Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 4216361" data-attributes="member: 1165">I've read a lot of novels like this, and become disenchanted by a lot of them. (Ironically, some match DnD in that the young nobleman becomes a badass swordsman in only a years' time. And then there's the young love stuff - can't the hero be 30 years old, happily married, and not have his significant other killed off?)I get you. Well, I think I do.One of the things I noticed in fantasy is no one can do magical combat well. (DnD novels tend to be worse than other novels in this regard, but pretty much any novel does this poorly.) For instance, in Warcraft novels, which has many authors, every main character mage (or other kind of spellcaster) has one of the two following traits:1) They're weak. They can cast three spells and then they're tapped out. Sometimes the spells are powerful (if the character is experienced), but they tap out so fast they go entire chapters doing nothing but dispensing advice. If that. (Remind you of 1st-level DnD mages?)2) They're powerful. One spell wipes out a legion of heroes. (And the spells rarely resemble what they can do in-game, but that's not relevant to this discussion.)Even the Dreaming Dark trilogy of DnD novels didn't have a main character mage. Just an artificer who multi-classed.I swear, I would like to see a spell like Chain Lightning (but maybe a bit weaker) cast in one novel. Just. Once. Something moderately powerful that won't totally overwhelm what the other heroes are capable of, and can be used fairly frequently.IMO, apprentices shouldn't adventure. Indeed, most capable mages still won't adventure. There's nothing wrong with Lotrino the 7th-level research mage whose physical stats are all 10 or lower and whose only combat spells are Mage Armor and Invisibility ... so long as he's not getting in over his head by adventuring.That might be a good idea. I suspect WotC did market research and found very few people liked playing 1st-level mages in 3.x, so they wrote the rules to satisfy the larger audience.Three goblins could almost kill you in 4e, as long as they're not minions. Goblins can even be badasses, even in 3.x. (My own party was nearly wiped out by kobolds, at 8th-level. Of course, they were rogues and one sorcerer with Lightning Bolt. We ran screaming! Yes, the kobolds really did kick our arses. And no, we never found out what level they were, either.) But that's just my experiences, and just what makes me happy.</blockquote>

Verification