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D&D General What does the mundane high level fighter look like? [+]

Oofta

Legend
okay, but beowulf swimming in armour holding his breath for hours, while fundamentally way beyond the capability of any real-world person, is mundane in nature if not in scale, if you're a hero in a fantasy world that could very much be something that could be done in that world without being supernatural.

Just because it can be done in that fantasy world in no way makes it mundane. We can stretch things, perhaps he could hold his breath for 20 minutes but people who can do it longer are not moving or have a genetic predisposition like the Bajau.

You can't just say "It works in this world therefore it's mundane" because then it looses all meaning. Where does it end? The Hulk is "mundane" because he just lifts things that are really heavy, right? After all people can lift things, he just lifts a thousand times more because that's the world he lives in!
 

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Tony Vargas

Legend
And if drinking the oceans down a bit is still qualifying as “mundane”, we have no common ground to discuss mundane warriors.
Really, "mundane" embraces only the stultifyingly everyday. Adventuring, itself, for instance, is not exactly a mundane activity.

Mundane in threads like this seems to be used to mean non-magical or not-supernatural, which should have a very different bar.
 


Vaalingrade

Legend
Really, "mundane" embraces only the stultifyingly everyday. Adventuring, itself, for instance, is not exactly a mundane activity.

Mundane in threads like this seems to be used to mean non-magical or not-supernatural, which should have a very different bar.
Mundanity: 1. : of, relating to, or characteristic of the world.

So if you're in a fantastic world such as one with Dungeons and or Dragons...

It's not our world it refers to.
 

Tony Vargas

Legend
Mundanity: 1. : of, relating to, or characteristic of the world.
as opposed to a heavenly or spiritual one.
That's a definition within a religious context, I think.

Also, a more mundane definition of mundane:
mun·dane /ˌmənˈdān/
adjective
1. lacking interest or excitement; dull.

So if you're in a fantastic world such as one with Dungeons and or Dragons...
It's not our world it refers to.
Sure, it's relative.

Admittedly, I've been in games where spells and magic items rose to that level of dependability, accessibility, and systematic use/abuse as to start feeling mundane. ;)
 


pemerton

Legend
Those are all explicitly magical.🤷🏾
That's @Tony Vargas's point.

In "real life", it doesn't require magic to maim or decapitate with a sword blow, or to shoot a creature through the heart and thus kill it with a single arrow. But the D&D combat system doesn't make that possible (because it relies on, and only on, hit point attrition). Hence these things get made into magic items.

And so suddenly we're in a game world where the magic-user is better at killing things instantly than the fighter; and in which a fighter who can kill a foe with a single shot or blow is flagged as magic rather than "mundane".
 

pemerton

Legend
Conan killing “mooks”- possibly even multiples- with a single swing is fine. But- barring a prophecy or curse- the more powerful the foe, the less likely the probability of one-shotting it without supernatural boons of some kind.
In Queen of the Black Coast, Conan "one shots" double-digit were hyenas, with arrows, sword, sword pommel, bare hands, and by throwing one hard into the stairs:

And now from the shadows dark shapes came silently, swiftly, running low—twenty great spotted hyenas. Their slavering fangs flashed in the moonlight, their eyes blazed as no true beast's eyes ever blazed.

Twenty: then the spears of the pirates had taken toll of the pack, after all. Even as he thought this, Conan drew nock to ear, and at the twang of the string a flame-eyed shadow bounded high and fell writhing. The rest did not falter; on they came, and like a rain of death among them fell the arrows of the Cimmerian, driven with all the force and accuracy of steely thews backed by a hate hot as the slag-heaps of hell.

In his berserk fury he did not miss; the air was filled with feathered destruction. The havoc wrought among the onrushing pack was breathtaking. Less than half of them reached the foot of the pyramid. Others dropped upon the broad steps. Glaring down into the blazing eyes, Conan knew these creatures were not beasts; it was not merely in their unnatural size that he sensed a blasphemous difference. They exuded an aura tangible as the black mist rising from a corpse-littered swamp. By what godless alchemy these beings had been brought into existence, he could not guess; but he knew he faced diabolism blacker than the Well of Skelos.

Springing to his feet, he bent his bow powerfully and drove his last shaft point blank at a great hairy shape that soared up at his throat. The arrow was a flying beam of moonlight that flashed onward with but a blur in its course, but the were-beast plunged convulsively in midair and crashed headlong, shot through and through.

Then the rest were on him, in a nightmare rush of blazing eyes and dripping fangs. His fiercely driven sword shore the first asunder; then the desperate impact of the others bore him down. He crushed a narrow skull with the pommel of his hilt, feeling the bone splinter and blood and brains gush over his hand; then, dropping the sword, useless at such deadly close quarters, he caught at the throats of the two horrors which were ripping and tearing at him in silent fury. A foul acrid scent almost stifled him; his own sweat blinded him. Only his mail saved him from being ripped to ribbons in an instant. The next, his naked right hand locked on a hairy throat and tore it open. His left hand, missing the throat of the other beast, caught and broke its foreleg. A short yelp, the only cry in that grim battle, and hideously human-like, burst from the maimed beast. At the sick horror of that cry from a bestial throat, Conan involuntarily relaxed his grip.

One, blood gushing from its torn jugular, lunged at him in a last spasm of ferocity, and fastened its fangs on his throat—to fall back dead, even as Conan felt the tearing agony of its grip.

