Why the demand for realism....

[Remathilis]

See, I find that kind of acceptable. Put in the in-character parlance, Hennet says that the magic in his blood is often unpredictable and goes through strange mutations. He has lost the ability to spider climb, but he's picked up 3rd level magic, so maybe now he has the ability to FLY!

See, it would make sense if Spider Climb -> Fly -> Overland Flight in spell chains, but Hennet could have dumped Spider Climb and never learned the next higher "flight" spell.

Or, given that 3e's rules were simulationist:

#1: He hits the cat with a Magic Missile, killing it.
#2: When it falls out of the tree, on his next turn, he uses a potion of Cure Light Wounds on it (which is, of course, conveniently available at the nearest magic shoppe!)
#3: SUCCESS!

Sadly, that something I could see my PCs doing... :/

 

[AllisterH]

This is one point in anime's favour.

Slayers for example, acknowledges that if you're going to have spellcasters, the only way non-spellcasters bring anything to the party is if they are completely off the wall.

 

[xechnao]

There is this inherent belief that fighters are "realistic" because any schmuck can put on armor and swing a long sharp piece of metal at another person. Indeed, we have 3000 years of recorded history about it. But we have no record verifiable accounts of what the parameters of magic is. Ergo, magic is whatever the game/group/writer decides it to be.

The result of this thinking has been, of course, the complete dominance of the wizard and cleric classes alternately throughout D&D's history with the fighter and rogue classes starting with dominance but fading into obscurity (without their own "magic", be it prestige classes or magic items).

Sadly, D&D has trained many of us to think "fighter = do the same boring thing over and over again" and the "wizard = do one awesome thing once then stop." The concepts of wizards having magic at-will and fighters having limited access to martial maneuvers seems inconceivable.

The problem is that D&D's mechanics design does not have the depth to portray real time or better say dynamic decision making in its gaming challenges that would make mundane or "fighter" classes interesting to play. So as of 4e it resorts to make a try to connect artificial methods of gamism to make up for it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

See, it would make sense if Spider Climb -> Fly -> Overland Flight in spell chains, but Hennet could have dumped Spider Climb and never learned the next higher "flight" spell.

Yeah, and before 3.5, he couldn't even switch out just by the core.

It still makes sense to me, because its magic and a wizard did it. Whatever 3rd level spell he picked up instead is his next stage in magical evolution, and it doesn't have to necessarily follow logically from his previous spells because ITS MAGIC!

As an aside, functionally speaking, a sorcerer who didn't ditch a spell just to get an upgrade of that spell was probably not choosing as effectively as possible.

Sadly, that something I could see my PCs doing... :/

See, the thing is, I freakin' love that crap.

I love it when my players think of out-of-the-box solutions to my dumb little puzzles.

I love it when they use abilities in weird and wonderful ways.

When they solve a problem in-character by using the rules to their advantage in a way the rules might not have been intended to be used, I'm very very happy, because it shows they are engaged with the world, with their characters, and with the situation enough to think of them not as game mechancis, but as plot elements that they can use in whatever way the rules allow.

4e's tight design is finding me having to find ways to put that back into the game, which is a hassle, but I'm a weird D&D player, apparently.

 

[ExploderWizard]

4e's tight design is finding me having to find ways to put that back into the game, which is a hassle, but I'm a weird D&D player, apparently.

I am in no position to comment on your weirdness but from your posts, you seem to just want the rules to serve the game instead of the reverse

 

[pawsplay]

Personally, I find these discussion to be code for,

"Let's screw over the non-spellcasters". Nobody seems to ask if it is realistic to be able to shapechange, summon demons et al.

So why would combat be the bloody same?

Shapechanging is realistic... for a wizard.

 

[mmadsen]

in a game where a 200lb man (or 90lb woman) can slay a 70ft fire-breathing, armor plated, flying dinosaur using hand to hand weapons or by shooting lightning out of their fingertips? I mean really? Really?

I suppose you find that argument tremendously clever.

You don't have to be tremendously clever to realize that good speculative fiction, whether fantasy or science fiction, starts with an intentionally "unrealistic" premise and then plays it out "realistically".

Even ignoring that, the nature of an RPG is that the DM creates a scenario and asks the players, "What do you do?" If the game is purely about the rules, with no nod to realism, then it's just a board game and not much of a role-playing game. (There's nothing wrong with a board game, but it's a very different thing from an RPG.)

 

[Dan Bell]

When I want something that is easy to sit down and engage in combat with others I play 4e, when I want realism I game in HarnWorld. The demand for realism just means balancing setting & rules combos to fit the folks one games with.

 

[Greg K]

Personally, I find these discussion to be code for,

"Let's screw over the non-spellcasters". Nobody seems to ask if it is realistic to be able to shapechange, summon demons et al.

So why would combat be the bloody same?

Then you are mistaken.
Give me 4e combat maneuvers as per Book of Iron Might and I would have been happy. Replace the 3e magic system with a system like in Elements of Magic:ME or Elements of Magic: Revised which provides more flexability and is more representative of magic in many sources while toning down the spellcasters and I would have been happy. However, give me arbitrary garbage like per encounter/daily abilities and I am not happy.