The "BUT DRAGONS!" Fallacy

[atemu1234]

Definition, at least insofar as I've seen it used:


The fallacy is that all breaks from reality should be treated equally in terms of acceptance and skepticism. Just because we accept dragons does not mean we have to accept rogues phasing through fireballs.

Should this be a thing? Because the arguments for and against it are valid.

The later on thing in the thread this is from says that Extraordinary does not necessarily mean mundane. But I've always interpreted that as more a hand-wave to get things past Antimagic Field without them falling out of the sky or suffering Critical Existence Failure.

This fallacy (if indeed it can be called one, as I'm slightly unconvinced) is linked to the Guy at the Gym fallacy, kind of it's opposite. Should extraordinary abilities have some sort of explanation? Nonsupernatural but nonnormal leaves very little room in between.

[Greenish]

Extraordinary does not necessarily mean mundane.You could say that. You could even say that the two words are antonyms. /pet peeve

[Troacctid]

It has a name: If Jesus Then Aliens (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IfJesusThenAliens).

[Forrestfire]

The issue is that this "fallacy" is often invoked not by people who want non-spellcasters to get nice things, but by the detractors of that idea propping up a strawman. If the world has magic, and the game has a level system that is billed as created characters balanced next to each other, then people at the same level should be doing things at the same scale. If a wizard is creating planets with his magic, then a thief should be able to do something of similar scale, and so should a fighter. Not necessarily the same thing, but a character level is meant to be a "scale of play" factor. There's no fallacy there, just people not understanding that concept.

I do agree that extraordinary should definitely have an explanation, although what that explanation is and if it's valid depends on the person. In my opinion, if "he's just that good at magic" is enough of an explanation for the 3.5 wizard ignoring the laws of physics at-will, then "he's just that good at dodging" should be a good enough explanation for a rogue who can weave through a cloud of flames without being singed.

Depending on these explanations, at a certain scale of play, a "nonmagical" character may not exist. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing I guess would be left to the players of the game, but as noted below, consistency is the important thing.

[Kelb_Panthera]

You could say that. You could even say that the two words are antonyms. /pet peeve

So far as I can tell, either people really hate hyphenates for some reason (non-magical, non-caster) or there are an absolutely shocking number of people who have entirely missed the point of the high fantasy genre.

You cannot be a badass capable of fighting great wyrms and be constricted by the laws of real reality. The two ideas are directly at odds with one another. To bridge the gap between the two you either have to relent on the latter or declare it christmas time and get under magical tree. Forcing the dragon to conform to reality doesn't work because -dragons can't exist- by the rules of reality so either you don't get dragoms at all or you have to bring the non-magical people up to meet them somehow.

That, or you have to inconsistently rationalize why some breaks from reality are acceptable while others aren't. Consistency is too important for both the social and game dynamics for this to be acceptable. It turns being a non-magical character into a game of read the DM's mind and there are -no- winners at that game.

[Sacrieur]

It has a name: If Jesus Then Aliens (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IfJesusThenAliens).

That's the name of the trope, rather than a logical fallacy employed by the trope.

The actual name of what's being referred to as a fallacy is a false dichotomy, or in this context, fallacy of the excluded middle.

---

Keltest points out that because you include some fantasy elements, you don't have to include all fantasy elements. It's not that you can pick and choose fantasy elements, however. For the reason of logical consistency, if you accept one fantasy element, you may be forced to allow another.

The topic in question, however, is evasion. That's already been talked to death. Reflex saves double as a Luck save. Even stationary objects get Reflex saves.

[SangoProduction]

That's the name of the trope, rather than a logical fallacy employed by the trope.

The actual name of what's being referred to as a fallacy is a false dichotomy, or in this context, fallacy of the excluded middle.

---

Keltest points out that because you include some fantasy elements, you don't have to include all fantasy elements. It's not that you can pick and choose fantasy elements, however. For the reason of logical consistency, if you accept one fantasy element, you may be forced to allow another.

The topic in question, however, is evasion. That's already been talked to death. Reflex saves double as a Luck save. Even stationary objects get Reflex saves.

In fact, most things in this game can be abstracted to largely luck.
"The barbarian charged you and you took enough damage to bust down 50 iron doors, how are you still standing?" "You took damage from a successful save on Disintegrate, why don't you lose limbs?" HP is not just them standing there and taking it. Something happened that make it so you aren't seriously injured until your luck (HP) runs out. Whether this is skill (like dodging or parrying), or actual luck depends only on how you wish to fluff it.

[SangoProduction]

Should extraordinary abilities have some sort of explanation? Nonsupernatural but nonnormal leaves very little room in between.

Extraordinary means you can do something through *extraordinary* skill, reflexes, and so on. The closest thing we have to evasion in the real world are SHMUP players. Someone with (ex) hide in plain sight just knows how to not draw attention to themselves, effectively making them not "invisible" but simply "not seen", or "not noticed". Ranger example: uses camouflage. He's right in front of you. You "see" him, but you don't know it's him.

The specifics of "how" it works is left deliberately vague so that players can fluff it however they like. High fantasy. Perhaps you are *Actually* using innate magic (like how Star Wars explains that some people [like Han Solo] can use the force, but not actively, instead it manifesting as luck).

Perhaps you slow down your perception of time.

Perhaps you just want to fluff it as the shadows giving you a hug whenever you try to hide in them making you hard to spot.

[martixy]

I do believe y'all are referring to the Black and White (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqz53d-fYL8) fallacy.

In any case I do also believe that there should be some explanation for extraordinary abilities, but it does not have to be rigorous, and can be perfectly satisfactory just relying on the rule-of-cool (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool) to provide enough suspension of disbelief to make something outlandish seem reasonable enough within the context.

Say for example - rogues are just so damn good at avoiding harm that they start to learn ways to exploit tiny imperfections in spells and the like - say fireballs are not perfectly uniform, and certain areas or angles(or steradians) relative to the origin point just can't produce enough energy to do equal damage. And maybe the rogue learns to angle himself just right to cause some kind of reaction that maximizes this effect until damage is practically 0.

I mean that's a completely arbitrary explanation I pulled out of my ass, but sounds cool and badass and within the realm of high fantasy seems completely reasonable.

[Rubik]

I do believe y'all are referring to the Black and White (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqz53d-fYL8) fallacy.

In any case I do also believe that there should be some explanation for extraordinary abilities, but it does not have to be rigorous, and can be perfectly satisfactory just relying on the rule-of-cool (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool) to provide enough suspension of disbelief to make something outlandish seem reasonable enough within the context.

Say for example - rogues are just so damn good at avoiding harm that they start to learn ways to exploit tiny imperfections in spells and the like - say fireballs are not perfectly uniform, and certain areas or angles(or steradians) relative to the origin point just can't produce enough energy to do equal damage. And maybe the rogue learns to angle himself just right to cause some kind of reaction that maximizes this effect until damage is practically 0.

I mean that's a completely arbitrary explanation I pulled out of my ass, but sounds cool and badass and within the realm of high fantasy seems completely reasonable.Basically Spider-Man dodging. (https://youtu.be/PP6rU84VKnM?t=107)

[jiriku]

Extraordinary abilities do have an explanation: "that rogue is just incredibly skilled." Now, some people have trouble accepting exceptional levels of skill that exceed what they're personally familiar with. But really, we accept ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things in action movies all the time. Why not accept it in our role-playing games as well?

[Gale]

Extraordinary abilities as labeled as such for a reason. They are meant to represent miraculous feats of superhuman capability, the kinds of things that can only happen in fantasy epics and movies. Of course these abilities as written can result in impossible scenarios where a nimble Rogue can inexplicably evade an entire fireball even when cornered, but if a group is going to agree to play a fantasy role-playing game then strange events such as this should be expected. These games were designed to emulate a universe where these bizarre things can happen. Any rules set in place that alludes to the concepts and rules of our own reality are simply there to create order and prevent things from collapsing in on themselves. If one can accept that a man can be intelligent enough to conjurer fireballs at-will then it is not far-fetched to believe another can be dexterous enough to dodge it. To put things short, it’s a fantasy game, and one has to be willing to suspend their disbelief in order to play it. It’s pointless to argue whether or not something makes sense when ultimately it was never intended to.

[SangoProduction]

If one can accept that a man can be intelligent enough to conjurer fireballs at-will then it is not far-fetched to believe another can be dexterous enough to dodge it.

Or accept that someone can charm the universe itself into morphing it's rules.

"Now, about that diplomacy check on the lock?" (casts knock) "Thanks sweety."

[Sacrieur]

In fact, most things in this game can be abstracted to largely luck.
"The barbarian charged you and you took enough damage to bust down 50 iron doors, how are you still standing?" "You took damage from a successful save on Disintegrate, why don't you lose limbs?" HP is not just them standing there and taking it. Something happened that make it so you aren't seriously injured until your luck (HP) runs out. Whether this is skill (like dodging or parrying), or actual luck depends only on how you wish to fluff it.

I've always envisioned D&D creatures as stronger, more durable versions of humans. Like superheros or something from a shonen anime.

[martixy]

Extraordinary abilities do have an explanation: "that rogue is just incredibly skilled." Now, some people have trouble accepting exceptional levels of skill that exceed what they're personally familiar with. But really, we accept ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things in action movies all the time. Why not accept it in our role-playing games as well?

But coming up with outlandish, but cool elaborate explanations is half the fun.

My theory is that those who employ the "black and white" fallacy - i.e. it can either be reality, or it's still magic, simply lack the imagination necessary for this game.

@Rubik:
Yes, exactly. :)
Things like that.

I mean that one scene where Doc Oc hurls spidey through a bridge - what are the chances that bridge has a gap in just the right place and large enough that he merely has to tuck his arms and legs to pass through.
The movie portrays it as an on-the-fly(pun only intended if you want it, hehe) reaction, while I would fluff it that by the time doc has flung him, spidey already knows that there's a gap there, or if he should use his webs to evade the bridge.

[OldTrees1]

Should extraordinary abilities have some sort of explanation? Nonsupernatural but nonnormal leaves very little room in between.

Yes, but that room is much larger than you imagine. I am not going to repeat the "changing the representation changes the plausibility" examples. Instead I am going to talk about Gravity, our world, and Flatland.

In our world objects are attracted towards each other via the force Gravity that acts on masses. In Flatland all objects are 2 dimensional and thus have no mass. Thus Gravity is not normal in Flatland. However let us pretend our world is the fictional world and Flatland is the real world.

If a Flatlander wanted to run a D&D campaign they might decide to set it in the fictional Milky Way galaxy. In this D&D campaign there would be this nonnormal force called Gravity that results in objects being attracted towards one another as a result of a fictional trait called mass. Surely Gravity has some sort of explanation, but it is not necessary for the Flatlander to become an expert in fictional 3D physics(finding Gravitons ...) in order to run their Milky Way galaxy campaign. Instead the Flatlander need only know enough to be consistent.

[SangoProduction]

If a Flatlander wanted to run a D&D campaign they might decide to set it in the fictional Milky Way galaxy. In this D&D campaign there would be this nonnormal force called Gravity that results in objects being attracted towards one another as a result of a fictional trait called mass. Surely Gravity has some sort of explanation, but it is not necessary for the Flatlander to become an expert in fictional 3D physics(finding Gravitons ...) in order to run their Milky Way galaxy campaign. Instead the Flatlander need only know enough to be consistent.

Yeah, basically this.

[Jormengand]

Something happened that make it so you aren't seriously injured until your luck (HP) runs out.

Yeah, but that provides a funny mental image...

"Cleric! I need a heal! That attack almost injured me!"

It's called Cure Moderate Wounds, not Replenish Moderate Luck.


Surely Gravity has some sort of explanation, but it is not necessary for the Flatlander to become an expert in fictional 3D physics(finding Gravitons ...) in order to run their Milky Way galaxy campaign. Instead the Flatlander need only know enough to be consistent.

Yeah, but you can't pass just anything off as mundane on a sort of mundane A is mundane A (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA) basis. I mean, vancian casting is internally consistent. You can say "Well, it's a new rule of this universe!" Of course it is, but it's a rule that mundane characters shouldn't be able to make use of.

[SangoProduction]

Yeah, but that provides a funny mental image...

"Cleric! I need a heal! That attack almost injured me!"

It's called Cure Moderate Wounds, not Replenish Moderate Luck.


I didn't say "You entirely avoid damage", I said "You aren't seriously hurt." By the fact that you have fewer scrapes and bruises or even open cuts, and in less pain, makes you better at concentrating and avoiding attacks.



Yeah, but you can't pass just anything off as mundane on a sort of mundane A is mundane A (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA) basis. I mean, vancian casting is internally consistent. You can say "Well, it's a new rule of this universe!" Of course it is, but it's a rule that mundane characters shouldn't be able to make use of.

I'll say it again, they aren't mundane, they are extraordinary. Explain it however you please - it need not be magic. Though I will point to the Force thing again, where it says it's not conscious use of the Force, but something subconscious - they are gifted, even if they can't "use it".

To reiterate: They are not mundane, by definition. They are merely "non-spellcasters". Which makes martial characters notably "more" mundane than spell casters, but that does not mean they are commoners.

[Jormengand]

I didn't say "You entirely avoid damage", I said "You aren't seriously hurt."

Fine. "It's called Cure Moderate Wounds, not Cure Minor Wounds And Replenish Light Luck". Same deal.

[SangoProduction]

Fine. "It's called Cure Moderate Wounds, not Cure Minor Wounds And Replenish Light Luck". Same deal.

I wasn't finished.

Also, spell names do not neccesarily describe the spell. Finger of death is a ray, not a conjured finger.

[Jormengand]

I'll say it again, they aren't mundane, they are extraordinary. Explain it however you please - it need not be magic. Though I will point to the Force thing again, where it says it's not conscious use of the Force, but something subconscious - they are gifted, even if they can't "use it".

Right, but then why are we bothering making the extraordinary/magical divide in the first place if they're both as nonmundane as each other? And why shouldn't I be allowed to play a mundane character?


Also, spell names do not neccesarily describe the spell. Finger of death is a ray, not a conjured finger.

That doesn't change the fact that the "Ooh, I think that fireball spell took off some of my luck, I'll need a heal" image just doesn't make any sense.

[Kurald Galain]

Fine. "It's called Cure Moderate Wounds, not Cure Minor Wounds And Replenish Light Luck". Same deal.

Indeed. The whole "hit points aren't wounds" shtick gets completely ridiculous when you apply it to actual gameplay, and the only weird thing about "hit points are wounds" is that moderate-level characters are as tough as heroes from action movies.


Anyway, getting back to the thread title, the "but dragons" argument is basically used by players that don't understand (or don't care about) the difference between verisimilitude and realism.

Now it's a matter of taste whether you care about verisim, but bear in mind that many players do care. And to those, everything should have "some sort of explanation", including both ex abilities and spellcasting. It's ok if the explanation isn't perfect, as long as it's generally plausible.

And yes, that means that sometimes, an action that should work by a strict reading of the rules gets blocked because it breaks verisimilitude. And in a role-playing game, that's totally fine.

[SangoProduction]

Right, but then why are we bothering making the extraordinary/magical divide in the first place if they're both as nonmundane as each other? And why shouldn't I be allowed to play a mundane character?
You are allowed to play a mundane character. Just most people wouldn't party up with you, as you'd be dead weight. There's the NPC classes, none of which have ANY (EX) abilities.
Fighter also doesn't explicitly have any (EX) abilities, but feats in and of themselves are extraordinary. A normal person can only have a max of +4 to a skill? Skill focus. It forces him above and beyond the maximum human potential. (assume stats could not change from average, for simplicity's sake). Anyone can get feats, but that's still not something mundane. And that's just the lowest tier of feats. Is being able to cast spells in animal form mundane? (save for the part about casting spells) Is waving a piece of cloth around to gain concealment mundane?

Even the most "mundane" of the feats represents extreme training, above and beyond the banal, or mundane. And the fighter gets a ton of these (relatively). The fighter is supposed to be this most well-trained, master of the sword. This isn't how it works out because of how bad the actual fighter feats are...and because spell casters completely overshadow them in every way.

Even at 0 ranks in a skill, you are assumed to have what is common. You can take 10, and have common knowledge, assuming you've also got average intellect.

Every rank of skill represents a training beyond what's common.



That doesn't change the fact that the "Ooh, I think that fireball spell took off some of my luck, I'll need a heal" image just doesn't make any sense.

It hurts you - just not severely, as said. This harm makes it harder to avoid future attacks. (unless you think that just sitting and taking the hit from the barbarian is more "realistic", or that taking damage from disintegrate means that you were actually hit, and thus should make you lose your arm, and thus should cripple you in sheer agony....but you can keep on fighting as though nothing happened...makes sense)

HP's an abstraction of what happens. Nothing more.

[Jormengand]

You are allowed to play a mundane character. Just most people wouldn't party up with you, as you'd be dead weight. There's the NPC classes, none of which have ANY (EX) abilities.

You heard it here first, guys! People in real life can't stab someone's weak points for massive damage, can't fly into a rage, can't knock someone dead with a punch, and certainly, absolutely, definitely, cannot be better at fighting humans than animals.

Don't be ridiculous. Extraordinary is beyond the ordinary abilities of some random dude on the street. Mundane is within the abilities of anyone who ever was, is, will be, could be, or could have been.

[SangoProduction]

You heard it here first, guys! People in real life can't stab someone's weak points for massive damage, can't fly into a rage, can't knock someone dead with a punch, and certainly, absolutely, definitely, cannot be better at fighting humans than animals.

Don't be ridiculous. Extraordinary is beyond the ordinary abilities of some random dude on the street. Mundane is within the abilities of anyone who ever was, is, will be, could be, or could have been.

That is actually not at all the definition of "mundane"
mundane - lacking interest or excitement; dull.
or - of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one
And there is no RAW definition of "mundane"
The forum definition is "non-spell caster", synonymous with "martial"

Well, I don't think any character is of this world. And lacking excitement...well, it's not as spectacular to imagine a fighter compared to a spell caster...because...well, one of the two is bending the laws of physics over their knees, while the other one is just a very well trained fighter. But pit a fighter against someone who's actually average (mundane)...well, it's quite a bit more exciting. (I personally prefer close matches though.)

Martial - of or appropriate to war; warlike.
Hmm...fighter....war....ok.
Playground definition of "martial" is anyone who doesn't cast spells.

Normal people *can* stab someone's weak points for massive damage, that's called a crit. To be able to do it consistently at every opportunity, that's abnormal, and only the most well-trained could do it.

People can fly into a rage, and in some cases get a significant, and temporary boost in power and can ignore pain while hormones are going out of control. Most people can not do this on the fly though, and certainly not without psyching themselves up first. Guess what a barbarian can do.

People can knock people dead unarmed...But, try and fight unarmed vs someone with a weapon without training (ie a feat), see how that works for you. "Non-lethal" damage is simply damage that is less likely to kill you, compared to...like...getting stabbed with a sword or impaled on a pike.

Hell, even with training, you'd be hard pressed to fight anyone while unarmed (and unarmored) if they have a weapon. But, D&D doesn't simulate the real world, it simulates a fantasy world. One where people with the right training can fight toe-to-toe with those with weapons, even while unarmed, and not be severely punished for it.

This ability is beyond exceptional.

Can't fight better than animals? What are you talking about?

[Jormengand]

of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one

Bingo. A mundane creature is one whose powers are within the limits of the real world. Some people like playing as them. Which is why they play as fighters, barbarians, rogues, or some kind of variant ranger without spells. There is nothing about the majority of feats that put you outside this limitation. Or, as Richard Dawkins puts it:

"The word 'mundane' has come to mean 'boring' and 'dull', and it really shouldn't - it should mean the opposite. Because it comes from the latin mundus, meaning 'the world'. And the world is anything but dull: The world is wonderful."

You can be mundane (nonmagical) without being mundane (boring). And I think that you, fundamentally a mundane type of person but it is to be hoped not a mundane one, should probably agree.

[Necroticplague]

How much of a fallacy this is depends on what kind of source material you view DnD as being similar to. My reference point is superhero comics and shonen manga, so I see nothing wrong with entirely nonmagical people performing feats that would be incredibly impossible in real life.

One example I've seen before of something someone thought was versimilitude-breaking was a fighter clapping hard enough to take out a dragon with the air pressure. From his reference point of Arthurian fantasy, this is ridiculous. However, if you look at comic books, I can think of at least one character for which this is actually a fairly common move: The Hulk. If The Hulk can do it with sheer strength, I don't see why a dnd character of similar might couldn't learn how to do it (represented by an appropriate class feature or feat).

[SangoProduction]

Not even addressing my arguments. OK. I'll show you the same respect, and not take up the forum space.

[Jormengand]

Not even addressing my arguments.

I did. I simply chose to address the crux of your argument, rather than the peripherals.

[SangoProduction]

How much of a fallacy this is depends on what kind of source material you view DnD as being similar to. My reference point is superhero comics and shonen manga, so I see nothing wrong with entirely nonmagical people performing feats that would be incredibly impossible in real life.

One example I've seen before of something someone thought was versimilitude-breaking was a fighter clapping hard enough to take out a dragon with the air pressure. From his reference point of Arthurian fantasy, this is ridiculous. However, if you look at comic books, I can think of at least one character for which this is actually a fairly common move: The Hulk. If The Hulk can do it with sheer strength, I don't see why a dnd character of similar might couldn't learn how to do it (represented by an appropriate class feature or feat).

If he can get his hands around the head, and able to generate enough air pressure, it makes sense. In fact, it's an actual self-defense technique.

[Necroticplague]

People can knock people dead unarmed...But, try and fight unarmed vs someone with a weapon without training (ie a feat), see how that works for you. "Non-lethal" damage is simply damage that is less likely to kill you, compared to...like...getting stabbed with a sword or impaled on a pike. Even by RAW, if you force someone to have 2x their HP in non-lethal damage, they die.

Wait, where's that last rule? I don't see it under 'nonlethal damage' on the SRD.

[SangoProduction]

I did. I simply chose to address the crux of your argument, rather than the peripherals.

Except not, as D&D is not Earth. But, no point dragging this out.

Also, from SRD for HP What Hit Points Represent
Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.

[Kurald Galain]

How much of a fallacy this is depends on what kind of source material you view DnD as being similar to. My reference point is superhero comics and shonen manga, so I see nothing wrong with entirely nonmagical people performing feats that would be incredibly impossible in real life.

Precisely.

Also, bear in mind that people tend to underestimate what is possible in real life. That's basically the Guy At The Gym fallacy. When thinking of what a moderate level fighter or rogue should be capable of, you should take into account both the Olympic Games and the Guinness Book of World Records.

[Jormengand]

Except not, as D&D is not Earth.
Did I say it was? Did I, by any means, imply it?


Also, from SRD for HP What Hit Points Represent
Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.

Yes, indeed. Not luck. If you're running out of, say, stamina, and the healing spell makes you recover, that makes sense. Getting a dose of luck from the cleric because that attack almost hit you? Doesn't make as much sense.

[SangoProduction]

Wait, where's that last rule? I don't see it under 'nonlethal damage' on the SRD.

Hmm, right. I seem to be remembering a house rule of some sort. Thanks for pointing that out. Simply put: nonlethal damage doesn't exist, in real life. It's only an abstraction. Because, guess what? The game is not real life.

[SangoProduction]

Did I say it was? Did I, by any means, imply it?



Yes, indeed. Not luck. If you're running out of, say, stamina, and the healing spell makes you recover, that makes sense. Getting a dose of luck from the cleric because that attack almost hit you? Doesn't make as much sense.

OK. Last time, as you are doing nothing but trolling. Yes. By saying the characters are mundane (of earth), or your "real world". No, these characters are of D&D, and even there, they are DEFINED as extraordinary, not mundane.

Stamina factors in to it...but if that was the only factor, wearing armor would reduce your hit points, making you wear out. Also, the heal spell does not say "restore fatigue" or "sharpen reflexes" to deflect attacks better, it says "heal wounds".

Also, luck based class, in the complete adventurer or whatever, which just flat out says you rely on luck more than anything else. Are you going to rule that he can't be healed?

[Jormengand]

Yes. By saying the characters are mundane (of earth), or your "real world".
They are not in earth but they are bound by its rules.


No, these characters are of D&D, and even there, they are DEFINED as extraordinary, not mundane.

Extraordinary (outside the normal) is not in contradiction with mundane (within the possible).


Stamina factors in to it...but if that was the only factor, wearing armor would reduce your hit points, making you wear out.
It does if you're trying to dodge in too heavy armour and get hit.


Also, the heal spell does not say "restore fatigue" or "sharpen reflexes" it says "heal wounds".

Nor does it say restore luck. Your point?

[ThisIsZen]

People in real life can't, generally, consistently survive falling several hundred feet, to the point where they can do it multiple times in a day without being entirely concerned as long as they don't have to fight before receiving healing. I would also say that someone swinging a greatsword or maul at someone else 4+ times in ~5 seconds is generally beyond the realm of IRL mundane possibility, and certainly when the person is doing at least a few of those strikes with significant accuracy. A monk with the Run feat can cross 450 feet in 5 seconds, working out to a travel speed of 90 feet per second, or 27.43m/s, a full 4 m/s faster than Usain Bolt (but arguably this one isn't quite as unbelievable as the other two).

I'm also fairly certain that no matter how angry I got, someone shooting me in the chest with a composite longbow would kill me. Depending on damage dice, a barbarian stands a chance of actually surviving that same blow. Their rage feature is also completely under their control - they don't even require an adrenaline surge or anything like that, they could be sitting in the middle of afternoon tea with some nice jazz music playing over an antigue gramophone with their dearly beloved mother and decide to randomly hulk out. They probably wouldn't, but they can enter into a superhuman rage with absolutely no extant, external stimuli or even things like narcotics.

Honestly, the monk is actually a hotbed of completely impossible (Ex) abilities. Purely through meditation and personal improvement, a monk becomes immune to all poisons, all mundane diseases, and can somehow touch a stationary object while falling at up to terminal velocity to reduce her fall speed without either burning any contacting skin/clothing off or literally tearing her arms off of her body in the attempt. Similarly, a monk just stops aging at 17th level. Not because of any external force, it's just a thing that becomes normal for them. It's an (Ex) ability.

