Mourn said:
What you call "over-the-top" heroic, I call "don't-get-killed-by-a-single-attack-by-a-one-eyed-goblin" heroic.
Apples and Oranges comparison.
Henry is talking about non-plausible martial mega-powers at first level. Like swinging an axe and having 5 NPCs fly back 30 feet through the air and falling prone. Or healing an ally without using magic. Or forcing enemies to attack him as opposed to the Wizard with the opponents not having any sort of Will Save against it.
There is nothing wrong with first level Fighter types having special abililties.
It's when those special abilities are outside the norm of real world physics at first level where the suspend disbelief problems come in. Introduction of really amazing (i.e. outside the laws of real world physics) abillities should be very gradual and gained at much higher levels, not right away.
Sure, a 30th level Fighter jumping 15 feet up a wall is fine (at least for some of us, note: I do not even think of this as him jumping 15 feet straight up like in a Wuxia movie, instead I think of it like a Jackie Chan movie where he bounces from wall to wall up the wall, and on the last bounce, pulls himself up with one hand with his super strength at that level to stand on the wall).
But, jumping straight up 15 feet is not DND for a first level Fighter. It's unrealistic. It's not the flavor of DND.
Henry's point has nothing to do "killed by a single attack".
As for Wuxia, I do not want Wuxia in DND. That is not DND. It's Wuxia. If one wants to Fly in DND, they should have to use some form of magic.
My favorite Wuxia example was from "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon". After my friends and I went to see it, my one friend said "I didn't know that they filmed this on the moon."
It's a perfect example. Even Wuxia is getting so stupidly fantastical and nonsensical that it is getting hard to enjoy. As Henry did, I felt the same way about Hero. It gets so far out into left field (with each director trying to outshine the previous ones) that parts of the film are beyond enjoyment outside of silly parody at this point. Might as well watch a Roadrunner comic. At least people can tell that Kung Fu Hustle was a parody. Some Wuxia movies these days are a parody (intentionally or not) and people cannot tell the difference.
