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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5393952" data-attributes="member: 54877">I was nodding along with your whole post, until that last bit. That slant is exactly not epic fantasy to me. I make the distinction this way, from an old conversation of a similar nature: 1. A character has a significant ability to craft something. This ability was developed through characterization and play through the life of the character. The character probably started as an apprentice or journeyman, and got better as they went. Finally, there is the need to craft a critical piece of equipment to defeat the BBEG, and this character just so happens to have the necessary skill. The characters, with the help of some friends, assembles the materials, crafts the item, and off they go, versus ... 2. A character has a significant ability to craft something. Crafting this something is dangerous, and it gets worse the more you do it. There are times when maybe doing so was definitely not a no-brainer. Progress was in spits and spurts, and any formal training was more like Chiron with Hercules than a guild system. The BBEG confrontation draws near. Perhaps a crafted object will help, but it is risky ...  Both might be interesting characterization, at least to some people. But whatever else it is, I see 1. as certainly neither epic nor fantastical (besides being a bit contrived, which could be due to my portayal of it). Yet 1. is how systems want to push this kind of thing (which is why I think 4E left it out). I want 2., which is roughly what you'd get with a Norse master crafting dwarf as a player character. If it is turned up to 11, I want "11" on the volume knob from the very beginning.  Rescuing kittens from trees is not done on a knob that goes to 11, at least not non-ironically. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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