D&D General Wizards are not rational/scientists

[Baron Opal II]

Look closer - there is a LOT going on there.

Oh, wow. There is, isn't there... Those eyes have seen some stuff, alright.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I am not sure it's even that common, let enough "often" bite you in the ass. Isn't that a trope that appeared with the idea that a god granting miracles is Team Good and therefore anything else (witches?) must be evil? Circe or Medea seemed to be quite assured their magic would work...

Oh yeah. Magic being unreliable is just one of several competing systems, all throughout history. For example, you also have:

• One-off exchanges with powerful beings, rather than the Faustian bargain we usually associate with Warlocks (e.g. Midas asking for the Golden Touch; of course that wasn't a wise request, but hey, it's precedent)
• Permanent blessing/enchantment (the Salmon of Wisdom, for example)
• Having a bizarrely powerful familiar or helper (both the ultra-old original version and the more modern, streamlined Cinderella fit this)
• Birth (Merlin being a key example; he's got scads of knowledge and power and never seems to think it will fail)
• Consecration (many saints' stories involve them performing miracles and being quite certain they'll succeed)
• Having or receiving a magic implement that enables you to do what you like (e.g. the African epic of Mwindo, where his magic flyswatter can do basically anything, including animating itself to bring him back to life)
• Just being super enlightened/wise so you know how to do things (a more Eastern thing, e.g. in Journey to the West, but also seen in, for example, Apuleius' The Golden Ass)

There are probably others if I go looking. Most of them involve magic that its users expect to Just Work.

I generally agree with you with regard to designing a more "study-related" class, but I'd say that PC Clerics rarely do anything religious other than cast spells. When they act on the behalf of their religious order, they don't do this differently than any other hero would if hired. (I also agree that it's not the system's fault).

I dunno, I find Channel Divinity reasonably religious myself, and Divine Intervention is definitely religious (and, notably, not reliable.) The domains each having very strongly different flavor--to the point that Light Cleric comes across as "calling down divine fire" while something like a Storm Cleric is a badass warrior--is weak but sufficient for me.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Oh, wow. There is, isn't there... Those eyes have seen some stuff, alright.

I was most displeased to realize that the Wizard isn't sitting on a tree stump.

I am (very) mildly arachnophobic, so realizing that that wasn't some weird stump was definitely eyebrow-raising.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Yeah, that front belt pouch has some issues. I wouldn't be sitting there. (I was about to say without pants, but I do wear kilts from time to time. Also, yeah... mild arachnophobia too.) And those boots... must be warm.

 

[Mind of tempest]

is it bad that the crazy wizards seems only mildly notable in habits to me as wherein penguin socks and sitting on a dead spider seem oddly mundane?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

is it bad that the crazy wizards seems only mildly notable in habits to me as wherein penguin socks and sitting on a dead spider seem oddly mundane?

Dead? I thought he was trying to ride his familiar toward his next adventure?

 

[Mind of tempest]

Dead? I thought he was trying to ride his familiar toward his next adventure?

legs are too twisted for it to be a live spider.

 

[Ancalagon]

Oh, wow. There is, isn't there... Those eyes have seen some stuff, alright.

not to mention those feet

 

[Ancalagon]

legs are too twisted for it to be a live spider.

a wizard is involved, are you sure you can use such logic?

 

[Ancalagon]

I was most displeased to realize that the Wizard isn't sitting on a tree stump.

Oh wizards never sit on tree stumps. Angers the ents.