How Mundane is enough?

[Starsinger]

I've been thinking about people who whine and complain "WAAAH! My fighter must be utterly mundane!", and people who just say it. And I have to ask, how mundane is enough? Obviously videogame style blasts of fire from my sword ala ToB is too non-mundane. But what's an acceptable measure of not-realistic-but-not-going-to-make-me-whine-about-too-high-fantasy? Is it okay to cleave a stone in half with your sword? What about to fall a large distance like a Dragoon from FF? Hitting multiple enemies with a thrown weapon?
Avoiding an explosion like a fireball in a bland area with no cover, and not moving to do so? Spell resistance?

Much like my Low-Magic thread (which is floating around somewhere) this is mostly for my amusement/knowledge.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

I prefer to limit "mundane" characters to NPC's, myself, unless everyone's going to be that way. I mean, they're just going to be unimpressive next to the guy that can think you dead, the guy that can raise the dead with a prayer, and the guy who turns into giant magical beasts. Being able to use a sword sort of nifty just doesn't match that, neither according to mechanics nor sensibly.

I'm fine with ToB. If the wizard is thinking people dead, the option to create fire with your sword makes you sound at least a little formidable in his presense.

[Indon]

Well, the way I see it:

If you do something anyone can do, but just so much _amazingly_ better that the _consequences_ of your action is ridiculous, that's mundane.

If you can do something other people _can't_ do, even a less impressive version of, making it an entire different kind of action, that's not mundane.

Thus, making an attack for 100 damage is mundane; the damage comes from the same sources as a normal attack, there's just more of it. Using a maneuver to deal 100 damage is not mundane; you're using secret-squirrel-magic-jutsu to do something a commoner can not do on any scale, not even for 1 point of damage. They have to use their mundane option.

[Dullyanna]

Considering that, eventually, PCs will be going up against gigantic regenerating turtles and "Those damn crabs", it helps alot when you can do more than poke them with a sharp stick. But that's not the case in a low magic setting, of course.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Somewhere in there is a fair question, but it's presented in an incredibly trolling manner that flames a decent portion of the board's posters. Thread locked and don't restart it without permission.