Why are humans always the strongest wizards in dungeons and dragons and how can we fix this?

Morgana was the daughter of Igraine and Gorlois, you tool.

>Why not have all cultures and races as equally ambitious
Because elves have centuries upon centuries to master the art while humans keel over at 80. Are you fucking stupid? Of course the best wizards will be elves.

By creating a new setting and not using D&D as the baseline for everything in your game.

And others don't? There's no reason why all wizards don't extend their lives.

Lifespan is also a rather moot point. Humans learn in decades what takes elves centuries. Some are more fixed to learn it.

In my setting, elves are actually post-singularity humans that crashed with their spaceship on a planet inhabited by fantasy creatures (dragons etc), and they created the other humanoid races (including ones that look like their ancestors, that is, regular humans) to use as slaves/workforce. Magic is just NANOMACHINES and super hi tech.

The players didn't know any of this when the campaign started. They were told
>standard fantasy, except you can't be elves, can't be magic users, and elves occupy all positions of nobility and royalty

>Of course the best wizards will be elves.
And yet this is never the case. Run back to Warhammer if you hate it so much.

>And others don't? There's no reason why all wizards don't extend their lives.
Immortality isn’t easy in DnD.

>Lifespan is also a rather moot point. Humans learn in decades what takes elves centuries.
Says who? In DnD elves take longer to mature than humans but after that they learn and level just as fast.

>le 10,000 year old elf wizard
>is 20th level
>le 300 year old human wizard
>is 30th level
lol

>Immortality isn’t easy in DnD.
Depends on the edition and setting. In Mystara it comes in bottles and is sold on shelves.

It's literally canon that elves lead stagnated lives compared to humans and take 100+ years to even reach adulthood.

>Why not have all cultures and races as equally ambitious, no?

Why would all cultures and races be equally ambitious? Even then, why wouldn't some have a greater aptitude for certain things?

If magic is a science/art, then there's no reason for races to be better at it than others, culture and tradition being obvious outliers.

Innate potential means jack shit in D&D unless you're comparing wizards and sorcerers.

They reach adulthood at the same age as humans, they just have a different cultural concept of what it means to call themselves an adult. Or that's the default 5e canon anyway.

The strongest wizard in my settings is usually an elf or gnome, or some type of near-immortal super being. It literally makes no sense for it to be a human in most cases.

It has varied throughout the settings and editions. If we go by the Drizzt novels then elves are mentally naïve for at least a century.

For some reason reaching peak physical fitness doesn't correlate with the brain. Salvatore is a fucking moron, but w/e.

Why should humans always be the most ambitious and have the greatest aptitude for ALL things?

It's not really cultural. They don't reach mental maturity for at least a hundred years. It takes longer/shorter for certain subspecies.

That's a very good question, how DO you fix something that's been established in a published setting you have no effect on?

This thread is dumb.

>They aren't.

>Dragonlance
Humans are the brains behind magic and the towers of high sorcery
>Mystara
The empire of magic and world's centre of magical learning run by humans
>Dark Sun
Human wizards killed the world
>Forgotten Realms
The two most powerful nations were magocracies run by man

I mean, geez, earlier editions didn't even allow elves to surpass humans as magic users.

Yes, they take a long time to reach adulthood but after that they level and learn as fast as humans. Can you not read? Elves haven’t had XP penalties and level caps for decades.

The fuck are you talking about?
Some of the most Well Known powerful wizards are the likes of Circle of Eight / Elminster shit sure, but even they don't really rank up against the "Best of the best." And there are too many to count or post, because most of the time they are shot villains or off handed notables, like fey demons, or mind flayers.
In some setting being the best wizard means becoming something else regardless of your starting race
>Post Dark Sun Dragon.

I'm going by lore, you tard. Hate it all you want.

>after that they level and learn as fast as humans.
Evidently untrue lorewise. They foster taking life slowly. This is literally a stereotype surrounding them.

>but even they don't really rank up against the "Best of the best."
Like what? Ancient Netheril Archwizards? All human. Archaic Imaskari Artificiers? All human.

Or let's go back to Mystara where a civilization of human wizards literally disintegrated their home planet and thought elves were dumbasses with the craft.

>dnd 5e
>elves and humans
>both level equally as fast (in fact, all races level at the same pace)
>elves live longer
>both a human and an elf can become level 20 wizards in the same amount of time
>"what an elf takes his whole life to learn, a human can learn in [x amount of time]" doesnt apply, since both races/characters can reach level 20 at the same pace
>assuming neither messes with their natural lifespan, the level 20 elf wizard will be able to enjoy his level 20 wizard powers for 7 centuries while the human will only enjoy his for less than one

>They foster taking life slowly.
Since mechanically they learn as fast as humans this is explicitly a cultural thing not a physical thing.

>If magic is a science/art, then there's no reason for races to be better at it than others, culture and tradition being obvious outliers.

Some races are more intelligent than others or have an innate talent for a particular skill. In D&D all magic involves a harnessing magical energy (even wizard magic isn't about pure study, or else peasants could cast 9th level spells) so it's not hard to imagine some races being better at that. And races can have different behavioural traits in the same way animals do. Some races really might be more ambitious by nature, others might be short-term thinkers who find it hard to focus on magic.

>he's using game mechanics against the dumbass writers who never see eye to eye

Won't work. D&D dropped common sense and collaboration a long time ago.

If we're talking intelligence then gnomes and dwarves would be better wizards than humans and elves both.

Clearly magic in D&D is more about a frame of mind with an addition of mental aptitude.

>Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.

You might be right but the PHB makes it sound like a cultural thing.

It also says that when "learning a new skill or art, elves can be focused and relentless."