I mean sure, as a class the monk is terrible, but it's a great example of (Ex) =/= IRL possible.

Ultimately, playing D&D means accepting that some people can do things, for no magical or metaphysical reason, that just Are Not Possible under real world physics. Sometimes "mundane" abilities really are completely beyond the scope of real life. You can't really pretend this isn't the case, because iterative attacks exist, fall damage is not even slightly threatening past a certain HP threshold, and everyone is at 100% full fighting capacity all the time until they lose their last hit point, even if they've taken 700 damage prior to this. Pretending that all "mundane" abilities must exist within the restrictions of the real world means you're going to have to start overhauling some pretty fundamental parts of the system, and you're still going to end up accepting some arbitrary abstractions.

I mean, I doubt many people would want to implement a damage penalty system, even if it would technically be truer to reality, simply because death spirals are the definition of anti-fun.

[Jormengand]

People in real life can't, generally, consistently survive falling several hundred feet, to the point where they can do it multiple times in a day without being entirely concerned as long as they don't have to fight before receiving healing.
I blame the falling rules for this, more than hit points.


I would also say that someone swinging a greatsword or maul at someone else 4+ times in ~5 seconds is generally beyond the realm of IRL mundane possibility, and certainly when the person is doing at least a few of those strikes with significant accuracy.
Really? I would say that only being able to attack someone once in six seconds (don't know where you got the 5 from) is unrealistically slow. Being able to attack once every second or two doesn't seem out of line.


A monk with the Run feat can cross 450 feet in 5 seconds, working out to a travel speed of 90 feet per second, or 27.43m/s, a full 4 m/s faster than Usain Bolt (but arguably this one isn't quite as unbelievable as the other two).
It's not unbelievable at all.


I'm also fairly certain that no matter how angry I got, someone shooting me in the chest with a composite longbow would kill me.
Most people survive being shot with firearms, which have higher damage dice.


Depending on damage dice, a barbarian stands a chance of actually surviving that same blow. Their rage feature is also completely under their control - they don't even require an adrenaline surge or anything like that, they could be sitting in the middle of afternoon tea with some nice jazz music playing over an antigue gramophone with their dearly beloved mother and decide to randomly hulk out. They probably wouldn't, but they can enter into a superhuman rage with absolutely no extant, external stimuli or even things like narcotics.
That ability is very similar to biofeedback, which is a thing some people can do.


Honestly, the monk is actually a hotbed of completely impossible (Ex) abilities. Purely through meditation and personal improvement, a monk becomes immune to all poisons, all mundane diseases,
Strong people can become functionally immune to a lot of poisons.


and can somehow touch a stationary object while falling at up to terminal velocity to reduce her fall speed without either burning any contacting skin/clothing off or literally tearing her arms off of her body in the attempt.
Which is why I don't think SFAD should be (ex).


Similarly, a monk just stops aging at 17th level. Not because of any external force, it's just a thing that becomes normal for them. It's an (Ex) ability.

I mean sure, as a class the monk is terrible, but it's a great example of (Ex) =/= IRL possible.
Yeah, the (ex) tag is misapplied a lot. I mean, ToB classes can throw an axe through six people and deal as much damage to each one as being shot with an AK-47 several times, and it's (ex). But that's precisely why I don't equate (ex) and mundane.


Ultimately, playing D&D means accepting that some people can do things, for no magical or metaphysical reason, that just Are Not Possible under real world physics. Sometimes "mundane" abilities really are completely beyond the scope of real life.
No. Sometimes "(ex)" abilties are.

You can't really pretend this isn't the case, because iterative attacks exist, fall damage is not even slightly threatening past a certain HP threshold, and everyone is at 100% full fighting capacity all the time until they lose their last hit point, even if they've taken 700 damage prior to this. Pretending that all "mundane" abilities must exist within the restrictions of the real world means you're going to have to start overhauling some pretty fundamental parts of the system, and you're still going to end up accepting some arbitrary abstractions.

I mean, I doubt many people would want to implement a damage penalty system, even if it would technically be truer to reality, simply because death spirals are the definition of anti-fun.

There is also the fact that suspension of disbelief is a thing. I can suspend my disbelief for someone attacking a bit fast with a sword. I can't for someone throwing an axe straight through six other people, to the effect that the velocity required would probably cause a nuclear explosion similar to this one (http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/). This is why if I want to play a mundane character, I play a fighter and stay away from lava and cliff faces.

[Strigon]

In our world objects are attracted towards each other via the force Gravity that acts on masses. In Flatland all objects are 2 dimensional and thus have no mass. Thus Gravity is not normal in Flatland. However let us pretend our world is the fictional world and Flatland is the real world.


This isn't necessarily true; in Flatland, mass could be defined by area and density, rather than volume.
Similarly, a creature from a universe with 4 spacial dimensions might assume that objects in our 3D world don't have mass, but they'd be wrong.
Irrelevant to the topic at hand, I know, I'm sorry. Just wanted to point that out.

Next, I thought it had become generally accepted that explaining hitpoints logically just doesn't make sense; are you suddenly less lucky if you fall 30 feet? Or if you're lit on fire, or jump into lava? What if you're super tough, can you swim through lava then?
The abstraction of luck, "dodging" (Which is what AC is for), and your ability to take a hit and just push through it falls apart at higher levels. HP is just a measurement of your current status: Alive, Dead, or Not Quite Dead. How you got there, how you're feeling, and what shape your body in is all fluff that has no basis in the rules. Now, if you want to say you got lucky and that Barbarian's axe was just a glancing blow, and that's why you're still alive, you can, but you can't pretend that remains consistently logical in all scenarios.

As for Extraordinary abilities? I view them as comic-book style stuff. Hawkeye can perform feats with a crossbow no human could ever do consistently. But his abilities aren't magical. Bruce Banner turning into The Hulk has no potential basis in our version of science, but he's not magical. Superman should not be able to fly just because he's super strong, but he's not magical.
Wolverine, Cyclops, Beast Boy, Thor, Deadpool? All extraordinary. How exactly you want to fluff what happens is up to you, but they certainly aren't operating under traditional magic.
They're also another option of abstracting HP; they're just super tough. That's it. Nothing else to see here, no further explanations needed. Oh, you want one? He has an adamantium skeleton. Or his biology is pumped up by our yellow sun.

If you want, you could say that there are two types of magic in the world; one which Wizards and Sorcerers and gods use actively, and which an Anti Magic Field blocks, and another which is a bit like The Force - it flows through all things, and some gain power through that type of magic; we call it an Extraordinary Ability. You can explain HP this way, too.

[LudicSavant]

I would also say that someone swinging a greatsword or maul at someone else 4+ times in ~5 seconds is generally beyond the realm of IRL mundane possibility

:smallconfused: This is just plain silly. It is not especially difficult to attack quickly (you can see people attacking at least that fast in any random youtube video of people using greatswords, such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCVt9rRE0bk, or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4blRbG7vLI. Those are seriously just the first two I clicked on, and I doubt their speeds represent the potential of a true battle-tested master). Heck, even the exaggerated windups of Siegfried (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI1eSloW2AM) or Nightmare (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NCVtSNbfr8) with their impossibly bulky swords are faster than that.

You know who actually physically acts really fast? Wizards. Seriously your average mage is so alacritous that they're expected to move their speed, maintain all of their defenses (cast defensively, etc), grab various fiddly components from their pack, and perform full-body somatic components so complex and precise that simply wearing armor will mess them up, all while clearly enunciating exacting verbal components. And at higher levels they can potentially cast so fast that it puts Rita Mordio to shame (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bK4XKS7gL0). And we're being told that these guys are frail old men who dumped their physical attributes! Why aren't people ever bringing that up?

[Darrin]

I have used this fallacy in various "ToB is OP" threads, mostly against the people who insist that "fighters casting spells with their swords is unrealistic!" sort of nonsense. My argument: ok, so you want to pick and choose what is "realistic" in a world where wizards can wiggle their fingers and produce a fireball, and somehow fighters can't wiggle their sword and do something similar?

But the crux of the matter is this: it's not an argument about realism. It's an argument about someone's personal preferences for their conceptualization of an ideal fantasy world. Some people prefer to eat brownies without nuts. Some people prefer nuts. (And are horribly, horribly wrong and need to be punished.)

Another example: Gary Gygax at one point had a "No Gunpowder" rule in his Greyhawk campaign. Now, this seems like a particularly silly rule, since this is the man that put the Star Trek Enterprise inside Castle Greyhawk. But it wasn't a problem until Don Kaye's character Murlynd was transported to an alternate universe styled after the "Old West", and came back with a pair of colt revolvers. Gygax enjoyed taking his players to other worlds (hence the conversion rules for D&D/Boot Hill, and also a foray into Barsoom which led to the first multiclassing rules), and Don really, really, really enjoyed the Old West. Rather than strip the revolvers away from Murlynd or rendering them useless, he created a new loophole: the revolvers were "magical wands" that made loud noises and shot out small magical missiles. The point being: the original rule was not about preserving the separation of magic versus technology or allowing technology to trump magic, it was about preserving Gygax's idealized concept of what a Heroic Fantasy World should look like: it shouldn't have guns (which, again, still sounds very odd from a man who allowed star ships, laser rifles, robots, etc. into various corners of his campaign world). Gygax's solution was to refluff via Clarke's Third Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws). You could also probably say it's a good example of Gygax allowing Fun to trump Rules.

So I guess the point I'm trying to make... rather than using the But Dragons! fallacy, a more effective argument might be:

We're really arguing over the individualized opinions about the proper definition of a "fantasy world". Your particular definition seems very narrow and rigid. Given all of the hundreds of different ways to refluff or rationalize what may or may not belong in a "fantasy world" (I mean, just look at all the bizarre and stupid rationalizations in superhero comics), could you possibly consider relaxing or redefining your definition to allow this concept {X} and still maintain the internal consistency of your world?

[ericgrau]

Ex means beyond normal but still not magical. Superhuman, kind of like superman. Or an ancient Greek hero. It can do things that are beyond the capabilities of a normal person but they should still have an explanation. They are simply mundane, but greater. Heck ability scores and skill checks break the limits of our greatest athletes or other professionals all the time, not to mention many many other actions. For evasion it's something like an exceptionally fast reaction and Matrix dodging instead of merely shielding yourself against the blast. I didn't think anyone actually took roguespace seriously, but maybe some do?


I have used this fallacy in various "ToB is OP" threads, mostly against the people who insist that "fighters casting spells with their swords is unrealistic!" sort of nonsense. My argument: ok, so you want to pick and choose what is "realistic" in a world where wizards can wiggle their fingers and produce a fireball, and somehow fighters can't wiggle their sword and do something similar?
Personally I'm fine with ToB fluff as long as you call it magic. Some can be explained ok without magic, but for most explanations quickly break down with any amount of prying beyond a brief surface explanation.

[LudicSavant]

Roguespace is actually a good example of a general design principle: In tabletop roleplaying games, abilities that grant completely new fluff capabilities (like Fireball) are as good or better than their mechanical description, because you can probably find utilities for the fluff of being able to produce a flash of heat in an area beyond simply dealing X damage to creatures that most DMs will accept. Abilities that grant abilities that are basically fluffed as augmentations of existing abilities (Anything that can be summed up as "you do X but better" like Evasion, which is "you dodge but better") are as good or worse than their mechanical description, because you already had the side-benefits of "able to dodge things" fluff and because a DM may restrict the function of your ability based on existing fluff (like "there's no space to dodge, here!")

Designers should be aware of this when balancing things.

[ericgrau]

I always assumed that "instant" meant <6 seconds rather than ~0 seconds, based on the many examples that obviously aren't ~0 seconds. That and an un-uniform blast is how you dodge a fireball while moving less than 5 feet. I think there are some "more instant" spells that don't allow a reflex save.

There are slower traps that can't be dodged and get no save (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/traps.htm#neverMiss), like the entire wall moves to crush you in a closed room.

If we're going to bring physics into this, which isn't necessarily necessary, I believe the heat radiating from a fireball is too brief to cause damage. In general direct contact with instant duration flames won't even start a fire by RAW, for being too brief. Fireball is a specific exception. That's how people quickly pass their fingers through candle flames without harm, heck it isn't even that warm. And why you can't start a fire by simply holding a lighter up to a log for a few seconds.

[StriderITP]

Should extraordinary abilities have some sort of explanation? Nonsupernatural but nonnormal leaves very little room in between.

Yes they should have some sort of explanation. However, I believe it is up to the players and the DM to decide what exactly that explanation is. Depending on the group, that explanation can be anything from a 9 page dissertation on the possible ability in question or something as flimsy as "my character is just that good."

[Kurald Galain]

Also, bear in mind that people tend to underestimate what is possible in real life. That's basically the Guy At The Gym fallacy. When thinking of what a moderate level fighter or rogue should be capable of, you should take into account both the Olympic Games and the Guinness Book of World Records.

Case in point,


I would also say that someone swinging a greatsword or maul at someone else 4+ times in ~5 seconds is generally beyond the realm of IRL mundane possibility ... I'm also fairly certain that no matter how angry I got, someone shooting me in the chest with a composite longbow would kill me.

[Prime32]

Also, from SRD for HP What Hit Points Represent
Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.Since shonen manga were brought up earlier, there's one in particular I'd like to bring up: Dragonball. Not because it handles things in an unusual way, but because it spells everything out:

When you're hit by an attack, damage is subtracted from your ki before it reaches your body - normal people just don't have a lot of ki and don't know how to use it properly, so the effect is only noticable on highly-trained warriors. You can heal someone by channeling ki into them to refill their reserves - the stronger you are, the higher your maximum capacity and so the more energy it takes to restore you to full strength. Certain attacks can bypass your ki defences and damage your body directly, which isn't much more durable than a normal person's - in D&D terms this would be classified as Con damage, and is how weapons with the wounding property function (Krillin's Destructo-Disk is basically a ranged cousin of shivering touch).

It's also worth noting that hit points have an inherently magical effect - your number of Hit Dice determines whether certain spells like sleep and cloudkill can affect you, what kinds of undead you can turn into, and the strength of your soul for spells which trap or are powered by souls. Not only is character level a quanitifiable thing in D&D, you are required to quantify it if you want to use certain types of magic on someone.


D&D is not a world based on modern scientific assumptions, nor is it meant to be historically accurate. The periodic table consists of four elements. Bronze Age Celtic druids live in the same town as street gangs from 1900s London and ancient Norse spirits of the dead and post-Renaissance German swashbucklers, while the mayor is secretly under the sway of Indian shapeshifters (both kinds of Indian). People of old saw that you could become stronger and tougher by training, and didn't see any reason why that should stop at some point.

[Psyren]

Yes, I support naming this fallacy, because some folks rely on it to justify the most nonsensical things - like rogues altering matter by stealing some of the protons from each atom, or returning to life because they stole themselves from death or other frippery. This is not to say that I think that sort of thing should be invariably impossible, just that I think it belongs in a different type of story or game than the one D&D or PF is typically attempting to model.

Having said that, I definitely do think there are things martials should be able to do that are currently made too difficult or impossible by the game.

[Kurald Galain]

Since shonen manga were brought up earlier, there's one in particular I'd like to bring up: Dragonball. Not because it handles things in an unusual way, but because it spells everything out:

His hit points! They're over NINE THOUSAAAAAND!

[Jormengand]

It's also worth noting that hit points have an inherently magical effect - your number of Hit Dice determines whether certain spells like sleep and cloudkill can affect you, what kinds of undead you can turn into, and the strength of your soul for spells which trap or are powered by souls. Not only is character level a quanitifiable thing in D&D, you are required to quantify it if you want to use certain types of magic on someone.

Axes can only break things with low enough hardness, so hardness is an inherently axe effect.

Wait, what? Just because something is more affected by magic than something else, doesn't mean it's inherently magical.

[enderlord99]

They are not in earth but they are bound by its rules.

...Which is just silly.

[Brova]

...Which is just silly.

Pretty much. Mundane just means "natural", which is a less scientific way of saying "how the world behaves". In our world, that involves people running at less than 60MPH, not surviving thousand foot falls, and not being able to conjure explosions by waving their hands and doing something with bat guano. But the D&D world involves all of those things. Saying that people doing some things but not others is "mundane" is a totally meaningless term, because "mundane" literally means whatever people happen to be able to do.

[StriderITP]

Yes, I support naming this fallacy, because some folks rely on it to justify the most nonsensical things - like rogues altering matter by stealing some of the protons from each atom

There's a certain point where it just becomes silly, and I agree that that would be one of those points


or returning to life because they stole themselves from death

That one isn't too bad, there's plenty of stories of rogue types managing to bullhonky their way out of actually dying, usually either striking a deal with a greater power, tricking the entity that finalizes death, or tricking a greater power into resurrecting him. Could make for an interesting roleplay moment regardless :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Ok maybe the first one is fine too if your player is Carmen Sandiego

[Psyren]

That one isn't too bad, there's plenty of stories of rogue types managing to bullhonky their way out of actually dying, usually either striking a deal with a greater power, tricking the entity that finalizes death, or tricking a greater power into resurrecting him. Could make for an interesting roleplay moment regardless :smallbiggrin:

But that's my point exactly - an interaction like that belongs purely in the realm of roleplay. I see no point in having mechanics for this sort of thing because it should be such a singular and entity-dependent event. For something like this, I wouldn't care if you can get a 400 Sleight of Hand result - there would be no point in even rolling for something like this.

[Zaydos]

Ignoring how this has gotten sidetracked with Hit Points, and going back to the original point. There are only two places where I've found listing things as Ex bothersome.

Tome of Battle and Homebrew.

Tome of Battle throws in Ex ranged healing which is just confusing, Ex alignment based smites of righteous energy, and Ex Teleportation. All of which are probably editing issues given how many that book had. It's easy to house rule them all Su and have no problem with game play, though you will get people complaining they can't be completely "mundane" and still teleport.

The second is homebrew where people throw in stuff like Ex teleportation, Ex anti-magic field, Ex shapeshifting all the time with no explanation other than I wanted it to be mundane. I'm guilty to an extent with Tall Tale. I think my justification is better as it all is about exaggeration of something that you can already do (the teleportation ability for Tall Tale is literally running at near light speed and limited in that it needs line of effect because you aren't teleporting you're running, flight is being such a good swimmer you can swim on air). Even so it's in homebrew that these things really start to hit me personally, and it brings back ToB because people cite it as "well it had Ex teleportation so Ex Wish makes sense" (slight hyperbole, I don't think I've actually seen Ex Wish just things that come close).

Part of the problem comes to people's failing to understand that Low Fantasy and High Fantasy are separate level ranges. In Low Fantasy (let's say E8) a mundane warrior keeps up with the mage. In high fantasy the mundane warrior picks up magic items and magic powers to compensate eventually, whether it's supernatural luck and the experience of all the world's greatest generals, wolf-telepathy, or the ability to perfectly see the future and therefore react and stab before the opponent begins their attack. Now many of these things aren't affected by their universes' anti-magic equivalents but those don't affect a dragon's breath or similar things but only "spells". D&D Anti-Magic Field, though, isn't "anti-wizard" it's "anti anything magical" and for the most part it works. Rogues' dodging can be just so good as to do what we'd think is impossible, and it works.

[StriderITP]

But that's my point exactly - an interaction like that belongs purely in the realm of roleplay. I see no point in having mechanics for this sort of thing because it should be such a singular and entity-dependent event. For something like this, I wouldn't care if you can get a 400 Sleight of Hand result - there would be no point in even rolling for something like this.

Diplomacy? And require your players to actually say something other than just "I roll for diplolmacy". There's no reason there can't be mechanics and roleplay.

[Psyren]

Diplomacy? And require your players to actually say something other than just "I roll for diplolmacy". There's no reason there can't be mechanics and roleplay.

What DC would be appropriate for fooling or convincing the god of death?

You can think of a way to satisfactorily resolve this with rolls and that's perfectly fine. I can't, nor am I inclined to try.

In fact, I think trying to combine the two would be actively detrimental. What happens when my player comes up with a very cunning/cool justification, and rolls a 1? Or what happens if he can't think of anything particularly insightful but rolls a 20? "Oh my character is very diplomatic, so I just think of a great argument and tell Pharasma that."

[Solaris]

Bingo. A mundane creature is one whose powers are within the limits of the real world. Some people like playing as them. Which is why they play as fighters, barbarians, rogues, or some kind of variant ranger without spells...

I do believe I missed where this was spelled out in the rulebooks. D&D's rules don't make much sense unless you consider them in the aspect of an action movie, comic book, or legend (and more American tall tale than Arthurian, at that). Heck, d20 Modern explicitly emulates action movies, and is explicitly lower-powered than standard D&D.
That's because they're very much not intended to emulate anything more than a facsimile of real life with the D&D rules, and trying to shoehorn the Guy At The Gym fallacy into the game is going to require house rules. Lots and lots of house rules. Reality is a house rule. It can be done at lower levels with a minimum of fuss, but once you wander out of about 6th-8th level you're no longer playing a game that can accurately represent anything short of Dragonball.


What DC would be appropriate for fooling or convincing the god of death?

You can think of a way to satisfactorily resolve this with rolls and that's perfectly fine. I can't, nor am I inclined to try.

It's apparently very mean to require people to roleplay such interactions.

[Kurald Galain]

They are not in earth but they are bound by its rules.

Basically, Like Reality Unless Noted (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LikeRealityUnlessNoted) - that is, most players intuitively assume that something works the way it does in real life, unless the rules make an explicit exception.

So in that sense, a lion that lays eggs (with no foreshadowing) is ridiculous, and a wizard casting fireballs is not.

Do note that the above causes problems if a player has misconceptions about how real life works. For example, I've heard players claim it should not be possible in-game to climb an ice wall because "you can't climb ice walls", despite the fact that trained people can do so just fine in real life. That would be the Guy At The Gym fallacy again.

[OldTrees1]

Bingo. A mundane creature is one whose powers are within the limits of the real world. Some people like playing as them. Which is why they play as fighters, barbarians, rogues, or some kind of variant ranger without spells. There is nothing about the majority of feats that put you outside this limitation. Or, as Richard Dawkins puts it:

"The word 'mundane' has come to mean 'boring' and 'dull', and it really shouldn't - it should mean the opposite. Because it comes from the latin mundus, meaning 'the world'. And the world is anything but dull: The world is wonderful."

You can be mundane (nonmagical) without being mundane (boring). And I think that you, fundamentally a mundane type of person but it is to be hoped not a mundane one, should probably agree.

Just checking, so a mundane character in that Flatlander's campaign world would be a Flatlander rather than a 3D creature native to the Milky Way galaxy? (aka mundane is not deviating from the world the DM lives in)

Or would a mundane character in that Flatlander's campaign world be a regular human? (aka mundane is not deviating from the world the DM is running)

[enderlord99]

Just checking, so a mundane character in that Flatlander's campaign world would be a Flatlander rather than a 3D creature native to the Milky Way galaxy? (aka mundane is not deviating from the world the DM lives in)

Or would a mundane character in that Flatlander's campaign world be a regular human? (aka mundane is not deviating from the world the DM is running)

I think he expects them to obey both rulesets, even though that's patently absurd. I could be wrong.

EDIT: That, or "flatland doesn't exist, so it doesn't matter."

[The Insanity]

I'd be quite peeved if someone tried to tell me I can't do fantastical things in a fantasy game.

[Psyren]

I'd be quite peeved if someone tried to tell me I can't do fantastical things in a fantasy game.

The point of the fallacy is that not all fantasy is equal though. Having every PC's head retract into their neck and appear out of their posterior for no reason would be pretty fantastical, but likely neither they nor the DM would be particularly enthused about this development.

[OldTrees1]

I think he expects them to obey both rulesets, even though that's patently absurd. I could be wrong.

EDIT: That, or "flatland doesn't exist, so it doesn't matter."

IF that is what he expects then it is still not patently absurd(presuming it is not a rule applied to other tables). (I will still wait to hear his own expectation rather than assume)

Obeying both is not absurd if mundane is in reference to the player's reality. Obeying the campaign world is due to the RPG rules and then obeying the player's reality comes from the player.

As such this requires the player and the DM to understand the player's criteria and only have them play together in a campaign world that does not deviate from their world. (Which is a restriction several DMs prefer not to hold to).

[squiggit]

The problem I have with this 'fallacy' is that it's one with completely arbitrary parameters. You can always make a point about false equivocations, but that already has a name and is a lot more generalized in use. Instead here we have "I don't personally like this one thing", which is an opinion. There's nothing wrong with an opinion, but it's not a logical construct.

Guy at the Gym is guilty of this to an extent as well, but at least in that case you can point to specific instances within the text where it's self contradictory. "But Dragons" on the other hand, is just a subjective declaration of what is or isn't 'appropriate' and, more sinisterly, a way for someone to discredit someone who disagrees by pretending said opinion is more grandiose than it actually is.

[Kurald Galain]

Guy at the Gym is guilty of this to an extent as well, but at least in that case you can point to specific instances within the text where it's self contradictory. "But Dragons" on the other hand, is just a subjective declaration of what is or isn't 'appropriate' and, more sinisterly, a way for someone to discredit someone who disagrees by pretending said opinion is more grandiose than it actually is.

Well, it could use a better name. But the fallacy is the assumption that if a world contains magic, then this magic must have no restrictions. It assumes that magic can do anything and everything whenever the author or GM feels like it, and without requiring any explanation beyond A Wizard Did It.

While this is clearly true in some settings (although I'd be hard-pressed to name one), the fallacy lies in assuming it must be true in every setting that contains magic, which is obviously not the case. Magic A Is Magic A is a popular trope, after all.

[Psyren]

Well, it could use a better name. But the fallacy is the assumption that if a world contains magic, then this magic must have no restrictions. It assumes that magic can do anything and everything whenever the author or GM feels like it, and without requiring any explanation beyond A Wizard Did It.

While this is clearly true in some settings (although I'd be hard-pressed to name one), the fallacy lies in assuming it must be true in every setting that contains magic, which is obviously not the case. Magic A Is Magic A is a popular trope, after all.

