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Amaril
2013-08-23, 06:36 PM
So in my long-running Pathfinder game where I'm playing a wizard, my character just recently hit 5th level, which meant I got to pick my first two 3rd-level spells. For one of them I took fly, because I'm a Transmutation specialist and I always knew I wanted to pick up fly as soon as possible, but I couldn't decide what I wanted for the other one, so I asked my group for recommendations over our website.

The list I gave them of spells I was considering was as follows: dispel magic, summon monster III, deep slumber, hold person, fireball, lightning bolt, haste, or greater magic weapon.

The only person to respond to my question was our DM, who made the following comment: "for next session may I suggest Courage or maybe Protection Vs. Evil...maybe." (With a massive implied :smallwink: face.)

After he said that, I decided to take magic circle against evil. But now what I'm wondering is, does that count as cheating? It's not as if the choice makes no sense in-character (my wizard is very pacifistic and prefers more defensive and enhancement spells), and magic circles are such an iconic part of magic in stories that I think every real wizard should be able to do them, but the fact remains that I never would have taken the spell had my DM not suggested it would be specifically useful for this upcoming session (which he said would be a big night, for some reason). Do you guys think this is okay?

(Please keep in mind, I'm not looking for people to tell me why my spell selection is useless and horribly unoptimized--I understand that completely, and I don't care.)

neonchameleon
2013-08-23, 07:02 PM
If the DM drops thunderous hints that they intend to be taken, taking them doesn't count as cheating.

SowZ
2013-08-23, 07:12 PM
Not at all, fly is a great spell and magic circle against has many uses. For defense against mind controlling enemies and summoned creatures there's little better.

nedz
2013-08-23, 07:44 PM
It's not cheating, but it may be railroading ?

Railroading is a DM vice and as such you would not be to blame, if indeed that is the case.

Of course you may decide you want to play the game in hard mode and choose some other spell instead.

SethoMarkus
2013-08-23, 07:59 PM
I don't really see this as cheating or railroading.

It would be cheating if you were playing a pre-made module that you have already read. Having already read it, you use that knowledge to cherry-pick only spells and skills needed for each challenge.

If would be railroading if the DM specifically told you, "take this, this, and this". As it stands, it seems only like a suggestion- a strong suggestion, but by no means do you need to heed the advice, and there were two spells suggested with only 1 slot available to take. (Now, it may very well develop into railroading, but I don't see any evidence of it just yet...)


To me, this is a perfectly acceptable situation, and it would be completely reasonable to take Magic Circle Against Evil. Some people may claim that it is meta-gaming asking for advice Out of Character, but it isn't as though you are tailoring your spell selection to a specific character or situation that your character wouldn't know about.

SowZ
2013-08-23, 08:02 PM
As long as you don't go too far with it, you can fluff a little bit of meta gaming as intuition. Your character might just get a feeling that he will need this spell soon and that hunch turns up correct.

KillianHawkeye
2013-08-23, 08:32 PM
That is definitely not cheating. At worst, I would call it metagaming, but metagaming is not always a bad thing.

Amaril
2013-08-23, 08:34 PM
I guess I consider metagaming to be basically the same as cheating most of the time. In this case, though, it does make sense in-character, so I don't feel like it's really a problem. Thanks guys :smallsmile:

Jay R
2013-08-23, 08:52 PM
The final authority on whether something is cheating is the DM.

If I give my students a hint on their statistics tests, then the students aren't cheating; they are doing what the instructor expected them to do. For the same reason, if you follow the DM's hints, you're not cheating.

Having said that, don't automatically assume that the DM's hints are intended to help you.

LibraryOgre
2013-08-23, 09:01 PM
I disagree that it is either cheating or railroading. It's a bit metagaming... you are taking magic circle v. evil because you have out-of-game knowledge that it will be immediately helpful. But that out of game knowledge comes from your GM giving you a hint, not you taking a peek at his notes.

