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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Morty" data-source="post: 6380741" data-attributes="member: 6778261">The problem, as I see it, is that D&D for the longest time tried to have its cake, and eat it, too - with the exception of 4e. Magic is powerful, and subsequent editions removed the restrictions and difficulties it had. Non-magical character are limited to interacting with the system the exact same way from level 1 to level 20, and they're kept in check by a misguided idea of 'realism', that occasionally actually has some relation to the real world, but not always or even usually. At the same time, though, the game - at least in 3e and 5e - continuously insists that a wizard and a fighter, or a cleric and a ranger, are equally contributing members of the team, or equal threats to the PCs if they're NPC enemies. Which is blatantly false. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a fantasy game where magic-users are simply more powerful, more versatile, more dangerous and all-around more relevant to the world at large than those who have less or no magic - but the system should just straight-up admit it, instead of flip-flopping on the issue. It's not possible for a character bound by real-world physics to contend with the kind of threats a high-level D&D campaign involves head-on - through superior numbers, trickery, or firepower, maybe, but not by walking up to it and duking it out, which is what D&D warriors are meant to do. You would honestly have a better case arguing that a rogue, ranger or such should be realistic, because they make up for their lack of magic or larger-than-life martial skill with their cunning and cleverness. Of course, at that point we run into what I call the Batman problem, that is to say, at which point hyper-competence and versatility in ostensibly realistically human pursuits becomes unrealistic and super-human? So the system should either admit that you're playing a scrappy underdog who survives on luck and narrative fiat, or give your non-magical characters abilities that let them match those of the ostensibly magical ones. Don't do the former and pretend to do the latter. Having said that, 4e is the only edition to at least try to consistently put down what it means to be a character of a given level. Other editions only give us numbers, which are meaningless without context - context which is sorely lacking. Is a level 15 warrior Gimli? Conan? Achilles? Every other player seems to have their own answer, which is not surprising, given that the game won't give them one. Spell-casters' abilities are precisely defined - they can cast those spells, but not that one yet. Non-magicians get numbers to their attacks and skills, extra actions and sometimes passive resistance abilities like evasion or slippery mind. I will also add that some people's definition of what 'mundane' D&D characters should be able to do tends to lock out Drizzt and his friends and arch-nemesis out of the list of possible concepts. So there's that.</blockquote>

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