This - and more importantly, it combats the assumption that in a world with magic, nothing should have restrictions - including professions or pursuits that don't rely on spells at all.

Now, I do think that by getting to a high enough level in your chosen profession, you should be able to access some form of magic. I'm fine with the high level rogue who can step into a shadow and appear in another one. or the fighter who can knit his wounds closed through muscular control. I don't think spells should have a monopoly on such things. But are there other things that i think spells should have a monopoly on, at least at their current levels of practicality and ease of use? Yes.

[Brova]

Well, it could use a better name. But the fallacy is the assumption that if a world contains magic, then this magic must have no restrictions. It assumes that magic can do anything and everything whenever the author or GM feels like it, and without requiring any explanation beyond A Wizard Did It.

While this is clearly true in some settings (although I'd be hard-pressed to name one), the fallacy lies in assuming it must be true in every setting that contains magic, which is obviously not the case. Magic A Is Magic A is a popular trope, after all.

Magic could do anything. It just happens to do whatever things the author or game designer creating it decides it can do. It's only meaningfully constrained in settings where there are actual laws of magic (like Mistborn or, sort of, Master of the Five Magics). In a setting like D&D or Harry Potter, magic only doesn't do some particular thing because someone hasn't written a way to do it yet.

[enderlord99]

IF that is what he expects then it is still not patently absurd(presuming it is not a rule applied to other tables). (I will still wait to hear his own expectation rather than assume)

Obeying both is not absurd if mundane is in reference to the player's reality. Obeying the campaign world is due to the RPG rules and then obeying the player's reality comes from the player.

As such this requires the player and the DM to understand the player's criteria and only have them play together in a campaign world that does not deviate from their world. (Which is a restriction several DMs prefer not to hold to).

It's not always absurd. In that particular case, however, it is; that's largely because of the example chosen, though.

[Kurald Galain]

Magic could do anything. It just happens to do whatever things the author or game designer creating it decides it can do. It's only meaningfully constrained in settings where there are actual laws of magic (like Mistborn or, sort of, Master of the Five Magics). In a setting like D&D or Harry Potter, magic only doesn't do some particular thing because someone hasn't written a way to do it yet.

That's a good example of the fallacy at work. You assume that this must be the case in every setting of D&D (D&D is not "a setting", after all), when this clearly isn't the case.

Harry Potter also has laws of magic, that have restrictions and are consistent about them. Just because the author doesn't explicitly spell them all out doesn't mean they aren't there. It strikes me that most popular fantasy novels have "laws of magic", simply because creating restrictions and then seeing how you can work with them (something Brandon Sanderson is very good at) allows for a lot of literary devices that "magic means that anything goes" can't handle.

[Jormengand]

I do believe I missed where this was spelled out in the rulebooks.

That's because it's not in them. But that doesn't mean that it's not true.


Basically, Like Reality Unless Noted (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LikeRealityUnlessNoted) - that is, most players intuitively assume that something works the way it does in real life, unless the rules make an explicit exception.

So in that sense, a lion that lays eggs (with no foreshadowing) is ridiculous, and a wizard casting fireballs is not.

Exactly. He's a wizard exactly because he casts spells. A fighter fights. With a big sharp bit of metal. He doesn't teleport. He doesn't use magic. Sometimes, I want to play the character who thinks that magic is cheating, and I can't do that if there are no good ways of playing a character without magic.

[Brova]

That's a good example of the fallacy at work. You assume that this must be the case in every setting of D&D (D&D is not "a setting", after all), when this clearly isn't the case.

Why? There are things magic can do, but there's no reason for that. There's not an underlying logic to D&D magic that means it makes sense for planar binding to exist but plant binding to not. It just happens that the first exists and the second doesn't. That's what it means for magic to be "unrestricted".


Harry Potter also has laws of magic,

Harry Potter has, to my knowledge, one law of magic that is named. That's Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration and it is named in the context of five extant exceptions, one of which is no transfiguring things into food. But that is obviously not a restriction that transfiguration has, because the first transmutation that happens on camera is when McGonagall turns a desk into pig. Now, I'm not sure about you, but I personally consider pigs to be food.


It strikes me that most popular fantasy novels have "laws of magic", simply because creating restrictions and then seeing how you can work with them (something Brandon Sanderson is very good at) allows for a lot of literary devices that "magic means that anything goes" can't handle.

Sanderson's works are kind of the point. You know what magic can do and what it can't. That means you can actually make judgement about whether or not some effect "should" be possible. If Harry Potter suddenly started animating plants and having them attack his enemies, there would be no way for you to decide that was "wrong". But if Vin started being able to use Allomancy to read people's minds, you would know that was "wrong". Because there are laws that govern Allomancy, and there aren't laws that govern HP magic.

[enderlord99]

Exactly. He's a wizard exactly because he casts spells. A fighter fights. With a big sharp bit of metal. He doesn't teleport. He doesn't use magic. Sometimes, I want to play the character who thinks that magic is cheating, and I can't do that if there are no good ways of playing a character without magic.

That makes sense, I suppose.

[OldTrees1]

That's because it's not in them. But that doesn't mean that it's not true.



Exactly. He's a wizard exactly because he casts spells. A fighter fights. With a big sharp bit of metal. He doesn't teleport. He doesn't use magic. Sometimes, I want to play the character who thinks that magic is cheating, and I can't do that if there are no good ways of playing a character without magic.

So you want a world where a non magic character can think magic is cheating but magic is weak enough not to be cheating relative to the non magic character?

Since if magic is actually cheating then it is actually OP. This would imply there would be a real imbalance between magic and non magic characters.

[Jormengand]

Since if magic is actually cheating then it is actually OP.

Not necessarily. Your character might feel that if the wizard has just been reading this really interesting book on fireballs and is suddenly able to cast fireballs, but the fighter had to practice his swings 100 times, then that's cheating on the wizard's part... but it might not actually make any in-game difference. Or the wizard turns into a dragon: "I had to work to be as strong as a dragon, dammit!".

[OldTrees1]

Not necessarily. Your character might feel that if the wizard has just been reading this really interesting book on fireballs and is suddenly able to cast fireballs, but the fighter had to practice his swings 100 times, then that's cheating on the wizard's part... but it might not actually make any in-game difference. Or the wizard turns into a dragon: "I had to work to be as strong as a dragon, dammit!".

So in summation:

You want a game system and a campaign such that:
1) The campaign is "Like Reality unless Noted".
2) Non magical characters exist.
3) Magical characters exist, break the "Normal" (aka the cheating), but end up with no in-game net advantage over the non magical characters.

Depending on how strongly you hold criteria 1(aka how close a Flatlander's campaign needs to be to Flatland) then that is how strongly you need to restrict magic (since criteria 1 is restricting the in-game power of non magical characters).

[SangoProduction]

Well, it could use a better name. But the fallacy is the assumption that if a world contains magic, then this magic must have no restrictions. It assumes that magic can do anything and everything whenever the author or GM feels like it, and without requiring any explanation beyond A Wizard Did It.

While this is clearly true in some settings (although I'd be hard-pressed to name one), the fallacy lies in assuming it must be true in every setting that contains magic, which is obviously not the case. Magic A Is Magic A is a popular trope, after all.

Well, magic *can* do everything. Wish. Epic spell casting, and any and everything that comes out in a new book. And then there's the cheese that doesn't even make sense, like being a dragon turtle while being a [insert other creature here] at the same time. And that's just the most obvious examples.

Also, the "setting" of the base game says it's perfectly natural (but highly unlikely for normal people) for people to evade fireballs. In fact, it says it straight up. Also, our definition of supernatural doesn't fit when magic and deities do exist. Because, they are just natural phenomena where they exist.

I mean, you've got an extremely hostile world in D&D, and yet, Humans neither developed guns yet or hyper advanced armor, nor have they died out. Humans, even commoners, can get by in this world where you've got dinosaurs that shoot acid running around. Or Red Dragons. If you must bring "real world" into a fantasy game, then bring in evolution. These humans have VASTLY more hostile environments, in which, they not only survived, but managed to build and fortify cities, invented technology, and so on. These are not "humans" as we know them. These are merely the closest things to "humans" as this world could get. And guess what? It doesn't change anything about the setting by saying that, as the "average human" is the measuring point for everything in this world.

What about creatures with innate spell-like abilities, or even "spell caster levels", like Rashaka, or Dragons? It's something completely natural. The only difference is that that stuff doesn't work in anti-magic field.
Extraordinary abilities are simply equally natural ones that do work in anti-magic field. How you choose to fluff that is up to you.
No one is truly "non-magical" in this world. Some simply don't have the ability to cast spells. This is the only distinction between mages and martial characters in this game.

If you want a game that is "non-magical" there are other systems that are not high-fantasy. Besides, unless you're eternally level 1, you will use magic, put into items. (And even eternally level 1 characters can collect gold.)

[Jormengand]

So in summation:

You want a game system and a campaign such that:
1) The campaign is "Like Reality unless Noted".
2) Non magical characters exist.
3) Magical characters exist, break the "Normal" (aka the cheating), but end up with no in-game net advantage over the non magical characters.

Depending on how strongly you hold criteria 1(aka how close a Flatlander's campaign needs to be to Flatland) then that is how strongly you need to restrict magic (since criteria 1 is restricting the in-game power of non magical characters).

Honestly, I don't think the flatlander thing is really equivalent. I mean, fighters still get healed really fast on the Plane of Positive Energy, and can jump further on low-grav planes... but then, they can jump further on this thing we like to call the moon, so yeah. If the entire world is running on different rules, that's one thing, and if some people in the world are breaking the rules that apply to everyone else, that's another.

[Brova]

What about creatures with innate spell-like abilities, or even "spell caster levels", like Rashaka, or Dragons? It's something completely natural. The only difference is that that stuff doesn't work in anti-magic field.
Extraordinary abilities are simply equally natural ones that do work in anti-magic field. How you choose to fluff that is up to you.

It's all completely natural. "Natural" just means "of the world" or "in accordance with the laws of physics". In our world, no amount of studying magic will let you summon fireballs. But in the D&D world, it will. There is no in universe perspective that makes what Fighters do "mundane" and what Wizards do "not mundane". And if you use an out of universe definition of mundane, you either have to shackle casters or accept that mundanes go obsolete.

[SangoProduction]

It's all completely natural. "Natural" just means "of the world" or "in accordance with the laws of physics". In our world, no amount of studying magic will let you summon fireballs. But in the D&D world, it will. There is no in universe perspective that makes what Fighters do "mundane" and what Wizards do "not mundane". And if you use an out of universe definition of mundane, you either have to shackle casters or accept that mundanes go obsolete.


Yeah, Exactly.

[Jormengand]

There is no in universe perspective that makes what Fighters do "mundane" and what Wizards do "not mundane". And if you use an out of universe definition of mundane, you either have to shackle casters or accept that mundanes go obsolete.

The fact that characters in universes with magic use words like "Muggle", of course, is completely nothing to do with the magical/nonmagical dichotomy, nosiree.

[Brova]

The fact that characters in universes with magic use words like "Muggle", of course, is completely nothing to do with the magical/nonmagical dichotomy, nosiree.

Absolutely. And the fact that Jews call non-Jews "gentiles" makes Judaism magic.

[SangoProduction]

The fact that characters in universes with magic use words like "Muggle", of course, is completely nothing to do with the magical/nonmagical dichotomy, nosiree.

Address the arguments, don't build strawmen. Or just don't comment.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Address the arguments, don't build strawmen. Or just don't comment.

While it could've been better articulated, he did.

The argument that either everything is mundane or nothing is outright ignores when a setting makes a clear delineation within its own rules. In harry potter they make a clear delineation between mundane muggles and magical witches and wizards.

The argument that it was intended to refute is sophist word-play rather than a seriously worthwhile argument.

[SangoProduction]

While it could've been better articulated, he did.

The argument that either everything is mundane or nothing is outright ignores when a setting makes a clear delineation within its own rules. In harry potter they make a clear delineation between mundane muggles and magical witches and wizards.

The argument that it was intended to refute is sophist word-play rather than a seriously worthwhile argument.

True, but it's not related to D&D in any way, as they never at any point say "there are people who are magical, and and those who are not" only differences in class features. Some of which work in anti-magic field, while others don't.

[Jormengand]

Absolutely. And the fact that Jews call non-Jews "gentiles" makes Judaism magic.

If you're trying to argue that harry potter magic isn't magic by talking about Jews for some reason, then I don't know what to tell you.

[Brova]

Here's (http://qntm.org/isnt) a piece y'all should read on the issue. You don't need to the whole story, or even the whole chapter. Just Ctrl + F "magic isn't" and read the surrounding paragraphs. It's setting specific, but the point it makes isn't. If magic exists, it's not magic. It's just a part of physics.

Consider the actual world in which we actually live. If you presented someone who is alive today with a gun (which is mundane) and a wand of fireball (which is not), they would be immediately able to tell you which is which. But if you presented those same items to someone from medieval Europe, they would have no idea which was magic. It's the same principle working in reverse.

Things which are physically explicable and consistent with the laws of physics are mundane. Things which aren't are magic. It's that simple. The people making sophist arguments are the ones who insist that "magic" and "mundane" are meaningfully distinct in a world where both exist and are observably possible in the universe. Failing in Dead Magic zones doesn't make something not mundane. It just means it is a mundane thing with the mundane property of not working in Dead Magic zones.


If you're trying to argue that harry potter magic isn't magic by talking about Jews for some reason, then I don't know what to tell you.

The point I'm making is that the argument that because there are groups that do thing X and groups that don't, doing thing X is magic is dumb. If you can't tell that, I don't know what to tell you.

[OldTrees1]

Honestly, I don't think the flatlander thing is really equivalent. I mean, fighters still get healed really fast on the Plane of Positive Energy, and can jump further on low-grav planes... but then, they can jump further on this thing we like to call the moon, so yeah. If the entire world is running on different rules, that's one thing, and if some people in the world are breaking the rules that apply to everyone else, that's another.

The Flatlander thing is to remove 1 potential bias from the question. By changing what reality is the real reality in the hypothetical question, I can ask you about internal consistency vs campaign-real world consistency without conflating it with the cognitive biases that result in the Guy at the Gym fallacy.

In other words, the Flatland to the Flatlander DM is equivalent to Earth to an Earthling DM and using this substitution allows me to identify nuance in your position.

So was I correct that those 3 criteria were an accurate summary of your position?
Related, are you saying anything about how close a Flatlander's/Earthling's campaign world needs to be to Flatland/Earth?

[Kelb_Panthera]

True, but it's not related to D&D in any way, as they never at any point say "there are people who are magical, and and those who are not" only differences in class features. Some of which work in anti-magic field, while others don't.

Ah but it does!

MM pg 315 under special abilities;

"Extraordinary: Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical,..."

You can't get any clearer a statement on the matter.

[Jormengand]

the argument that because there are groups that do thing X and groups that don't, doing thing X is magic

...is not an argument that I ever made at any point in the proceedings. What I said was, if characters in a universe have a name for people who don't do X, then doing X must be meaningful in-universe. The difference between magic and non-magic is quite known, meaningful and apparent to D&D characters, and apparently Harry Potter characters too. Whether it's meaningful to Jews isn't an interesting question to me.


So was I correct that those 3 criteria were an accurate summary of your position?
Related, are you saying anything about how close a Flatlander's/Earthling's campaign world needs to be to Flatland/Earth?

You were correct, and it doesn't have to be at all like it, hence my comments on the PoPE/low-grav planes and the moon.

[Brova]

...is not an argument that I ever made at any point in the proceedings. What I said was, if characters in a universe have a name for people who don't do X, then doing X must be meaningful in-universe. The difference between magic and non-magic is quite known, meaningful and apparent to D&D characters, and apparently Harry Potter characters too. Whether it's meaningful to Jews isn't an interesting question to me.

Oh, you're making a different fallacious argument. You're claiming that because "magic" refers to things that are supernatural in the real world, it must do that in fantasy worlds as well. But the reason "magic" means supernatural in the real world is that those things are not possible in the real world. In a world where you can do magic, doing magic is obviously possible. So again, what's the in universe distinction?

[OldTrees1]

You were correct, and it doesn't have to be at all like it, hence my comments on the PoPE/low-grav planes and the moon.

Ok, so the magnitude of the deviation from the real world does not matter provided it is applied universally (like how gravity is not in Flatland but would apply to everyone in a Flatlander's 3D campaign world).

Which I think is equivalent to saying:
If it is EX because it deviates from the real world(normal world) but not from the campaign world, then it is mundane(as you are using the term)* but if it is EX because it deviates from the norm for the campaign world, then it is not mundane(as you are using the term)? And you want mundane(as you are using the term) characters to be viable choices.

A reasonable position(although mutually incompatible with a specific other reasonable position). Since you would be restricting the power level of the non magical characters down to the mundane(as you are using the term) level (the restriction resulting from the physics of the campaign world) then you would also need to restrict the power level of the magical characters down to that same level.

*said in case someone jumps in

[SangoProduction]

Ah but it does!

MM pg 315 under special abilities;

"Extraordinary: Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical,..."

You can't get any clearer a statement on the matter.

I made a slight flub, but do note that, while the ability is "nonmagical", the people using them have never been claimed as such by RAW...and continuing with that quote.

", though they may break the laws of physics"...which is what magic does? It does the same thing as magic, but is "nonmagical" which isn't given a raw definition. Hell, even psionics isn't "magic" it's "psionics", which are transparent to one another only in certain respects...and yet can do much of the same stuff as spell casters.

So, this discussion is entirely meaningless, as they can break the laws of physics, and thus don't even need an explanation. And...magic isn't supernatural in a world where magic exists. It's a part of the world, and thus is natural.

[Jormengand]

So again, what's the in universe distinction?

That some things are magical and some are not, and everyone with any intellectual honesty understands what that means and why.

[SangoProduction]

That some things are magical and some are not, and everyone with any intellectual honesty understands what that means and why.

What is magical? What does it mean to be "magical" to you? EX abilities explicitly say that they can break the laws of physics. If that's not "magical" I don't know what is.

(I do like how we've been arguing "this and that 'isn't' magic" without actually defining what magic actually is.)

[Jormengand]

EX abilities explicitly say that they can break the laws of physics.

I don't think they should be able to and I'm glad most don't.

[SangoProduction]

I don't think they should be able to and I'm glad most don't.

Why don't "most" break laws of physics? And in the cases that they do...well, they explicitly can. So, a rogue sitting in the middle of a fireball can just fluff it as "laws of physics don't work, the fireball just avoid me", and it's 100% within the rules of the universe.

[Brova]

That some things are magical and some are not, and everyone with any intellectual honesty understands what that means and why.

You are conflating two terms. "Magical" in the sense of supernatural (what it means in the real world), and "magical" as a description of certain abilities (what it means in D&D). They mean different things and they are used in different contexts.

[Jormengand]

Why don't "most" break laws of physics?

Because by very definition, breach of the laws of physics is supernatural. And because when someone wants to play a fighter, they probably think Knight Templar, not superhero.


You are conflating two terms. "Magical" in the sense of supernatural (what it means in the real world), and "magical" as a description of certain abilities (what it means in D&D). They mean different things and they are used in different contexts.

No, I'm not. You are. I don't give a damn how it's defined in the rules. You're the only one conflating anything. I'm not entirely impressed with how you've misrepresented upwards of half my arguments so far, either.

[SangoProduction]

Because by very definition, breach of the laws of physics is supernatural. And because when someone wants to play a fighter, they probably think Knight Templar, not superhero.

No, it's not, "Supernatural abilities are magical and go away in an antimagic field but are not subject to spell resistance, counterspells, or to being dispelled by dispel magic." THAT is the definition of "supernatural" in this world. EX breaks laws of physics. That's the definition in this world.

[Brova]

Because by very definition, breach of the laws of physics is supernatural. And because when someone wants to play a fighter, they probably think Knight Templar, not superhero.

The laws of physics are just another term for how the universe works. As we currently understand them, the laws of physics do not allow you to create and direct large quantities of thermal and kinetic energy and direct them into a 20ft radius spread by doing some hand gestures, a bit of chanting, and something with bat guano. But in D&D they do. You cannot "breach the laws of physics". If you can do it, the laws of physics all you to do it.

[SangoProduction]

I don't give a damn how it's defined in the rules. You're the only one conflating anything. I'm not entirely impressed with how you've misrepresented upwards of half my arguments so far, either.


OK. So, you don't care about discussing the actual rules of the world we are playing in. Well, you're not wanted here then. *You* are the one misrepresenting *everything* you've responded to in this thread by making up extraneous "rules" which are not in D&D.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I made a slight flub, but do note that, while the ability is "nonmagical", the people using them have never been claimed as such by RAW...and continuing with that quote.

", though they may break the laws of physics"...which is what magic does? It does the same thing as magic, but is "nonmagical" which isn't given a raw definition. Hell, even psionics isn't "magic" it's "psionics", which are transparent to one another only in certain respects...and yet can do much of the same stuff as spell casters.

So, this discussion is entirely meaningless, as they can break the laws of physics, and thus don't even need an explanation. And...magic isn't supernatural in a world where magic exists. It's a part of the world, and thus is natural.

This is pointless sophistry. If a character has no abilities the game rules define as magical, he's not magical. I don't give a flying rat's behind what is or is not physically possible in the real world or what magic means to you or anyone else.

The game clearly defines magic and regularly makes use of that definition in its rules structure. Characters that access this power are magical and characters that do not are not magical. Any arguments that try to ignore or redefine what magic is within the game structure are intellectually barren and warrant far less response than they've received thus far.

[SangoProduction]

This is pointless sophistry. If a character has no abilities the game rules define as magical, he's not magical. I don't give a flying rat's behind what is or is not physically possible in the real world or what magic means to you or anyone else.

The game clearly defines magic and regularly makes use of that definition in its rules structure. Characters that access this power are magical and characters that do not are not magical. Any arguments that try to ignore or redefine what magic is within the game structure are intellectually barren and warrant far less response than they've received thus far.

Can you give the definition of "magic" from RAW? They define spells, but not magic. They mention magic, but never define it. You can definitely argue that people don't use spells. But, if you break the laws of physics, then you are using a type of magic in some manner.

I've not redefined magic anywhere. I even asked for people to give the definition of magic. No one has done so yet. I've proposed ideas in the interim, but never said that "magic is defined as ..." because I don't know. Psionics aren't magical, though, in some cases, can be treated as such. They are psionic, and yet, accomplish the same thing as magic, in some cases.

So, the question becomes, as I said, does it even matter what the hell "magic" is, when magic was not in question, it was (EX) abilities. What "magic" is is irrelevant when considering Psionics, in the exact same way. *Some* people insist that it is relevant, without giving a reason, or even a definition.

[smcmike]

I don't think they should be able to and I'm glad most don't.

Hah, I thought Jormengand was making a great argument until he reminded me what his underlying point was here.

There is clearly a distinction between "magic" and "not magic" in the game. I just don't see why this means that "not magic" must obey someone's arbitrary out-of-game ideas of realism.

To put it another way, there is no magic at all in the Mission Impossible universe. That doesn't stop the heroes from doing all sorts of things that completely break from our expectations of normal physics and biology. Heck, those aren't even the biggest breaks from reality: handwaving the acquisition of materials and intelligence is far more glaring. Would these movies be better if they were more realistic?

[Necroticplague]

Because by very definition, breach of the laws of physics is supernatural. And because when someone wants to play a fighter, they probably think Knight Templar, not superhero.

And for the people who are a bit less close-minded about nonmagical capabilities? If I think 'barbarian' and think 'Asura' not 'Tryndamere', why am I any less right about what a barbarian should be like? Why should those who have more wide arrays of versimilitude (i.e., those who are fine with nonmagical acts being well above and beyond the physically possible) be shackled to limitations set by those with more narrow ranges? If you a leave the game available to support a broad range, then those with small arrays can simply lounge around the shallow end of the pool, while those who are more willing to immerse themselves can dive deeper.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Can you give the definition of "magic" from RAW? They define spells, but not magic. They mention magic, but never define it. You can definitely argue that people don't use spells. But, if you break the laws of physics, then you are using a type of magic in some manner.

I've not redefined magic anywhere. I even asked for people to give the definition of magic. No one has done so yet.

It is not explicitly defined but it is clearly defined.

Magic is the power by which spells, spell-like, and supernatural abilities function which is why those things fail when magic is removed from an area such as a DMZ, AMF, or dead magic plane; all of which clearly and explicitly say they remove or suppress -all- magic within the affected area.

Consequently, any ability that can be used inside these areas is, by the game's definition of magic, a nonmagical ability. Literally anything that isn't taken away by these things is nonmagical including any and every such ability a character has that breaks the laws of physics in our reality from flying with wings that couldn't possibly support them to swimming through lava and getting out a little rosy but mostly unharmed.

You don't have to like it, you don't have to agree with it, but if you want to have a meaningful discussion about the game then you have to accept it.

[Darrin]

I'd be quite peeved if someone tried to tell me I can't do fantastical things in a fantasy game.

When someone says "traditional" fantasy should have "wizard magic" but not "sword magic" or "pony magic", what you're arguing against is the One True Scottsman fallacy. The "But Dragons!" argument is essentially an attack on how your opponent is defining his terms. The problem with it is how do you avoid the slippery slope: dragons are allowed, so therefore why not robots, laser swords, and orbital friendship cannons?

On the gripping hand, there is no objectively "true" definition of a fictional fantasy world created via cooperative storytelling. It helps sometimes if the world is internally consistent, but that's not really the end goal of the exercise. Work something out that works for all parties. If the game falls apart, pick up the pieces and start over.

[Jormengand]

I just don't see why this means that "not magic" must obey someone's arbitrary out-of-game ideas of realism.

Let's take the lightning throw maneuver.

The lightning throw maneuver is not just unrealistic. It is not non-verisimilar It is physically impossible.

Put simply, it punches through up to 6 people in a line, dealing as much damage as being hit by, say, 6 whacks with a greatsword, with anything you can throw. Such as, I dunno, a dagger, hand-axe, or shuriken (EDIT: Or a lucerne hammer. It apparently allows you to throw any melee weapon). It then returns to your hand.

