D&D 5E (+)What Ubiquitous DnD Tropes Get It Totally Wrong?

[doctorbadwolf]

This thread confuses me. I thought it was supposed to be about what D&D tropes 5E got wrong.

Not the ways in which D&D is unrealistically. Most of the things people complaining about are not new or specific to 5E.

Yeah nothing I do seems to stop people just using the thread to complain about things they don’t like/aren’t realistic.

I’d love for the thread to get closed, at this point.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The issue is not the parameters of the spell: it is that wizards are assumed to be able to cast the spell with pinpoint accuracy in such a way that enemies get hit but friendlies in melee with them don’t.

Let me put it slightly differently. Go out to your backyard or other open space. Imagine that somewhere ahead of you your friend is swordfighting an orc. A little way to the left of the orc and your friend, but some ways further back, a second orc is fighting your second friend.

How confident are you that without moving or the benefit of reference points, you can identify a spot that the two orcs are exactly within 20’ of, but your friends in melee with them are not? Bear in mind that you have to do this within 6 seconds, and your friends lives are at stake.

I haven’t spent my whole life training to do stuff like that. I’ve no issue at all with a wizard being able to visualize a 20-ft radius sphere and place it precisely, while under stress.

Give everyone disadvantage on all attacks in combat because everyone nearly without exception is less accurate in a fight that in practice, and I’ll consider caring that wizards can place a sphere in combat.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Estoc is a intermediate of longsword(historical 2Handed sword) and rapier

That's what I said.

What about slings?

I've never tried to use one, but they never seemed to me to be truly "simple" weapons, other than in the sense that they're easy to make. But as far as actually using them in combat, could a bookish wizard avoid strangling and/or braining himself* with it, much less actually drop a kobold with it?

I'd love to hear what knowledgeable people here could say about slings.

* Given wizards' feeble HP count at first level, my contention is that most 1e apprentices actually kill themselves not by tussling with housecats, but by practicing sling.

I think that Simple weapons as defined in 3e and 5e are also to do with usage. Not simple to use, but a weapon that even someone not trained as a warrior might have access to and experience with. So a sling is something that a lot of non-warriors would have access to and may well have used for hunting.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Kender and halflings who act like kender must die.

 

[Oofta]

This thread confuses me. I thought it was supposed to be about what D&D tropes 5E got wrong.

Not the ways in which D&D is unrealistic. Most of the things people complaining about are not new or specific to 5E.

Well part of the issue is that D&D has had such a huge influence on fantasy that it can be a bit difficult. If you go back to older stories, elves were closely linked to faerie folk along with dwarves and gnomes. But the other problem is that there is no "standard" fantasy.

But since I helped not answer the OP's question I'll throw in my two coppers. What does D&D get wrong?

Magic. Many, if not most, protagonists are either fighters or if they are mages they work differently. It varies a lot of course, but the guy who picks up a sword and goes off to slay the dragon is much more of a staple than 80% of D&D classes being heavily reliant on magic. Magic is often rare, or held in the hands of the few.

Magic items are few and far between. A magic sword is a thing of legend and wonder.

Vancian spell casting. I can't think of a book I've read that uses this abomination. Usually magic is either difficult, not particularly combat effective so must be used creatively, uses some scarce resource or uses up stamina/mana points.

You can't get better without killing things. Where is the training montage? Where is Indigo Montoya who is a fantastic swordsman because he's been practicing his entire life?

A lot of the other stuff such as the focus on dungeon crawling is campaign specific.

 

[jasper]

Now I get after the first paragraph. Dont think any of the posts before mentioned friendly fire. If they did I missed it.

Magic in the 21st and 2 decades. use 50s narrator voice.
Magic mortars. If LOS they hit only the enemy. If out of LOS they shift one grid square.
Magic bullets. YES IT HAS YOUR NAME ON IT.
There would be a FAIRY GOD MOTHER DEPT. And she be in excellent health.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Why not just let them be dark skinned because Llolth and her children happened to be that way, and they are either descended from her, or blessed by her, or whatever? A white god making the bad guy elves dark skinned is just...unavoidably gross.

Why? Must expressions of fantasy world connect to real world politics? I don't connect the dark elves' black skin to the African continent. I connect dark to, well, darkness. They are the elves of darkness. Not the elves of Africa. They were cursed to live in darkness, not cursed to live in early modern style slavery.

If homosexuality in my world is punishable by death, does that make me a bigot? What if my world enforces strict gender roles? Doe that make me a sexist?

I'm a little confused.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Vancian spell casting. I can't think of a book I've read that uses this abomination. Usually magic is either difficult, not particularly combat effective so must be used creatively, uses some scarce resource or uses up stamina/mana points.

Go read The Dying Earth.

 

[FrozenNorth]

same way you know if you are 155 feet away from your target, so you need to make 2 steps to avoid disadvantage on your longbow shot.

The initial post was ubiquitous tropes that are wrong.

This is definitely ubiquitous, and also wrong (unless you come up hand-wavy justifications).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Why? Must expressions of fantasy world connect to real world politics? I don't connect the dark elves' black skin to the African continent. I connect dark to, well, darkness. They are the elves of darkness. Not the elves of Africa. They were cursed to live in darkness, not cursed to live in early modern style slavery.

If homosexuality in my world is punishable by death, does that make me a bigot? What if my world enforces strict gender roles? Doe that make me a sexist?

I'm a little confused.

This whole comment is kinda gross, and also just a retread of literally dozens of threads on this forum.