Magic is powerful. Is magic the only kind of power?

[Shining Wrath]

This thought came to me while in a Tome of Battle thread, wherein folks argued which maneuvers should be SLA, which SU, and which EX.

In some 3.5 settings, we've got the idea of The Weave, which lets mere mortals manipulate all that raw Magick that's lying around out there waiting to be used. But we also have supernatural and extraordinary abilities, which suggests that there's other ways to be powerful that ...

aren't magic.

Consider the dragon. Largish creature, heavy scaly hide, great big bones, and wings. Completely, totally, utterly inadequate wings. To get the mass of a dragon airborne you'd need wings the size of football fields flapping at hummingbird frequency.

Which would give dragons yet another way to destroy a village: "Surrender your money and your most toothsome virgins, or I shall FLAP". That's besides the point, though.

How then does the dragon fly? The simple answer is "Duh. Magic.". But that suggests a dragon's flight ought to be subject to Dispel Magic, and I've never seen that tried, and nothing in the RAW says it will work.

So there's got to be power - tremendous power - that's NOT magic, at least not in the "manipulate the weave" sort of sense.

So, back to ToB. Some folks complain that the initiator maneuvers are spells, or similar to spells. I'm here to argue that what maneuvers represent is a way to access Power that's not magic. A Warblade unleashing Time Stands Still is not manipulating The Weave, but he's getting at the same Power a mage gets at through plucking threads of The Weave, he's just getting at it through a completely different mechanism. A flying dragon is also tapping into Power without using magic.

How strong does a giant have to be before you say "Wait - that's not possible without magic"? I say there's not an upper limit, a giant who picks up a rock the size of a galley and throws it has tapped into Power, but it's not accessed via magic.

[AlanBruce]

I believe I read years ago in some published source that a dragon's flight was (Su) and thus, could be nullified in an AMF.

However, their Monster Manual entry just grants them a flight speed- nothing magical at all.

Draconomicon, I am certain, delves deeper into dragon biology, explaining how such enormous bodies can remain in the air.

Martial Adepts use their training to achieve feats not normally available to other martial characters. Each stance and maneuver indicates whether they are (Ex) or (Su) in nature. How do they get access to these supernatural powers? As a DM, you can rule that they tap into their inner spirit, focused training, or maybe some martial aspect of the Weave.

And regarding other sources of power besides magic, there is also psionics, which many tend to bunch together under magic itself, but mechanically, they are a different system.

Same goes for Incarnum.

[KingAtomsk]

Consider the dragon. Largish creature, heavy scaly hide, great big bones, and wings. Completely, totally, utterly inadequate wings. To get the mass of a dragon airborne you'd need wings the size of football fields flapping at hummingbird frequency.

Ignoring the fact that dragons in D&D are explicitly magical creatures by the very nature of their being, there is actually quite a bit of reading material out there where people have examined the flight mechanics of the stereotypical fantasy-setting dragon. Many, such as this one (https://sites.google.com/site/anthonysgurps/dragon-physics) conclude that while their ability to fly is contingent on many factors, it is not, in fact, impossible.
As it happens, the above-linked examination posits that a dragon would need to have a metabolism like a steam or wood-powered furnace, and the description of True Dragons in the SRD actually reads: "A dragon’s metabolism operates like a highly efficient furnace and can metabolize even inorganic material. Some dragons have developed a taste for such fare."
... which just goes to show the dedication and attention to detail of the game designers at WotC.

I realize that this is not on topic exactly, so in penance I'll offer this up:

In the text of Antimagic Field, the following statement is given: "The spell has no effect on golems and other constructs that are imbued with magic during their creation process and are thereafter self-supporting (unless they have been summoned, in which case they are treated like any other summoned creatures). Elementals, corporeal undead, and outsiders are likewise unaffected unless summoned."

Dragons, as mentioned earlier, are inherently magical, in much the same way as golems, elementals, undead, etc. that are called out in the description of AMF. In addition, the fly speed of a true dragon is not listed as (Su), (Ex), or (Sp) and is simply an inherent racial quality. It's therefore reasonable to say that a dragon's ability to fly, even if magical in nature, is a basic enough quality of its existence as a creature that a spell like Antimagic Field cannot negate it.

Following this, Dispel Magic likely functions in a magic-mechanically similar fashion to Antimagic Field (you can't dispel magic to stifle the magic that animates a non-summoned undead creature). Similarly, Dispel Magic should not function to negate the (potentially) magically-enhanced ability of a dragon to fly.

