Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6668440" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I think the contention is pretty clear and it isn't about combat prowess.  It is about the noncombat prowess of high mid to epic level fighters not remotely making any sense relative to their combat prowess...or when considered in context with the setting as a whole.  It is about the incoherency of the inclination toward binding the D&D archetype of the Fighter/Fighting Man by our world metrics (lifting, running, leaping, etc) and our world physics (eg 1 earth gravity and the same atmospheric conditions).  It is typically done on the basis of "versimilitude" but it couldn't be less "versimilitudinous" because it is nonsensical.  I made the contention in the other thread and was hoping for some engagement on it, but there was none.  1) If a human in our world physically faces down a tiger or a grizzly bear and lives to tell the tale (forget about slaying it), the encounter quickly becomes legend.  Naturally, we assume (and rightly so), that this person's physical prowess and mental/physical prowess is far beyond the extraordinary.D&D Fighters with a few levels do this routinely, over and over, and with relative ease.  If this were to happen in our real world, we would assume, and rightly so, that this person's physical prowess is basically supernatural.  We would assume that they can leap higher, lift more, move faster, go for longer than any man (by a fair stretch) in human history.  We would, rightly, assume they must be utterly unflinching at the prospect of anything that should produce paralyzing fear.2) D&D mid-high and epic level Fighters come face to, well, ankle, with Tyrannosaurs.  And slay them.  This is one of the (if not THE) apex land predator in earth's history.  It is a creature of such size, strength, sprinting speed, killing capacity, and sheer ferocity that the idea of a human doing anything but running for their lives from it (without the aid of an extremely high-cal mini-gun...and even with that...) strikes us as beyond absurd.  Assuming a T-Rex were available, if someone were to say to you "that dude over there waded into melee with a T-Rex and took it down...and then ate a sandwich", you would think one of two things; (1) this guy is delusional or (2) that dude must have supernatural strength, agility, speed, toughness, mettle, what-have-you.D&D Fighters of requisite level can do the former (wading into melee with a T-Rex and slaying them) routinely.  Yet they are supposed to have very mundane, height-of-human-capacity (and with several GMs who just don't have the slightest clue about what humans are actually capable of...less than height of human capacity) on this here earth physical capacity.3) Elder/Ancient Red Dragons have a different name for T-Rexes.  Afternoon snack.  They are 2 * the size, 10 * the weight, unimaginably stronger and more ferocious, possess god-like intellegence, their scales are tank-like, they can fly, cast high level spells and breath giant cones of incinerating fire.These are the foes that Epic Fighters engage with in melee.But these same Fighters have about the same vertical leap, broad jump, the same reflexes (or worse), and run the 100 meter in the same time as I did (a well-above-average human athlete, but nothing special) 13 years ago.  There are sixty year old men on this planet who have more stamina than some epic level fighters produce in the fiction of some D&D tables.  That paradigm is absolutely ridiculous with respect to "versimilitude."  Yet it persists.4) Then when you consider the physical conditions of the world those Fighters inhabit and the utterly mundane creatures they inhabit it with, things get really, really squirelly from a versimilitude perspective.  It seems that D&D mechanics that work so hard to bind the Fighter to pinnacle human limits are working off the premise that the setting possesses the same atmospheric conditions of our planet and 1 Earth Gravity.  Ok, fair enough.But then how in the hell do we have an evolutionary process (or just a spontaneous creation process...whatever) that is ok with (a) exoskeleton-having creatures being larger than a turkey (let alone of gargatuan size or larger) and (b) dragons being able to (mundanely) take to the air.  These are only two situation, but they are huge ones in the D&D setting (as exoskeletons are everywhere and flying dragons are shtick numero uno).  So we're good with 1 earth gravity and earth atmospheric conditions for the Fighter...but it is just going to "take 5" for all these other, prolific setting elements.  And when the Fighter shares the same stage as them?  I guess we're forced to not observe that The Emperor Has No Clothes (as we do with so much other stuff...except for Fighter's noncombat prowess of course!)...for...you know...versimilitude.Head.  Spinning.</blockquote>

Verification