Just gonna completely ignore the game balance portion, huh
I have been doing the complete opposite of this the entire time. In fact, I even suggested a common magical item version of this which would be totally acceptable within the context of other common items' remit...
twice. While continually pointing out that certain class abilities, spells, and items would correct for mobility issues
better, while having
stronger class flavor, fantasy fulfillment, and verisimilitude with a given setting.
You're the one who suggested it be realistic a wheelchair have built-in resistance to being shoved or knocked over, when that is certainly
not the case. While suggesting the use of
other abilities, spells, or devices would be unacceptable due to a perception of "fixing" disability. Pick a fuckin' lane, dude, that is if you're not so desperate to see the "anyone who disagrees with me is a bigot" talking point fulfilled, you're willing to even discard the
facade of reason or civility.
Which is in the context of several examples illustrating how the broom let you bypass problems and dangerous obstacles in a variety of circumstances rather than your capacity to travel long distances. It was your angle to try and reduce flight's utility to simple travel, when you tried to argue that Phantom Steed was necessarily superior because of its capacity for overland travel despite the fact that the subject of discussion was that it was weird for you to be complaining about a mount ignoring terrain restrictions and then championing flying items practically in the next breath considering that their flight does the same and more.
What you did was pick a handful of examples exemplary of bad campaign planning, pursuant to your assertion flight is a "game changer". Simply flying over a forest isn't bypassing a problem or dangerous obstacle, it's
just travel. It's on the
DM's head if they planned for that forest to be a major thing, and didn't anticipate their players simply using resources at their disposal -- and yet again,
one of the most common abilities in the game -- to
just go over it. I'm not changing the subject, I'm refusing the premise of your entire argument.
What I
have done about Phantom Steed, is not yet go into how overwhelmingly overpowered it is in
combat.
It strains credulity that you can read that conversation and think that my argument was somehow centered on the simple ability to use it to travel long distances, and insist that that must have been my point even after I provide a series of examples wherein flight is used to escape from or otherwise bypass danger simply because one of those examples was represented as a dangerous forest.
That would be because the only actual utility of the
overland flight spell is overland travel. It only grants a speed increase of 10 compared to
fly's 30, locks out the charge and run actions, doesn't improve maneuverability as does
fly, and doesn't have
fly's trailing featherfall effect. Using it in combat is a "are you
sure you want to do that?" moment, and the only thing it will "bypass" is poor campaign and encounter design.
You already (inadvertently) framed the conversation around overland travel, citing a spell the only utility of which
is overland travel.
Or more strictly, the novels exaggerate what's in the rule books, because the rule books are the source material.
Artistic licence, they call it.
"The fluff doesn't matter when it disproves me".
The movie's canon, by the way. Game material published after the film's script was finalized
already references places and events in the film. Revel's End and members of its Absolution Council show up in both the movie and Rime of the Frostmaiden, because
the module's and script's writers collaborated. So, whoops.
But speaking of Icewind Dale...
Sure. And in Salvatore's Icewind Dale, there's barely a mage to be found...
Because it's a frozen-over, inhospitable, shithole where nobody other than indigenous peoples
want to live. The rest of the population's there because they're refugees, fugitives, outlaws, can't afford to leave, or there to plunder the Frozenfar's natural resources for export. Mages tend to not live there because they can
get out, and simply contract adventurers to do their business
for them. Clue #1 on that really oughta be it's where the infamous drow fugitive went to
hide.
Again, it's
really interesting how we're just...supposed to accept places like
Icewind Dale as the representative norm, while treating the Silver Marches, the Sword Coast North, the Lands of Intrigue (i.e. the Sword Coast South), the Dalelands, the Sea of Fallen Stars coast, Cormyr, Sembia, Thay, Mulhorand, Evermeet, Lantan, the Moonshae Isles, Halruaa, and Zakhara as the "unrepresentative" exception. What's the next trick, telling us the Western Heartlands and Anauroch are the "norm" too?
The former's
a wide stretch of rural country...that just so happened to be sandwiched neatly between the inhospitable bog divided neatly between wild and dead magic zones because it was the site sun elves set off the magical equivalent of tsar bomba, the last high elven realm on mainland Faerun, the last vestige of the Sarrukh empire, the still-populated and active Netherese necropolis, the giant forest heavily populated by green dragons, and the mountain range heavily populated by
red dragons. And smack dab in the middle is the city-keep populated and frequented by the most powerful wizards on the fucking planet, and the ruined castle
with an active portal to Avernus. But just ignore all that, those are the
exceptions not the rules. Eyes on, and
only on, the (aptly-named) Fields of the Dead.
That's the norm.
The latter's a giant badlands and desert. Just ignore the part it's a giant badlands and desert because
literal aliens ate all the magic. And what the aliens didn't eat, the Netherese blew up. But it has bedouin analogs there who shun magic! Just pay attention to that part, and only that part. It's the norm, I promise!
Even where there is a mage in such places, it's likely little more than a level 1 dabbler who can mostly just show off some tricks.
Ugh, again, D&D PC classes are exceptional. They're comparable to "hero" or "advanced" classes in MMO's: only a select few make up their number. This is why the game has the Expert, Spellcaster, and Warrior (i.e. NPC/sidekick) classes: to reflect characters who have life or practical experience, but lack the highly-specialized training or exceptional origins of player characters.
Brother Chuck the Village Priest won't be a low-level cleric, replete with proficiencies, channel divinity, and a domain. He'll be a healer-subclass spellcaster, likely low- to mid-level. Maddie the barmaid who's secretly a Harper agent watching the trade route for signs of Zhent or Arcane Brotherhood activity isn't going to have rogue or bard levels, she'll have levels in expert. And if a small tribe of goblins make their home in a nearby cave, Chuck and Maddie aren't going to post wanted signs for a group of PC's, they'll call in Mort the half-ogre caravan guard (who's a warrior) and Wheezy the hedge wizard (a mage-subclass spellcaster) to clear it out for themselves.
Chuck and Wheezy are still capable of casting cantrips and leveled magic, even though they're not a cleric or a wizard respectively.
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