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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8386053" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Again, your specific example "Dwarf in metal armor, with a hammer, casting wall of fire" is supposed to be some massive shock to intelligent enemies. Yet, I just described not only any dwarven wizard, but any dwarven bard, any dwarven sorcerer, a dwarven warlock, a dwarven artillerist and two different dwarven clerics. The only reason it can't be a druid is because I said "metal" armor. So, seven out of 13 classes, over half of them, could have a dwarf casting wall of fire. Yet these intelligent enemies are going to go "a dwarf?! Using MAGIC!!!" like it is some sort of shock to their system that it is even possible. So, yeah, if you aren't taking into account just how common magic is in adventuring parties, your lore is out-of-date. The same could be said of dwarven rangers, druids, thieves, sorcerers, warlocks, ect ect ect. And many of them would look exactly like a dwarven fighter, who could be an Eldritch knight and still doing magic. You wanted to "trick me" into seeing that WoTC has rarely published a dwarven wizard? I know that. That doesn't mean that dwarven wizards don't make perfect sense and shouldn't be just as common as any other wizards. It just means WoTC has been failing to keep up with their own rule sets. And, again, you are just having the monsters meta-game. A dwarven Artificer or a dwarven Forge cleric might appear identical on the surface, they have no way to tell which one they are facing. Humans never have any predispotions, so how are you supposed to have these stereotypes for them? And, following the barbarian question, why is it more shocking to have a halfling barbarian from a race of halfling barbarians that everyone conveniently forgot about, who is just swinging their weapon, compared to a goliath barbarian who is lighting the ground on fire as they run up to smack them?  An elf runs up and hits the monster with a sword that explodes in radiant light. Which class is that monster going to think that elf is a part of? Why would one answer out of the three I can think of be more shocking than the other two? All of this should be terrifying and dangerous, but this is common place when dealing with adventurers in DnD 5e.I don't want the races to mechanically be penalized for stepping outside the stereotypes. I want floating ASIs so that this stuff is more common. And if that means a monster isn't suddenly flabbergasted that magic is something anyone can learn, then I'll live with it.</blockquote>

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