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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9617639" data-attributes="member: 6790260">What research? Seriously. What research? There isn't a single mechanic in all of 5e that actually addresses that.You are, as is so often the case in these discussions, using speculation and extrapolation as though they were ironclad arguments. They aren't. You need to actually show where the rules support something like this! Because the tradition I see when I look at this is slavish devotion to the ancients, which, yes, that very much was a Medieval problem. Scrounging up lost tomes from forgotten libraries, rather than pushing the boundaries of knowledge yourself. Hermeticism absolutely was not about scientific-like research. It was about esoterica. Literally, it was arcane study--finding the "secret", "hidden" truths of existence. There wasn't a scientific bone in its body--it just had some superficial trappings of science as we understand it today, due to sharing certain attachments like alchemy.The Wizards we have are people who zealously, jealously guard their secrets, and if they design a spell at all, you bet your bottom dollar they're going to try to prevent that spell from ever being known by others--unless they get paid handsomely for it or, more likely, get taught an even rarer, even more powerful spell in exchange.I disagree. I think the playerbase-at-large could be quite easily convinced--because the playerbase-at-large is primarily not old-school types. It's new folks who have no fixed idea of what D&D has to be, who can still be persuaded that it can be something other than what it is right at this very moment.Okay. You need to understand, then, that the way you play the game isn't what we're talking about. We're talking about what's actually in the books, and what is actually done at huge swathes--probably a majority!--of tables right now. It's not "Lanefan's home game which he rewrites to be whatever he desires it to be". It's "5e as She Is <s>Spoke</s> Played". (This is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_She_Is_Spoke" target="_blank">joking reference</a>.)Yes, but the problem is, the rules for what non-spellcasters can do are almost always ironclad and essentially impossible to push--as you noted below. Cutting off limbs is too powerful. Doing anything particularly tricksy is too powerful, and if it's allowed at all, it requires jumping through a ton of hoops and often clearing multiple checks (a skill check, an attack roll, and giving the enemy a a saving throw)--again, assuming it's even allowed at all, which it almost never is.Except that's not what people actually do. Again, people will push and push and push and push and push. "Why can't I use minor illusion to make a symbol in the sky?" "Why can't I use bless to create holy water?" "Why can't I use feather fall to glide across a gap?" "Why can't I..." etc., etc., ad nauseam.Martial characters simply, flatly, do not get this treatment. I've never--not once--seen a DM allow martial characters to attempt anything half so "creative" as what spellcasters are allowed to do. They effectively rewrite spells constantly, unless the DM constantly tells them no, which then just turns the DM into a Negative Nancy who never allows spellcasters to have any fun, all while making the DM feel like they're being run ragged just trying to not let the spellcasters rule the roost.</blockquote>

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