Randall Munroe calculated that a hockey puck would have to be moving at about mach 8 (https://what-if.xkcd.com/39/) just to knock someone backwards, which would result in them both exploding, puck and goalie. To go through 6 people is going to multiply up to a minimum of mach 48, though I don't believe for a moment that the relationship is linear. Even if it is, you start getting a similar effect to a railgun, where you cause a conventional explosion without even carrying any explosive. If it's square, you get that, only the conventional explosion is the size of a small nuclear explosion. If it's exponential (more likely), I'll let Randall Munroe field what happens (https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/) again. What can I say, he's a useful guy when you want to do something utterly impossible.

But of course, the hockey puck doesn't survive this ordeal. This is partly its fault for being made of plastic. But something being thrown 6 times as fast, let alone 36 times as fast, let yet alone multiplying the exponent up by 6, is going to suffer far worse damage. Just checking the wikipedia page on railguns, though, even the rails that the projectile is fired from have to be replaced regularly because we do not currently possess materials that can withstand that kind of recoil. And you're throwing an axe at mach 48, while railguns tend to go about mach 7 (though some go faster). You're almost going 7 times as fast, assuming the relationship is linear which it almost certainly isn't.

To be clear, when some girl pulling random pieces of information off the internet can work out that this ability is impossible, you know it's off. Weirder still is the fact that this insane ability to throw things a few times as fast as the biggest, baddest AA gun you ever saw... is limited to 30 feet. Seriously, if you're going to throw an axe at several times the speed of sound, can't you think of something more interesting to do with it?

It's not just "I, personally, don't see it." It's "This violates so much of physics, biology and probably chemistry that I don't even know where to start."


And for the people who are a bit less close-minded about nonmagical capabilities? If I think 'barbarian' and think 'Asura' not 'Tryndamere', why am I any less right about what a barbarian should be like? Why should those who have more wide arrays of versimilitude (i.e., those who are fine with nonmagical acts being well above and beyond the physically possible) be shackled to limitations set by those with more narrow ranges? If you a leave the game available to support a broad range, then those with small arrays can simply lounge around the shallow end of the pool, while those who are more willing to immerse themselves can dive deeper.

I'm happy that players who like their barbarians to be shackled to physical limitations should be allowed to do that, and those who don't shouldn't have to. But I don't like it when people say that the physics-breaking barbarian is the only good type. I don't like being told that Tryndamere shouldn't exist. I don't like being told that nothing is magical, or that the divide between mundane and magical doesn't exist. I don't like being told that real men throw axes that make railguns look like junk.

And, not directed at you, but where the hell did everyone get the idea I was a guy anyhow?

[SangoProduction]

It is not explicitly defined but it is clearly defined.

Magic is the power by which spells, spell-like, and supernatural abilities function which is why those things fail when magic is removed from an area such as a DMZ, AMF, or dead magic plane; all of which clearly and explicitly say they remove or suppress -all- magic within the affected area.

Consequently, any ability that can be used inside these areas is, by the game's definition of magic, a nonmagical ability. Literally anything that isn't taken away by these things is nonmagical including any and every such ability a character has that breaks the laws of physics in our reality from flying with wings that couldn't possibly support them to swimming through lava and getting out a little rosy but mostly unharmed.

You don't have to like it, you don't have to agree with it, but if you want to have a meaningful discussion about the game then you have to accept it.

Thanks for trying to define it.

Problem with the anti-magic field used to define magic: "The space within this barrier is impervious to most magical effects, including spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities." Not all. And it even blocks non-magical things like incarnum and psionics, which are not magic, but are still suppressed as such.

So, some of the abilities usable in this field "can" be magical.

Also, what about "The Weave", which can be used to cast spells, even within an antimagic field (if I remember correctly). Are these spells now "non-magical" despite...well, being the same thing?

Of course, none of this actually matters, as Magic isn't relevant to EX, as it's not magical by definition...just can accomplish what magic can do in that it breaks laws of physics.

[Brova]

*maneuvers are impossible*

But that happens in a world where lightning bolt exists. Under the laws of physics where all of that happens, the right gestures, noises, and material components used in the right sequence and correct combination creates an electrical discharge that can kill people in a 120ft line and only in that 120ft line. You have two choices to explain that:

1. Accept that the laws of physics are not the same in D&D land, and people can do stuff that is totally mundane there but supernatural here.
2. Demand that mundanes follow our laws of physics.

If you want to do 2, you are demanding that mundanes be less powerful than casters.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Thanks for trying to define it.

Problem with the anti-magic field used to define magic: "The space within this barrier is impervious to most magical effects, including spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities." Not all. And it even blocks non-magical things like incarnum and psionics, which are not magic, but are still suppressed as such.

So, some of the abilities usable in this field "can" be magical.

Also, what about "The Weave", which can be used to cast spells, even within an antimagic field (if I remember correctly). Are these spells now "non-magical" despite...well, being the same thing?

Of course, none of this actually matters, as Magic isn't relevant to EX, as it's not magical by definition...just can accomplish what magic can do in that it breaks laws of physics.

You didn't check the other two null magic effects I listed. In a dead magic zone -no- magic functions, period. In a dead magic plane no magic other than permanent, standing portals that allow planar travel function at all.

Even in an AMF no magical effect can be produced and any magical effect brought into the field is suppressed without exceptions to define the "lesser" that corresponds to your quoted "most."

There is simply no support within any of the language of the game's rules to suggest that there is any magic outside of what I defined above.

And just for completeness, the weave is both the manifestation of a goddess' power and casters can only cast inside an AMF if he has the requisite feat that has them draw on the shadow weave instead. It's also only a matter of concern in the Forgotten Realms

[SangoProduction]

But that happens in a world where lightning bolt exists. Under the laws of physics where all of that happens, the right gestures, noises, and material components used in the right sequence and correct combination creates an electrical discharge that can kill people in a 120ft line and only in that 120ft line. You have two choices to explain that:

1. Accept that the laws of physics are not the same in D&D land, and people can do stuff that is totally mundane there but supernatural here.
2. Demand that mundanes follow our laws of physics.

If you want to do 2, you are demanding that mundanes be less powerful than casters.

Or 3) Force everyone to obey *our* laws of physics, so as to be *actually* consistent. So, all magic, or law of physic-breaking stuff doesn't exist, and so dragons can't fly, due to mass to wing span restrictions (or have wings the size of many city blocks). No one can cast spells. You can only see so far, regardless of your spot checks, and so on.

[Brova]

Or 3) Force everyone to obey *our* laws of physics, so as to be *actually* consistent. So, all magic, or law of physic-breaking stuff doesn't exist, and so dragons can't fly, due to mass to wing span restrictions (or have wings the size of many city blocks). No one can cast spells. You can only see so far, regardless of your spot checks, and so on.

I mean, yes, but that game sounds kind of terrible. I guess I should have had some disclaimer about "if you want to have magic".

[Kurald Galain]

Let's take the lightning throw maneuver.

The lightning throw maneuver is not just unrealistic. It is not non-verisimilar It is physically impossible.

Put simply, it punches through up to 6 people in a line, dealing as much damage as being hit by, say, 6 whacks with a greatsword, with anything you can throw. Such as, I dunno, a dagger, hand-axe, or shuriken (EDIT: Or a lucerne hammer. It apparently allows you to throw any melee weapon). It then returns to your hand.
Indeed, this doesn't work by textbook physics.

But it does work by Hollywood physics, and draws its verisimilitude from that. If Bruce Willis did a move like that in Die Hard 27, then nobody would bat an eye. Hence, it is not magical, he just throws really really hard.


And, not directed at you, but where the hell did everyone get the idea I was a guy anyhow?
Your forum nickname is that of a male mythological character.

[Jormengand]

2. Demand that mundanes follow our laws of physics.

If you want to do 2, you are demanding that mundanes be less powerful than casters.

I'm gonna do 2, but I'm going to deny that it means they have to be less powerful than casters.

In the Inheritance cycle, Eragon - a Rider and therefore capable of magic - keeps almost getting his butt handed to him by a bunch of nonmagical people early on in the books. In Harry Potter, the wizards regard Sirius Black as dangerous, not because he's a spellcaster, but because he's armed with a gun. In The Order of the Stick, Roy chucked an epic-level spellcaster into a gate of kill. In the Lord of the Rings, the Witch King of Angmar, a creature who is magical whatever way you cut it, is defeated not by a powerful spellcaster but by being stabbed in the face by an angry fighter.

In Warhammer Fantasy Battle, including the new Age of Sigmar, spellcasters can do some pretty mean stuff, but the moment anyone gets into combat with them, they're toast. In MARDEK, one of the most aggravating opponents to fight is a thief who uses precisely no magic, closely followed by his greatsword-wielding fighter buddy.

Imagine a world where using magic was likely to misfire and kill you (The Black Magician trilogy), get you eaten by demons (Warhammer 40,000), misfire, kill you, and get you eaten by demons (Warhammer Fantasy), use up the same amount of energy as doing the task manually (Inheritance, possibly The Black Magician trilogy), or just mean you're terrible at actually hitting something with a stick (D&D, Warhammer Fantasy). Imagine a world where actually using magic tends to be really unwieldy and take hours to accomplish.

There are so many possible ways that using magic could be inadvisable, risky, or even plain pointless. Just because it's not limited in the same way that mundane stuff is doesn't mean it's completely unlimited - Magic A is Magic A (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA), after all, which is why you won't ever see anyone from the Inheritance cycle knocking mountains over on a whim or a psyker from Warhammer 40,000 doing anything much on a whim. If magic has some kind of limit - they can be different for each person: Magic B is Magic B too, and that's why sorcerers don't have to prepare their spells and clerics don't have to write them in a book - and so long as that limit is meaningful, there is no reason why a mundane shouldn't be able to take a spellcaster out.

[Necroticplague]

And, not directed at you, but where the hell did everyone get the idea I was a guy anyhow?

Probably from the way you type. I recall having read somewhere that writing style can actually be used to guess sex much of the time, even in untrained people. Makes enough sense social animals like us try and pick up cues subconsciously. People make that mistake frequently for me, as well (though admittingly, they're only half wrong).

[Jormengand]

Probably from the way you type. I recall having read somewhere that writing style can actually be used to guess sex much of the time, even in untrained people. Makes enough sense social animals like us try and pick up cues subconsciously.

I... type like a guy?

Okay, then...

[SangoProduction]

You didn't check the other two null magic effects I listed. In a dead magic zone -no- magic functions, period. In a dead magic plane no magic other permanent, standing portals that allow planar travel function at all.

Even in an AMF no magical effect can be produced and any magical effect brought into the field is suppressed without exceptions to define the "lesser" that corresponds to your quoted "most."

There is simply no support within any of the language of the game's rules to suggest that there is any magic outside of what I defined above.

Well, Anti-magic field works when there's supposed to be no magical effect there. But, that's probably just getting cheeky there.

Orb spells. Ignore anti-magic field. And those are even normal spells.

I found this wiki article on Dead-magic zones (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Dead-magic_zone), which did mention that you can create one...and still use the shadow weave in it with a ritual. So dead magic zones don't help define it, unless the shadow weave isn't "magic", even though it can be stopped by AMF instead.

Also, I think I was mistaken when I said the weave can ignore anti-magic field, as it's just someone trying to rationalize magic (great idea, though rather poorly executed). Same is true with most cases of shadow weave. In fact, the wiki for the shadow weave expands upon AMF, and says it stops all magic, unlike the actual spell, and that shadow weave is magic, so dead magic zone doesn't neccesarily define magic.

And dead magic plane says "no magic can be used in it." Well, that still doesn't give a definition of what magic is, and thus what can't be used there.

But, screw it, let's just say, "If you don't have an ability that is explicitly magical, you aren't 'magical'." That works. Still doesn't mean you can't do what magic can - ie. break laws of physics.

[Brova]

I'm gonna do 2, but I'm going to deny that it means they have to be less powerful than casters.

It means they have to be less powerful than casters if people continue to gain power.


In the Inheritance cycle, Eragon - a Rider and therefore capable of magic - keeps almost getting his butt handed to him by a bunch of nonmagical people early on in the books.

Implying that later, he doesn't.


In Harry Potter, the wizards regard Sirius Black as dangerous, not because he's a spellcaster, but because he's armed with a gun.

Yes, but that's because they're idiots. Guns are like the killing curse, but not always lethal.


In The Order of the Stick, Roy chucked an epic-level spellcaster into a gate of kill.

What if that battle had happened literally anywhere else? What if Xylon had been using any of the rudimentary "lolnope" tactics he has access to as an epic level caster?

And that didn't actually kill the caster.


In the Lord of the Rings, the Witch King of Angmar, a creature who is magical whatever way you cut it, is defeated not by a powerful spellcaster but by being stabbed in the face by an angry fighter.

LotR is also E6.


In Warhammer Fantasy Battle, including the new Age of Sigmar, spellcasters can do some pretty mean stuff, but the moment anyone gets into combat with them, they're toast.

You know that Warhammer Fantasy is a lower level version of WH40k, right? Because in that universe a psionic godking was insufficiently high level to handle Chaos.


Imagine a world where using magic was likely to misfire and kill you (The Black Magician trilogy), get you eaten by demons (Warhammer 40,000), misfire, kill you, and get you eaten by demons (Warhammer Fantasy), use up the same amount of energy as doing the task manually (Inheritance, possibly The Black Magician trilogy), or just mean you're terrible at actually hitting something with a stick (D&D, Warhammer Fantasy). Imagine a world where actually using magic tends to be really unwieldy and take hours to accomplish.

You mean a world where magic users are low level? I don't want to play in that world, because the stories I want to tell cannot be told in that world. You cannot tell the story of Lord of Light or Mistborn or any MTG block or Avatar or the Powder Mage Trilogy if that is how magic works, because in those stories that is not how magic works.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well, Anti-magic field works when there's supposed to be no magical effect there. But, that's probably just getting cheeky there.

Orb spells. Ignore anti-magic field. And those are even normal spells.

I found this wiki article on Dead-magic zones (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Dead-magic_zone), which did mention that you can create one...and still use the shadow weave in it with a ritual. So dead magic zones don't help define it, unless the shadow weave isn't "magic", even though it can be stopped by AMF instead.

Also, I think I was mistaken when I said the weave can ignore anti-magic field, as it's just someone trying to rationalize magic (great idea, though rather poorly executed). Same is true with most cases of shadow weave. In fact, the wiki for the shadow weave expands upon AMF, and says it stops all magic, unlike the actual spell.

But, let's just say, "If you don't have an ability that is explicitly magical, you aren't 'magical'." That works. Still doesn't mean you can't do what magic can - ie. break laws of physics.

Your wiki is a FR wiki. It's not valid for other settings as the weave isn't in use in other settings. Ed Greenwood had a real hard-on for all things magely and it shows in the setting he created.

I don't have a problem with nonmagical characters having abilities that compete with magic (they mostly don't, by the rules, but meh). I take great issue with anything that requires suspension of disbelief being labeled as supernatural or magical when it is explicitly not those things in the rules.

[SangoProduction]

Your wiki is a FR wiki. It's not valid for other settings as the weave isn't in use in other settings. Ed Greenwood had a real hard-on for all things magely and it shows in the setting he created.

I don't have a problem with nonmagical characters having abilities that compete with magic (they mostly don't, by the rules, but meh). I take great issue with anything that requires suspension of disbelief being labeled as supernatural or magical when it is explicitly not those things in the rules.

Perhaps, but for all intents and purposes, they are not "mundane" (and saying that because they aren't mundane, they are magical is a false dichotomy, but with no functional definition for magic in this world, and only the dichotomy set forward as an option...). They are super heroes who break the laws of physics.

[Jormengand]

You cannot tell the story of...any MTG block... if that is how magic works, because in those stories that is not how magic works.

It's funny, because in MTG, people who have perfectly mundane abilities are actually often quite powerful. Let's find out what's been winning lately (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/winning-decks). Zurgo Bellstriker is an orc warrior who attacks quickly and doesn't like blocking anyone who can kill him, and refuses to do it. An ornithopter is a small glider (I imagine it is magical, but it doesn't need to be). A courser of kruphix is a scout who finds healing supplies in the lands he visits. A siege rhino is just a rhino that steals supplies from enemies it's besieging (or allows its riders to). Hero's Downfall and Ultimate Price depict people being stomped upon and apparently falling into a tar pit. And so on. None of these abilities are magical. Stomping on people and stealing their stuff is evil, not magical. And yet it competes in the same arena as people launching lightning bolts (3rd-level spell) like they're going out of fashion, and returning people from the dead without them becoming any weaker (7th-level spell). If you're going to talk about MTG, then that is absolutely in the same arena as high-level D&D and mundanes are absolutely competitive in that arena.

[smcmike]

Let's take the lightning throw maneuver.

The lightning throw maneuver is not just unrealistic. It is not non-verisimilar It is physically impossible.

Put simply, it punches through up to 6 people in a line, dealing as much damage as being hit by, say, 6 whacks with a greatsword, with anything you can throw. Such as, I dunno, a dagger, hand-axe, or shuriken (EDIT: Or a lucerne hammer. It apparently allows you to throw any melee weapon). It then returns to your hand.

Randall Munroe calculated that a hockey puck would have to be moving at about mach 8 (https://what-if.xkcd.com/39/) just to knock someone backwards, which would result in them both exploding, puck and goalie. To go through 6 people is going to multiply up to a minimum of mach 48, though I don't believe for a moment that the relationship is linear. Even if it is, you start getting a similar effect to a railgun, where you cause a conventional explosion without even carrying any explosive. If it's square, you get that, only the conventional explosion is the size of a small nuclear explosion. If it's exponential (more likely), I'll let Randall Munroe field what happens (https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/) again. What can I say, he's a useful guy when you want to do something utterly impossible.

But of course, the hockey puck doesn't survive this ordeal. This is partly its fault for being made of plastic. But something being thrown 6 times as fast, let alone 36 times as fast, let yet alone multiplying the exponent up by 6, is going to suffer far worse damage. Just checking the wikipedia page on railguns, though, even the rails that the projectile is fired from have to be replaced regularly because we do not currently possess materials that can withstand that kind of recoil. And you're throwing an axe at mach 48, while railguns tend to go about mach 7 (though some go faster). You're almost going 7 times as fast, assuming the relationship is linear which it almost certainly isn't.

To be clear, when some girl pulling random pieces of information off the internet can work out that this ability is impossible, you know it's off. Weirder still is the fact that this insane ability to throw things a few times as fast as the biggest, baddest AA gun you ever saw... is limited to 30 feet. Seriously, if you're going to throw an axe at several times the speed of sound, can't you think of something more interesting to do with it?

It's not just "I, personally, don't see it." It's "This violates so much of physics, biology and probably chemistry that I don't even know where to start."



Sorry, but this is a terrible, terrible argument, and proves to me why going down the real-world physics rabbit hole is a bad idea.

As you say, you are using random information off the internet. Very random, particularly considering that neither of them has very much at all to do with the question you posed.

The hockey puck question asked how hard one would have to hit a hockey puck to knock someone backwards. Even accepting that the maneuver in question could be performed using a hockey puck (but noting that normally would be performed using something far more massive, sharp, and dense), this example fails completely because the maneuver has nothing whatsoever to do with moving a person backwards. It just does damage. Presumable, this could be accomplished in a variety of ways, depending on the weapon, none of which have anything to do with a hockey puck knocking someone over or a baseball pitched at the speed of light. With a handaxe, I would picture a series of glancing blows and cuts, or perhaps some ridiculous chain reaction of pain. Of course, if you want it to actually represent 6 people knocked over, you should probably use a much larger weapon.

I agree that it is not the easiest thing to picture, but watch some more martial arts movies. I'm not saying real world physics are boring, but boy is it fun not to have to worry about them all the time.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Perhaps, but for all intents and purposes, they are not "mundane" (and saying that because they aren't mundane, they are magical is a false dichotomy, but with no functional definition for magic in this world, and only the dichotomy set forward as an option...). They are super heroes who break the laws of physics.

Then we circle back around to the definition of mundane.

Webster defines mundane as either of this world, as opposed to otherworldly or heavenly, or commonplace. Nonmagical characters outnumber casters by thousands to 1. By that definition, they are mundane. In most settings magic is a transplanar phenomenon and many of its applications call on otherworldly essences so it's a loose fit for "otherworldly" while in FR it is explicitly the gift of a goddess (or her evil twin) and obviously heavenly. Access to this force is not mundane while a lack of such access is.

By either definition noncasters are mundane within their worlds though I prefer to avoid the term because of its connotation of boringness that the oxford dictionary lists as a definition.

[SangoProduction]

It's funny, because in MTG, people who have perfectly mundane abilities are actually often quite powerful. Let's find out what's been winning lately (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/winning-decks). Zurgo Bellstriker is an orc warrior who attacks quickly and doesn't like blocking anyone who can kill him, and refuses to do it. An ornithopter is a small glider (I imagine it is magical, but it doesn't need to be). A courser of kruphix is a scout who finds healing supplies in the lands he visits. A siege rhino is just a rhino that steals supplies from enemies it's besieging (or allows its riders to). Hero's Downfall and Ultimate Price depict people being stomped upon and apparently falling into a tar pit. And so on. None of these abilities are magical. Stomping on people and stealing their stuff is evil, not magical. And yet it competes in the same arena as people launching lightning bolts (3rd-level spell) like they're going out of fashion, and returning people from the dead without them becoming any weaker (7th-level spell). If you're going to talk about MTG, then that is absolutely in the same arena as high-level D&D and mundanes are absolutely competitive in that arena.

Except, not in D&D 3e. Yeah. Not exactly a comparison that can be made. "such and such in DOTA is balanced, so that must mean LoL is balanced."

[Brova]

It's funny, because in MTG, people who have perfectly mundane abilities are actually often quite powerful. Let's find out what's been winning lately (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/winning-decks). Zurgo Bellstriker is an orc warrior who attacks quickly and doesn't like blocking anyone who can kill him, and refuses to do it. An ornithopter is a small glider (I imagine it is magical, but it doesn't need to be). A courser of kruphix is a scout who finds healing supplies in the lands he visits. A siege rhino is just a rhino that steals supplies from enemies it's besieging (or allows its riders to). Hero's Downfall and Ultimate Price depict people being stomped upon and apparently falling into a tar pit. And so on. None of these abilities are magical. Stomping on people and stealing their stuff is evil, not magical. And yet it competes in the same arena as people launching lightning bolts (3rd-level spell) like they're going out of fashion, and returning people from the dead without them becoming any weaker (7th-level spell). If you're going to talk about MTG, then that is absolutely in the same arena as high-level D&D and mundanes are absolutely competitive in that arena.

You understand that the stories of the blocks those (first) appeared in involve, in order, time traveling to and intervening in the battle between two Elder Dragon Oldwalkers, a war with mighty mechs and cataclysmic magical weapons, and slaying gods, right? Yes, the literal cards in those blocks represent mundane stuff from that world, but the stories are about high level Wizards with at-will greater plane shift.

EDIT: The storylines of the last ... several MTG blocks:

Battle for Zendikar - The Eldrazi are turning the world to dust with their very presence. Various Planeswalkers must assemble to use a plane-spanning network of artifacts to trap them.

Khans of Tarkir - Tarkir is a world that used to have magical storms that created dragons. Unfortunately, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked Bolas killed Ugin. So Sarkhan (who is haunted by Ugin's ghost) comes to Tarkir, travels back in time, and changes history so that Ugin (and dragons) survive.

Theros - Something about Gods. I wasn't really paying much attention. I think Xenagos becomes one, Elspeth kills him, then Heliod kills her.

Return to Ravnica - It's basically set on Sigil, only without the portals and Lady of Pain. A dragon is searching for "the Implicit Maze" which ... I don't know. Something about the rules governing the Factions Guilds.

Innistrad - In Gothic Horror World, the god-ish Angel and the god-ish Demon have been trapped in a massive artifact. As a result of her absence, various horror monsters have been appearing in massive numbers.

Scars of Mirrodin - In a wold created by a planeswalker, the viral oil that was created by near-god Yawgmoth is infecting the world, transforming it into a realm in line with his philosophy (which apparently involves a lot of body horror).

Zendikar - Like Battle for Zendikar, but the Eldrazi were imprisoned and some planeswalking idiots freed them.

[SangoProduction]

Then we circle back around to the definition of mundane.

Webster defines mundane as either of this world, as opposed to otherworldly or heavenly, or commonplace. Nonmagical characters outnumber casters by thousands to 1. By that definition, they are mundane. In most settings magic is a transplanar phenomenon and many of its applications call on otherworldly essences so it's a loose fit for "otherworldly" while in FR it is explicitly the gift of a goddess (or her evil twin) and obviously heavenly. Access to this force is not mundane while a lack of such access is.

By either definition noncasters are mundane within their worlds though I prefer to avoid the term because of its connotation of boringness that the oxford dictionary lists as a definition.

Is Superman of this world? Is Hulk? Is Wolverine commonplace? They are, by definition, extraordinary, and not something the common person has access to, else it would be assumed that everyone would have it at level 0 (like common knowledge).

Noncasters, certainly, make up the majority of the populace of human cities (somehow), but not those with extraordinary talents and abilities. Cast fireball at a bunch of villagers - not many are going to survive. Most don't have evasion feat, nor are they blessed by destiny to have a bunch of hit points. [Should probably avoid bringing up hp again, as someone will just try to circle...anyway, unimportant.]

[Kelb_Panthera]

Is Superman of this world? Is Hulk? Is Wolverine commonplace? They are, by definition, extraordinary, and not something the common person has access to, else it would be assumed that everyone would have it at level 0 (like common knowledge).

Not "this world," "the world." Important distinction when discussing fictional settings.

Superman is plainly not of earth 623 (same goes for a -lot- of DC characters). The hulk is earthly but not at all common, being a nigh unique being. Wolverine, however, fits just fine. Mutant's are quite common and there's nothimg otherworldly about his origin or powers so, yes, he is mundane. He is extraordinary by the standards of reality but he's not just mundane but a relative small-fry and a nobody within his own setting. Don't misunderstand. I really like wolverine but whether he's interesting or not doesn't change that he's a mundane character.


