D&D 5E Is 5e Heroic, or SUPER-heroic?

[TheSword]

Themes and style? 20th level PCs are dealing with Armies of demons or undead, across time and alternate realities, and fighting literal Gods for the fate of the world!

How does that differ from the Avengers?

I’ve listed the themes and style that feature in superhero fiction in a later post.

If fighting armies of demons or dueling gods was one of the features of superhero fiction then the 80% of superhero fiction that doesn’t feature these things couldn’t be considered such. That patently isn’t the case.

I say again, you are focusing on power as being the thing that defines whether something make it superheroic. Really all power defines is... well... how powerful something is.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I say again, you are focusing on power as being the thing that defines whether something make it superheroic. Really all power defines is... well... how powerful something is.

That's how the OP is using the term. They're not talking about secret identities, domino masks, skintight costumes, capes, prominently displaying the first letter of your name, costumes based on the American flag, pouches everywhere in the gritty late 80s/early 90s, kid sidekicks, British butlers, being an orphan, trophy rooms, danger rooms, alliteration, epithets, acronymically named organisations, wisecracking during combat, patrolling the city looking for muggers, getting punched into a watertower, weddings being gatecrashed by supervillains, turning to evil because you were hideously disfigured in a laboratory accident, villains that have all the powers of a superhero team, robots that want to eradicate all organic life, radiation giving people superpowers, being more powerful in your own comic book, having a big crossover event every summer or a universal reboot once every ten years.

This is from OP's linked blog article:

In a stroke of lighting, they are reborn - bigger, brighter and more colorful. Sure the 5e fighter still has 2 attacks like a level 4 GLOG fighter, but the 5e fighter does much more damage, can action surge, has 2-3 times the HP.... it's super-heroic!

I think "GLOG" refers to Goblin Laws of Gaming, an OSR game.

 

[jmartkdr2]

That's how the OP is using the term. They're not talking about secret identities, skintight costumes, capes, costumes based on the American flag, kid sidekicks, British butlers, being an orphan, epithets, acronymically named organisations, wisecracking during combat, villains that have all the powers of a superhero team, robots that want to eradicate all organic life, radiation giving people superpowers, being more powerful in your own comic book, having a big crossover event every summer or a universal reboot once every ten years.

This is from OP's linked blog article:


I think "GLOG" refers to Goblin Laws of Gaming, an OSR game.

That definition has too many problems to be useful - remember, the Punisher (a fighter with no magic, normal-human strength, and some plot armor) is a Superhero, so the floor for power is really low. And as many have pointed out, it's a terrible definition, because if anyone as strong as the Punisher is a superhero, then the number of non-superhero characters is vanishingly small if we exclude fiction where the characters fight. Any definition of a superhero that includes Ron Weasley is way too broad. But if it excludes the Punisher, then it's too narrow since it will clash with conventional understanding of the term.

I just re-read the article, and I'm not sure the point other than to say that low-level characters in GLOG are about as strong as low-level characters in 5e, which I'll assume is true, but I'm not sure the point carries over to a DnD forum. I haven't played GLOG, but if it's OSR, then saying the characters in that game are weaker than 5e DnD is a bit of a tautology, isn't it? Isn't lower power for bigger stakes part of the point of OSR?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There are always blurring of boundaries of course. Also something doesn’t have to be exclusive in order for it to be typical of a genre. A genre is usually typified by a range of features, some or all are usually present.

Here are some features usually present in the superhero genre...

• Specific Superhero characters

That means nothing unless you can define what you mean by superhero, otherwise it's just circular. Pretty much all fiction has specific characters.

• A suite of Supervillains that don’t as a general rule die, or at least not for long.

There are plenty of villains in comics that are seen once and never seen again. Conversely, villains who won't stay dead are common in many genres: Blofield, The Master, Palpatine, Vecna...

• Secret identities/dual personality

Very old fashioned these days, what decade are you living in? That went out when RDJ said "I'm Ironman".

• A lack of permanent death

Revivify, Raise Dead, Resurrection, Reincarnation.

Lack of permanent death is very much a feature of D&D (as well as other genres - see: Sherlock Holmes).

Continuity of the same characters across several incarnations/timelines/universes

You mean like D&D players use the same characters in different games?

Cross Overs Superhero stories

Like Jessica Fletcher in Magnum PI?

Borrowing elements from other genres - 20th C Crime into Galactic Sci-fi (where a lot of the confusion stems from)

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Dungeonland, Ravenloft, Eberron, Dark Sun anything Blackmoor etc etc

Borrowing from other genres is standard operating procedure for D&D. I've ripped off everything from Treasure Island to Jurassic Park in the last 12 months alone.

