Main issue is the wheelchair itself. No adventurer would ever use a wheelchair, the only reason we can use wheelchairs now are uniform roads and ada mandated ramps. Magic carpets exist and are cheap in game and don’t make you a liability.
Why do people think this? Like, I’m not mad at you, just amazed at how common this belief is.
Wheelchairs were around, and in use on surfaces that were abysmal in comparison to modern ones, but they worked.
Whether or not an adventurer would use one is a different issue, but folks really don’t know shit about wheelchairs it seems.
I’m not saying it would be fun, or easy, but I’ve been out in the woods on paths barely wide enough to fit a chair, and had people, my patients, push themselves the entire way, lumps, ruts, rocks, roots and all. And rubber tires aren’t magic for that. They help, but they don’t make the impossible possible, just the edge cases easier.
Quoting you
… the only reason we can use wheelchairs now are uniform roads and ada mandated ramps.
That is not about the fantasy world, unless ada means All Drow Associated or something, though why drow would mandate ramps, I have no idea. Maybe because spiders don’t like steps?
I mean, have you considered a dwarven wheelchair made from the shields of the fallen, using their frames for wheels that grant comparable protection while gaining grip compared with a wooden spoke?
Or a druidic wheelchair of entire roots that bonded to the druid when they were mortally wounded on the forest, bonding them permanently?
Or a warlock who walks with an artificial leg of miasma and lurching tentacles that his patron restored him to in exchange for his soul debt?
Literally no reason and no way a wheelchair in game is more a liability than some geriatric old fucking wozard breaking his hip or your characters having a concussion and needing an EMT.
I find it odd that there is tons of room to make a wheel chair work in the game but not the spell.
It’s a shared adventure, I’d let lots of things fly for the sake of fun and interest.
If I cast “Greater Restoration” and say I’m going to cure your of your Warlock pact, and roll a nat 20, and you are vehemently against this, it’s not “for the sake of fun” if I go ahead and “cure” you of your chosen character traits and path.
I hear you, and I’m not rigid in spell use within reason, but this is well outside just RAW and more into the latter part of everyone having fun at the table. Your fun shouldn’t come at the expense of another player having to give up agency over their character, which are personal avatars people can sometimes be quite attached to.
If you’re in a table where characters are dying left and right maybe they aren’t. But even then, if they don’t want it, that’s the red line. Just like using Mind Control on a party member to do something unspeakable. RAW could they? Sure. But unless this is a game built on betrayals or where players are expecting a PvP element, absolutely not. Because the IRL consequences of this and the real anger a player at the table may feel trump mechanics.
Everything in moderation, everything on balance. Player agency is something you should try not to let other players trample on. And even as a DM, it should be subtle or not at all when you are moving the scenery to guide something. Again, subjective.
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Though better than the alternative it would still be terrible on any uphill.
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Roots bonding to the lower body would not form a wheelchair, more like darth maul spider legs.
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That’s a leg, not a wheelchair.
In every scenario, using any magic would circumvent the disability in a way that ends up mimicking walking while not being a liability.
Then it is no longer a wheelchair, it’s a magical floating chair which is acceptable.
