D&D 5E (+)What Ubiquitous DnD Tropes Get It Totally Wrong?

[Oofta]

Also, a gymnast has less ability to move external mass than a power lifter or a heavy weight boxer does. Gymnasts are strong, but not in ways that are modeled by dnd's stats using the strength score.

It is a limitation of D&D that dexterity is so wishy-washy. Gymnasts are some of the strongest people around, just not specialized in lifting heavy things or adding muscle for show.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

They might not have built themselves just for weightlifting, but gymnasts are much stronger and able to move much more external mass than the average person.

Okay.

It is a limitation of D&D that dexterity is so wishy-washy. Gymnasts are some of the strongest people around, just not specialized in lifting heavy things or adding muscle for show.

No, it is a strength of the system. Trying to model that at all would be an absolute waste of time with no benefit whatsoever.

 

[Oofta]

No, it is a strength of the system. Trying to model that at all would be an absolute waste of time with no benefit whatsoever.

I'm okay with the simplifications 5E does. Just a personal pet peeve/common trope that all you need to fire a long bow is dexterity and that just because you can in theory hit a target at 300 feet means that (with a feat) you can hit them as easily as if they were standing 10 feet from you.

 

[Mercurius]

How about:

Drow being dark-skinned. A subterranean species would be pale-skinned.

"Races" rather than "Species."

This isn't as much D&D, as I think the rules as written clarify this point, but many even long-time players still think that Hit Points refers to actual body damage rather than a combination of body, fatigue, and just being banged up and bruised. A 20th level character wouldn't be able to sustain 20x the physical damage of a 1st level character.

I've always been irked by the over-simplicity of attack bonus. STR should be a factor, but so should DEX and even INT or WIS. Or maybe the average all four, or the average of the best two, with every weapon having an STR threshold below which a penalty is received (e.g. STR 12 for longsword...you probably need to be above average STR to wield it properly).

 

[Umbran]

Drow being dark-skinned. A subterranean species would be pale-skinned.

Only if you think of them as having evolved underground. The existence of evolution on game worlds is... speculative, at best.

"Races" rather than "Species."

See above - application of real biology to fantasy is speculative.

I mean, one trope is that with all the magic and stuff violating normal biology.. we still try to apply normal biology.

 

[Oofta]

Lots of monsters in D&D have darkvision so black skin actually makes sense. White hair on the other hand ...

Unless of course it's just because "created race" and so on.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean, one trope is that with all the magic and stuff violating normal biology.. we still try to apply normal biology.

Hey! A response that is actually a trope that gets it (it being whatever thing the trope is about) wrong, rather than a pet peeve about dnd mechanics!

 

[Mercurius]

Only if you think of them as having evolved underground. The existence of evolution on game worlds is... speculative, at best.

Let's assume that the drow were dark-skinned before going unground. The "Descent of the Drow" happened in the FR around 11,000 years ago. I would think that, in that length of time, their skin would pale significantly and least be more of shades of gray than black or the sometimes dark gray it is depicted as.

Only if you think of them as having evolved underground. The existence of evo
See above - application of real biology to fantasy is speculative.

I mean, one trope is that with all the magic and stuff violating normal biology.. we still try to apply normal biology.

But yeah, I hear you. In the end, it doesn't matter as it is fantasy, and even "fantasy verisimilitude" doesn't require the application of real-world biology. But it should at least be explainable within the logic of the world. If drow are dark-skinned, why? And if the rulebooks call different species races, why? Now of course considering they can interbreed they aren't entirely different species, but sub-species. "Race" is a dubious form of categorization at best, and I suppose considering its variable definition, it works OK.

 

[Umbran]

Let's assume that the drow were dark-skinned before going unground. The "Descent of the Drow" happened in the FR around 11,000 years ago. I would think that, in that length of time, their skin would pale significantly and least be more of shades of gray than black or the sometimes dark gray it is depicted as.

Well, they are dark-skinned because they were cursed by a god. You think that wears off?

 

[Hussar]

I wasn't sure what they were called but that looks more reasonable. All the double bladed axes in fantasy you see are ridiculously huge.

Ridiculously sized weapons abound in fantasy art. I always thought a warhammer was the size of Mjolnir until I saw one in a museum. Toss in anime art and it gets even more ridiculous.