D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Micah Sweet]

If we want a superhuman thing that D&D humans can pull off, a level 1 Rogue or Fighter can grapple a Rhinoceros in place against its will, and even drag it around. Need a bit of luck, but it's definitely possible, even for the purely non-magical classes.

Which quite frankly always seemed ridiculous to me at best, and a deliberate mangling of the narrative at worst. Of course, if that's what you want out of D&D, well technically you have it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’m really confused. No one is talking about level up.

I did, in the post to which you responded.

 

[FrogReaver]

I did, in the post to which you responded.

Okay, No one but you. My response to that post certainly wasn’t about level up either. Maybe I could have made that more clear?

 

[James Gasik]

I think your going to have to elaborate on what you mean by ‘not special’ because I don’t think you are meaning that term in the same way as those that use it to describe their playstyle.


Strong disagree here as well. Believing the PCs are special doesn’t imply the PCs are magical or superhuman.

That’s never been what’s meant by calling them ‘not special’.

Whether PCs are exceptions has no bearing on their magicalness.

Guess level 1 wizards have always broke that mold, eh? Not so! Special was always relative to the fictional world. Are you the only level 1 wizard or are there others. That’s what special/not special meant.

I think your going to have to elaborate on what you mean by ‘not special’ because I don’t think you are meaning that term in the same way as those that use it to describe their playstyle.


Strong disagree here as well. Believing the PCs are special doesn’t imply the PCs are magical or superhuman.

That’s never been what’s meant by calling them ‘not special’.

Whether PCs are exceptions has no bearing on their magicalness.

Guess level 1 wizards have always broke that mold, eh? Not so! Special was always relative to the fictional world. Are you the only level 1 wizard or are there others. That’s what special/not special meant.

Ok, well that's on me then, I never really understood what people meant when they say "PC's aren't special" (obviously), because it seemed to fly in the face of what I could grok from the reality of the game itself.

Still though. Player characters nearly always have crazy abilities. You'd think that'd be called out in universe somewhere.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you play a game where you're fighting Orcus, you might need to be a Beowulf or Cu Chulainn. Or have sufficient magical backup (and perhaps an artifact) to do so. Or at least, for it to be believable to do so. But I feel that D&D is meant to be played with fun > verisimilitude, so maybe you can have an adventuring party of Legolas, Dr. Strange, Superman, and John McLane fighting Elder Things and it works just fine!

Modern D&D certainly seems to have that assumption anyway.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Seems perfectly fine to me. In my Artra setting humans are not quite so wild, but certainly commonly exhibit phenotypes that do not exist on Earth or at least are super rare here. And this is a setting where different humanoid species cannot cross-breed. On one in which they could there would be even more variation.

And about calling them humans, couple of points. The current humans on Erath are not only humans that have existed. Even within homo sapiens there were "ethnicities" that currently no longer exist. Prehistoric population with dark skin and blue eyes, etc. And human can be seen as wider concept than that, it can mean whole genus homo, not just sapiens. So neanderthals were humans. And of course in fantasy we could easily imagine other variations. I like how in Final Fantasy they tend to call human equivalents "hume" or "hyur" etc. I think this helps to communicate that whilst these people are human-like, they're not exactly out modern day Earth humans.

And yet we can't possibly mention that in the books?

 

[James Gasik]

Which quite frankly always seemed ridiculous to me at best, and a deliberate mangling of the narrative at worst. Of course, if that's what you want out of D&D, well technically you have it.

Yeah, see, in a previous post I mentioned that some things are just abstractions to make the game go and probably shouldn't be used as proof of the fantastical.

Now something like this? Yeah, that's the kind of proof I'm talking about.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Agreed. That thought had run in my head during this conversation and I think it would be appropriate here too. It goes back to the idea that if they aren't going to obey by the assumptions of what a human can do, call them something else.

The only Final Fantasy game I ever played was the first one, and I finished it.

 

[James Gasik]

Modern D&D certainly seems to have that assumption anyway.

Why do you say modern? All my AD&D stuff reflects that just as well. Or did I not go from a level 1 schlub in the Village of Hommlet to eventually facing the Demon Princess of Fungi in the same adventure? I'm old, I don't remember stuff so good always.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think that's a bit more than is necessary; most people are using "human" to refer to their appearance or concept, not their actual capabilities.

No one says Harry Potter isn't a human, even though he has capabilities that are impossible for an actual Earth human.

Perhaps they should. They at least define magic as a trait some but not all humans possess.