>If magic is a science/art, then there's no reason for races to be better at it than others
Some races take fundamental penalties to science and art you fucking mongoloid. Orcs have -2 Cha and -2 Int. Fucking neck yourself.

>he's using mechanics over lore

lol kill yourself

And then there those other books (or was it just the one) that describes as mentally retarded for the first century of their lives.

>what is this reading comprehension
He wasn't specifically talking about D&D, you wretched mongoloid.

>argument about piece of a game
>doesn’t accept concrete and objective evidence from that game
Pure autism.

This whole thread is about DnD you chromosomally enhanced dimwit. OP specified DnD and the post he originally responded to was about a DnD setting.

According to Greenwood humans are *at least* as great as the elves with magic.

Take it for what you will.

>actually using official settings
Are you American or just as uncreative as one?

I'm too lazy to homwbrew anything, yes.

>been years since I read that shitty series
It's okay to admit to like things user. You don't have to think a book is bad because it's popular and written for children.
Also, there were a few half-human wizards kicking around in Harry Potter if I recall correctly (Hagrid was a half-giant, whatsherface from the tournament in the fourth book was half seiren or some shit). It's just that wand magic specifically was something exclusive to humans, and thus they sorta overpowered all the other races who were basically stuck being sorcerers. That and magical Hitler was a pure-blood human supremacist.

>humans

Other races can actually use wands, but the Ministry forbids it.

There's some surprising unresolved racism by Rowling.

>complain about X in setting
>how do we fix this
>too lazy to actually fix it anyway
The definition of shitposting imo

Would you look at this genius, everybody.

IIRC every time house elves or centaurs actually use magic they overpower the wizard they are facing. It just barely ever happens. Goblins are implied to be pretty nasty to mess with too.

No genius, sorry. It took all of 85 iq to figure out that op is a fag

No. House elves use raw innate magic, not actually "overpowering" anyone unless they get caught off guard.
Packs quite a punch. They are known to defend their 'owners', but aren't necessarily good fighters.

Goblins have their own limited brand of magic more suited for convenience.
The last time they used wands the Ministry shut them down hard.

Nah, I genuinely found them boring. Only read up to the fifth book, because my family kept harping me to read them because they loved them so much. I enjoyed Dragonlance, and Deltora Quest, and Lord of the Rings. I just didn't really like Harry Potter all that much.

Okay, I guess there is some kind of Harry Potter EU I don't know about. All I remember is in the book it's a big deal when any wizard tries to steal from the goblins.

Is it even stated anyone in CANON that humans are better

>If we're talking intelligence then gnomes and dwarves would be better wizards than humans and elves both.

No question gnomes should be high-tier wizards. They are the purest expression of a race that relies on brain over brawn. If they weren't smart they would have been eaten a long time ago.

Humans are just way more reckless than elves when it comes to magic.

There are far more elf magi in the world, but the handful of human ones are much stronger.

>Why not have all cultures and races as equally ambitious, no?

It's not about ambition, it's about whether and how strong they have the Gift.

Because they're humans. Name a race that more consistently rises up as conquerors, heroes, or evil overlords in any fantasy settings. Yeah the other fantasy races can beat the average human, but the best of man crushes the best of everyone else.

I'm not sure what setting you're referring to here. Certainly not D&D, as ambition is pretty much what gives human an edge over the elves with magic.

>Is it even stated anyone in CANON that humans are better
In Potter? No, but they're the only ones with wands. Plus there's that vast muggle population that is heavily armed and highly superstitious.

In D&D? Don't humans always outnumber everyone else like 10:1 or more? It might just be statistics.

I did a setting where elves are humans who hit a magical "Singularity" and pursued Transhumanism to change themselves into beautiful, unaging, magically gifted superbeings. It all happened so long ago that only a few survivors from that era remember the truth. Most think they came from interbreeding with beings from a higher plane, or maybe humans are degenerate or something.

Don't fix what ain't broken.

Humans: not quite as crazy as gnomes or goblins, but more aggressive than the first and smarter than the second.
Truly the most dangerous combination.

Sauron > Gandalf
and he looked like an elf

this is why my elves take a looong time to develop, as opposed to centaurs who are short-lived

...

If your lore comes from the days of level limits, it's no surprise that all the waypasthighlevel characters will be humans.

Yep, same idea here, except I used it as a secret backstory, and I had the non-secret backstory be
>elves live for so long that they eventually nestle into any political body, including taking over royal thrones etc, and because of this, elves dominate and even monopolize all ruling positions

I also have the vast bulk of magic be as magic items (actually sci-fi tech gadgets)

Because there are SO MANY HUMANS.

Let's put it this way: Most Elves have a magical potential of 10. Humans have an average magical potential of...5, at most. But now and then, you get a freak who has a potential of 30. This is rare, an outlier, but there are many more human freaks than elven freaks.

Gromph Baenre? Any other light level non humans?

The leveling system never lines up with how fast a person could actually learn something in the setting. Player Characters are all freaks who can master lifelong studies in less than half a year.

>I don't believe in evolution
lol

in 5e we decided our wizards take advantage of repeated use of the clone spell until Death comes to stop them, and that's what they're training to become super stronk.

can you list them, I wanna read some dnd novels with weird wizards since all the wikis are incomplete as fuck

I honestly don't know where all the EU lore comes from. All i do know is J.K. likes to just say shit is cannon on twitter sometimes instead of writing another book. (Like Dumbledore being gay)

Natural selection

Bad to mediocre die extremely quick because they have little time to learn in a mortal life span.

The extremely great ones have to grasp the greatest concepts really fast and run with them successfully, so the only people left are those who are really fucking smart/talented/creative.

Fair enough, if you know you genuinely don't like them then you genuinely don't like them. Sorry I jumped the gun and assumed you were one of those people who hide their insecurities by pretending to hate things they secretly like.