D&D General Why the resistance to D&D being a game?

[Gammadoodler]

Are you fine with the martials doing gonzo things? (More spiderman and above than black widow and below?)



It feels like the rules do for the wizard? (They studied magic instead of baking). Same for the bard.

Fair enough in the others. I note you left out Warlock.



Fair enough!

Yes, I'd be fine with martials doing gonzo stuff. Not sure what my specific line is, but for generic Marvel comparisons, I'd expect to have D&D Hulks as the martial mirrors to the D&D Dr. Stranges (at high levels ar least). What that means in terms of actual D&D powers I'd leave to others.

To be clearer with respect to wizards and bards...

Let's say you have a thief rogue with expertise in arcana, and a 6-Int wizard. The rogue probably knows more about magic than the wizard right? But they can't cast spells and the wizard can..

..why?

Same for bards. Some performers can do magic and others can't, and there's no inherent tie to any particular skill or ability.

Tbh, I forgot about the warlock entirely (almost forgot the druid), but some similar gaps remain. For example, do all folks who make a deal with fiend get warlock powers, or did the PC do something special, or is the PC special?

Who cares, the player chose a fiend warlock patron, they have fiend warlock powers.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I certainly agree with that. My question I guess is why we need a mundane option if the game involves...

'Supernatural' only just started getting used. They used to insist it had to be magical and that magic=fantastic=supernatural.

 

[Gammadoodler]

For all the folks quoting Gygax as not simulating the world at all... he certainly seems to have used it as guidelines in places.

And, it was at the time his rule book to roughly define the default genre of the game in, wasn't it?

You are of course free to let people regularly survive slamming to the concrete from a few miles up in a powerdive with no magic. I'm guessing that would still be a minority choice, but I've seen some anime where it would be expected - so I would not be surprised to be wrong.

To me, surviving the fall is just no more inherently unrealistic than surviving the other hazards you'd expect hp to protect you from.

At a certain level the physics of getting hit by a two-ton thrown boulder aren't that different from falling and hitting the ground.

Thinking it's obvious that one event would obviously bypass hp and cause instant death while the other wouldn't just seems kind of silly.

 

[Cadence]

'Supernatural' only just started getting used. They used to insist it had to be magical and that magic=fantastic=supernatural.

Is supernatural or preternatural or otherwise not the usual natural ok?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Is supernatural or preternatural or otherwise not the usual natural ok?

Not when it's a normal thing normal people in the setting do. It's natural to them. Like we talk about James Bond and Die Hard -- they're not supernatural relative to their universes; on one is shocked they did the things they do, not even while being a wiry Englishman or a slightly doughy cop.

And especially not when it's a thing normal people on normal Earth do and they just don't realize or accept it. Like taunts, or wearing plater armor without being a clanking oaf.

 

[Cadence]

To me, surviving the fall is just no more inherently unrealistic than surviving the other hazards you'd expect hp to protect you from.

At a certain level the physics of getting hit by a two-ton thrown boulder aren't that different from falling and hitting the ground.

Thinking it's obvious that one event would obviously bypass hp and cause instant death while the other wouldn't just seems kind of silly.

It feels like it's pretty hard to dodge the ground. And if you do, I believe Hitchhikers Guide says you're flying.

I will agree that a direct hit by a fast travelling 2-ton boulder also feels like it should be lethal to an unprotected mere mortal, no matter how Conan-esque they are. Is there a mechanic that has the boulder hit in that way and not, say, just go grazing (relatively) gently past then?

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm fine with humans being more realistic in both directions. All it would take is a little research before you design. It can and has been done by people who aren't WotC.

I’m not sure what you have in mind here, but if you have in mind “Fighters can defeat lions 1v1 in martial combat with their bare hands,” then the only feasible answer is “fighters must become superhuman in at least the ways lions are superhuman.”

Everything about lions makes them not just marginally more capable than us in physical combat, but truly staggeringly so. Beyond strength, burst explosiveness in every direction, top speed:

* Their reaction speed to visual stimuli is like 3-4 times faster than ours.

* Their epidermis makes them much more durable, more resistant to catastrophic injury.

* Their spines have freakish flexion that gives them body control and mobility that we can’t come close to mustering.

* They play and train, cradle to grave, for martial arts to develop and adapt techniques to engage, disable, and disengage large varieties of prey. They’re like kids and Muay Thai in Thailand.


They’re so beyond humans that the conversation requires a complete compartmentalization to even have it. The kind of compartmentalization that just arbitrarily excuses D&D’s Gamist, genre soup with these strange incoherencies. The only “happy medium to resolve these incoherencies means “blatant superhero.” We aren’t talking about someone who might beat 1 lion in 10. THAT individual would be a superhero. We’re talking about someone who lines up lions like bowling pins and flushes strike after strike after strike. Wash/rinse/repeat. Vegas takes the D&D Fighter vs Lion odds off the table because it kills the house.

If that D&D Fighter…when compared to a lion…isn’t significantly more explosive and durable, with significantly more trunk flexion, balance, proprioception, and reaction time, and with a collection of answers born from a cradle to grave regime of training?

Well…that foundational piece of the D&D puzzle (the Fighter’s mysterious physical prowess) is a killshot to any pretense to realism.

 

[Cadence]

Not when it's a normal thing normal people in the setting do. It's natural to them. Like we talk about James Bond and Die Hard -- they're not supernatural relative to their universes; on one is shocked they did the things they do, not even while being a wiry Englishman or a slightly doughy cop.

As long as the world is set up where that is what normal people do that feels hard to argue with and should be fine as long as everyone in the game is on the same page.

If your campaigns normal people are more run of the mill Asgardian or Eternal than our earth human, well so be it. (Well, maybe not in worlds with Hela and Thanks respectively, that sounds less fun).

 

[Gammadoodler]

It feels like it's pretty hard to dodge the ground. And if you do, I believe Hitchhikers Guide says you're flying.

I will agree that a direct hit by a fast travelling 2-ton boulder also feels like it should be lethal to an unprotected mere mortal, no matter how Conan-esque they are. Is there a mechanic that has the boulder hit in that way and not, say, just go grazing (relatively) gently past then?

Ennhh. You roll just right, hit a soft bit of ground, catch a bit of a ledge on the way, etc.

Same sort of "near-miss"/"glancing blow" type hp ablation you might apply for other hazards.

Not sure what you're looking for in the boulder mechanic?

In either case, the boulder was only intended to be an example of one of the many earth-deadly hazards we might expect hp to protect PCs from.

 

[Vaalingrade]

At this juncture I'd like to remind everyone that people have survived skydiving accidents.