The other, springing forward on three legs, was slashing at his belly as a wolf slashes, actually rending the links of his mail. Flinging aside the dying beast, Conan grappled the crippled horror and, with a muscular effort that brought a groan from his blood-flecked lips, he heaved upright, gripping the struggling, rearing fiend in his arms. An instant he reeled off balance, its fetid breath hot on his nostrils, its jaws snapping at his neck; then he hurled it from him, to crash with bone-splintering force down the marble steps.​

There are no supernatural boons here, just mighty thews.
 

Fanaelialae

Legend
No it isn’t. I’m distinguishing between “mundane” and “supernatural”- a crucial element of this discussion.

Going back to Beowulf to illustrate: As mentioned, he held his breath underwater for hours. Swimming in armor. Etc.

Professional breath hold diver Budimir Šobat's world record of 24 minutes and 37 seconds holding his breath underwater. He wasn’t swimming around vigorously in armor while doing so.

What Beowulf did was so far beyond human capabilities that it must be supernatural.

Back to one-shorting, beheadings, etc.

There’s clearly a hyped-up level of combat mayhem a mundane but heroic fighter should be able to deliver. But after a certain, as-yet-undefined point, certain combat feats are so far beyond the mundane that they are by definition supernatural.

Conan swinging a 3’ sword in an arc and beheading all within arm’s reach is hyped up, but cinematically mundane. If, OTOH, he swings his 3’ sword and decapitates everyone within 15’ of him, we’re no longer in the realm of mundane warriors.
Even a vorpal sword doesn't allow you to decapitate everyone within 15' (unless you have the reach, number of attacks, and lucky rolls to make such an unlikely occurrence happen). Not really sure why you're bringing that into the conversation.

I'm talking about things that are mundane. A skilled, real world person can one shot another person, right? That's a thing that happens. There's no need for magic to explain it. Hence, it is mundane. It's historically been restricted to magic in D&D, but there's no reason it needs to be that way. You could totally give fighters the ability to one shot opponents. You'd need some limitations to keep it in check, but there's no justification for preventing a fighter from doing so on the basis that they're mundane. It's something that a mundane warrior could be realistically expected to do.
 

Oofta

Legend
In Queen of the Black Coast, Conan "one shots" double-digit were hyenas, with arrows, sword, sword pommel, bare hands, and by throwing one hard into the stairs:

And now from the shadows dark shapes came silently, swiftly, running low—twenty great spotted hyenas. Their slavering fangs flashed in the moonlight, their eyes blazed as no true beast's eyes ever blazed.​
Twenty: then the spears of the pirates had taken toll of the pack, after all. Even as he thought this, Conan drew nock to ear, and at the twang of the string a flame-eyed shadow bounded high and fell writhing. The rest did not falter; on they came, and like a rain of death among them fell the arrows of the Cimmerian, driven with all the force and accuracy of steely thews backed by a hate hot as the slag-heaps of hell.​
In his berserk fury he did not miss; the air was filled with feathered destruction. The havoc wrought among the onrushing pack was breathtaking. Less than half of them reached the foot of the pyramid. Others dropped upon the broad steps. Glaring down into the blazing eyes, Conan knew these creatures were not beasts; it was not merely in their unnatural size that he sensed a blasphemous difference. They exuded an aura tangible as the black mist rising from a corpse-littered swamp. By what godless alchemy these beings had been brought into existence, he could not guess; but he knew he faced diabolism blacker than the Well of Skelos.​
Springing to his feet, he bent his bow powerfully and drove his last shaft point blank at a great hairy shape that soared up at his throat. The arrow was a flying beam of moonlight that flashed onward with but a blur in its course, but the were-beast plunged convulsively in midair and crashed headlong, shot through and through.​
Then the rest were on him, in a nightmare rush of blazing eyes and dripping fangs. His fiercely driven sword shore the first asunder; then the desperate impact of the others bore him down. He crushed a narrow skull with the pommel of his hilt, feeling the bone splinter and blood and brains gush over his hand; then, dropping the sword, useless at such deadly close quarters, he caught at the throats of the two horrors which were ripping and tearing at him in silent fury. A foul acrid scent almost stifled him; his own sweat blinded him. Only his mail saved him from being ripped to ribbons in an instant. The next, his naked right hand locked on a hairy throat and tore it open. His left hand, missing the throat of the other beast, caught and broke its foreleg. A short yelp, the only cry in that grim battle, and hideously human-like, burst from the maimed beast. At the sick horror of that cry from a bestial throat, Conan involuntarily relaxed his grip.​
One, blood gushing from its torn jugular, lunged at him in a last spasm of ferocity, and fastened its fangs on his throat—to fall back dead, even as Conan felt the tearing agony of its grip.​
The other, springing forward on three legs, was slashing at his belly as a wolf slashes, actually rending the links of his mail. Flinging aside the dying beast, Conan grappled the crippled horror and, with a muscular effort that brought a groan from his blood-flecked lips, he heaved upright, gripping the struggling, rearing fiend in his arms. An instant he reeled off balance, its fetid breath hot on his nostrils, its jaws snapping at his neck; then he hurled it from him, to crash with bone-splintering force down the marble steps.​

There are no supernatural boons here, just mighty thews.

It also sounds like a barbarian decent at archery with the brawler feat. 🤷‍♂️
 

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