Noncasters, certainly, make up the majority of the populace of human cities (somehow), but not those with extraordinary talents and abilities. Cast fireball at a bunch of villagers - not many are going to survive. Most don't have evasion feat, nor are they blessed by destiny to have a bunch of hit points. [Should probably avoid bringing up hp again, as someone will just try to circle...anyway, unimportant.]

All classes represent a segment of the population, often a fairly wide swathe with noncaster base classes. Besides, extraordinary and mundane aren't mutually exclusive. Common and normal are not entirely interchangeable. A fighter is of a degree of skill that is above ordinary, greater than normal but fighters are not uncommon.

Ultimately it boils down to this: mundane is a term that can be used to mean several things. Within the context of these discussions its use to represent nonmagical classes as a group is valid whether you disagree with the connotations (as I, in fact, do) that go with the term or not. Recognize it for what it means in that context and move on to the meat of the discussions where it pops up. Arguing over the definitions of words does nothing to further the discussion at hand, with rare exception, and is derailing at best.

Magic is defined within the system. The term used to describe the group that lacks magick isn't terribly important.

[SangoProduction]

And I forgot to mention this: It doesn't even matter what the definition of "mundane" is either. It doesn't relate in any way to "extraordinary." Nor does the definition of "human" matter, as it doesn't change what "extraordinary" can do. Definition of
"magic" doesn't matter. Definition of invisible pink unicorns doesn't matter. Because none of it says "extraordinary abilities can no longer break laws of physics." Or really changes it in any way.

So, the BUT DRAGONS! "fallacy" (trope) is invalid, as it doesn't matter if the universe does or does not have magic. EX abilities work the same way. Case closed.

[SangoProduction]

Not "this world," "the world." Important distinction when discussing fictional settings.
The definition, including the one you just mentioned in your last post said "this world", the definition specifically said "earthly" but you didn't say that, so meh, long as it was corrected. Anyway, moving on.



Superman is plainly not of earth 623 (same goes for a -lot- of DC characters). The hulk is earthly but not at all common, being a nigh unique being. Wolverine, however, fits just fine. Mutant's are quite common and there's nothimg otherworldly about his origin or powers so, yes, he is mundane. He is extraordinary by the standards of reality but he's not just mundane but a relative small-fry and a nobody within his own setting. Don't misunderstand. I really like wolverine but whether he's interesting or not doesn't change that he's a mundane character.
Mundane by what standard? How many people (even mutants) can regenerate from literally having nothing but his skeleton and brain in tact, to fighting condition?
But, ignoring that, here's the wiki for mutants in Marvel: http://marvel.com/universe/Mutants
says: "The mutant population is now estimated to be in the hundreds, but a full worldwide census has not been taken."
So...how rare does something have to be to *not* be mundane? Because even 999 in even 3 or 1 trillion people is not exactly "common", by my interpretation.


All classes represent a segment of the population, often a fairly wide swathe with noncaster base classes. Besides, extraordinary and mundane aren't mutually exclusive. Common and normal are not entirely interchangeable. A fighter is of a degree of skill that is above ordinary, greater than normal but fighters are not uncommon.

Ultimately it boils down to this: mundane is a term that can be used to mean several things. Within the context of these discussions its use to represent nonmagical classes as a group is valid whether you disagree with the connotations (as I, in fact, do) that go with the term or not. Recognize it for what it means in that context and move on to the meat of the discussions where it pops up. Arguing over the definitions of words does nothing to further the discussion at hand, with rare exception, and is derailing at best.

since total can be derived from the level, I'll just put the level, because the method for figuring out the actual number is quite tedious.

DMG page 138; using Small town, since it's got a +0, and thus no special rules or rolls or stuff like that.

npc
4d4 commoner
1d6 adept
1d4 aristocrat
3d4 expert
2d4 warror
total: 10d4 + 1d6
total average (I think): 28.5

pc
1d4 barb
1d6 bard
1d6 druid (in a city? really? even before the urban druid change ACF...)
1d8 fighters
1d4 monk
1d3 paladin
1d3 ranger (why is this less common than a druid?)
1d8 rogue
2d4 sorc/wiz
total: 4d4 + 2d3 + 2d6 + 2d8
total average: 30


spell casters:
2d4 sorc/wizard
1d6 druid
1d3 paladin
1d6 bard
2d3 paladin/ranger
total: 2d3 + 2d6 + 2d4
total: 16

So, of the PC classes, you are slightly more likely to find a spell caster, rather than a "mundane". So, actually these "common place" classes are rarer than spell casters, and only make up 14 out of 58.5 levels in a common small town.

That's not what I'd consider common place, but you can have you own definition.

[Solaris]

That's because it's not in them. But that doesn't mean that it's not true.

Actually, it does mean that's not true. In the rest of the quote that you snipped off, I go in to explain the fact that the world presented in the D&D rulebooks bears only a passing and superficial resemblance to the real world even before we bring things that are described as supernatural and magic into it. D&D, especially D&D 3.5E, requires piles upon piles of house-rules to be brought back in line with reality (As an aside, I find E6, armor-as-DR, class bonuses to AC, and vitality points/wound points to be a pretty good starting point on that).

That's where your argument falls apart, really. You demand that D&D's (Ex) abilities mimic reality, and yet ignore the fact that the world itself does not mimic reality because of the rules used to describe it. You insist that "mundane" not only be a term applied to the non-casters, but that it be applied as it fits with our world. At no point does that work with D&D's rules as written, much less as intended. That's not to say you're wrong for wanting it, but you are trying to insist that the square peg should fit in the round hole because in our Flatland, they both fit one another.

[Necroticplague]

That's not to say you're wrong for wanting it, but you are trying to insist that the square peg should fit in the round hole because in our Flatland, they both fit one another.

So like trying to fit a square object in a diamond hole because, if you add a third dimension, both are just different angles of looking at a cube?

[Jormengand]

As you say, you are using random information off the internet. Very random, particularly considering that neither of them has very much at all to do with the question you posed.

Sorry, but it's hard to find any exact information for "How hard would you have to throw the least-throwable possible weapon you could wield for it to deal as much damage as six greatsword swings to each of six people in a 30-foot line and how big a nuclear explosion would this cause in the proceedings?"

But okay. How much energy does a bullet have? I've no idea how reliable this (http://historum.com/war-military-history/37754-kinetic-energy-ancient-modern-weapons.html) is, because "How much energy does a bullet have?" isn't actually a question that Googles well. An AK-47 has 1527 "ftlb" of energy, which is about 2070 joules. A trained cyclist can produce about 400 watts of mechanical power (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_power), so if we suppose that you're giving your Maul (because you can throw anything you can wield, it can even be a Large maul, but that's getting to the point of deliberately trying to make it unrealistic) about 5 times as much energy as a human could give it in a second, in less than a second, using a weaker body part, then you'll make it go a fraction of the same speed. See, that rifle bullet weighs about 4.2 grams (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/ShantayArmstrong.shtml) (Come to think of it, e=mv2ing that would probably be a better answer for the energy exerted by the rifle - it's about twice as much as the other one, weighing in just shy of 4000 joules). You're throwing a weapon that's about 2000 times as heavy, and then some. Now, like I just said, e=mv2, so that means we can multiply up the amount of energy you have to give it by 2000, and then another 2 because we have a better energy estimate, meaning that you are operating at about 20,000 times peak human capacity.

But it gets worse.

A lot worse.

A bullet practically cannot go through more than one person. The flesh resistance (that's a thing now. It's a bit like air resistance, only bigger) is just too much. This makes sense, because it's almost impossible to shoot someone who's underwater because the water is just too heavy. Now, air resistance we can ignore, but flesh resistance is way more. Anyway, so we have to multiply the amount of energy by about 6, because that's how many people it has to go through, but we'll be generous and say it can go through one-and-a-fifth people, so you are operating at 100,000 times peak human capacity.

Now, the force due to friction is a function of the cross-sectional area of the object. I highly doubt I'll get the cross-sectional area of a maul anywhere, but for a bullet, it's in the region of 0.2-1.6... somethings (http://www.chuckhawks.com/frontal_area.htm). He doesn't give units, but I'm going to say that's square cm because that sounds likely. We'll call it 1. Finding the XSA of a maul is harder, but wikipedia shows me a picture of a 20 lb sledgehammer, while this is a 12 lb spike maul (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_maul), so I have a vague frame of reference. I'm going to guess the number of bullets to a spike maul is about 120, so let's say that bullets to 20lb hammers is about 200. This means that you are operating at 200,000,000 times peak human capacity.

Oh, but it gets worse.

Let's convert back from times peak human capacity to joules one moment, which involves multiplying by 400 to get 800,000,000,000, or 8E11. That's the equivalent of 200 tons of TNT. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent) Google searching "https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=K3IIVrzvO5T98wevhYTABg&gws_rd=ssl#q=800%2C000%2C000%2C000+joules" gets you a word doc claiming that cars use that much energy in a year. That's not each. That's every car in existence, each year. v=root(e/m), so we're having a maul travelling at almost exactly 3E5 ms-1, which is neat. But that's not mach 48, or whatever piddly number I was coming up with earlier. That's mach eight hundred seventy nine. That's about 1% of c. That is about 1% of c. That is an utterly ludicrous speed.

This maul's ultimate tensile strength is about double that of human skin. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_tensile_strength) Not only does it fail to survive impact, it fails to survive being thrown. You don't even finish swinging it by the time that the impulse on the handle, combined with the head's zero momentum holding the hammer back, tears the maul, and your own arm, to shreds.

You wanna use accurate numbers? It gets worse with accurate numbers.

Incidentally, I have indeed disengaged from the rest of the argument because this is more fun.

[SangoProduction]

Physics does not matter. Not in the least. Your rant does nothing for the argument.

[Jormengand]

Physics does not matter. Not in the least. Your rant does nothing for the argument.

It does when I want to play a nonmagical character without tearing my own suspension of disbelief to pieces.

[Morty]

I think those two issues are completely unrelated. The existence of one physics-defying thing has absolutely no bearing on whether another one should exist. Claiming that there's any relation just obfuscates the issue and spawns endless arguments that don't get anywhere close to the heart of the matter. There are fantasy worlds which work like the real world in most ways, except for that one thing which doesn't. But then there are worlds where things that defy real-world laws of science are many and varied. Because magic is what we want it to be.

Which brings me to the next point - eventually, "magic" and "mundane" become completely meaningless words. In a high-fantasy world like D&D' settings, everything is "magic" from our perspective. Very few things are "mundane" from our perspective, as well. So the real question that ends up lost among all this is: what ways of gaining extraordinary power are we comfortable with? It's an entirely valid perspective to prefer it if people who don't use trappings of "magic" and/or tap into an outside power source are strictly limited in what they can do. Less so if you want to say that it's fundamentally incorrect to remove those limits, because it isn't. It gets pretty dicey in D&D, of course, where "non-magical" characters aren't normal or realistic by any definition. Their unrealistic capabilities are just very narrow and fairly unimpressive.

[SangoProduction]

It does when I want to play a nonmagical character without tearing my own suspension of disbelief to pieces.

"Can break laws of physics" That's literally the definition of EX. If your precious suspension of disbelief makes you want to not have that, homebrew it, or play a different system. It's really not that difficult.

But, the standard setting does not give a single damn about physics.

Also, how come you *are* OK with spells, if you can't even accept some relatively mundane explanations for EX abilities? Eh, doesn't matter.

[Jormengand]

It's an entirely valid perspective to prefer it if people who don't use trappings of "magic" and/or tap into an outside power source are strictly limited in what they can do. Less so if you want to say that it's fundamentally incorrect to remove those limits, because it isn't.

Exactly: As I've said, I'm fine with people playing as people who can exert more energy than 200 tons of TNT, but if I don't wanna do that you shouldn't tell me that isn't a valid character concept.

[SangoProduction]

I think those two issues are completely unrelated. The existence of one physics-defying thing has absolutely no bearing on whether another one should exist. Claiming that there's any relation just obfuscates the issue and spawns endless arguments that don't get anywhere close to the heart of the matter. There are fantasy worlds which work like the real world in most ways, except for that one thing which doesn't. But then there are worlds where things that defy real-world laws of science are many and varied. Because magic is what we want it to be.

Which brings me to the next point - eventually, "magic" and "mundane" become completely meaningless words. In a high-fantasy world like D&D' settings, everything is "magic" from our perspective. Very few things are "mundane" from our perspective, as well. So the real question that ends up lost among all this is: what ways of gaining extraordinary power are we comfortable with? It's an entirely valid perspective to prefer it if people who don't use trappings of "magic" and/or tap into an outside power source are strictly limited in what they can do. Less so if you want to say that it's fundamentally incorrect to remove those limits, because it isn't.

You can fluff the ability however you please. It's left intentionally vague.

[SangoProduction]

Exactly: As I've said, I'm fine with people playing as people who can exert more energy than 200 tons of TNT, but if I don't wanna do that you shouldn't tell me that isn't a valid character concept.

Where the hell are you getting energy from? At best, you have "damage", which is an abstraction and does not correlate, at all, to force of any type.

And: you can just play as a scout. You only get 1 attack per round, so no "200 tons of TNT" bs you have going there. And you get the most mundane possible Ex abilities. Have fun. Or play a Commoner.

[Morty]

Er, what ability are you talking about? I mentioned no specific power or ability in my post.

[Jormengand]

Where the hell are you getting energy from? At best, you have "damage", which is an abstraction and does not correlate, at all, to force of any type.

From the Lightning Throw maneuver, which allows you to throw a maul straight through 6 people. You can calculate how much energy it takes to throw a maul through a person (hint: a lot) and work it out from that, which is what I did in the physics spoiler.


Er, what ability are you talking about? I mentioned no specific power or ability in my post.

I assume the ability being referred to is Lightning Throw - the ability to hurl a maul through six people - and he is convinced that you can "Fluff it" as obeying the laws of physics or indeed approaching reasonable.

[SangoProduction]

From the Lightning Throw maneuver, which allows you to throw a maul straight through 6 people. You can calculate how much energy it takes to throw a maul through a person (hint: a lot) and work it out from that, which is what I did in the physics spoiler.

except that ...jeez you still don't get that HP is an abstraction. OK. I'm done.

If you don't want to follow the rules, or if you want to fluff it so that it breaks your imagination, that's your prerogative. But it doesn't make anyone else wrong.

You don't instantly kill someone with a Lightning Throw, so them blowing up from your strike doesn't even make sense. "Oh hey, I just made them blow up and they can fight like nothing happened." {scrubbed}

[Zaydos]

Nothing in the ability actually indicates its passing through the person and not ricocheting elsewhere. Similar to how a dragon's fire line attack does not actually pass through someone but around them. To actually pass through them it would have to deal enough damage to kill them.

Creatures can provide Cover even which represents this... poorly as they only provide "soft" cover which doesn't help against Reflex saves (or to hide... you cannot hide behind someone bigger than you in D&D).

Now of course the maneuver still breaks physics in many ways (ricocheting hits should lose force, you're still dealing 4 times normal damage pre magic...), then again this is the same book that indicates hitting in the proper place can add +100 or x4 damage on top of a crit so it's probably just hitting in the right spot. The fact that it's a line instead of bouncing around like Xena's chakram is weird as well.

This is also the book that gives us Ex Heal spells triggered by your opponent being of an opposing alignment (seriously what in Baator?) and Ex teleportation through shadows, both of which feel very Supernatural to me and are the things I've most often seen defended with "well dragons can fly and that's physically impossible".

[Sayt]

You mean a world where magic users are low level? I don't want to play in that world, because the stories I want to tell cannot be told in that world. You cannot tell the story of Lord of Light or Mistborn or any MTG block or Avatar or the Powder Mage Trilogy if that is how magic works, because in those stories that is not how magic works.

Psykers in Warhammer can get to extremely high level. Hell, high level Psykers are so dangerous that they can cast planets into hellish psychoplanes, they can light mountains on fire by willing it to happen, and they can flit between people's minds across an entire city, qwhich projecting themselves from orbit. But they exist in a system in which magic has consequence built into the system. Which I think is one of DND and PFs fundamental problems: Magic is way to easy and it is capable of way to much. The only limits on what a spellcaster can do in 3.5/pf is "I have this spell which says I can do X" and spells can do just about anything.

M:TGs internal magic system requires the tapping into (Pun intended) and chaneling of specific aligned power sources which have internal limitations (Direct damage is red, healing white and green, necromancy black etc, and diversifying through more colours of magic reduces your capacity of a single one). I'm not familiar with Mistborn's magic system, but I've some of Sanderson's Cosmere and his magical systems are also extremely limited in their capacity (Warbreaker's breaths and chroma, Stormlight Chronicle's Surgebinding and Soulcasting.)

A magic system can be incredibly high-concept and high-power and still have restrictions on what can be done. 3.5's spellcasting is tame. It does exactly what you want when you want it without any fuss, while simultaneously unstressful, and having basically unlimited scope of capacity. Spellcasting in D&D is incredibly privileged in that nobody asks itself to explain itself, it's magic, it just happens.*

On the other hand, Ex abilities are called to account for a notion of real world physics, and some tome of battle disciplines are called to account for "How does swinging a sword make fire". Personally, I think 'martials'/'extraordinary' characters should be able to do impossible things. But by and large they should be able to do impossible things that are of a kind to possible things: jump incredible distances, throw things with unerring precision and richochet

Back to the initial query: physics in DND follows the rule of "Can you picture it, and if not, explain it?" Can a dragon fly? Well, it has wings which look big enough (Even though they wouldn't be). Can a strictly humanoid person fly? Well, they don't have wings, but they can [Select one of: A) cast a spell to levitate, B) have strong enough muscles to jump impossibly high C) propel themselves by pushing Qi out the soles of their feet, D)...]"

Spells/Sp, Su, and Ex, are respective classifications of how magical these explanations are.


*I am of course, aware of, and even agree with Grod's Law: narrative restrictions on magic don't neccessarily translate well into RPG mechanics, but higher level spellcasters can do whatever they like by flapping their hands, singing a song and wanting it really hard. Sweeping the inconvienient bits of physics under the rug next to that seems only... sporting, I guess.

[Jormengand]

If you don't want to follow the rules, or if you want to fluff it so that it breaks your imagination, that's your prerogative.

I'm not "Fluffing it" at all. I'm simply pointing out that it is not a mundane ability and as such is not helpful when creating a mundane character. It is not that I do not understand you, it is that I do not agree with you. If I want to create a character who is bound by the limits of reality, I should be able to do so. I should not be forced to create a character who abuses the laws of physics a little harder than the wizard does.


Now of course the maneuver still breaks physics in many ways (ricocheting hits should lose force, you're still dealing 4 times normal damage pre magic...), then again this is the same book that indicates hitting in the proper place can add +100 or x4 damage on top of a crit so it's probably just hitting in the right spot. The fact that it's a line instead of bouncing around like Xena's chakram is weird as well.

This is also the book that gives us Ex Heal spells triggered by your opponent being of an opposing alignment (seriously what in Baator?) and Ex teleportation through shadows, both of which feel very Supernatural to me and are the things I've most often seen defended with "well dragons can fly and that's physically impossible".

Yeah. That just doesn't feel like a mundane character to me.

[SangoProduction]

It's not "mundane". It's "extraordinary."

Boom. Done. The two do not equal each other.


And, YOU are fluffing it such that it's running through 6 people, blowing them up. This is your own explanation. This is your fluff for the ability. And your fluff does not make sense in the slightest. No wonder you can't wrap your head around it.


which allows you to throw a maul straight through 6 people.



Exactly: As I've said, I'm fine with people playing as people who can exert more energy than 200 tons of TNT, but if I don't wanna do that you shouldn't tell me that isn't a valid character concept.

{scrubbed}

And, this is the last time I will repeat this, because you seem to have trouble reading. You DON'T have to make someone extraordinary. You can play an entirely different system. There's one where you use Jenga for all the "checks" because you ARE completely mundane and ordinary people. You can play a commoner, but you'll be dropped off at the next town, because not a single adventuring party will want you because you are dead weight.

[Morty]

If you want to play a character who can be called "mundane" with a reasonable degree of accuracy, D&D above level 10 strikes me as a strange choice of game in which to do so.

[enderlord99]

If I want to create a character who is bound by the limits of reality, I should be able to do so.

All characters are bound by the limits of their reality. It's perfectly fine to have ones also bound to the rules of your reality; they just wouldn't be as strong as ones that break those rules in spectacular ways, because they have, by definition, extra restrictions.

[Jormengand]

It's not "mundane". It's "extraordinary."

I know it's not mundane, and it's extraordinary. That is exactly why I do not want to use it on my mundane character.

I am annoyed at the Tome of Battle because it is supposed to be a way to help mundanes keep up with casters, and to do this, it decides to give them a bunch of decidedly non-mundane abilities. That isn't helpful if I want to play a mundane character. You may think that Lightning Hurl is possible (if you've a better idea, I'm all ears), but Zaydos has a better point, namely: "This is also the book that gives us Ex Heal spells triggered by your opponent being of an opposing alignment (seriously what in Baator?) and Ex teleportation through shadows, both of which feel very Supernatural to me and are the things I've most often seen defended with "well dragons can fly and that's physically impossible"." I hate, hate, hate the fact that when I want to play a mundane, I'm told to go play one of the characters with those kinds of abilities. I don't want to do that. That's not what I'm looking for. If I want to play a character who breaks reality on a daily basis, I have wizards, sorcerers, clerics, druids, psions, wilders, truenamers, binders, shadowcasters, warlocks, and a bunch of other stuff. If I don't, I get about nothing.


If you want to play a character who can be called "mundane" with a reasonable degree of accuracy, D&D above level 10 strikes me as a strange choice of game in which to do so.

Yes, but it would have been so easy to give them abilities that allowed them to be effective beyond level 10, but they didn't. That's what annoys me.


they have, by definition, extra restrictions.

So does, or should, magic. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA)

[SangoProduction]

They, I repeat, do not help mundanes. They help martial characters. Boom. Mind blown.

[Jormengand]

They, I repeat, do not help mundanes. They help martial characters. Boom. Mind blown.

Well done! For a third time in a freaking row, you have discovered exactly why I do not like the tome of battle! If I want to play a magic martial character, it's called a bleedin' duskblade. Or a cleric.

[SangoProduction]

Yes, but it would have been so easy to give them abilities that allowed them to be effective beyond level 10, but they didn't. That's what annoys me.

{scrubbed} Name one "mundane" (ie bound by "our" laws, not D&D) "ability" that would be useful vs a Tarrasque. Or any flying creature. Even martials can't handle them without magic. Good luck coming up with a "mundane" ability that's useful past level 10.

Can I take the feat: American, and get a gun? Yay. Now if only it didn't conflict with the world's technology level, or geography...

[SangoProduction]

Well done! For a third time in a freaking row, you have discovered exactly why I do not like the tome of battle! If I want to play a magic martial character, it's called a bleedin' duskblade. Or a cleric.

Well, then don't use it. Simple as that. You seem to be a bright lad. Also, they are *not* magical, they are extraordinary, which is *defined* as nonmagical. This conversation was already over and done with 2 pages ago.

{scrubbed}

[Jormengand]

{scrubbed} Name one "mundane" (ie bound by "our" laws, not D&D) "ability" that would be useful vs a Tarrasque. Or any flying creature. Even martials can't handle them without magic. Good luck coming up with a "mundane" ability that's useful past level 10.

I Hit It With My Axe (Ex)
From 10th level, the Hypermundane's attacks ignore magical protections of whatever kind. They can Coup de Grace nonhelpless opponents, and don't provoke attacks of opportunity for doing so.

I Shoot It With My Bow (Ex)
From 12th level, the Hypermundane can coup de grace creatures from up to 30 feet away.

Nothing magical about "Screw you, I don't care about your pansy "Magic" malarkey, and by the way, I am now going to lop your petite elven head off with my giant freaking axe, and you are going to like it!"


Well, then don't use it. Simple as that. You seem to be a bright lad. Also, they are *not* magical, they are extraordinary, which is *defined* as nonmagical. This conversation was already over and done with 2 pages ago.
If you define extraordinary as a giant purple dragon, I refuse to believe that flying into a rage is in any way a giant purple dragon just because it's marked as such.

[Morty]

Yes, but it would have been so easy to give them abilities that allowed them to be effective beyond level 10, but they didn't. That's what annoys me.


That's not what I'm talking about. If you play a D&D character above level 10, they're not mundane by any useful definition of the word - regardless of their class. A mundane human (or semi-human) being can't do things that a level 11 fighter - for all the ineptitude this class displays - does routinely. Nor can any "mundane" character directly contend with the threats a level 10+ D&D party is meant to tackle. It just stops being a useful term.

What you want isn't a "mundane" character, but a character that stays within a certain aesthetic and doesn't use certain mechanics. Which is a legitimate desire (if one I disagree with for a variety of reasons), but it would really help a lot if we could call our positions for what they are.

[smcmike]

From the Lightning Throw maneuver, which allows you to throw a maul straight through 6 people. You can calculate how much energy it takes to throw a maul through a person (hint: a lot) and work it out from that, which is what I did in the physics spoiler.



I assume the ability being referred to is Lightning Throw - the ability to hurl a maul through six people - and he is convinced that you can "Fluff it" as obeying the laws of physics or indeed approaching reasonable.

While I agree that this argument is fun, you are still operating from wildly false premises, presumably because it allows you to make some fun calculations using physics.

Because here's the thing: lightening throw does not say "hurl a maul through six people." In fact, unless the HP damage done by the maneuver instantly kills all six people, that would be a rather insane way to describe what happened. "You throw your maul through your enemy. He appears to be slightly injured." Now THAT breaks verisimilitude.

What it says is you throw your weapon and your foes take damage, unless they save. So all of your calculations about exactly how much force this would require are literally based upon nothing. Maybe my spinning axe of doom slices the throats of every enemy precisely, expending almost no energy whatsoever.

