D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap

[mamba]

Birds fly all the time. Would we say that birds are "not mundane" because they have the gift of flight?

do you consider flight in birds to be a superpower?

 

[Gammadoodler]

This misses the point that mundane/supernatural is entirely relational/contextual.

By your argument, a human going into stasis in a hard vacuum like a water bear would not be supernatural.

It's interesting that you say this because the entire point was exactly that mundane vs. supernatural is relational/contextual.

In D&D the context is not Earth. Most PC races are not human, and the D&D human is still not an Earth human by virtue of, you know, not being on Earth.

 

[mamba]

It's interesting that you say this because the entire point was exactly that mundane vs. supernatural is relational/contextual.

In D&D the context is not Earth. Most PC races are not human, and the D&D human is still not an Earth human by virtue of, you know, not being on Earth.

I disagree, for one if the D&D human were not pretty much identical to an Earth human, they should not be called humans. For another all other species have the same stat range, so are comparable to the D&D human in their abilities.

Which ultimately means they are all comparable to Earth humans in abilities…

Do you think Luke Skywalker etc. are not humans because they can use the Force in that galaxy far, far away?

 

[TwoSix]

They're just convenient game constructs to contain the abilities of an archetype (and also the Fighter) that people want to play out. It's not like Rogue is a job you go to university and fill out a job application for.

Exactly. The one reason I favor class-based systems over pure point-buy is because they give players guidance, and present a strong baseline of what the "default" fiction looks like.

I have plenty of players who prefer to use the "standard" build rules despite knowing I'm very flexible with what I allow. That's reason enough to stick with class systems, even though I make clear the setting isn't bound by them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, that's probably the distinction then. Everyone in my setting, PC and NPC alike, is a special unique snowflake.

The idea that every adventuring humanoid has to use some minor variation of exactly 12(13) power sets is something I've found horrendously off-putting even going back to when I started playing back in the 2e days.

Even as a teenager, I gravitated towards systems like the "custom class builder" in the 2e DMG, and I loved the flexibility in Skills and Powers.

I was thinking of special snowflakes as how important they are to the setting rather than how customized they are. Even with the creation tools you're talking about, every PC is built using the same available options, there are simply more of them. I'm all for more character options, I just think NPCs representing similar characters should be equivalent as far as what they can choose.

 

[Raiztt]

It's interesting that you say this because the entire point was exactly that mundane vs. supernatural is relational/contextual.

In D&D the context is not Earth. Most PC races are not human, and the D&D human is still not an Earth human by virtue of, you know, not being on Earth.

We disagree on a fundamental level. I very much believe that the intent of D&D lore, for virtually every published setting I can think of, is that humans, and basically all the humanoid races, are more-or-less analagous to what we'll call RLH (real life humans), with some minor exceptions with certain races like dwarf and elf being extremely long lived.

To back this up, look at the back drop NPCs and world building. The super vast majority of background characters - ones that don't even have names or get mentioned - are identical to RLHs.

 

[Gammadoodler]

We are talking about D&D here. So the baseline for all Players Character Races is the commoner, with 10s in everything +-2 with a maximum of 20, which is the highest ability score that can be achieved without magic.

That is the context of our discussion.
Of course you can create a Drax race, with a 50 in strength as their baseline, but that would disintegrate the game and doesn't need any discussion.

You are making that the discussion now.

Previously you were talking about Cap's superserum and Geralt's mutant juice and how those are the explanations for their superpowers. And you said you were looking for examples beyond Saitama for characters who were powerful without that external juice.

And I gave you a list.

And it is silly to use existing game mechanics as a required baseline for proposed game mechanics. It is again self-fulfilling.

..What if fighters could jump 50 feet?
..that would be supernatural
..why?
..because the current book says they can only jump x feet.

And no one is saying there is a need to create a Drax race with a strength of 50.

What I am saying is that we have fictional examples of characters who are, or get superhumanly capable without the need for an external power supply.

There is no reason D&D could not emulate this. We don't need radioactive spiders lurking around every corner waiting to grant superhuman capabilities to the lowly muggles.

It's a fantasy world. Muggles can be fantastic too.

 

[TwoSix]

I disagree, for one if the D&D human were not pretty much identical to an Earth human, they should not be called humans. For another all other species have the same stat range, so are comparable to the D&D human in their abilities.

Which ultimately means they are all comparable to Earth humans in abilities…

Do you think Luke Skywalker etc. are not humans because they can use the Force in that galaxy far, far away?

I think that they define what "humanity" is within the context of their fictional universe.

Making comparisons between a fictional universe and the real one doesn't have a lot of utility.

 

[TwoSix]

I was thinking of special snowflakes as how important they are to the setting rather than how customized they are. Even with the creation tools you're talking about, every PC is built using the same available options, there are simply more of them. I'm all for more character options, I just think NPCs representing similar characters should be equivalent as far as what they can choose.

So, to be clear, you would consider my NPC design in violation of your play principles?

 

[Gammadoodler]

I disagree, for one if the D&D human were not pretty much identical to an Earth human, they should not be called humans. For another all other species have the same stat range, so are comparable to the D&D human in their abilities.

Which ultimately means they are all comparable to Earth humans in abilities…

Do you think Luke Skywalker etc. are not humans because they can use the Force in that galaxy far, far away?

This is a great example...

Of course not! Luke is an alien like every other rhing in the Star Wars fiction..it's right there in the crawl and what you wrote.."galaxy far far away"

Let me pose it to you this way. Did the introduction of midichlorians make you giddy that you finally had an explanation for why Luke was able to use force powers despite being just a "human"?

Or had you just always accepted that maybe "humans" were just built a little different a long time ago in a galaxy far far away?