowledge from outside the game and applied it to the game as knowledge their characters would not have known. How is it any different from the player reading the Monster Manual?

Technically its not. BUT had you actually not told them, they'd not have known about it.

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

Meph wrote:

I disagree here, it's definitely not my mistake. I let them know that I toned the first encounter down because of their level but their character's still would have never known that. Meta gaming is meta gaming...they took knowledge from outside the game and applied it to the game as knowledge their characters would not have known. How is it any different from the player reading the Monster Manual? It's nothing as a DM that you can stop but you don't expect the players to apply that knowledge in game. It's entirely different if they may have encountered something similar before but their characters would have just recognized the Pudding as a larger version of the one they previously encountered.

It was never a scenario of me telling them that they didn't do something, it was simply me telling them that I toned it down to make it challenging but not to kill them. The Fighter arguing with me at the table about it really pissed me off. He wasn't pissed because of the ability, he was pissed because I refused to let him apply knowledge that his character had no way of knowing.

Technically, any blow from any weapon splits a black pudding, not just edged weapons. Just an FYI. But I agree. The CHARACTER had no knowledge of the situation. The PLAYER did. Yes, it's a pain in the ass, but it is meta-gaming/cheating to use that player knowledge when the character has no such knowledge. And this part is what shows the player is wrong:

Now this guy doesn't EVER avoid attacking anything, he jumps right in there. Now why this fighter who is proficient in all weapons doesn't have any other weapons is beyond me, but all he had was his long sword.

So his CHARACTER has no reason to NOT attack the pudding and in fact should, if playing in character, jump in and attack.

That all being said, I probably wouldn't have ignored the pudding's ability to split back in the earlier game. The player can now argue that because you ran the monster as not being able to split back then, it should not split now. The CHARACTER'S knowledge tells him that the pudding does not split when hit, due to experience. So he can argue that you're arbitrarily changing monster attributes and that it's not fair because if that's the case, the characters cannot really learn from experience. That's why I try not to do things like that, except in very rare circumstances.

Garhkal wrote:

It's home made..And i booboooed.. IT's 7th not 6th level..

Cool spell, and I LOVE how you made it a wu-jen spell! So appropriate!

I agree, I would up the skin space needed, simply because I wouldn't want a wizard walking around with those many spells on his skin and never needing to worry about losing spell books or scrolls. Overall, I like it.

[JadedDM]

No, Meph is right. Black puddings only split when attacked with slashing or lightning damage.

Split. When a pudding that is Medium or larger is subjected to lightning or slashing damage, it splits into two new puddings if it has at least 10 hit points. Each new pudding has hit points equal to half the original pudding's, rounded down. New puddings are one size smaller than the original pudding.

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

Time for daddy to paddle the young'uns again.

"If chopped or struck, the monster is broken into two or more parts, each able to attack."

- 1E Monster Manual, pg. 10, Black Pudding

"All deadly puddings are immune to acid, cold, poison. Lightning bolts and blows from weapons divide them into smaller puddings, each able to attack exactly as the original pudding."

- 2E Monstrous Compendium, Pudding, Black

"All deadly puddings are immune to acid, cold, poison. Lightning bolts and blows from weapons divide them into smaller puddings, each able to attack exactly as the original pudding."

2E Monster Manual (Hardcover), Pudding, Black

Now I don't know if they changed it in your silly later editions, but they've always been divided by BLOWS of any kind, not just slashing weapons.

[JadedDM]

Meph runs 5E games. Therefore he was clearly referring to the 5E rules for black puddings. If you paid the least bit of attention to what was going on around you, you'd have realized that.

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

He never mentioned it was a 5E game. His preferred editions listed on his profile say 1E and 2E. I assume that as the default then.

[Meph]

He never mentioned it was a 5E game. His preferred editions listed on his profile say 1E and 2E. I assume that as the default then.

My preferred editions are most definitely 1E/2E. My group asked to play 5E so that is what I am begrudgingly running. Not sure what will happen in the future but for now it's 5E.

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

I'd hate to have to run an edition I didn't like. In fact, I personally wouldn't, but I can understand why others might. What I really don't understand is why they changed the black pudding after how many years? It first appeared in 1974 and it's been divided by "blows" ever since, until what...5th edition? So 45 years? Insane.

[garhkal]

That all being said, I probably wouldn't have ignored the pudding's ability to split back in the earlier game. The player can now argue that because you ran the monster as not being able to split back then, it should not split now. The CHARACTER'S knowledge tells him that the pudding does not split when hit, due to experience. So he can argue that you're arbitrarily changing monster attributes and that it's not fair because if that's the case, the characters cannot really learn from experience. That's why I try not to do things like that, except in very rare circumstances.

That's a valid point Hal. Had you noticed afterwars "OOPS i made a mistake by not having it do Z, when it should have", and owned up the next session to making that booboo, that's one thing.
But flat out running it differently just 'to go easy', then changing it up later? Somewhat iffy..

Cool spell, and I LOVE how you made it a wu-jen spell! So appropriate!

I agree, I would up the skin space needed, simply because I wouldn't want a wizard walking around with those many spells on his skin and never needing to worry about losing spell books or scrolls. Overall, I like it.

Copy. Already did so. So its now 50 sq inch +10 sq inch/level for doing it on himself. So doing just 10 second level spells would be 1,400 square inches of skin being tattooed..

[Meph]

That's a valid point Hal. Had you noticed afterwars "OOPS i made a mistake by not having it do Z, when it should have", and owned up the next session to making that booboo, that's one thing.
But flat out running it differently just 'to go easy', then changing it up later? Somewhat iffy..

I don't get this mentality. You're the DM, you can change up anything you want. You don't reskin monsters? You don't have the exceptional goblin taskmaster that might have more hit points or do more damage? It's your game to change as you see fit and you are really doing yourself a disservice if you don't. The original Pudding was much smaller, missing the ability to make up for a short party that week and lower levels. This Black Pudding was a large creature (vs medium last time) had it's full abilities and had 120 hit points. It was clear from the get go that they had seen something like this before but this one appeared to be much more dangerous. I guess we are just going to agree to disagree here. The rest of the table argued my point with him which is why it was such an issue. He got mad because I wouldn't let him use knowledge that his character didn't have, period.