Here's the thing: if you just asked me whether this fits within the realm of earth reality, I'd say of course not. You don't need fancy calculations to see that. But lots of nonmagical things in D&D don't fit with the rules we live by in the real world.

Here's my personal rule for "mundane effects." If I can imagine it being done in the the craziest martial arts or action movie you've ever seen, it's cool with me.

[SangoProduction]

I Hit It With My Axe (Ex)
From 10th level, the Hypermundane's attacks ignore magical protections of whatever kind. They can Coup de Grace nonhelpless opponents, and don't provoke attacks of opportunity for doing so.

I Shoot It With My Bow (Ex)
From 12th level, the Hypermundane can coup de grace creatures from up to 30 feet away.

Nothing magical about "Screw you, I don't care about your pansy "Magic" malarkey, and by the way, I am now going to lop your petite elven head off with my giant freaking axe, and you are going to like it!"


If you define extraordinary as a giant purple dragon, I refuse to believe that flying into a rage is in any way a giant purple dragon just because it's marked as such.

So, you get "instant kill + auto critical" at level 10 while they are still able to defend themselves? Definitely seems a extremely extraordinary.

[Jormengand]

That's not what I'm talking about. If you play a D&D character above level 10, you're not mundane by any useful definition of the word - regardless of their class. A mundane human (or semi-human) being can't do things that a level 11 fighter - for all the ineptitude this class displays - does routinely.

A level 11 fighter hits things with his sword routinely, maybe trips someone over. Apart from stupid things like surviving massive falls or drops in lava - which are more problems with the falling and lava rules than anything else - there isn't really a great deal that he does that can't be done by someone, somewhere.


So, you get "instant kill + auto critical" at level 10 while they are still able to defend themselves? Definitely seems a extremely extraordinary.
Tell you what, you go and train with an axe for several years and tell me whether or not you can kill someone in one hit with it when you're done. Do the same with a bow. My money's on "Yes."

[SangoProduction]

A level 11 fighter hits things with his sword routinely, maybe trips someone over. Apart from stupid things like surviving massive falls or drops in lava - which are more problems with the falling and lava rules than anything else - there isn't really a great deal that he does that can't be done by someone, somewhere.


Tell you what, you go and train with an axe for several years and tell me whether or not you can kill someone in one hit with it when you're done. Do the same with a bow. My money's on "Yes."

Try and make the same justification for someone actively defending themselves. It doesn't work. In fact, most axes, while powerful if they hit, are slow, and non-versatile weapons. They can be blocked. There's a reason why swords and polearms saw the greatest amount of action in real world wars.

And as you said, people survive gun shots, which have larger damage dice. So...no.

[Jormengand]

They can be blocked.

Fine, you have to make the attack roll and if you hit, it's a coup. Seriously, if you're a master of axes and you can't kill someone in one hit with an axe... you're not a master of axes. By the time you're level 10, you're basically that guy people have heard legends about, who is so good at fighting with his axe that he can turn every hit into a deadly blow. And if he fails to? Boy did you roll well on that fort save.


And as you said, people survive gun shots, which have larger damage dice.

You know what they don't survive? Being shot through the head by the greatest gunman the world has ever seen.

[SangoProduction]

Fine, you have to make the attack roll and if you hit, it's a coup. Seriously, if you're a master of axes and you can't kill someone in one hit with an axe... you're not a master of axes. By the time you're level 10, you're basically that guy people have heard legends about, who is so good at fighting with his axe that he can turn every hit into a deadly blow. And if he fails to? Boy did you roll well on that fort save.

And yet you are assumed to be fighting people of equal skill. Do note that HP is the ability to reduce the an injury to a less severe one, and this is what goes up, not AC.

Go watch some high level HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) matches. A "master" is not one who can kill someone in one go, but one who does not get hit. As, getting hit on a battlefield means you're not capable of fighting, often times. If you're lucky, it just means you might lose your shield arm.

This is represented by HP.

But you choose not to see HP as anything but "sitting there and taking it", for some reason, which is why "mundane" people don't make sense to you. It's not that the rules don't work, or aren't a good abstraction, it's merely that you are choosing to not fluff it in a way that makes sense.

[enderlord99]

Tell you what, you go and train with an axe for several years and tell me whether or not you can kill someone in one hit with it when you're done. Do the same with a bow. My money's on "Yes."

That's... a really good point. However, that would be represented by doing high amounts of HP damage, not by a Coup-De-Gras. It should probably be able to kill any medium-sized humanoid, obviously. Coup-De-Gras rules apply just as much to an elephant or a whale as the do to a human; do you think it's possible for a real human to hit either of those hard enough to kill it with a single strike from an axe or shot from a bow? Of course not. For any given system, if some characters can break our reality's rules, everyone above a specific level should be able to; that said, you could (but probably don't) define "mundane" as someone who only breaks those rules in terms of scale (for example, doing enough HP damage to one-shot a blue whale with an axe) and not in other ways.

[SangoProduction]

You know what they don't survive? Being shot through the head by the greatest gunman the world has ever seen.

Again, incorrect. http://weirdthings.com/2010/06/the-man-who-survived-10-shots-from-a-mexican-firing-squad-weirdest-survival-stories/

10 shots firing squad, + a "coup de grace" straight to the face. Still survived.

[Brova]

Psykers in Warhammer can get to extremely high level. Hell, high level Psykers are so dangerous that they can cast planets into hellish psychoplanes, they can light mountains on fire by willing it to happen, and they can flit between people's minds across an entire city, qwhich projecting themselves from orbit. But they exist in a system in which magic has consequence built into the system.

But even in that setting, there are people who can just use magic. Namely, the forces of Chaos.

To be totally honest though, I don't think it matters. Are you actually saying you believe there are any restrictions you can put on someone who can light mountains on fire to make them remotely equal to a character with no powers that exceed what you can do in normal reality without either making them risky to use to the point of being unplayable or unable to use their abilities?

You have a bunch of arguments, but I don't think any of them are responsive. The fact that magic is more or less formal doesn't have any real correlation with people's ability to compete. In Mistborn, every character of consequence has magical capability, and it has the most formal set of magical rules I've seen. In Lord of the Rings, one character has magic and there are no rules governing what magic is allowed to do.


Nothing magical about "Screw you, I don't care about your pansy "Magic" malarkey, and by the way, I am now going to lop your petite elven head off with my giant freaking axe, and you are going to like it!"

Yes there is. If someone has shields that require (whatever the ceiling for "realistic force from a human" is) + 10 newtons to penetrate, you have to either be superhuman or suppress magic to deal with that. Neither of those things are mundane.

Seriously, you're trying to sell locally suppressing the laws of physics as "mundane". That's insane.

[Threadnaught]

Should this be a thing?

Nope, any break from reality in a fictional setting should be acceptable provided it makes sense in the context of the fictional world/s created within that setting.

If Dragons exist, people can clap their hands to create planets and people can be a clone of a clone of a clone of a clone of themselves. Then what is so unbelievable about someone who can dodge an explosion while at the middle of it?

Weren't there people caught in explosions who survived while sat right next to the bomb? I mean in reality.
I sort of remember a story about it happening a few years ago, if true, then how is a fictional character doing it and keeping their legs so unbelievable? A person shot in reality is likely to die unless they receive urgent medical attention, while in fiction being shot is less of an inconvenience than catching a cold.

Edit: Wow, didn't see the massive discussion on this.


Yes there is. If someone has shields that require (whatever the ceiling for "realistic force from a human" is) + 10 newtons to penetrate, you have to either be superhuman or suppress magic to deal with that. Neither of those things are mundane.

Seriously, you're trying to sell locally suppressing the laws of physics as "mundane". That's insane.

First problem, super human =/= Magic.

Second problem, humans as a species have pushed themselves beyond their limits for thousands of years. Civilization alone is proof of humanity's ability to break limits. Rather than the 20 year lifespan we'd have in the wild, we have pushed that to beyond a hundred, rather than being stuck in a small territory we have pushed ourselves to move a mile on foot in under four minutes or twenty six miles in approximately two hours, rather than being barely capable of dragging an infant boar we have pushed ourselves to be able to drag objects that weigh up to fifty seven tons.
Then there's the things we've made that make us even better than that.

Limits for human capability are there, they always have been and always will be. Until someone else comes along to redefine them.


Also it's entertainment, does something have to match one person's own limited view of reality in order for everyone else to find it fun?

[Sayt]

But even in that setting, there are people who can just use magic. Namely, the forces of Chaos.

To be totally honest though, I don't think it matters. Are you actually saying you believe there are any restrictions you can put on someone who can light mountains on fire to make them remotely equal to a character with no powers that exceed what you can do in normal reality without either making them risky to use to the point of being unplayable or unable to use their abilities?

You have a bunch of arguments, but I don't think any of them are responsive. The fact that magic is more or less formal doesn't have any real correlation with people's ability to compete. In Mistborn, every character of consequence has magical capability, and it has the most formal set of magical rules I've seen. In Lord of the Rings, one character has magic and there are no rules governing what magic is allowed to do.


Sorcery/magic in 40k has a chance of you being eaten by something/one/being gribbly, possessed, or mutated into a flailing lump of brainless flesh. Hell, in some editions/rulsets it's more common for this to happen for chaos sorcerers than formally trained Psykers. Their use comes at a cost.

Also, in setting, there are a tiny subset of humanity who are basically immune to psychic powers and warp magic to degrees which vary between edition. The epic Pyrokine will point their mind at them and nothing will happen, and then they take a brace of bullets to the brainstem.

But it also has extraordinary feats which just aren't replicable, but also aren't 'magical', for instance Space Marines can stay on combat footing for dozens and dozens of continuous hours (I think a record in one of the codices was 183 hours?)

My point, which was probably a little bit more of a meandering commentary than it should have been, was that magic usually has a cost or scope-of-capacity limit, or ironclad rules. Spellcasting in DND doesn't, which is probably beneficial for the enjoyment of being a caster, and we should, perhaps also apply the same permissiveness to non-spellcasting extraordinary action.

Which referring back to the original question of the thread and not the argument going on for the last few pages: Yes, we should let rogues dodge between fireballs, we should encourage and allow 3pp material like PoW, which lets you ricochet a thrown shield between enemies and then catch it. We should account for the possibility that swinging a sword a certain, specific way may in some settings, may exploit planar boundaries and cast out a demon, like how Vampire can be warded off with non-magical holy symbols.

Basically I guess I'm arguing that while power and capacity isn't/aren't going to be equally distributed, lee-way should be.

or; What Threadnaught said, but less elegantly.

[Aldrakan]

Nothing magical about "Screw you, I don't care about your pansy "Magic" malarkey, and by the way, I am now going to lop your petite elven head off with my giant freaking axe, and you are going to like it!"


How exactly is completely ignoring magical defenses through what appears to be the power of bloody-minded insistence that they suck mundane?

I feel like what you're asking for is something that doesn't actually have a place in fiction. Can't remember a lot of fantasy novels resolved by the nonmagical protagonist deciding he can just ignore his enemy's magic. (Except The Flight of Dragons, in which science is an opposing system to magic and cancels it out, which I feel is not really relevant here).

Yes nonmagical heroes exist and overcome powerful wizards in many stories, but they are very explicitly the underdog. Their enemy possesses great powers they cannot hope to match directly, and they have to win through trickery, or taking advantage of their enemy's justifiable arrogance, or setting up some scenario in which they lose access to their powers. There's no pretense that hitting stuff with a metal stick is just as good as reshaping reality. And these wizards are generally less powerful than D&D wizards, particularly when it comes to magical protections.



As to the "But Dragons!" thing my personal guideline for where things get kinda silly (I don't really have a problem with silly, but the line between silly and stupid is very broad and subjective), and why I feel that roguespace is often the sticking point for people, is visualization.

You can easily visualize someone punching a dragon so hard it goes flying backwards, you just take what people can already do and scale up. The mental picture is easy, and it's basically the same for everyone.
Some people can visualize taking a sword and throwing it so it bounces around the room, slashing people with the blade, spinning so the pommel hits them and propels it at the next person. I find the image pretty silly, especially the bit where you can do this to like 8 people, who should logically be reacting to each bounce and throwing off your ricochets, so perfectly that it lands back in your hand. But I can more naturally picture a much more limited version of this happening, so I chalk it up to them being skilled beyond the capability of anyone on earth.
But picture in your mind someone dodging a fireball that fills the entire room. What's happening? Well they're...making bits of their limbs transparent or 2 dimensional? Disappearing entirely for a second? Or something? I can't come up with a way to picture this that doesn't make it look blatantly supernatural.
(Just to clarify I'm not saying anything against Evasion unless you happen to be trapped in a small room with nothing in it besides you and an excessive amount of fire. You want to take cover behind a teammate, or your backpack, or dodge through a gap in the fireball etc. go ahead.)

I think "can you visualize it" is a good question to ask to arrive at a nice balance between "Guy at the Gym's" overly narrow limitations and the "But Dragons!" acceptance of anything, not an absolute, but a good starting place.

[enderlord99]

So does, or should, magic. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA)

Those are regular restrictions on magic (which are part of the rules of the reality that contains magic, and therefore not "extra.") Furthermore, they're generally restrictions on what the magic itself can do, not what the person who knows the magic can do.

I'm not saying you're wrong in having limitations imposed on characters, some of which almost certainly resemble real-world natural laws; I'm saying that applying every real-world natural law in our universe apply to the same character in another universe, for the simple reason that "it's realistic" is kind of silly.

[LudicSavant]

I Hit It With My Axe (Ex)
From 10th level, the Hypermundane's attacks ignore magical protections of whatever kind. They can Coup de Grace nonhelpless opponents, and don't provoke attacks of opportunity for doing so.

I Shoot It With My Bow (Ex)
From 12th level, the Hypermundane can coup de grace creatures from up to 30 feet away.

Nothing magical about "Screw you, I don't care about your pansy "Magic" malarkey, and by the way, I am now going to lop your petite elven head off with my giant freaking axe, and you are going to like it!"

The idea that you can shoot godzilla with a bow and pierce its hide, let alone kill it, is a lot of things... but mundane ain't one of them. It would be way more honest if you just said you wanted to have a certain flavor of extraordinary rather than another.

Same goes for piercing physical barriers (they're often physical, even if they were created by magic) through sheer force of apathy. There is no real-world basis for such an ability.

[Svata]

Hmm, right. I seem to be remembering a house rule of some sort. Thanks for pointing that out. Simply put: nonlethal damage doesn't exist, in real life. It's only an abstraction. Because, guess what? The game is not real life.

Nope. You were thinking of the dehydration rules from Its Hot Outside. Which aren't specifically restricted to dehydration, it's just listed there, IIRC, (why does autocorrect want to change that to IUD? WHY?) so many people (myself included) apply it everywhere.

[atemu1234]

Nope. You were thinking of the dehydration rules from Its Hot Outside. Which aren't specifically restricted to dehydration, it's just listed there, IIRC, (why does autocorrect want to change that to IUD? WHY?) so many people (myself included) apply it everywhere.

Because acronyms are strange, and apparently your machine wants you to use birth control.

[Svata]

Orb spells. Ignore anti-magic field. And those are even normal spells.

Conditionally*. Its because they're instantaneous conjurations, which even though it makes no sense to have a non-magical orb of pure force that has a rider effect with a DC based on your spellcasting ability score makes more sense than someone walking through a Wall of Stone/Iron because they're in an AMF.



Sorry, but this is a terrible, terrible argument, and proves to me why going down the real-world physics rabbit hole is a bad idea. The dead catgirls weren't reason enough?


As you say, you are using random information off the internet. Very random, particularly considering that neither of them has very much at all to do with the question you posed.

The hockey puck question asked how hard one would have to hit a hockey puck to knock someone backwards. Even accepting that the maneuver in question could be performed using a hockey puck (but noting that normally would be performed using something far more massive, sharp, and dense), this example fails completely because the maneuver has nothing whatsoever to do with moving a person backwards. It just does damage. Presumable, this could be accomplished in a variety of ways, depending on the weapon, none of which have anything to do with a hockey puck knocking someone over or a baseball pitched at the speed of light. With a handaxe, I would picture a series of glancing blows and cuts, or perhaps some ridiculous chain reaction of pain. Of course, if you want it to actually represent 6 people knocked over, you should probably use a much larger weapon.

Sure it wasn't a perfect example, but give them a break, it works well enough as one and gives you a basis for. something to wrap your head around.


*that condition being that you are firing into/through one from outside of it.

[squiggit]

It's not just "I, personally, don't see it."
No, that's exactly what it is.



I don't like being told that Tryndamere shouldn't exist.
You mean the guy who can heal himself by getting less angry, yell at people so hard they can't run, spin around like a ballerina to move through solid walls and turn completely invincible? Odd pick for what you're looking for.


If I want to create a character who is bound by the limits of reality, I should be able to do so.

You are fully able to do so, but you likewise have to realize that mid to high level D&D, by definition, does not support that type of character. No one is persecuting you or insulting you, it's just not what the system was designed for anymore than Exalted is designed to support your kind of character or Deathwatch supports non space marines or Star Wars tabletops support characters who don't use technology or magic. Lower level D&D works fine and other systems work fine, but it's not something you can expect after level 10 and maybe even before that.

[The Insanity]

@ Jormengand
There are 3 things that confuse me.
1. Why the flying buck do you even look at ToB if you want to play a mundane.
2. Why in the name of Celestia do you even play D&D if you want to play a mundane.
3. Why, on Luna's ass, do you even play A FANTASY game if you want to play a mundane.

Now that that's out of the way, let me give you advice.
PLAY A MUNDANE. No one, and I mean literally no one, will go into your house and force you to play a non-mundane. ToB too extraordinary for you? Don't freaking use it! Evasion breaks your suspension of disbelief? Don't use it and ignore it completely! Characters above 6th level too superhuman for you? Don't level up!
It's that simple.

[OldTrees1]

@ Jormengand
There are 3 things that confuse me.
1. Why the flying buck do you even look at ToB if you want to play a mundane.
2. Why in the name of Celestia do you even play D&D if you want to play a mundane.
3. Why, on Luna's ass, do you even play A FANTASY game if you want to play a mundane.

Now that that's out of the way, let me give you advice.
PLAY A MUNDANE. No one, and I mean literally no one, will go into your house and force you to play a non-mundane. ToB too extraordinary for you? Don't freaking use it! Evasion breaks your suspension of disbelief? Don't use it and ignore it completely! Characters above 6th level too superhuman for you? Don't level up!
It's that simple.

To partially solve your confusion:
Imagine an RPG where the laws of physics could be broken(aka magic exists) but not in a way that a magical character would be imbalanced relative to an equal level non magical character. This is kinda like E6 stretched out into 20 levels but with better balance.

That thought exercise should have revealed a reasonable, if niche, hypothetical RPG.

PS: I find my posts to be more cogent when not using the tone you used in that post.

[Arbane]

To partially solve your confusion:
Imagine an RPG where the laws of physics could be broken(aka magic exists) but not in a way that a magical character would be imbalanced relative to an equal level non magical character. This is kinda like E6 stretched out into 20 levels but with better balance.

That thought exercise should have revealed a reasonable, if niche, hypothetical RPG.

What do you mean, "hypothetical"? There's plenty of RPGs where magic is not as overwhelmingly superior to all non-magic as it is in D&D3.X

Yes, they're not as popular. No RPG is as popular as D&D, aside from possibly Vampire in the late 90s. It is the Microsoft Windows of RPGs.

[cfalcon]

This should absolutely be a thing. If you have a reality with rules that allow magic, then to be realistic, you are allowing magic by those rules. If you have random (Ex) things that are not magical breaking rules, then you have a problem. In my games there's no rule of cool. There's physics, and magic is the way to break that. Some (Ex) thing breaking the rules I throw out, and I look carefully at the whole source book.

The fact that this is controversial is kind of shocking. I want to simulate a reality. These things break the hell out of that. If there's a balance issue (and there always are) that should be handled via house rules that make sense.


So yes, it's a thing, and you can't make it not a thing. It's a fallacy to assume that because a wizard can cast fireball, that some mundane can do the same thing by yelling, using a bunch of magic specific mechanics, and claiming that the DM can "flavor" it some way. That's silly.

[Necroticplague]

What do you mean, "hypothetical"? There's plenty of RPGs where magic is not as overwhelmingly superior to all non-magic as it is in D&D3.X

Yes, they're not as popular. No RPG is as popular as D&D, aside from possibly Vampire in the late 90s. It is the Microsoft Windows of RPGs.

Example: Unknown Armies. Magic exists, but generally, if you can do something nonmagically or magically, it's probably a better idea to go with the nonmagical solution, for several reasons.

[ShaneMRoth]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief

Willing Suspension of Disbelief is always tricky, even in well established settings like D&D.

And don't forget the sister trope to BUT DRAGONS!...

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AWizardDidIt

[Dread_Head]

This should absolutely be a thing. If you have a reality with rules that allow magic, then to be realistic, you are allowing magic by those rules. If you have random (Ex) things that are not magical breaking rules, then you have a problem. In my games there's no rule of cool. There's physics, and magic is the way to break that. Some (Ex) thing breaking the rules I throw out, and I look carefully at the whole source book.

The fact that this is controversial is kind of shocking. I want to simulate a reality. These things break the hell out of that. If there's a balance issue (and there always are) that should be handled via house rules that make sense.


So yes, it's a thing, and you can't make it not a thing. It's a fallacy to assume that because a wizard can cast fireball, that some mundane can do the same thing by yelling, using a bunch of magic specific mechanics, and claiming that the DM can "flavor" it some way. That's silly.

First of all you should probably read up on (Ex) abilities, this is the very first line


Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical, though they may break the laws of physics. They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training.
So (Ex) abilites can explicitly break the laws of physics so your entire premise is flawed. It's fine to houserule that away but recognise that a purely mundane character who can't break the laws of physics is going to struggle compared to a magic user who breaks those same laws of physics regularly.

No one is claiming that mundanes should be able to mimic all spells in a non magic manner. Just pointing out that all sorts of things get handwaved as allowable because magic but you are nerfing my rogues Extraordinary Evasive abilities in some attempt to make them conform to the real world.

Really it all comes down to a matter of opinion. You have people who want their (Ex) abilities to occasionally be able to break the laws of physics who see the other side as pedantically enforcing real world physics against what they want to do but giving a free pass to anything magic. The other side sees (Ex) as meaning achievable in real world conditions and the other side wanting to break verisimilitude by having non-magic characters do physically impossible things. I don't think it's really a fallacy because it comes down to different viewpoints on certain issues.

(Just a note that I do view certain ToB manoeuvres like the healing strikes and teleporting to be silly as (Ex) and house rule them to be (Su))

[Morty]

A level 11 fighter hits things with his sword routinely, maybe trips someone over. Apart from stupid things like surviving massive falls or drops in lava - which are more problems with the falling and lava rules than anything else - there isn't really a great deal that he does that can't be done by someone, somewhere.

A level 11 fighter, without any optimization bells and whistles, can face down forty armed, trained people and probably win. S/he can also defeat two or three grizzly bears with nothing but a blunt stick. S/he can face down a brontosaurus and is expected to significantly contribute to its defeat. That's not something any mundane human can do. But a D&D fighter, barbarian or paladin gets to do it simply by the virtue of being good enough at what passes for martial prowess in the system.

It's true that fall damage rules and lava rules are broken - the hit points system is fundamentally dysfunctional to begin with. But you can't dismiss them, because the vast majority of people in a D&D-verse still cannot fall off a mountain and survive. A level 11 fighter has a good chance of doing so.

[Threadnaught]

As to the "But Dragons!" thing my personal guideline for where things get kinda silly (I don't really have a problem with silly, but the line between silly and stupid is very broad and subjective), and why I feel that roguespace is often the sticking point for people, is visualization.

But picture in your mind someone dodging a fireball that fills the entire room. What's happening? Well they're...making bits of their limbs transparent or 2 dimensional? Disappearing entirely for a second? Or something? I can't come up with a way to picture this that doesn't make it look blatantly supernatural.

Evasion as demonstrated by Jigglypuff! (https://youtu.be/_-HFj97eLz8?t=6m3s)

Jigglypuff are warriors with some innate magical power, the most used magical ability that Jigglypuff are known for is their Sleep SLA. For the most part, Jigglypuff don't rely on their magical abilities. This one uses the Evasion (Ex) ability to avoid Tabuu's 10,000d6 damage Off Waves, which affect everywhere Jigglypuff can be at the time it is used.

[Kurald Galain]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief

Willing Suspension of Disbelief is always tricky, even in well established settings like D&D.

And don't forget the sister trope to BUT DRAGONS!...

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AWizardDidIt

Right.

I think a fair summary is,
Some players like the trope A Wizard Did It. Some other players like the trope Magic A Is Magic A.
The fallacy we're talking about here is the assertion that the latter trope doesn't exist, or should never apply to D&D. Clearly it can exist but it doesn't have to. This is further underlined by the following three points,
In my experience, players in the former group don't mind MAIMA explanations, but players in the latter group strongly object to AWDI explanations.
Also in my experience, the latter group is bigger than the former.
Based on sales figures, role-playing games based on MAIMA are rather more popular than games based on AWDI.

[OldTrees1]

What do you mean, "hypothetical"? There's plenty of RPGs where magic is not as overwhelmingly superior to all non-magic as it is in D&D3.X

Yes, they're not as popular. No RPG is as popular as D&D, aside from possibly Vampire in the late 90s. It is the Microsoft Windows of RPGs.

I mean "hypothetical" in that the thought experiment my post was using was not reliant on such RPGs already existing(regardless of if they already existed or not).

[Cirrylius]

There's plenty of RPGs where magic is not as overwhelmingly superior to all non-magic as it is in D&D3.
Yes, they're not as popular. No RPG is as popular as D&D, aside from possibly Vampire in the late 90s. It is the Microsoft Windows of RPGs.


"Cleric! I need a heal! That attack almost injured me!"

It's called Cure Moderate Wounds, not Replenish Moderate Luck.

Stop with the sigbait, guys, you're killing me :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, with all this talk of Rule of Cool and characters powered by nothing but awesome, I'm surprised Exalted hasn't been held up for examination yet.

