D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Gammadoodler]

Then normal means nothing. Trees exploding into fireballs. Cows are violent carnivores. Dogs speak common and cats can fly. Fantasy means no rules. Anything can happen. The sky is purple. My sister has fifteen eyes. You can't tell me what isn't normal!

I'd rather every fighter be born with the blood of Gods than have normal be meaningless.

Kinda yeah. It at least means that the only virtue achieved by resemblance to real-world normal is convenience.

Fortunately, though fantasy may mean no rules, game mechanics are rules.

And the PHB contains the descriptions of the game mechanics for PCs. So you can be confident that the limitations for fantasy creature PCs, mundane, magical, or otherwise, will be covered by the game mechanics described in the PHB, whatever those mechanics may be.

Further because the PHB is a player-facing document, you can be confident that players will be aware of their characters' limitations, so there is no incremental burden on the DM to highlight such things.

 

[Maxperson]

Barbarian rage does claim to bestow supernatural strength and resilience.

Where does it say that?

 

[FrogReaver]

Where does it say that?

Primal Instinct subheader under Barbarian class. 2nd paragraph. 2nd sentence.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I don’t find this solid logic because there’s a huge middle ground. It doesn’t have to be nothing or everything.

It works fine when you have very little mechanical differentiation between fighters. From that perspective John McClain and Hercules look similar enough. Maybe one is higher level or has higher str, but mostly the same in their capabilities from a high level perspective.

Neither of them really offer the kind of supernatural abilities people today say fighters need.

Which segways into a good point. When people say they want supernatural fighters they don’t want Hercules, they usually mean more fantastic than Hercules, something like over the top anime heroes and their abilities.

Enhh. Hercules did bearhug Death once, beat at least one god in a wrestling match, shouldered the heavens temporarily, and diverted at least one river single-handedly.

Not sure if any of these are likely to be D&D relevant, but I think they're similarly over the top vs some of the anime abilities people might desire.

Edit: and my fighter wishlist would go
1. Greater on-tap lethality. If my progression goes from killing 2 ogres per turn at level 10, I expect to be killing double or more than that per turn by level 20 (currently I think it goes from maybe 2 at 10 to definitely 2 at 20)

2. Imposing conditions - it's a combat class, it should have greater access to inflict debilitating combat injuries.

3. Obstacle navigation - walls, pits, elevation, and distance should all see a reduction in effectiveness as obstacles over the course of leveling.

And of all these, the only one that might even sort of extend beyond Hercules is the obstacle navigation..and as mentioned earlier, that guy diverted a river.

 

[Remathilis]

That's the worst play. The safe play is to let each table sort it out like has happened since the game's inception. That way folks who want purely mundane fighters, skill rogues, etc. can have them. We shouldn't take the very few mundane classes away from a significant group of people who likes to play them.

But they don't WANT purely mundane fighters. They want amazingly magical but don't say magic fighters. They want Superman's abilities and Batman's origins. They want all the benefits of spellcasting and none of the finger-waggiling limitations.

So don't tell me you want John McClain or Boromir. You want Wolverine and Hercules wearing John McClain and Boromir's clothes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Fair enough.

I, personally, cannot imagine a good reason for there to be rigorously proscriptive worldbuilding elements in the player-facing rules document.

If DMs build worlds where spells come from friendly spirits rather than the weave, are they cheating? If Humans are not a Common race, does the game fall apart? If Battlemaster maneuvers are achieved through psychic manipulations, or Rage through the channeling of primal forces, does anything change about how the game runs?

DMs can build worlds however they like, but I prefer that a game book choose a lane in regards to how things work and what the world is like. That way you have a baseline from which to deviate. Clearly WotC felt the same way to some degree, or they wouldn't have decided that the Weave ( a clear import from the Realms) was the source of magic for all D&D worlds. Not a decision I agree with, but I respect picking a lane there.

D&D is not a toolkit, not really. It has a variety of setting assumptions, from the race descriptions right down to the spells named after specific wizards. D&D rules are designed to create a D&D setting. All I'm asking is that they extend that idea further than the current edition does, or admit the inconsistencies of the current model.

I would also love to see some admission of the current model's inconsistencies from my peers, at least to some degree.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Wizardry is skill
Monk Martial Arts are a skill.

Why would simply being a honed skill mean that Fighters and Rogues are not supposed to be supernatural? There is nothing that states that skills cannot be honed to a supernatural edge.

Monks harness a supernatural energy called chi. Its right there in the class description.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Wizardry is skill
Monk Martial Arts are a skill.

Why would simply being a honed skill mean that Fighters and Rogues are not supposed to be supernatural? There is nothing that states that skills cannot be honed to a supernatural edge.

There's nothing in the description of either class that says they can.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, they can flow from one to another, it can work like that if you want. And I do. It's like wuxia or many myths. Mighty martial heroes simply can learn to do stuff that is impossible in the real life.

And that makes then supernatural.

 

[Gammadoodler]

DMs can build worlds however they like, but I prefer that a game book choose a lane in regards to how things work and what the world is like. That way you have a baseline from which to deviate. Clearly WotC felt the same way to some degree, or they wouldn't have decided that the Weave ( a clear import from the Realms) was the source of magic for all D&D worlds. Not a decision I agree with, but I respect picking a lane there.

D&D is not a toolkit, not really. It has a variety of setting assumptions, from the race descriptions right down to the spells named after specific wizards. D&D rules are designed to create a D&D setting. All I'm asking is that they extend that idea further than the current edition does, or admit the inconsistencies of the current model.

I would also love to see some admission of the current model's inconsistencies from my peers, at least to some degree.

I mean, I'd admit that it is inconsistent, though I'd prefer it go the opposite direction vs. what you are looking for.