If you really want to stop a dragon from flying, dispel its Scintillating Scales spell, and hit it with a Shivering Touch with a little help from Assay Spell Resistance.

[Psyren]

In addition to spells/powers themselves, all 5 of the other special ability types (Su, Ex, Sp, Ps, Na) are capable of breaking physics too. Dragonflight is Na.

This doesn't mean that all or even most Natural abilities do so - just that dragonflight is one that does.

[Shining Wrath]

Ignoring the fact that dragons in D&D are explicitly magical creatures by the very nature of their being, there is actually quite a bit of reading material out there where people have examined the flight mechanics of the stereotypical fantasy-setting dragon. Many, such as this one (https://sites.google.com/site/anthonysgurps/dragon-physics) conclude that while their ability to fly is contingent on many factors, it is not, in fact, impossible.
As it happens, the above-linked examination posits that a dragon would need to have a metabolism like a steam or wood-powered furnace, and the description of True Dragons in the SRD actually reads: "A dragon’s metabolism operates like a highly efficient furnace and can metabolize even inorganic material. Some dragons have developed a taste for such fare."
... which just goes to show the dedication and attention to detail of the game designers at WotC.

I realize that this is not on topic exactly, so in penance I'll offer this up:

In the text of Antimagic Field, the following statement is given: "The spell has no effect on golems and other constructs that are imbued with magic during their creation process and are thereafter self-supporting (unless they have been summoned, in which case they are treated like any other summoned creatures). Elementals, corporeal undead, and outsiders are likewise unaffected unless summoned."

Dragons, as mentioned earlier, are inherently magical, in much the same way as golems, elementals, undead, etc. that are called out in the description of AMF. In addition, the fly speed of a true dragon is not listed as (Su), (Ex), or (Sp) and is simply an inherent racial quality. It's therefore reasonable to say that a dragon's ability to fly, even if magical in nature, is a basic enough quality of its existence as a creature that a spell like Antimagic Field cannot negate it.

Following this, Dispel Magic likely functions in a magic-mechanically similar fashion to Antimagic Field (you can't dispel magic to stifle the magic that animates a non-summoned undead creature). Similarly, Dispel Magic should not function to negate the (potentially) magically-enhanced ability of a dragon to fly.

If you really want to stop a dragon from flying, dispel its Scintillating Scales spell, and hit it with a Shivering Touch with a little help from Assay Spell Resistance.

Imbued with magic at its creation, or imbued with whatever Power source magic taps into? A highly efficient furnace sounds sort of like a power source to me.

Dragon was just an example - for another, any giant vermin ought to collapse under its own weight as there's an upper limit to what an exoskeleton can support. But hit a spider the size of an elephant with an AMF, and you still have a ginormous spider, wondering why the tasty morsel didn't run away.

I'm still maintaining that Power is out there, and magic / psionics is but one way of accessing that power. Which means in a fantasy world that non-casters might be able to access equal power to casters, just through different means.

Like, say, maneuvers.

[Alent]

I've never understood the fascination with mundanity even in low fantasy settings.

I mean, even in low fantasy our iconic hero is generally going to be cheating the laws of physics for the sake of dramatic convention. How is "Sword magic (Ex)" any less realistic than our hero hiding behind a wooden shield as dragons vent flame in his direction? Any less realistic than falling from a bridge into a raging river and not being killed instantly by breaking his neck on impact? Any less realistic than becoming a level 2 fighter given the statistical chance of dying at level 1?

Despite the criticism I gave ToB in the ToB thread, I do appreciate what it does- in a game about options, why is it the classic heroic option has NONE? Physical hero types really need mechanical reinforcement to stand on the field in a system where everyone else has mechanical reinforcement. But that's a rules opinion. Video games understand the need to reinforce their physical types with plenty of different buttons that do important things because as a game, they understand mechanical reinforcement. D&D on the other hand seems to have a strangely entrenched concept that "Fighters can't have nice things" based on a double standard of realism: The Wizard can get nice things that let him tell reality to shut up and it's okay, but if the party fighter tells the laws of reality to shut up it isn't okay because that's putting shounen martial arts manga tropes in D&D? wut?

From a pure concept perspective, it doesn't make sense for there to only be a single road to magic. Why would a mundane swordsman good enough to reach the label of "Extraordinary" not discover any ways to use one of the foundations of magic in their art? I've seen it said that Magic is a series of superstitions and false rules built up around the use of Psionics. If this is the case, Monk variations like Pathfinder's that focus on Ki Points are really just psionic classes that have taken psionics in a different direction. Why would monks- a Tier 5!- find something like that and not fighters?

