D&D (2024) Here's The New 2024 Player's Handbook Wizard Art

 

[Paul Farquhar]

People like to project.

Then you should not be surprised when people form an opinion of someone's character based upon the opinions they profess.

 

[Reef]

Warning: the following is an old man yelling at the clouds, and probably adds nothing of value to the discussion. Feel free to skip it...

After 1100 posts on this painting, I'm left with the sudden realization that I miss the old days. Which, at my age, is nothing new. But specifically, I remember what D&D art meant to me and my friends as teens in the 80's.

I loved every new piece I could get my hands on. A new Dragon magazine was a gift for the new art alone. Which is why I probably ended up spending a large portion of my life illustrating rpgs. My friends and I poured over them all. Much like people are doing here, yet we somehow managed to do it with a sense of wonder.

If something didn't jibe with the rules, we didn't complain. We didn't gripe that by the rules a 1hd Skeleton couldn't burst through a door like that, or that an Animate Dead spell couldn't summon that many zombies. Or wonder how that Paladin got into Hell by himself anyway.

We would have loved this painting. We would have speculated about whether the that was Mage Hand holding the staff, or maybe it was a magical floating staff (the wizard equivalent of a Dancing Sword). Maybe they were Glasses of Telekinesis, and she can levitate anything she looked at! And before you knew it, someone would have ran off and statted those items up (maybe to be found in the next dragon hoard we liberated).

Maybe it's because we were just kids, and assumed that the grownups must know what they were doing. Maybe because as an art student I already understood artistic interpretation. Or maybe because the game itself went out of its way to encourage us to customize the game, to make it our own. It told us to make our own settings, homebrew our own monsters, create our own spells so that the know-it-all players would be surprised.

I don't know. Maybe the game has changed that much over the years, and that level of ownership isn't being encouraged. Maybe things are meant to be much more locked down. Maybe that's why floating staves, or flat glasses, or fancy robes are creating such an uproar. It's hard for me to tell, since I've internalized so many different editions over the decades.

Anyway, the point of this isn't to tell anyone they are wrong in what they like. I don't think there is a point to this post at all, really. Just an old man being nostalgic, probably blinded by rose-coloured glasses of my own. But it made me think. And what's the point of having thoughts if you can't inflict them on an entire internet full of strangers...heh.

Thanks for reading, those who did, and hopefully you'll forgive an old fella waxing nostaligic. And now, I think I'm going to go dig up my Dragon Archives and browse some art .

 

[Mistwell]

While I was being tongue-in-cheek, that would be a cool utility spell. But I think it should be first-level, not a cantrip. There should be a spell-slot cost to free both hands.

To use it as a spell focus for a wizard? Naw. The swapping hands rules are already going to be loosened up with the new version of the rules. It will likely be for one minute at a time or 10 minutes, so it's not like you always have your focus floating near you. It's not much different from mage hand. Less utility than mage hand but more particularized use as a focus. Seems about right for a cantrip - which you'd need to cast pre-combat for it to really be of use.

 

[gban007]

Do I want to be nearsighted? No. Do I really care? Not really.

Do I think being nearsighted is an ideal of beauty? No.

Do I want to cause my kids to be nearsighted because that would please other people who are frustrated with beauty? That would be child abuse.

I don't think Occam was pushing for the last point - more if your kids were nearsighted, we'd hope that you wouldn't say to the kids 'I'm sorry, you're near sighted, you have a number of options such as glasses, contacts, eye surgery, but if you wear glasses that means you will never be beautiful'

 

[Vaalingrade]

If they aren't wearing glasses first, how will they take them off as part of a condescending makeover scene where they at best make a lateral move in terms of attractiveness?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Elf is a reallife archetype, from certain reallife cultures. To some degree, cultural appropriation takes place by misrepresenting what an Elf is.

What is salient about an Elf, is in the context of fate, the Elf takes on forms that embody cultural ideals. Especially, ideals of physical of beauty. Also success. Love. Family. Influence. As a speaker of fate, an Elf personifies magic itself.

Elves are shapeshifters whose magic manifests in ideal forms. Forms that are a good fate that humans aspire to be for oneself and ones children. This is what an Elf is.


But beauty matters for the Elf species. Beauty is what the Alfr, Sidhe, Feie, Nymphe, etcetera, have in common. Superhuman beauty is the archeytype that links these concepts from the disparate cultures together.

Elves embody physical beauty (but not the beauty of a muscular, well-built physique, or the beauty of minor "imperfections" like freckles or the beauty of scars), success, love, family, influence, and magic. Therefore elves should not be depicted wearing glasses, because people with glasses are not included in those traits? Sure, sure, the myths say that, not you, but the myths CHANGE, and you are the one using them to justify your argument.

Do I want to be nearsighted? No. Do I really care? Not really.

Do I think being nearsighted is an ideal of beauty? No.

So... you get to decide what beauty qualifies as beautiful?

Do I want to cause my kids to be nearsighted because that would please other people who are frustrated with beauty? That would be child abuse.

And no one is asking to CAUSE people to be nearsighted. Where would you even get that idea? I also would think it is child abuse to enter children into beauty pageants and dress them up like dolls for people to ogle at. That doesn't mean I think it is wrong for people to have make up or pretty dresses.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It was not you I was replying to. Para said, "But I'm guessing the reason it is floating is that she is a wizard." Floating staves are no more or less common for wizards than for any other spellcasting class, as it's just not a common thing any class does. It's certainly not specific to "wizard." It doesn't make much sense for the wizard given the staff appears to be the source of the spell, and wizards who use a staff as a source of the spell need to have it in one hand to do so.

I think the point was more "it is magic" Like, I have no problem with her needing the staff in her hand for most of the casting, then it being free floating for a particularly complex bit. It could be a bit of fun flavor that high level casters need to solve a "three hands" problem, and so high level wizards figure out a way to lodge their staves in the flow of the magic to free their other hand.

Sure, mechanically, it says you need to have a focus in a hand, but... it doesn't say you need to have it in your hand the entire casting time.

 

[Chaosmancer]

While I was being tongue-in-cheek, that would be a cool utility spell. But I think it should be first-level, not a cantrip. There should be a spell-slot cost to free both hands.

Um... no? Not unless you want to create something no one would bother taking. Handedness has never mattered in any game I've played to begin with, since you can sheath or draw items as part of actions, Even as a cantrip I can't imagine people taking something like that over mage hand (which does literally exactly what you are talking about... AND MORE!)

 

[Chaosmancer]

People like to project.

And if you read the follow up post by Occam... they also literally said it.

 

[ezo]

Then you should not be surprised when people form an opinion of someone's character based upon the opinions they profess.

Surprised? No, not at all. I feel sorry for them, though. You can't form an opinion of someone's character simply based on what they say in an online forum. If you do... well, your choice.

Now, forming opinons of their opinions, sure.

So... you get to decide what beauty qualifies as beautiful?

But everyone gets to decide what they consider beautiful, it's entirely subjective.

If someone protrays an elf as "beautiful", they're most likely going to describe what is beautiful to them. If an elf is met by someone, that elf will be whatever it considers beautiful.

And if you read the follow up post by Occam... they also literally said it.

Really, I don't see anything like my statement in their post...

If you're talking about some other "it", I have no idea what you're talking about. Of course, I find the entire exchange about what is beauty, glasses (again... ) and such... well, strange.

EDIT: You know what, forget it. I had a long post with quotes about that exchange, but you will never understand apparently so why bother.