D&D 5E What are the "True Issues" with 5e?

[Micah Sweet]

Why not?

Why must the fighter be a pathetic piece of trash at high levels, but wizards not be limited by anything?

(magic is not a valid answer since magic does not exist in our reality)

Who said wizards must not be limited by anything? All sorts of limitations  used to exist in previous editions. 4e somehow considered it a point of pride to do so.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I mean, I assume you went to high school and have a basic education in human biology but based on your comments who knows.

It was a trick question: there are no Earth humans in D&D. Because it is a game of fantasy people in a fantasy setting.

 

[Raiztt]

'because that's just how the organism is built'

The human Fighter is clearly doing these things, supported by the rules, that look like great big feats to us. Clearly, their body is built for it, and even more impressive feats.

Ok, so then it's not a human, as per premise 1.)

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Ok, so then it's not a human, as per premise 1.)

Are you okay with a Fighter doing remarkable deeds if they're a halfling, then?

 

[Stalker0]

In fairness, they don't really do much more than a low level fighter can..

But in 5e..it's not like it's easy to distinguish a low level fighter from a high level one anyway. So..easy mistake to make.

Well they can currently grapple pit fiends and the like to the ground with ease, slapping forced movement and conditions on them like candy.

But one dnd is taking that away so one less thing making high level fighters special

 

[Vaalingrade]

Ok, so then it's not a human, as per premise 1.)

Says Human in the book...

 

[Gammadoodler]

If they are a human, how are they doing that? Like literally how? Lemme give you an example of what I mean.

Say you're walking down the street and you see a guy lift up a car and throw it down the block. So you ask him, "how did you do that?!" You expect there to be some sort of explanation as to how that happened or how he was able to do that. Now imagine he just says "Oh I just lifted it up and threw it" - yes obviously, but how? If 1.) a fighter is a completely mundane/non-supernatural and 2.) is a human being, (even one who is maximal in every possible human dimension), then what is the explanation?

Now, you might reject 1.) or 2.), but those are both premises that a lot of people assume as their baseline. This is what is in tension with people like myself, and probably oofta, mamba, and micah.

So, I personally have no problem with mundanity and supernatural existing in concert. The settings have dragons, hydras, bulettes, owlbears, and purple worms knocking about on a series of stacked planes of existence..as a baseline expectation.

If you put a gun to my head, I'd probably point to fantastical training regimes, unusual diet, genetic lottery, exposure to exotic energies or some other number of factors that could be completely natural within the fantasy setting without being explicitly or exclusively magical.

Some people, including you it seems, are not fond of fantasy settings with fantastical elements that have no explicitly magical explanation. I don't really understand it, but it certainly does seem a source of disconnnect..
........
Setting all that aside though.. what if our guy is a dwarf? Or elf? Or dragonborn? Do the same limitations apply?

 

[Minigiant]

Is the new true issue:

5e removed the assumption and bias of magic items from the game but did not replace this design philosophy with anything.​

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Where's it say that?

This is a key point that a lot of people don't seem to get.

The evidence, I would suggest, actually weighs against humans in D&D being biologically identical to humans in the real world. That's a lengthy and fraught topic, but certainly you're on the better-evidenced side of it.

Further, the belief that the martial-magical divide is absolute is, frankly, an awful and senseless belief that only causes problems, solves nothing, and offers absolutely no benefit to anyone. It cripples the entire game like a sliced hamstring. This isn't novel thinking either - Earthdawn, the first real, non-heartbreaker-y attempt to make a "D&D that worked" recognised this, and destroying an ability to believe in that divide as an absolute was one of the first moves it made.

In the section that covers humans, their age ranges, heights, weights, lifting capacities, etc. The D&D human is meant to be the point of comparison, the 'control', against which everything fantastical is weighed so that we, the player, can relate it to our real lives.

It doesn't, as a pure matter of indisputable fact, say anything of the sort. To suggest that it does is simply an outright falsehood with obviously no basis - it's funny but it's nothing else.

Now, separately from the facts, you are entitled to an opinion that, because humans in D&D have similar (though not identical) age ranges, weights, lifting capacities and so on to Earth humans, they essentially are identical to Earth humans, but that's not a fact, that's an opinion. Whereas the fact is, it's an unknown.

Further, it's not as well-supported as you seem to think by the facts of D&D, not least that in D&D, sufficient tough humans can literally leap from a thousand foot tower on to a stone surface and only survive, but not break a single bone or limb, perhaps not even be prone! If you want to argue things like "lifting capacities" as evidence for your opinion, you must accept things like falling damage as evidence against your opinion. And it's quite persuasive evidence, I'd suggest.

 

[Raiztt]

Says Human in the book...

Today Vaalingrade learns that the same word can have different meanings.

My thought experiment's first premise is that all D&D humans are facsimilies of actual humans in terms of their capabilities. You don't need to respond if you're not going to read or engage in the comments.