Quote Originally Posted by Pixel_Kitsune View Post
Which is a personal preference, not a design argument or the core logic of the game. If you want your tables to work a certain way, cool. But nothing in the rules says it is thematically wrong. Nothing requires a "humanoid wizard" to act in the specific way of casting spells.
Rules don't say anything about themes to begin with so the point "nothing in the rules says it is thematically wrong" is moot, because that's not what rules are for. However, I'd argue that a "humanoid Wizard" is required (to a degree) to cast spells by the virtue of being a Wizard, because Wizard means a specific thing in DnD.

Otherwise we are back to the argument of "nothing requires Fighter to act in the specific way of using weapon attacks to do damage"

Again, based on your personal preference, not on the reality of the game or "Wizard" in pop culture. Even your example is wrong. A Bladesinger does not automatically draw a sword, a Bladesinger draws a martial weapon of some sort. All the way back to the 2nd Edition Book of Elves it had Whip users, polearms, etc. It's only 5e that even changed it to 1 handed last I checked. As for Wizard without specific connection, literally half the races give Martial Weapon proficiencies and there's a feat for it. There's a dozen and one ways and more for a Wizard to be adept at Melee combat. It's also pretty common for great wizards in stories to be experts with weapons. Gandalf, Rand Al'Thor, All the Recluce Protagonists, Khaladin, etc. The only reason to suggest it shouldn't happen is because of stereotypes.
My example is not wrong, Bladesinger could reasonably draw a sword, therefore I used it as an example. Example isn't meant to cover all variety of possibilities of what Bladesinger could use as weapons. So I don't see the reason to nitpick an example like that. Also, simply getting Martial Weapon proficiencies does not make a typical Wizard adept at melee combat, as they still will likely to have mediocre stats for weapon attacks, and no Extra attack, and will better off casting spells still.

However, I don't know why you bring Gandalf or other pop culture Wizards. Wizard in pop culture as a whole is just a person who does magic. Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock can all be synonyms in many pieces of media. In DnD, however, these are different things with different sources of power and different ways of interacting with the world. Though every one of those is going to be casting spells 95% of the time for their magic effects. The word "Wizard" in DnD does not have the same meaning as "Wizard" in Harry Potter, and should not be equated.

And of course "The only reason to suggest it shouldn't happen is because of stereotypes."
The stereotypes come hand in hand with "themes". Even things like Psyren mentioned - "using necrotic beams for Necromancer is good thematics" - it is also a stereotype. For example it's likely that typical PC Necromancer is going to cast Fireball a lot, which isn't typically associated with Necromancer. They are likely to cast Toll the Dead at some point too, but this won't be unique to a Necromancer, as other Wizards will also likely to Toll the Dead, because it's a good attacking cantrip.

Going even further with Necromancer, expecting them to raise or control undead or do necrotic damage, is just as much of a stereotype as Wizard casting spells. In broader pop culture, and even in some editions of DnD there are instances where healing is a subset of necromancy, and one could argue that it's not unreasonable that a Necromancer acts like a typical Life Cleric in DnD. However, that's not how it works in DnD 5e. Necromancer Wizards are incapable of casting healing spells (normally) and are expected to use necrotic damage and animate dead, and Wizards are expected to cast spells. Those are stereotypes, and those are themes. They go hand in hand. Otherwise we can just invoke Rincewind and say that Wizard doing any magic at all is just a stereotype.
And if someone has Arcana and asks to make a check I'll share. If I was running RAW and someone asked for an Arcana check I would simply say "They're not casting a spell proper, they're just drawing raw energy from (X) and letting it fly, there's nothing to counter, you'll have to find a different way to deal with it."

PS, what I do at my table has no relevance to this topic since it is specifically about RAW. I shared my personal take as a point in reference that such takes did exist and were already dismissed.
What you do at your table might affect the perception of the issue, especially if you heavily mitigated the issue in question by invoking Rule 0.

Actually, per the title of the thread this entire discussion is focused on the fact that Game Design wise, NPCs and PCs are not on the same ruleset. The argument is that that fact is not a problem. So the topic really is about rather or not PCs and NPCs can have abilities the other side can't access or if they're built on an even playing field.

Anything beyond that would be it's own topic.
If this is the argument made in response to people criticizing Wizard statblocks, then it just incorrect interpretation of reasons why people are opposed to said statblocks.