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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5759307" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't see this as any different from other departures from myth and history - D&D protagonists fight ludicrous numbers of fights, against a bizarrely gonzo variety of foes. Just as no mythical bard ever viciously mocked a gelatinous cube, no heroic warrior of myth ever duelled with one either.In D&D both are resolved pretty abstractly. The drama is to a signficant extent mechanically mediated.Whereas the sword duel, at the table, contains such epic swordplay as "I swing", "I riposte", etc. It's not as if I actually get to see two fencers go at it.I don't have much to add to [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION]'s long reply to your post, but the question you ask here applies equally to a sword duel. How, in D&D, can I replay a (fantasy) variant of Reservoir Dogs, with a protagonist dying slowly from a stomach wound?The answer to this question presumably depends on how the particular campaign tackles first level PCs - are they epitomes? or generic?If people want to play that way, isn't that their prerogative? But what they will find out, I think, is that the game mechanics break down at certain points. For example, they won't be able to bring page 42 into play, because page 42 depends on fictional positioning.I'm not seeing anything unique to 4e in your criticisms here. As far as I can tell, they apply equally to Power Word and True Name spells in earlier editions.But as for the quality of your experience, I'm sorry it's been poor in the way you describe.Given that magic missile lacks the poison keyword, I don't think that is a permissible reflavouring.Is this really true when the core rulebook actively encourages it?Using page 42 is not houseruling. Is a key part of 4e's action resolution mechanics.The consequence - that various NPCs/monsters move their position - will always be the same. The method by which this is procured won't necessarily be the same, because the power says nothing about how this is achieved. And those differences can matter in the fiction. For example, a fighter who taunts foes into attacking him/her is presenting a different fighting style, and can expect different reactions and responses from those who s/he confronts, from a fighter who relies primarily on weapon play.I don't have it either, but I trust [MENTION=3887]Mallus[/MENTION]'s quote: it mentions Hercules as an exmaple of a fighter. This seems to me to be intended to indicate that players of fighters, in AD&D, can expect their fighter to resemble Hercules in salient ways.Page B30 of Moldvay Basic says "Great heroes such as Hercules were fighters" and also that "Merlin the Magician was a famous magic-user." Again, I take this as an indication that a player of a fighter can expect his/her PC to resemble Hercules, just as the player or a magic-user might expect his/her PC to resemble Merlin. There's no implication that a high-level wizard will be weaker than Merlin because Merlin is not a mortal, and there's no indication that a high-level fighter will be weaker than Hercles because Hercules is not a mortal.The broader point: given that Hercules is the only example given of a fighter, there is no implication that a figther, as a PC, is purely mundane in ability in the way that a real-world soldier or martial artist must be.Board rules put limits on this, but in the real world, where many people doubt the existence of magic or the endurance of the spirits of the dead, there is a diplomatic incident currently taking place between Turkey and France over what may or may not be permissibly said about the Armenian dead during WW1.Most criminal codes make it an offence to desecrate the dead or their graves.In a magical world in which the spirits of the dead and their magic do endure, the idea that a magician (like a bard) could weaken a skeleton by mocking the power of its dead creator is, to me, entirely verisimilitudinous.In those latter cases, there is no creature to suffer psychic damage as a result, so it is less straightforward. But if the player of a bard in my game wanted to used Vicious Mockery (via page 42) as part of an attempt to weaken the lingering magic of a dead creator, I would be happy with that.</blockquote>

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