But, however, it's also been pointed out that MCvE is an incredibly useful spell... one that most wizards will want to learn at some point, simply because it's so useful. You may have moved it up your acquisition tree from "Eventually" to "Now", but it's not terribly out of character and the DM wants you to have a useful tool.

KillianHawkeye
2013-08-23, 10:24 PM
I guess I consider metagaming to be basically the same as cheating most of the time.

I certainly don't consider them the same thing. To me, cheating involves lying about your dice rolls, lying about your bonuses, using an ability you don't have, intentionally misusing one of your abilities to do more than what it's intended to be capable of, taking too many actions, or intentionally misapplying a rule for your own (or your team's) advantage.

By comparison, metagaming is merely using player knowledge to affect your in-game character's choices. This can be either good or bad depending your intentions and how much you do it. There are certainly times when I've wished I didn't know something OOC, like when the DM let slip a clue about a mystery in the adventure that would really change the way my character viewed the situation, but I can't act on it because it's out-of-character knowledge.


Having said that, don't automatically assume that the DM's hints are intended to help you.

Yeah, that might me something you have to worry about depending on your DM. :smallamused:

Killer Angel
2013-08-24, 02:55 AM
The final authority on whether something is cheating is the DM.

If I give my students a hint on their statistics tests, then the students aren't cheating; they are doing what the instructor expected them to do. For the same reason, if you follow the DM's hints, you're not cheating.

Pretty much this.
It's up to you, to follow DM's hints, you could as well pick haste.

nedz
2013-08-24, 05:22 AM
I said it might be railroading, because the DM has effectively said "Take this spell", he's just being subtle about it. It is hard to second guess someone you have never met though.

BWR
2013-08-24, 07:31 AM
It's not illegal if the president does it.
In short, this isn't cheating. He is telling you, between the lines, that certain mechanics will be more useful than others.
The leader of the game telling you something and meaning it is never cheating, Had the DM hinted you should take MCaE then never throw anything that it helps against at you, that would be cheating.
Helping you play the game he has planned and helping the party not get screwed is just ensuring that everyone will have fun.

SinsI
2013-08-24, 07:36 AM
Buy a wand of it instead.

Calmar
2013-08-24, 09:48 AM
I agree with SinsI. Pick one of your initial spells and a wand, or even just a scroll of protection from evil.

Amaril
2013-08-24, 10:19 AM
I agree with SinsI. Pick one of your initial spells and a wand, or even just a scroll of protection from evil.

Unfortunately, magic items have so far been alarmingly rare in this setting, and before any of us can learn to make them, we have to justify gaining that knowledge in-character. It's really become somewhat frustrating never finding anything good :smallannoyed:

GungHo
2013-08-26, 08:58 AM
I wouldn't worry too much about it. You're free to ignore his advice. He's just saying that it may be useful.

Icewraith
2013-08-26, 12:24 PM
It would have been better if the DM had given an in-game hint instead of an out-of-game recommendation.

For example, the party leveled up, I was the only spellcaster, there were some hints in the game that we would be facing trolls soon. Instead of taking whatever it was I was planning to take I grabbed Scorching Ray instead and it saved the party.

Felhammer
2013-08-26, 12:27 PM
magic circle against evil is really good, it's not like you are picking a really weird spell. To be honest, I would just pick what seems like the most fun. You aren't a Sorcerer, so you can pick a few bad spells as you level up because you can always add new ones to your repertoire later on.

Segev
2013-08-26, 04:47 PM
Chiming in: it's not cheating. It's metagaming by the strict denotation, but it's metagaming with the complicity of the DM, which is almost always good as long as there's a healthy DM/party relationship. The goal of a game is for everybody to have fun; if the DM is hinting something, it's because he believes it will enhance your fun to be useful in this way. Or maybe it frees him up to use something he really wants to use but was afraid your party would be overwhelmed by without it. Or maybe it creates a defense that makes using something and having it retreat viable.