[Kurald Galain]

Anyway, with all this talk of Rule of Cool and characters powered by nothing but awesome, I'm surprised Exalted hasn't been held up for examination yet.

Well, there is a difference between Rule Of Cool ("your character can do this because he's just that awesome") and Rule Of Balance ("your character can do this because the rules say so and it wouldn't be fair otherwise"). Exalted does a good job of selling the former; and D&D traditionally does not.

[atemu1234]

Wait, are we using tropes as evidence now? What the hell happened?

[Morty]

D&D does a remarkably poor job explaining what its non-spellcasting classes are supposed to accomplish. Much less reconciling it with what the mechanics say they actually can accomplish. Thus we get long debates as to whether they're "mundane" or "realistic".

[Necroticplague]

Well, there is a difference between Rule Of Cool ("your character can do this because he's just that awesome") and Rule Of Balance ("your character can do this because the rules say so and it wouldn't be fair otherwise"). Exalted does a good job of selling the former; and D&D traditionally does not.

And even the rule-of-cool powered Exalted has limits. No amount of being awesome is gonna do any resurrection (though you could be sufficiently awesome at healing that as long as they still got all they're their souls, they're not quite dead to you yet). However, they're consistent with those limits across everyone (you are as incapable of resurrecting someone through sorcery as through punching as through awesome surgical skillz). DnD, however, holds what everyone can do to different standards, ones which are very favorable to magic (no amount of being awesome with your weapon will let you do anything other than kill things, but being awesome at magic gives you carte blanche to do pretty much anything).

[Aldrakan]

Evasion as demonstrated by Jigglypuff! (https://youtu.be/_-HFj97eLz8?t=6m3s)

Jigglypuff are warriors with some innate magical power, the most used magical ability that Jigglypuff are known for is their Sleep SLA. For the most part, Jigglypuff don't rely on their magical abilities. This one uses the Evasion (Ex) ability to avoid Tabuu's 10,000d6 damage Off Waves, which affect everywhere Jigglypuff can be at the time it is used.

I don't know that I'd call generating a brightly colored forcefield around myself just before impact a non-magical ability. If it's not magic its clearly sci-fi, but either way it's not mundane.
Or really "evading", you're kinda just blocking it, but mostly I'd draw attention to the fact that humans cannot, in any way, shape, or form, naturally generate energy barriers from their bodies.

[Necroticplague]

I don't know that I'd call generating a brightly colored forcefield around myself just before impact a non-magical ability. If it's not magic its clearly sci-fi, but either way it's not mundane.
Or really "evading", you're kinda just blocking it, but mostly I'd draw attention to the fact that humans cannot, in any way, shape, or form, naturally generate energy barriers from their bodies.

It's not generating a force field. That's just the games representation of 'you're blocking' implemented to be more visible among the clusterf*** that is most Brawl matches.

[Segev]

I generally find it most useful to justify in fluff what the rules say you can do, unless the rules themselves are broken/unbalanced.

Rogues having evasion is only a problem for DMs who rely on "must always have threat of hp-induced death" as their sole means of challenging parties. While I sympathize with that dilemma, there are better solutions than "hah! I have DM'd you into a place where you take damage even with Evasion because my inner logic says you can't use it!" Most of these solutions revolve around learning to provide different sorts of challenges.

Since Exalted has been brought up, it's actually a great example of a system wherein that kind of thinking is required of the ST. It is extremely easy to make an "invincible" PC, and due to some flaws in the mechanics, rather hazardous not to (as going from full to dead in one hit is not particularly hard, and it can actually be quite difficult to avoid building NPCs who would do this to PCs). This is a serious problem in a system where resurrection magic is one of the few things that the creators of the system said should never, ever be a thing.

The solution becomes challenging the players by attacking their mission objectives, or providing obstacles other than "things that cause damage until you break them" to said objectives. Coincidentally, high-level D&D tends to require similar kinds of challenges. Sure, you can still rely on the hp-combat slog to a degree, but reasonably clever players will often obviate such challenges if you don't have good solid setups to prevent that.

Even hp make a certain amount of sense: it's not just luck, it's also stamina, and the fact that those little, minor injuries add up to the point where you're just a little slower, or that seemingly minor injury opened up as you tried to dodge this other thing. Heck, disintegrate offers a Fortitude save, not a Reflex one, so the fact that you only lost a chunk out of your bicep is a mark of your heroic sturdiness of body resisting the disintegrating effect. Even if it's "really" that you had enough hp to absorb the damage. However, if that's the case, you've drained a certain amount of your ability to use heroic fortitude and toughness to resist "real" damage; that, too, must be replenished, along with stamina and real flesh, when you are healed.

Thinking about it, an interesting way to fluff cure minor wounds would be that it actually fully heals the flesh...but drains you of stamina and endurance to the point that you're really not much further from being able to avoid or turn aside further damage that it is practically cosmetic. You still need almost as much additional recovery as if you hadn't had it at all. But at least you aren't in physical pain, just physically drained. (1 hp represents the actual removal of pain; the loss of energy is where your remaining hp damage lies. So if you're at 2 hp after cure minor wounds, it means that the next dagger strike just couldn't be turned aside, so it pierced an organ.)


In all, regardless of what you think about the "fallacy" in the title of this thread, D&D requires that you accept that superhuman does not necessarily mean supernatural, even when performed by humans. That rogue evading a fireball in a 10 ft. by 10 ft. room is just that good at exploiting air pressure, corners, his clothing, and his own absolute reflexive control over his body to prevent himself from losing any real stamina or energy or taking more than a superficial bit of singing to his eyebrows.

Going back to the hp abstraction, things that fail to damage you at all mean they cost you no stamina, no will to resist, no heroic energy. You are just awesome enough that you could do that again. Heck, that's probably partially where the actual luck lies: you were lucky enough this time to not need to expend your reserves of personal mojo (whatever those are). Because it's luck, you might not be so lucky next time (when you roll a "1" on that save or your foe rolls a "20" to hit, for example).


In the end, it's not a fallacy to say that D&D is a game that includes dragons and sorcerers and theoretically expects mighty-thewed warriors and agile rogues to fight them on even terms using "nothing" but superlative prowess and skill. Either grant them supernatural powers for their awe-inspiring training, or accept that their (Ex) abilities are superhuman without being supernatural. They are "just that good."

[Psyren]

What do you mean, "hypothetical"? There's plenty of RPGs where magic is not as overwhelmingly superior to all non-magic as it is in D&D3.X

Yes, they're not as popular. No RPG is as popular as D&D, aside from possibly Vampire in the late 90s. It is the Microsoft Windows of RPGs.


Example: Unknown Armies. Magic exists, but generally, if you can do something nonmagically or magically, it's probably a better idea to go with the nonmagical solution, for several reasons.

And that's great, I'm glad games like that exist for folks looking for that paradigm to go and play them. Just keep that malarkey far, far away from my D&D/PF.

If I wanted to be, I dunno, Rincewind or whoever, I'd be in a game like that. I want to be Milamber, or Moiraine, or Khelben, or Raistlin.

[Brova]

First problem, super human =/= Magic.

That depends on what you mean by magic. Obviously it's possible to be superhuman without having the Magic power source. Hulk, Iron Man, Batman, and Superman all do that. But if you're using magic to mean "stuff beyond what real people are capable of", as I have, you can't.


Limits for human capability are there, they always have been and always will be. Until someone else comes along to redefine them.

Yes, but Jormengand isn't calling for mundanes to be limited to "what humans might eventually be able to do", she's calling for them to be limited to "what humans can do today without mechanical assistance". There's obviously an upper limit to that, and it's obviously less than the upper limit of magic.


Also it's entertainment, does something have to match one person's own limited view of reality in order for everyone else to find it fun?

Yes, absolutely. Where did you ever get the idea that I thought characters should be limited by reality?


Sorcery/magic in 40k has a chance of you being eaten by something/one/being gribbly, possessed, or mutated into a flailing lump of brainless flesh. Hell, in some editions/rulsets it's more common for this to happen for chaos sorcerers than formally trained Psykers. Their use comes at a cost.

I'm pretty sure Khorne runs no risk of getting eaten by Daemons when he uses his powers.


Also, in setting, there are a tiny subset of humanity who are basically immune to psychic powers and warp magic to degrees which vary between edition. The epic Pyrokine will point their mind at them and nothing will happen, and then they take a brace of bullets to the brainstem.

An antimagic field is not mundane.


But it also has extraordinary feats which just aren't replicable, but also aren't 'magical', for instance Space Marines can stay on combat footing for dozens and dozens of continuous hours (I think a record in one of the codices was 183 hours?)

Again, Magic power source versus magic as supernatural phenomena. The Space Marines are not mundane. They don't have the Chaos power source that Daemons have, they instead have the Genetics power source (which, interestingly, puts them on the same power source as Tyrannids).


My point, which was probably a little bit more of a meandering commentary than it should have been, was that magic usually has a cost or scope-of-capacity limit, or ironclad rules. Spellcasting in DND doesn't, which is probably beneficial for the enjoyment of being a caster, and we should, perhaps also apply the same permissiveness to non-spellcasting extraordinary action.

Absolutely. Whatever level people are going to be at, everyone need to be at that point.


You are fully able to do so, but you likewise have to realize that mid to high level D&D, by definition, does not support that type of character. No one is persecuting you or insulting you, it's just not what the system was designed for anymore than Exalted is designed to support your kind of character or Deathwatch supports non space marines or Star Wars tabletops support characters who don't use technology or magic. Lower level D&D works fine and other systems work fine, but it's not something you can expect after level 10 and maybe even before that.

+1.

There's nothing wrong with a story that has mundane characters. Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones are well regarded and for good reason. But there's also nothing wrong with a story without mundane characters.


Based on sales figures, role-playing games based on MAIMA are rather more popular than games based on AWDI.

What sales figures? The most successful RPG in the world (D&D derivatives) doesn't have any underlying logic for what magic can do. At all.

[Segev]

Let's take the lightning throw maneuver.

The lightning throw maneuver is not just unrealistic. It is not non-verisimilar It is physically impossible.

Put simply, it punches through up to 6 people in a line, dealing as much damage as being hit by, say, 6 whacks with a greatsword, with anything you can throw. Such as, I dunno, a dagger, hand-axe, or shuriken (EDIT: Or a lucerne hammer. It apparently allows you to throw any melee weapon). It then returns to your hand.

Randall Munroe calculated that a hockey puck would have to be moving at about mach 8 (https://what-if.xkcd.com/39/) just to knock someone backwards, which would result in them both exploding, puck and goalie. To go through 6 people is going to multiply up to a minimum of mach 48, though I don't believe for a moment that the relationship is linear. Even if it is, you start getting a similar effect to a railgun, where you cause a conventional explosion without even carrying any explosive. If it's square, you get that, only the conventional explosion is the size of a small nuclear explosion. If it's exponential (more likely), I'll let Randall Munroe field what happens (https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/) again. What can I say, he's a useful guy when you want to do something utterly impossible.

But of course, the hockey puck doesn't survive this ordeal. This is partly its fault for being made of plastic. But something being thrown 6 times as fast, let alone 36 times as fast, let yet alone multiplying the exponent up by 6, is going to suffer far worse damage. Just checking the wikipedia page on railguns, though, even the rails that the projectile is fired from have to be replaced regularly because we do not currently possess materials that can withstand that kind of recoil. And you're throwing an axe at mach 48, while railguns tend to go about mach 7 (though some go faster). You're almost going 7 times as fast, assuming the relationship is linear which it almost certainly isn't.

To be clear, when some girl pulling random pieces of information off the internet can work out that this ability is impossible, you know it's off. Weirder still is the fact that this insane ability to throw things a few times as fast as the biggest, baddest AA gun you ever saw... is limited to 30 feet. Seriously, if you're going to throw an axe at several times the speed of sound, can't you think of something more interesting to do with it?

It's not just "I, personally, don't see it." It's "This violates so much of physics, biology and probably chemistry that I don't even know where to start."

Sure, it violates physics. But you know what? It doesn't violate expectations. Sure, you can calculate the forces involved and determine that this is just plain not possible for a human arm to accomplish. But that's actually getting much more behind the scenes than most people do, especially in narratives.

Narratively speaking, throwing a knife at a wall can embed the knife in the wall, depending on what the wall's made of. Throwing it at a paper wall (e.g. what one might find in a Japanese old-timey building) will have the knife go through it.

Narratively speaking, throwing a knife hard enough at a wall will embed the knife even if the wall is made of stone or metal. Sure, physics might say, "but the knife should give, not the wall!" But narratively, it can still work. The willing suspension of disbelief can be maintained; this is a fictional situation. At worst, people might demand explanation.

Similarly, throwing a knife at a person hard enough could have it go through him. It doesn't matter if, when you break down the actual calculations of real physics, this is physically impossible for the biological machinery of a human arm to achieve. This is a Heroic Character, on par with Sigfried and Hercules and Thor. Narratively, the notion that you just keep exercising and getting stronger and stronger to preturnatural levels is perfectly acceptable; it can lie within the acceptable realm of suspension of disbelief.

Having it return to your hand is as easy as having some form of ricochet throw. Xena was not a supernatural being in her own story, but her chakram was known for it to the point of having entire parodies built around it. It was played entirely straight and with acceptable verisimilitude for her setting in that series, however.

Verisimilitude only requires consistency, not strict adherence to real-world physics.

[Aldrakan]

It's not generating a force field. That's just the games representation of 'you're blocking' implemented to be more visible among the clusterf*** that is most Brawl matches.

Yes I've played Smash Bros, but,

1. It completely blocks damage in a way that is more consistent with a forcefield than blocking with your hands, especially given it works on fire and explosions.
2. I doubt it's specified anywhere in the game that the forcefield visual is an abstract representation of a physical block, so I question your grounds for claiming it to be so.
3. It's blocking, not evading.
4. It looks like a force field, meaning this does jack in terms of visualizing evasion.

[zergling.exe]

Yes I've played Smash Bros, but,

1. It completely blocks damage in a way that is more consistent with a forcefield than blocking with your hands, especially given it works on fire and explosions.
2. I doubt it's specified anywhere in the game that the forcefield visual is an abstract representation of a physical block, so I question your grounds for claiming it to be so.
3. It's blocking, not evading.
4. It looks like a force field, meaning this does jack in terms of visualizing evasion.

Jigglypuff's "shield" is not even taking the hit. They are doing the sidestep where you press down while your guard is up. They are effectively dodging to the 3rd dimension (most attacks are on the 2 dimensional axis with only a few (such as the Dragoon) going from back to front rather than side to side). Which in D&D would be a 4th dimension. They are completely out of the way of the attack.

Also, the "shield" will at some point be too small to actually fit the entire character in it. It can still block at this point despite not providing total cover if it really were a "shield".

I've played too much SSB if I could tell how that was working before I even watched the video. :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

What sales figures? The most successful RPG in the world (D&D derivatives) doesn't have any underlying logic for what magic can do. At all.

Magic does have basic rules it follows though. For instance, your magical power is roughly proportional to your level; apprentice mages can do little more than light candles and zap a single kobold or goblin. Compare to another magic system, e.g. X-Men, where you can have scared children and teenagers capable of annihilating armies or altering reality. A character like Franklin Richards or Rogue would never work in D&D because they are just born being as powerful as they are.

There is also detectability - ongoing magic is very difficult to hide in D&D, if you don't have a specific spell to do that. Compare again to X-Men, where if your mutation isn't visible you can go unnoticed for years if not decades. The kinds of societies most D&D settings have don't make sense if magic use cannot be detected and mitigated.

Finally there is antimagic, the ability to turn it off. Without this, even good-aligned D&D societies would be forced to maim, slaughter or brainwash all their magic-using criminals instead of taking them prisoner. This doesn't just mean AMF either - it ranges from relatively mundane measures like rope and a gag, to very high-end measures like Binding.

Now, the beauty of magic is that all these rules can be broken - and that's okay, so long as breaking them is difficult to do. Casting in an AMF can be done, masking a spell can be done, and powerful effects at low level can be done, but they all have costs associated, and particularly in the case of the latter the cost can be prohibitive (e.g. your soul.) So long as the price is sufficiently high, the fact that the rules can be broken is acceptable.

[Brova]

Magic does have basic rules it follows though. For instance, your magical power is roughly proportional to your level; apprentice mages can do little more than light candles and zap a single kobold or goblin. Compare to another magic system, e.g. X-Men, where you can have scared children and teenagers capable of annihilating armies or altering reality.

You've got the causation almost exactly backwards. You aren't powerful because you're high level, you're high level because you're powerful. Level is a way of describing power.


A character like Franklin Richards or Rogue would never work in D&D because they are just born being as powerful as they are.

Dude, Slaad. There is all kinds of crap in D&D that is born crazy powerful. Elementals, Outsiders, Undead (well, not born). FFS, any dragon is more powerful at birth than most humans will ever be, and those are in the name of the game.


There is also detectability - ongoing magic is very difficult to hide in D&D, if you don't have a specific spell to do that.

It can also be detected only locally, and only by someone with magic. Compare that to ... that mind machine Professor X has that can detect any mutant anywhere. And if we're counting "all mutants", we probably need to also count Rogues or whatever who can do supernatural shenanigans without looking magic at all.


Finally there is antimagic, the ability to turn it off.

I haven't read enough X-Men to know a topical example, but in Worm there are people who can turn off powers. And in D&D none of those methods work for all the superhuman shenanigans that exist. A Fighter is still completely capable of surviving a 100 foot fall in an antimagic field.

[cfalcon]

First of all you should probably read up on (Ex) abilities, this is the very first line

Yea thanks I also have the SRD on the internet.


So (Ex) abilites can explicitly break the laws of physics so your entire premise is flawed.

It really isn't. Having something like that is a pretty clear way for a game designer to make something that he thinks is ok, so he doesn't need to have a faculty consult to make sure that some rules lawyer can't later successfully appeal to the laws of physics to get something thrown out. VERY rarely in the original stuff, you'll see something on a monster tagged (Ex) just to get around an easy player counter- some creature that needs to float, for instance, gets an (Ex) tag just so AMF doesn't bust it. There's plenty of ways to fix these rare exceptions and maintain consistency, including just leaving them out- they are iconic but rare.


It's fine to houserule that away but recognise that a purely mundane character who can't break the laws of physics is going to struggle compared to a magic user who breaks those same laws of physics regularly.

Yes, of course. I don't think there's many who run games who aren't aware of this. Those are run games, run in a simulationist manner, and also want to run core or something should probably read up- but on game balance. Nothing is wrong with their philosophy, but the game balance becomes a problem. That's the part that needs fixing there. Threads like this to crap on entire DMing / world building philosophies are not great.




(Just a note that I do view certain ToB manoeuvres like the healing strikes and teleporting to be silly as (Ex) and house rule them to be (Su))

That would work for sure. Another way is to create a Natural Magic (Nm) category, and use this to explain the physical existence of otherwise impossible races, the propulsion of the various balls of 1970s camp- and you could still push the wuxia stuff in there if you were concerned about the occasional AMF field breaking a character. But of course you can guess that I won't touch 9 swords because of the power difference between it and the base martialists, and the fact that I'm already willing to houserule the standard mundane guys and some root combat mechanics. The last game I ran to 20 had two primary melee guys, one of them entirely mundane (duelist archetype), the other with a "ghost faced killer" derivate prestige class (he was sold on that class, which I had to both change the flavor of massively and also buff substantially, including the addition of (Su) movement abilities), and while a campaign with just fighter types would have flopped, so would a campaign of just caster types, and those guys were absolutely both primary damage dealers and tactically relevant in combat.

Complaining about the base power level of the game is useful and correct, and solving it for your game is useful and correct.

[Psyren]

You've got the causation almost exactly backwards. You aren't powerful because you're high level, you're high level because you're powerful. Level is a way of describing power.

It is, but but the exact power being measured is what I'm referring to. Level is a way of describing the minimum challenge you can handle. A level 10 barbarian is not equal to a level 10 cleric, nor should they be, but both can handle a Mohrg if they have level-appropriate wealth. In that instance, both are "powerful enough" despite one being stronger than the other.



Dude, Slaad. There is all kinds of crap in D&D that is born crazy powerful. Elementals, Outsiders, Undead (well, not born). FFS, any dragon is more powerful at birth than most humans will ever be, and those are in the name of the game.

All kinds of monsters, certainly, but not PCs. And even when said monsters are playable, Level Adjustment and HD flat-out prevent you from playing these from low levels at all.


It can also be detected only locally, and only by someone with magic. Compare that to ... that mind machine Professor X has that can detect any mutant anywhere. And if we're counting "all mutants", we probably need to also count Rogues or whatever who can do supernatural shenanigans without looking magic at all.

This isn't true at all. Consider things like Portfolio Sense - Boccob can sense any spell being cast anywhere in the universe 17 weeks before it even happens. There is something there to detect, even if not every mage or even archmage is capable of doing it. For a lesser version of this, consider spells like Legend Lore or powers like Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions - you can pick up on any powerful mage casting a spell anywhere.



I haven't read enough X-Men to know a topical example, but in Worm there are people who can turn off powers. And in D&D none of those methods work for all the superhuman shenanigans that exist. A Fighter is still completely capable of surviving a 100 foot fall in an antimagic field.

I agree, and I'm totally fine with that. There are definitely some non-magic things in the D&D world that would either be impossible or extremely improbably in ours. But that doesn't mean we should open the floodgates and make an (Ex) or (Na) version of every single thing magic can do.

[Hecuba]

Definition, at least insofar as I've seen it used:

Should this be a thing? Because the arguments for and against it are valid.

The later on thing in the thread this is from says that Extraordinary does not necessarily mean mundane. But I've always interpreted that as more a hand-wave to get things past Antimagic Field without them falling out of the sky or suffering Critical Existence Failure.

This fallacy (if indeed it can be called one, as I'm slightly unconvinced) is linked to the Guy at the Gym fallacy, kind of it's opposite. Should extraordinary abilities have some sort of explanation? Nonsupernatural but nonnormal leaves very little room in between.


All breaks from reality do not bring the same level of elegance or verisimilitude to all people. This is a disagreement of taste that happens to be presented in logical terms more than it is an actual logical error.
To the extent, however, that it is a logical argument the resulting conclusion would indeed actually be a formal fallacy (specifically the fallacy of unwarranted assumption). This is unusual, because most of the time that the term "fallacy" is thrown about to name such things there is not any actual (propositional, formal, syllogistic, quantification, or usually even informal) fallacy in play.

[Psyren]

All breaks from reality do not bring the same level of elegance or verisimilitude to all people. This is a disagreement of taste that happens to be presented in logical terms more than it is an actual logical error.
To the extent, however, that it is a logical argument the resulting conclusion would indeed actually be a formal fallacy (specifically the fallacy of unwarranted assumption). This is unusual, because most of the time that the term "fallacy" is thrown about to name such things there is not any actual (propositional, formal, syllogistic, quantification, or usually even informal) fallacy in play.


This is a good summary.

I think it's being presented as a logical fallacy, not because the differing tastes themselves are fallacious (by definition they can't be, because they are subjective); rather, it's because the folks on one side or another tend to think that everyone else should conform to their own tastes and their own suspension of disbelief.

What we can all agree on is that spellcasters have more power and more options than martial classes, and that whatever parity might exist between them gets eclipsed very early on in their careers. What we don't seem to agree on is whether that is actually a problem, or even if it is, how egregious of one and therefore what measures are acceptable in order to solve it.

But the beauty is that we don't have to agree at all. The game is extremely mutable, and even if it weren't, there are other games entirely that enforce more of a trade-off or difficulty for using magic. Whether it's changing the rules of this game or playing another, the problem (if you believe one exists) is eminently solvable, without impugning on the fun of the folks who are happy the way things are, or think that any tweaks need only be minor at best.

[Flickerdart]

What we can all agree on is that spellcasters have more power and more options than martial classes, and that whatever parity might exist between them gets eclipsed very early on in their careers.
Most arguments I've seen on this topic actually arise because one side does not agree with this. The "it exists but isn't a problem" crowd seems like a substantial minority compared to the "lalala the books say it's balanced" crowd.

[Theoboldi]

It is, but but the exact power being measured is what I'm referring to. Level is a way of describing the minimum challenge you can handle. A level 10 barbarian is not equal to a level 10 cleric, nor should they be, but both can handle a Mohrg if they have level-appropriate wealth. In that instance, both are "powerful enough" despite one being stronger than the other.


Just bumping into here, because I really want to object to this definition. If we only utilize the minimum challenge a character can handle to describe their level, then every character we could create would be at the exact same level, seeing as becoming more powerful doesn't prevent you from completing trivial tasks. Because both I, a somewhat scrawny nerd, and a wizard with ultimate cosmic power can jump over a small fence, we'd both be able to handle the same minimum challenge, and thus be the same level.

Rather, I think the definition that would work better for what you are describing would be that levels are a way of showing the minimum amount of opposition needed for it to be a challenge to your character. Otherwise, they'd become completely useless as a unit of measurement. I still don't agree with it, but I suppose that is a matter of personal preference. The only real issue I have is with the definition presented here. :smallsmile:

[BRKNdevil]

My Explanation for the allowance of both the current and more nice things for mundanes is the world explanation in the Sword of the Bright Lady by M.C. Planck. Where just by having gained experience, you are further away from normal humans then normal humans. That said, the highest level person so far shown is a 10th or 12th level cleric

[Psyren]

Most arguments I've seen on this topic actually arise because one side does not agree with this. The "it exists but isn't a problem" crowd seems like a substantial minority compared to the "lalala the books say it's balanced" crowd.

Do you have proof that this is a minority? A survey of some kind? Sales data? Anything?

But to be perfectly honest, neither of those are positions that trouble me. Whether a given customer thinks the game is fine because "the books say so" (I don't recall any passages in the books that actually say this, but I'll play along) or that customer thinks the game is fine because whatever problems do exist have minor impact, the end result is the same - said customer doesn't think anything major needs to be done. And that is the stance that I happen to agree with.

