Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
IME at least half of that problem is some players, insisting that their character is a mortal non-extranormal person overcoming wicked sorcery and fell beasts through the might of their sinews, the grit of their soul, and the sharpness of their mind...
Quote Originally Posted by RandomPeasant View Post
Well, the problem there is the insistence that the 10th level character is a "perfectly normal guy". Actions you can take at 10th level include "travel to hell", "teleport across a continent", and "raise the dead". The idea that a character at that sort of power level could survive things that would redmist a normal human is entirely plausible, the issue is D&D's refusal to allow certain characters to scale appropriately. If we accepted that the 150 HP Barbarian was Thor or the Hulk instead of Conan, there'd be no issue with him surviving a dragon bite or a fall from orbit.
I agree. And we don't even have to go so far as Thor or the Hulk--there are much lower-scale superheroes (on the raw power scale) that are also much more durable than "normal people". In fact, once you go beyond the lowest action heroes, they're all way more durable than normal people, if for no other reason than standard protagonist logic.