As an occasional DM, I can think of numerous reasons I might drop such a heavy-handed OOC hint. All of them amount to wanting the game to go well, while not trying to command people how to build their characters.

If the DM wants you to not have this clue, he won't tell you what spell to pick.

So no; it's not cheating. And it's the best kind of metagaming.

danatblair
2013-08-26, 06:08 PM
I have been in games where simply not having a resource took a fight from difficult to impossible. So, I would not consider it cheating at all. The DM is hinting that something MIGHT show up that is all bad and nasty.

If he knows the party has some chance at being prepared, then he can perhaps unleash a bit more on other fronts. I know that if I were going to toss an outsider, for example, I'd be concerned if the party had no way of dealing with it (in 3.0 damage reduction I did this once, and almost killed a party because i overlooked some of the rules for the monster). If I know the party has a chance to fight off some of the worst stuff, then I can use all the abilities (that I remember to think of when actually running it) to full effect without feeling guilty. With any luck, the encounter would be tough but the payers would feel like they were prepared and awesome not blindsided and wondering how badly I fudged to avoid tpk due to my own errors.

seriously, ignoring all damage unless done by a +3 weapon in 3.0 is murder on a stick. Factor in at will spell like abilities and outsiders can be unstoppable in that rule set if you lack a few key items. Have dealt this out and recieved it. In both cases the DM did it by accident.

Telok
2013-08-26, 11:36 PM
I wish my players took hints as well as you did. They're currently in the lair of a lich and just the inital defenses of spawn making undead have been chewing them up. Since three of the four deaths were been at the hands of a giant level draining octopus in a black lake it's baffled me that they keep going back in the water. But a friendly NPC recently provided them with a caster level 15 scroll of two Grease (+10 vs grapple), two Magic Circle vs Evil (+2 ac & saves), and two Death Ward (immune to level drain).

They went back in the water again.
Without using the scroll.
Two more deaths.

Amaril
2013-08-26, 11:43 PM
I wish my players took hints as well as you did. They're currently in the lair of a lich and just the inital defenses of spawn making undead have been chewing them up. Since three of the four deaths were been at the hands of a giant level draining octopus in a black lake it's baffled me that they keep going back in the water. But a friendly NPC recently provided them with a caster level 15 scroll of two Grease (+10 vs grapple), two Magic Circle vs Evil (+2 ac & saves), and two Death Ward (immune to level drain).

They went back in the water again.
Without using the scroll.
Two more deaths.

Wow, those are some dumb players you've got there...but thanks, I guess :smallsmile: Our group is pretty awesome in general, the only major problem I can think of being the massive OP-ness of our rogue and monk (yes, I know, and I swear it's true).

The spell ended up being a lot less helpful than I'd hoped, though--we never actually fought anything evil that whole session. The only combat encounter we had was with a treant and a giant Venus fly trap that had gone berserk after they were attacked by a new villain who just got introduced. I did get to try out my new fly spell, and it did help me distract the treant from our severely injured fighter and monk for a couple rounds, but it also led to me getting smacked twenty feet through the air with an uprooted tree trunk, losing 27 of my 28 hit points, sustaining a major concussion, and having to burn my last Hero Point on a +8 bonus to my massive damage death save.

I'm hoping it'll be useful later on, since I'd hate to think my DM was just trolling me.

Telok
2013-08-27, 03:17 PM
GMs usually know what will likely happen several sessions in advance. You may soon find an evil summoner who becomes a returning enemy or find an abandoned temple infested with ghouls. Just going one session without using a spell isn't an indication of the spell's utility.

As for the tree stump, it just means that you were an effective distraction. Be glad your DM doesn't do what I did and re-feat as many of his monsters as possible with Awesome Blow. I got to have giants play hockey with a monk-puck.

AttilaTheGeek
2013-08-31, 10:06 PM
My general rule is that if you have to ask whether it counts as cheating, it does. However, in this case, it's a warning from the GM and should be heeded.