 

[TheSword]

That's how the OP is using the term. They're not talking about secret identities, skintight costumes, capes, costumes based on the American flag, kid sidekicks, British butlers, being an orphan, epithets, acronymically named organisations, wisecracking during combat, turned to evil because you were hideously disfigured in a laboratory accident, villains that have all the powers of a superhero team, robots that want to eradicate all organic life, radiation giving people superpowers, being more powerful in your own comic book, having a big crossover event every summer or a universal reboot once every ten years.

This is from OP's linked blog article:


I think "GLOG" refers to Goblin Laws of Gaming, an OSR game.

If the OP actually means being super human - able to do things that a human could not as opposed to being like a super hero. Then I still think there would be substantial pushback. Even if it didn’t come with all that baggage... there have been several other posters that have equated super hero and made associations with the avengers etc even if the OP didn’t.

Hp, attacks, AC, healing saves etc are all just abstract terms.

HP has never been defined as wounds so description of wolverine like healing falls way off the mark. It could easily be catch your breath, stretch your muscles and have a cup of tea.

Attacks don’t even necessarily represent a single thrust, they are just a series of combat movements over a unit of time.

Therefore using these metrics to claim that a 5th level fighter performs feats no real person could perform is utterly futile.

 

[Coroc]

None of the PCs you quoted from my post have artifacts. And I've already addressed this question on the last page in a different post.

Then I misread, it was quite confusing. Still a question, if you hand out artifacts, do you attach proper curses to them?
And in that I do not mean toy-curses like the artifact grumbling something if you use a different, more optimal weapon for some occasion, I mean debilating, madness inducing obsessive curses, which can derail an adventure or make a PC into an NPC if not dealt with?

 

[Coroc]

If the OP actually means being super human - able to do things that a human could not as opposed to being like a super hero. ....

Ok sorry for the sidethought, but your first sentence brought this to my mind:

also @Flamestrike : If by your definition some PC is a superhero, when he reaches a certain level has certain skills and / or magic equipment, then what about some high level classed NPC in your campaign? Are they all superheroes also, just because they can eventually do the same stuff like the PCs, or do they stay the "Archmage of the city", the "thieves guild guildmaster" etc. ?

 

[Doug McCrae]

That definition has too many problems to be useful - remember, the Punisher (a fighter with no magic, normal-human strength, and some plot armor) is a Superhero, so the floor for power is really low.

Its use has a long tradition in D&D. Gary Gygax used the term "comic book characters" (I think meaning high-powered superheroes rather than, say, Archie or Donald Duck) to talk about very high level D&D in 1976. "D&D is Only as Good as the DM" in Strategic Review Vol II No 2 (1976):

"There are no monsters to challenge the capabilities of 30th level lords, 40th level patriarchs, and so on. Now I know of the games played at CalTech where the rules have been expanded and changed to reflect incredibly high levels, comic book characters and spells, and so on."

 

[Fanaelialae]

What campaign with multiple artifacts? The only campaign I'v ever ran with 'multiple artifacts' has been Age of Worms, and those artifacts (Hand of Vecna, Rod of many parts) are part of the adventure.

Yes, that was the campaign I was referring to.

Most published adventure paths contain an artifact in them (or a set of legendary items or weapons). And most of the published adventures only go to T3, at most.

According the the DMG tables, in a campaign featuring magic items, a party of PCs is expected to come across around 100 items over the journey from 1-20 (presuming you're using the tables as presented in the DMG). 20th level PCs should have a legendary or two, a very rare or rare or two, and a smattering of uncommons.

You dont have to use magic items of course. But 'magic items' are a pretty core part of core DnD since... well 1E.

Using 'default' magic items rules from the DMG here (presuming you're using magic items, which 99 percent of campaigns are).

5e has a suggestion from the devs on how many magic items to hand out, but that's it. It states in no uncertain language that the DM can hand out as much or as little treasure as they choose. That's RAW.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Its use has a long tradition in D&D. Gary Gygax used the term "comic book characters" (I think meaning high-powered superheroes rather than, say, Archie or Donald Duck) to talk about very high level D&D in 1976. "D&D is Only as Good as the DM" in Strategic Review Vol II No 2 (1976):

"There are no monsters to challenge the capabilities of 30th level lords, 40th level patriarchs, and so on. Now I know of the games played at CalTech where the rules have been expanded and changed to reflect incredibly high levels, comic book characters and spells, and so on."

It seems to me he was discussing a high level homebrew that went beyond the scope of the game as designed. Which strongly implies that he saw the RAW game to not be about "comic book characters".