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I've ranted on the combat wheelchair before...
But I need to make clear why.
It's not because I think the disabled should be denied mobility.
It's not because I think the disabled shouldn't be as mobile as any able bodied person.
It's because of the gross anachronism of it. Such things didn't really exist until after WW1. Yes, there are examples that qualify, here and there, going back centuries, but the form used in the mini didn't.
The modern wheelchair simply should not be invented in a fantasy setting.
Even so, being in a wheelchair would still preclude you from doing much adventuring, just like they're very limiting in normal, daily, activities today.
The combat wheelchair is a special effect. Your character is not impeded in any way if you have your combat wheelchair. You can go anywhere an able bodied person can go. Up stairs, across a tight-wire, through a moat. No limitation to movement.
That's better than modern chairs!
I've said bullshit and seen others do so.
The reply from the inventor is that magic is how it works to be better than a modern chair.
Fine.
But part of my rant is that the magic used to make that chair could also restore the crippled person to full function. It could be used to prevent or reverse birth defects too!
Then there's The Gods. Even if a magic user can't, The Gods can.
You don't need a wheelchair if you can walk.
Oh, the Combat Wheelchair sounds like a good idea. But... how expensive and how much magic has to go into the damned thing.
ReplyDeleteSome rich lich's moving throne? Yeah, I can see that.
Some 1st Level douchenozzle's armored mobile combat platform? No. Nope. Way above the starting limit.
Then there's the chair itself. The better AC and the better mobility and power and, geez, when it fails from being hit, how much power is expelled? Does it blow up spectacularly like one's own personal T-72 hit by a Javelin ATM?
Naw. Unlike SOFaI/GoT, once you're crippled, you're crippled. And only high level magic or holiness can make life better for the cripple.