I picture things like the ToB Disciplines as being "Foundational magic" rather than full out magic. It isn't developed enough to be called magic, but it exploits knowledge about the foundations of magic and flirts with the boundary to allow its user to both surpass traditional limits and better understand the physical world. A real "evolved fighter" should be somewhere between psionics, incarnum, and gramarie, yet none of those things. He should borrow and steal from the ideas that those magic systems are built on without actually learning those things and becoming a user of them.

I'll put it another way, everyone remember those cartoons we used to watch as kids which had one episode where someone gets wrongly accused, then thrown in jail, and finds themselves in the boulder quarry smashing rocks with a sledgehammer? They virtually always have this little old man with glasses and a ball peen hammer walking around oneshotting the rocks with absolutely no exertion what so ever. And when the guy who's been wrongly accused asks him "how are you doing that?" he gets this long scientific ramble that basically boils down to "I hit it in the right spot and it vibrates itself apart."

Why would veteran fighters and monks not be like that little old man, exploiting science to make their lives easier?

[Vogonjeltz]

Consider the dragon. Largish creature, heavy scaly hide, great big bones, and wings. Completely, totally, utterly inadequate wings. To get the mass of a dragon airborne you'd need wings the size of football fields flapping at hummingbird frequency.

Which would give dragons yet another way to destroy a village: "Surrender your money and your most toothsome virgins, or I shall FLAP". That's besides the point, though.

How then does the dragon fly? The simple answer is "Duh. Magic.". But that suggests a dragon's flight ought to be subject to Dispel Magic, and I've never seen that tried, and nothing in the RAW says it will work.

Behold! The Power of Suspension of Disbelief!

There's no upper limit imo, it really all depends on how the material is being presented by the author (DM). If the character is pitched as someone who can lift absurdly large weights (far exceeding what a normal human of their size and muscle mass could), then it's just something you have to accept as true, the how no longer matters.

[Shining Wrath]

Behold! The Power of Suspension of Disbelief!

There's no upper limit imo, it really all depends on how the material is being presented by the author (DM). If the character is pitched as someone who can lift absurdly large weights (far exceeding what a normal human of their size and muscle mass could), then it's just something you have to accept as true, the how no longer matters.

If, e.g., the rules say I can hit an Iron Golem using Mountain Strike and overcome DR and hardness, then it happens, and we need not concern ourselves with exactly how.

I agree with you. In fact, it's my point. There's Power out there, it is accessed by different mechanisms of which magic is but one. If the rules / DM say it happens, then it happens.

[Gemini476]

I'd just like to note that there exist editions of D&D where undead can be Dispelled, and I'm not too sure why that isn't a thing in 3.5. Why, if dragons are magically infused, doesn't that magic disappear in antimagic? Why would a wondrous item cease function, yet not a magically animated construct? How can undead in general possibly exist in a dead magic zone?

Although truth to be told the idea of antimagic is strange in general. Clearly magic isn't natural to the world, but is merely a layer set above it that can be peeled away with the right tools (dispel, AMF, disjunction) - but why is it like that?

[Divide by Zero]

Although truth to be told the idea of antimagic is strange in general. Clearly magic isn't natural to the world, but is merely a layer set above it that can be peeled away with the right tools (dispel, AMF, disjunction) - but why is it like that?

But those tools you use are also magic. I always felt like magic was just another force of nature, and those things are roughly analogous to a Faraday cage or ground or something.

http://treasure.diylol.com/uploads/post/image/638638/resized_uncle-meme-generator-magic-must-defeat-magic-931311.jpg

[VoxRationis]

I frankly think that antimagic effects should kill creatures that depend on magic to live. Also, a spider the size of an elephant is impossible—if you directly up-scale the spider while maintaining the structures and proportions of its lesser kin. If the spider has adapted, more efficient respiratory systems, proportionally thicker legs, and exoskeletons of variable thickness and strength, it's possible.

[Necroticplague]

How can undead in general possibly exist in a dead magic zone?

Because undead aren't just held together by Magic. In fact, many exist with no interference from spells whatsoever. However, were you to necrosect them, you'd find that all of them had a tiny hole leading to the Negative in them. That is what keeps them moving. Essentially, the undead are more directly plugged in to their life source (negative energy) than the living.

[paperarmor]

Wealth by Level is the greatest power of all.

[Brookshw]

Anyone else getting a discworld vibe from this thread?