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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9016312" data-attributes="member: 7006">Well, I can't speak for anyone else... but for me the reason is simple-- NO D&D mechanics adequately represent flavor.  So the Sorcerer is no different than any other class and why I don't really care.I mean, what is "Rage"?  A +2 to damage, resistance to regular weapons, and advantage on STR checks and saves.  Now to me, I see those three features and they do not in any way, shape or form denote ANY sort of "anger-based" ability in my opinion.  Sure, if you squint real hard and also remember that this is what Rage has kinda always been... we all accept that yeah, this is what "Rage" for a barbarian is... but they're not, really.  +2 to damage, damage resistance, and you can do STR things better?  That could easily mean you are done up in a set of magical armor like a D&D Iron Man.  You could be a polymorphed or wildshaped big animal.  You could be a martial artist.  There's any number of characterizations or identities that those three numeric functions could represent.  We just happen to have decided "Oh yeah, those three abilities in conjunction mean that this character has gotten really, really, REALLY mad."And what do we have that is supposed to represent the nobility and honor of a Samurai?  At 3rd level you get one of four skill proficiencies that any other character can pick up, you get Advantage on your attacks for one turn and you get 5 Temporary Hit Points.  And THAT'S supposed to represent the flavor of what a Samurai is. Really?  I see those three abilities-- 5 Temp HP, Advantage for one round, and proficiency in either History, Insight, Performance, or Persuasion-- and I can tell you that a Samurai is NOT the first thing that comes to mind.  Again, there is barely any connection between those mechanics and the flavor they are representing.And we could go down the list of every single game mechanic that is supposedly meant to represent something in the fiction.  Almost none of them do.  They are all just completely generic game mechanics that the book assigns a story to almost at random.  So why anyone actually gets worked up about any of it is beyond me.  The game mechanics are there and exist to allow players to play the "game".  That's it, in my opinion.  A whole bunch of math that is used against a whole bunch of other math to determine who wins in the math.  And on top of those mechanics there is a light brushing on of story and flavor to make it seem like the mechanics have some sort of meaning in the story, even though they really don't.Which is why any flavor or story that comes out of the game has to come from the imaginations of the players.  The stories the players all collectively create together narratively alongside the Dungeon Master.  If your Samurai is noble and honorable, it's because you PLAY your character as noble and honorable, not because there are a couple of game mechanics that are supposed to represent it.  The way you differentiate your elf from a dwarf is how you roleplay your elf to not act like a dwarf-- not that you merely have proficiency in Perception and can make Dexterity (Stealth) checks when only behind light underbrush rather than heavy.But you know... it is what it is.  <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>

Verification