D&D General The rapier in D&D

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh, stop. Realism? In the first place, no such thing.

True.

Second, DMs have been tweaking the combat experience to create whatever kind of reality or degree of pseudo realism they want. You act like it's hard.

No, as you said, there is no such thing. It's not hard, it's impossible.

This thread clearly indicates that "pseudo-realism" is a synonym for whatever whacky ideas and personal bees-in-bonnets the DM happens to have. I wouldn't want to play with a DM who "tweaks" the game that way.

 

[kermit4karate]

True.

No, as you said, there is no such thing. It's not hard, it's impossible.

This thread clearly indicates that "pseudo-realism" is a synonym for whatever whacky ideas and personal bees-in-bonnets the DM happens to have. I wouldn't want to play with a DM who "tweaks" the game that way.

Fair enough. I accept that it's impossible for you.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I do not think people expect hard realism from D&D. But I think it is reasonable to expect that you can at least visualise how the things rules say happen, can happen. And I have to admit that with killing a gargantuan creature with a weapon such as a dagger I have hard time visualising how it could happen. At least rapier has several feet of blade, so one can imagine it stabbing something vital.

It does not help that in the art dragons seemed to have gotten bigger and bigger. Though the squares we expect them to fit in do not agree with that at all, so perhaps they are not "actually" that big.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Starting from the premise that there's an ancient fire-breathing lizard with wings, none of it makes any kind of logical sense.

For me, full-on immune to damage is different than saying it's mostly immune to damage. Mostly immune lines up better with the standard depiction of dragons from fantasy fiction, where they're incredibly tough but nowhere near invulnerable.

But I see the argument. An M1 Abrams tank isn't just mostly immume to small arms fire. It's effectively immune to it.

To be fair, in my own game dragons can refer ro many creatures ranging from a mortal ancestry to gods. In D&D though, where categorization is a big part of the design, I feel like they should be called two different names entirely,

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Fair enough. I accept that it's impossible for you.

Mod Note:

The first sentence was fine; the second, not so much. You went from disagreeing into being disagreeable. Making a habit of it will get you shown the door, possibly permanently.

I trust this is clear.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Though the squares we expect them to fit in do not agree with that at all, so perhaps they are not "actually" that big

I generally assume that the size of a dragon, including its neck, tail and wings, is its spaces plus its reach. Which typically gives you around 50 ft.

I seem to recall Beowulf pretty much goes inside his dragon to crush its heart with his bare hands.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I generally assume that the size of a dragon, including its neck, tail and wings, is its spaces plus its reach. Which typically gives you around 50 ft.

Yeah, same. But in some art the dragons are depicted as way bigger than that.

 

[GrimCo]

Gargantuan is at least 20x20 feet or 4x4 squares on the grid. That's minimum. Maximum is - how ever big you want it to be. Hell, one time, friend of mine used 1 liter water pitcher as a "mini" for siege kaiju.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Gargantuan is at least 20x20 feet or 4x4 squares on the grid. That's minimum. Maximum is - how ever big you want it to be. Hell, one time, friend of mine used 1 liter water pitcher as a "mini" for siege kaiju.

Yeah, the size ratings are pretty messed up. I wouldn’t consider 20 ft. “gargantuan”. 200 ft. Maybe.

The scale doubles each time from tiny to large, but then for some reason goes linear. For consistency, huge should be 4x4 and gargantuan 8x8. Although even that isn’t really big enough. Just look at the ship rules in GoS. Everything from a rowboat up is gargantuan, with its actual dimensions given along side. It’s common in non-D&D depictions for dragons to be a similar scale to wooden ships.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah, the size ratings are pretty messed up. I wouldn’t consider 20 ft. “gargantuan”. 200 ft. Maybe.

The scale doubles each time from tiny to large, but then for some reason goes linear. For consistency, huge should be 4x4 and gargantuan 8x8. Although even that isn’t really big enough. Just look at the ship rules in GoS. Everything from a rowboat up is gargantuan, with its actual dimensions given along side. It’s common in non-D&D depictions for dragons to be a similar scale to wooden ships.

Sure, but then again, if these things are supposed to be killable by human scale weapons, they probably should not be absurdly large.