Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
Even from first level in D&D, at least in 5e. Sure, you're only shooting one heavy crossbow bolt every 6 seconds (2 about 3x/day), but you're still doing everything else exactly the same.
That particular case is specific to 5e (as so many low-level realism issues are); in 3e reloading a heavy crossbow is a full-round action so you're getting one bolt off every 12 seconds, accurate to the historical rate of fire of 4 to 5 bolts per minute for heavy crossbows that didn't require a windlass, and in AD&D rounds were 1 minute long so one shot per round was on the slow side but still accurate.

As to the "still doing everything else the same" part, 30 feet per round is a speed of 3.4 miles per hour (a standard walking pace) while the encumbrance limit at Str 10 before your speed is reduced is 33# in 3e (just about the average weight of a hiking backpack for an adult male hiker) or 50# in 5e (numbers are off there, but that's nothing new), so really, "amble 30 feet and fire a crossbow while carrying a normal backpack" is nothing extraordinary.

Even at 1st level you're pushing the bounds of plausibility (not in individual capabilities but in the collective set). By 5th level you're standing toe to toe with monsters that should obliterate you. And recovering from near-death completely by the next day.
Another 5e-ism. In 5e your 10th-level fighter with 100 HP might heal up to full with a bit of bed rest, but his 3e equivalent takes 10 days to heal up to full without healing magic or medical care (reasonable, as most major non-fatal wounds take 1 to 3 weeks to heal up to full capability and 10th-level fighters are already superhuman) and his 1e equivalent takes a whopping 100 days to heal to full. All of these examples are saying nothing about D&D in general and everything about how the 5e devs can't do math and wouldn't know verisimilitude if it slapped them upside the head with haddock.

Because really, D&D isn't based on reality. It's based on epic fantasy, which shares much more root and aesthetic with action hero and superhero shows/movies.
No, D&D takes inspiration from several different genres of fantasy, most prominently swords and sorcery like Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, high fantasy like Lord of the Rings, epic fantasy like the Elric Saga, historical fantasy like Three Hearts and Three Lions, and science fantasy like the Dying Earth, all of which are listed as inspiration in Appendix N of the 1e DMG. It is deliberately an amalgamation and interpolation of those genres (in the same way that it started off as a deliberate amalgamation of fantasy, science fiction, and cosmic horror--see: psionics, nuclear reactors in Blackmoor, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, etc.--though those influences have been "blended in" and given a more fantasy coat of paint as the editions progressed) that can be stretched and tweaked in various directions based on the campaign or the setting in use.

Throwing away the vast majority of the game's influences and then trying to pigeonhole it into one genre that it was "really based on" is historically inaccurate and completely missing the point.