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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thommy H-H" data-source="post: 9272430" data-attributes="member: 6797019">The same reason knights are called knights in the MM and have a description that refers to high medieval knight-type stuff, I suppose. What I mean to say is that - and I think this is explicit in the introduction to the MM - the descriptions aren't definitive. By default, this is a statblock for a precocious spellcasting nerd at magic school, or being tutored on a more individual basis by a mentor, because that is, as you say, a familiar archetype. You might want to use a character like that in your fantasy game, and this is how you go about doing it. But there's nothing there that says that is the path that every single "wizard" must follow, or that, as a matter of verisimilitude, every D&D setting must be the kind of place that has apprentice wizards that look suspiciously like Luke Skywalker, complete with holstered <s>laser sword</s> wand. It's just fodder.And, to take a more prosaic view, if novice GMs are using this statblock and description as-is, they likely also have novice players who are significantly less likely to even realise an NPC is doing something they can't do themselves. That's if they even pick a fight with the mop-haired kid dusting the relics in the study belonging to the Abjurer Wizard™ in the first place.Basically, I don't think it matters any more than the fact that hobgoblins do extra damage by fighting in formation, for example. If the players ask, you just shrug and tell them that's part of the training hobgoblins receive in their martial culture, and learning it requires spending years integrating into that society until it becomes second nature. Likewise, if they want to do an Arcane Burst, they presumably have to undergo whatever formal training the Apprentice Wizards in your world get, which is probably much less interesting than being an adventuring wizard. Again, if you're using the default description and if they even notice or ask about it.</blockquote>

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