So I say - by all means let's put out a martial system like ToB/PoW, and another like Stamina and Skill Unlocks, and some variant rules that make casting more risky - that's all that we need to do. We can even refine and expand on these. But does anything more drastic need to be done than this, nah.


Just bumping into here, because I really want to object to this definition. If we only utilize the minimum challenge a character can handle to describe their level, then every character we could create would be at the exact same level, seeing as becoming more powerful doesn't prevent you from completing trivial tasks. Because both I, a somewhat scrawny nerd, and a wizard with ultimate cosmic power can jump over a small fence, we'd both be able to handle the same minimum challenge, and thus be the same level.
Rather, I think the definition that would work better for what you are describing would be that levels are a way of showing the minimum amount of opposition needed for it to be a challenge to your character. Otherwise, they'd become completely useless as a unit of measurement. I still don't agree with it, but I suppose that is a matter of personal preference. The only real issue I have is with the definition presented here. :smallsmile:

"Minimum challenge as represented by steadily-increasing CRs" then.

[Flickerdart]

If we really insist on using levels while still tolerating wildly different power levels within a single level, then the only possible useful definition is a qualitative one. A 10th level barbarian can handle one mohrg and a 10th level cleric can handle two mohrgs but they are both fighting mohrgs. Neither of them find CR 5 guys challenging anymore, but neither of them should be able to coast multiple levels up the ladder and beat down CR 15 guys. There are various ways the game already does this (with quantitative measures like SR, and qualitative measures like immunities, movement modes, etc) but casters are allowed to beat this system too.


Do you have proof that this is a minority? A survey of some kind? Sales data? Anything?
Bruh, cool your jets - I did not even come close to implying this was anything aside from my personal impression based on my personal experience.

[Psyren]

but neither of them should be able to coast multiple levels up the ladder and beat down CR 15 guys.

I don't agree here - how far up the ladder you can go is too difficult to regulate in a complex game like this. Consider a monster that can dominate monster at will, or Magic Jar at will - that would be a really tough fight for a barbarian or even an unprepared spellcaster. But against one with Protection from Evil prepped, it becomes a cinch. There are too many silver bullets and other factors that let you punch above your weight class, and knowing the minimum is more useful anyway.



Bruh, cool your jets - I did not even come close to implying this was anything aside from my personal impression based on my personal experience.

My jets are cool bruh :smalltongue: I was being genuine. I assumed "substantial minority" meant you had seen some kind of empricial data that I had missed, that's all. If not that's okay :smallsmile:

[Flickerdart]

I don't agree here - how far up the ladder you can go is too difficult to regulate in a complex game like this. Consider a monster that can dominate monster at will, or Magic Jar at will - that would be a really tough fight for a barbarian or even an unprepared spellcaster. But against one with Protection from Evil prepped, it becomes a cinch. There are too many silver bullets and other factors that let you punch above your weight class, and knowing the minimum is more useful anyway.
Currently, yes - but it shouldn't have to be this way. In a game where these silver bullets only become available at appropriate levels, the upper bound works perfectly fine. Part of the problem with D&D casters is that they get these silver bullets much earlier than anyone else can.

[Psyren]

Currently, yes - but it shouldn't have to be this way. In a game where these silver bullets only become available at appropriate levels, the upper bound works perfectly fine. Part of the problem with D&D casters is that they get these silver bullets much earlier than anyone else can.

I don't see that as a problem because that adds texture to the game in my opinion. If you had to be level 7 (Succubus CR) before you could block its charm/suggestion, that would spell a lot of trouble for lower-level parties. It would also mean that you couldn't have any lower-level monsters that do similar things, e.g. Dryads or Puppeteers.

In short, the puzzle comes not from the spell existing, but whether you remembered to prepare or learn it in time to solve that problem.

Now, where I feel D&D falls down is that ammunition for these bullets is a little too easy to come by. A single wand has 50 charges, scrolls are far too cheap for what they do, and bonus spells are plentiful even without those things. These are all paradigms that later games like 5e did away with. But i'm not sure that's the right answer either, because penalizing a caster's slots just means that they end up preparing fewer buffs and more direct magic.

[Arbane]

Anyway, with all this talk of Rule of Cool and characters powered by nothing but awesome, I'm surprised Exalted hasn't been held up for examination yet.

Mind you, in Exalted, _everyone_ worth mentioning is using magic, it's just that most of them aren't casting spells..


If I wanted to be, I dunno, Rincewind or whoever, I'd be in a game like that. I want to be Milamber, or Moiraine, or Khelben, or Raistlin.

Cool. Can the non-spellcasters be Cu Chulainn, Corwin of Amber, Excellent Archer Hou-Yi, Ruby Rose, or Herakles, then?


Dude, Slaad. There is all kinds of crap in D&D that is born crazy powerful. Elementals, Outsiders, Undead (well, not born). FFS, any dragon is more powerful at birth than most humans will ever be, and those are in the name of the game.

Obviously, I was under the mistaken impression that we were discussing entities generally usable as player characters in this debate.

Come to think of it, a twenty-ton dragon being able to fly is an (ex) ability. MY VERISIMILITUDE!!!!!

[Flickerdart]

Come to think of it, a twenty-ton dragon being able to fly is an (ex) ability. MY VERISIMILITUDE!!!!!
The best (Ex) ability I know of is the will o' wisp's ability to become completely invisible permanently. A rogue being able to avoid being hurt by an explosion is small fries.

[Zale]

The whole Ex/Su divide exists almost entirely because of antimagic fields and the like.

Outside of that there's not much difference.

[Threadnaught]

It's blocking, not evading.

Off Waves is too powerful to be blocked, it can only be dodged.


That depends on what you mean by magic. Obviously it's possible to be superhuman without having the Magic power source. Hulk, Iron Man, Batman, and Superman all do that.

Hulk isn't human, Hulk is Hulk.
Iron Man and Batman could count as super human, intellectually, but I get the feeling you mean physically. Iron Man derives his strength from a series of mech suits, while Batman has a ton of gadgets and gizmos stashed around the world just in case.
Superman isn't human, he is a Kryptonian.

They don't have a magical power source, but unlike say, Krillen, from Dragonball. None of them trained themselves to gain super strength and super speed while being born human. Ki is not magic, to call ki magic is to declare life itself the result of magic. Not that his energy attacks matter, I'm referring to Krillen's strength speed and durability.
In this sense, Krillen who has become as strong as he is through his own hard work, is superior to Hulk who exists and is powerful because of an accident, and Superman who is powerful simply because he was born.
Krillen also defeats Iron Man and Batman, because unlike them, Krillen relies on his own physical capabilities, not what he has in his pocketses.


But if you're using magic to mean "stuff beyond what real people are capable of", as I have, you can't.

Next time someone breaks a record, it's because of magic?
You see Brova, people have these weird surges of strength, speed and durability, as well as bouts of competence at certain times, which don't last very long at all. Adrenaline is magic?


Yes, but Jormengand isn't calling for mundanes to be limited to "what humans might eventually be able to do", she's calling for them to be limited to "what humans can do today without mechanical assistance". There's obviously an upper limit to that, and it's obviously less than the upper limit of magic.

Actually there's a point where everyone's favourite Snake mentions a distaste toward Tome of Battle because Desert Wind, Devoted Spirit and Shadow Hand.
Outside of those, the majority of the techniques in the book are the kind of thing that a normal person could do.


Yes, absolutely. Where did you ever get the idea that I thought characters should be limited by reality?

From you?


That depends on what you mean by magic. Obviously it's possible to be superhuman without having the Magic power source.

But if you're using magic to mean "stuff beyond what real people are capable of", as I have, you can't.

So you can be superhuman without using Magic, but if Magic can be used to make someone superhuman, you can't be superhuman without Magic?
Please, explain better, faster, stronger.


The most successful RPG in the world (D&D derivatives) doesn't have any underlying logic for what magic can do. At all.

Rules for what Magic can do! (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/spells.htm)

[Segev]

The whole Ex/Su divide exists almost entirely because of antimagic fields and the like.

Outside of that there's not much difference.

The main difference tends to center around whether you're following a narrative appearance of obeying the laws of physics: throwing things hard enough can launch them through people; dodging well enough can help you avoid any damage at all from even a fireball; etc. If it's just an extension of something "a guy at the gym" can do, even if it's an extension to seemingly ludicrous levels, it's probably (Ex). The guy at the gym can lift heavy weights. Your fighter can pick up and throw that dragon. The guy at the gym can take a punch to the rock-hard abs. Your fighter can flex those abs hard enough that the sword barely nicks him. The guy at the gym can jump impressively high. Your rogue can jump over a 30 ft. wall or onto the back of a flying pegasus. The safecracker can carefully listen for when the tumblers align. Your rogue can spin the dial to the right numbers by casual feel alone.

The guy at the gym cannot fly. Neither can your fighter. The guy at the gym cannot make his barbells glow. Neither can your rogue light up his lockpicks. The safecracker cannot simply walk through the vault door. Neither can your rogue.


When you move past "doing something ludicrously well that a human could in theory do to some extent," you go from (Ex) to (Su).

[Flickerdart]

The guy at the gym cannot fly. Neither can your fighter. The guy at the gym cannot make his barbells glow. Neither can your rogue light up his lockpicks. The safecracker cannot simply walk through the vault door. Neither can your rogue.
The guy at the gym can push off the ground to jump. Why shouldn't a level 20 fighter be able to push off the air?
Fish can bioluminesce, so it's not some kind of supernatural power to make something glow.
Cats contort themselves into some ridiculous positions. An octopus can squeeze through very tiny openings. Why can't a level 20 rogue squeeze through a wall (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#escapeArtist)?

TRPGs are the sort of thing where whether or not you can explain a power depends largely on whether you are trying to think why a character might be able to do something, or why a character might NOT be able to do something. Personally, I think that the former is a better use of my time.

[Arbane]

Someone over on the Paizo forums pointed out that past level 6 or so, there AREN'T any non-'super' humans in PF/D&D/whatever. (Back in AD&D, the title for a 8th level Fighter was "Superhero".) The game needs to embrace this.

[Segev]

The guy at the gym can push off the ground to jump. Why shouldn't a level 20 fighter be able to push off the air?Never said he couldn't. That could be justified as (Ex). Note that air-jumping and flying are not quite the same thing.

Fish can bioluminesce, so it's not some kind of supernatural power to make something glow.No, but unless they modify their body in some way that is different than mere exercise or practice, humans cannot make their bodies glow.

You can practice jumping until you can leap over buildings or even leap off of things that wouldn't normally support you.

You can practice picking locks until you know just how to smack the door to cause the tumblers to fall into place.

How do you practice glowing?

Cats contort themselves into some ridiculous positions. An octopus can squeeze through very tiny openings. Why can't a level 20 rogue squeeze through a wall (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#escapeArtist)? Throught the tiniest of cracks in a wall? Sure. Through a wall? Unlikely unless you get into the concept of molecules and the space between atoms.


TRPGs are the sort of thing where whether or not you can explain a power depends largely on whether you are trying to think why a character might be able to do something, or why a character might NOT be able to do something. Personally, I think that the former is a better use of my time.Oh, sure. And it's largely in that explanation as to how that determines if it's magical or just "really super-skillful."

[Flickerdart]

No, but unless they modify their body in some way that is different than mere exercise or practice, humans cannot make their bodies glow.
Hot things glow. Tibetan monks are able to increase their body temperature by meditation. A level 20 mundane could take that to the logical conclusion.

[Brova]

All kinds of monsters, certainly, but not PCs. And even when said monsters are playable, Level Adjustment and HD flat-out prevent you from playing these from low levels at all.

Sure. And in the Marvel universe, "Mutant" is a template (or templates) with crazy high LA. And the monster/PC divide is not actually, you know, a part of the D&D universe. People in D&D don't talk about how the Orc Barbarian is a PC and the Hill Giant Barbarian isn't.


This isn't true at all. Consider things like Portfolio Sense - Boccob can sense any spell being cast anywhere in the universe 17 weeks before it even happens. There is something there to detect, even if not every mage or even archmage is capable of doing it. For a lesser version of this, consider spells like Legend Lore or powers like Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions - you can pick up on any powerful mage casting a spell anywhere.

Yes, and there are superpowered characters who can detect other supers.


I agree, and I'm totally fine with that. There are definitely some non-magic things in the D&D world that would either be impossible or extremely improbably in ours. But that doesn't mean we should open the floodgates and make an (Ex) or (Na) version of every single thing magic can do.

You have to do that. If martials are not allowed the same spread of abilities as casters, one will be better. Now, you can totally give martials a different set of powers and be balanced. Druids and Clerics have different abilities, but are basically balanced. Ditto Beguilers and Dread Necromancers. And so on. But that's because there isn't some arbitrary set of abilities they are or aren't allowed to have.


Obviously, I was under the mistaken impression that we were discussing entities generally usable as player characters in this debate.

I mean, this is in the context of Marvel comics. We don't know what it means to be a "player character" in the context of Marvel. And besides, it's not like you aren't allowed to play a dragon or a demon, people just usually don't. For a smaller scale example, any race with LA counts - they start out (presumably) harder core than other people.


Come to think of it, a twenty-ton dragon being able to fly is an (ex) ability. MY VERISIMILITUDE!!!!!

Forget that. That dragon shouldn't even be able to survive in a world with gravity. Square-Cube Law and all that.


Hulk isn't human, Hulk is Hulk.

What hair are you even splitting here? The Hulk is totally human. He is a human named Bruce Banner who has the power to transform into a giant monster because he got hit with too much gamma radiation.


Iron Man and Batman could count as super human, intellectually, but I get the feeling you mean physically. Iron Man derives his strength from a series of mech suits, while Batman has a ton of gadgets and gizmos stashed around the world just in case.

Batman is very much physically superhuman. Here (https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/3m63vw/respect_batman_bruce_wayne_pcn52/) is a Batman respect thread, listing some of his feats. Those include beating the world deadlift record (~1000 pounds) by a factor of four when he catches a sarcophagus, surviving Wonder Woman hitting him through a concrete wall, and dodging bullets. But yes, clearly those are all realistic because people continue setting world records.


Superman isn't human, he is a Kryptonian.

What? How is this responsive at all?


They don't have a magical power source, but unlike say, Krillen, from Dragonball. None of them trained themselves to gain super strength and super speed while being born human. Ki is not magic, to call ki magic is to declare life itself the result of magic. Not that his energy attacks matter, I'm referring to Krillen's strength speed and durability.

Ki is a power source that lets you do magical (supernatural) stuff. Like DB level durability.


In this sense, Krillen who has become as strong as he is through his own hard work, is superior to Hulk who exists and is powerful because of an accident, and Superman who is powerful simply because he was born.
Krillen also defeats Iron Man and Batman, because unlike them, Krillen relies on his own physical capabilities, not what he has in his pocketses.

So does a freakin' Earth Elemental. Doesn't make that stuff mundane.


Next time someone breaks a record, it's because of magic?
You see Brova, people have these weird surges of strength, speed and durability, as well as bouts of competence at certain times, which don't last very long at all. Adrenaline is magic?

No, stop being dense. If magic means "things real people can't do", then things real people do are by definition not magic.


Actually there's a point where everyone's favourite Snake mentions a distaste toward Tome of Battle because Desert Wind, Devoted Spirit and Shadow Hand.
Outside of those, the majority of the techniques in the book are the kind of thing that a normal person could do.

Ha.


From you?

I think mundanes should be restricted by reality. Because that is what the term means if it is to mean anything at all. I also think you should just not play mundanes in high level games. Just like you shouldn't play gods in low level games, or wizards in historic fantasy games, or aliens in modern games, or medieval knights in western (with cowboys) games.


So you can be superhuman without using Magic, but if Magic can be used to make someone superhuman, you can't be superhuman without Magic?

Because magic is being used in two contexts. As a power source and as a catch-all term for the supernatural. Call it Magic (power source) and magic (supernatural). The Flash is totally magical. He can run at arbitrary speeds and do various other stuff. But he doesn't have the Magic power source, he has the Science power source. Similarly, Thor is magical. But his power source is that he is personally a norse god, not that he is Magic.


Rules for what Magic can do! (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/spells.htm)

Rules for what spells can do. Not magic (or even Magic) as a whole. The idea of rules for magic implies that there's a predictable framework for what a spell "should" do. And that's just not there in D&D. I mean, yes, there is not a spell called frost bolt and there is a spell called fireball. But would it be in any sense "wrong" or "inconsistent" for that to be otherwise? No it would not.

Compare that to systems with more formalized magic. Avatar doesn't have spells that are written out at all. But it's magic does have obvious "rules". You don't know how bending works, but you know that it involves doing martial arts moves and has elemental effects. If a dude showed up in Avatar with Portalbending which let him do a bunch of kung fu and teleport around, you would be able to call shenanigans and explain why it felt like a breach with the setting's reality. Similarly, if someone had the ability to influence the elements by getting a bunch of people together and doing a ritual over a couple of weeks to animate a mountain, you could call shenanigans on that. Because you have an understanding of how magic in Avatar works.

[enderlord99]

Hot things glow. Tibetan monks are able to increase their body temperature by meditation. A level 20 mundane could take that to the logical conclusion.

That works, but you'd need to be really high level for it, because you'd need to be, at a minimum, almost as hot as a typical campfire, in order to produce (visible wavelengths of) light.

[atemu1234]

That works, but you'd need to be really high level for it, because you'd need to be, at a minimum, almost as hot as a typical campfire, in order to produce (visible wavelengths of) light.

...Which would start to damage your everything after not very long at all.

[Flickerdart]

That works, but you'd need to be really high level for it, because you'd need to be, at a minimum, almost as hot as a typical campfire, in order to produce (visible wavelengths of) light.
The wizard makes flames shoot from his hands at level 1. Level has no correlation with how much heat you can produce.

As for damaging your items, a character with sufficient control over this sort of thing could strobe the heat (similar to how power wave modulation works), frequently enough to have a steady visible light but not frequently enough to subject his items to damage.

[Amphetryon]

...Which would start to damage your everything after not very long at all.

Just as Druids take damage for holding their Produce Flame spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/produceFlame.htm)

[atemu1234]

Just as Druids take damage for holding their Produce Flame spell (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/produceFlame.htm)

Look, we're not coddling your psuedoscientific attempts to explain why humans should be able to heat there bodies up to the point of producing light without literally catching fire and burning up. Humans don't naturally bioluminesce.

[Segev]

Sure. You can raise your body temperature to the point that you visibly glow. You also now are doing fire damage to everything, and the fact that you're not burning yourself to death makes this a (Su) effect.

The Guy At The Gym may be able to train his pain tolerance to the point that he could dip his arms in boiling water and keep them there, but he couldn't prevent the damage to his body.

Even the Fighter can't prevent the damage; he just has the Heroic Fortitude (or whatever his high hp represent) to make it take a lot longer to "get to" him in a permanent/disfiguring way.

I could see a monk or barbarian PrC that tried to justify self-ignition as a biofeedback thing that dealt 1d6 damage to yourself each round. But even biofeedback is relegated to psionics in D&D's framework, as is meditation's more esoteric mind-over-body effects, so I think you find it slipping into psi-like or supernatural anyway.

[Flickerdart]

Look, we're not coddling your psuedoscientific attempts to explain why humans should be able to heat there bodies up to the point of producing light without literally catching fire and burning up. Humans don't naturally bioluminesce.
And this is why mundanes can't have nice things.

[atemu1234]

And this is why mundanes can't have nice things.

This is why 'mundanes' shouldn't exist, IMHO. I much prefer to include Tome of Battle and exclude classes like fighter. Take Pathfinder's trap disabling rules, and let Swordsages be decent.

[Psyren]

Cool. Can the non-spellcasters be Cu Chulainn, Corwin of Amber, Excellent Archer Hou-Yi, Ruby Rose, or Herakles, then?


Let's see... incarnation of a deity, son of a fairy king, incarnation of a deity, son of a deity, and... an Australian model? :smallconfused:

In D&D those would be represented by templates or high-LA races, so sure you could - though I'm uncertain what point using a templated fighter would prove for your cause. It's just making them magic by another name; none of those folks are even human, much less mundane.

I mean, you could name Achilles too for instance, but as far as I know D&D Fighters are not routinely dipped into the River Styx during their training.


The whole Ex/Su divide exists almost entirely because of antimagic fields and the like.

Outside of that there's not much difference.

And detectability, yes. Plus there are a handful of things that can interact with su abilities as though they were spells, like the ToM ability for supernatural powers to provoke, and even one that can dispel them. But the point is that Su has systemic weaknesses just like spells and SLAs do, albeit less of them.


You have to do that. If martials are not allowed the same spread of abilities as casters, one will be better. Now, you can totally give martials a different set of powers and be balanced. Druids and Clerics have different abilities, but are basically balanced. Ditto Beguilers and Dread Necromancers. And so on. But that's because there isn't some arbitrary set of abilities they are or aren't allowed to have.

I don't think the inequality being arbitrary makes it bad. It's all about suspension of disbelief. The designers drew the line at a certain spot, and there is a contingent of folks that agree with it. You don't, and that's okay, that's what houserules and variants are for. They're not dirty words.

[Brova]

And this is why mundanes can't have nice things.

This is why 'mundanes' shouldn't exist, IMHO. I much prefer to include Tome of Battle and exclude classes like fighter. Take Pathfinder's trap disabling rules, and let Swordsages be decent.

This. Very much this. People are unwilling to give high level mundanes the equivalent of a 2nd level spell (body of the sun) without making them be extremely high level and jump through a bunch of hoops. The best thing for the game is to put the idea of "mundane" heroes to rest and move on.


I don't think the inequality being arbitrary makes it bad. It's all about suspension of disbelief. The designers drew the line at a certain spot, and there is a contingent of folks that agree with it. You don't, and that's okay, that's what houserules and variants are for. They're not dirty words.

So it's okay for designers to release an unbalanced game, because I can write my own game?

[Aldrakan]

Off Waves is too powerful to be blocked, it can only be dodged.


Yes somehow, when my point entirely hinged upon the visualization of actions, and someone replied to me with a video that purported to show how to visualize roguespace, I went off what was actually shown on the screen. So the forcefield is an abstraction but that doesn't matter because apparently it isn't actually what's doing the dodging, so...the thing I should have been paying attention to is Jigglepuff doing a twirl?

Like, what am I actually supposed to be looking at that is Evasion happening?
Because I see it throwing up a forcefield just as the wave would strike, which makes sense as a way to block the attack, but is neither evading it nor mundane, and it spinning in a circle as the wave passes, which is mundane but in no way a visual that shows it dodging.

You say it's going into the third dimension, which doesn't come across on the screen at all (and I've watched this moment several times at .25 speed now), and is also not applicable to an already 3D world because I don't think you can visualize stepping into the fourth dimension in a mundane-looking way either.
If the attack is a circle, a 2D shape in a 3D world, then yes of course you can dodge it, but that's completely irrelevant.

[Psyren]

So it's okay for designers to release an unbalanced game, because I can write my own game?

Of course it's okay. If "balance" is your primary concern, why aren't you off playing chess, or 4e?

[Brova]

Of course it's okay. If "balance" is your primary concern, why aren't you off playing chess, or 4e?

Because those aren't games I want to play?

Are you seriously saying it is wrong for me to believe that games should be balanced?

What is your argument?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Of course it's okay. If "balance" is your primary concern, why aren't you off playing chess, or 4e?

I understand that 5e is both more like 3.X than 4E while still being better balanced than 3.X. So that might also be worth a look.

[Psyren]

Are you seriously saying it is wrong for me to believe that games should be balanced?

What is your argument?

No, it's wrong for you to think that unbalanced games are automatically bad.

[Forrestfire]

While it's wrong to think that, what isn't wrong is to think that deceptive games are inherently bad. D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder both have the concept that characters of the same level are supposed to be even in power as a stated part of their system.

And both of them fail to deliver on it, often going so far in the opposite direction that it's difficult to believe that it wasn't intentional. I'd say that a game being actively deceptive about what its rules are meant to represent is problematic, and yes, bad compared to a game that doesn't. It's a thing that makes 3.x as a system worse.

In your games you might not care about balance between classes, but the system claims that it does when it in fact does not, and that's a major problem. I'd say that it's perfectly fine for designers to release an unbalanced game if they're upfront about it. The fact that they weren't is pretty much what causes threads like this in the first place, isn't it?

[Psyren]

While it's wrong to think that, what isn't wrong is to think that deceptive games are inherently bad. D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder both have the concept that characters of the same level are supposed to be even in power as a stated part of their system.

I for one have never seen any claim like this. Where is it stated for instance that a level 10 wizard should be equal to a level 10 fighter?

What is stated is that a APL 10 party should be able to handle a CR 10 challenge, provided they have level 10 WBL. And as long as the party consists of PC classes, that is true.

What you call deception by the books, I call wishful thinking and misreading by some players.

[Brova]

I understand that 5e is both more like 3.X than 4E while still being better balanced than 3.X. So that might also be worth a look.

5e is like 4e, except instead of scaling numbers and palette swapping monsters, it doesn't scale numbers and palette swaps monsters. It is not a game I have any interest in playing.


No, it's wrong for you to think that unbalanced games are automatically bad.

Let me remind you of what you originally said:


I don't think the inequality being arbitrary makes it bad. It's all about suspension of disbelief. The designers drew the line at a certain spot, and there is a contingent of folks that agree with it. You don't, and that's okay, that's what houserules and variants are for. They're not dirty words.

The inequality in this case being that there's a cutoff point where certain characters (mundanes/martials/whatever) stop being able to get level appropriate abilities. You are being an apologist for bad design and papering it over with the Oberoni Fallacy. You are rapidly bankrupting any credibility you had with respect to topics like "game balance" and "game design".

And no, I don't think unbalanced games are bad. I think balanced games are good. I also think interesting games are good. But that's not actually here or there, because this isn't a discussion about what games I enjoy. It's broadly a discussion of acceptable breaks from reality, and it's specifically a discussion of the impossibility of balancing limited power (mundanes) against unlimited power (magic) in a game that promises meaningful advancement.

So please, drop your strawman about how I should just accept that game designers did their best and if I don't like it I should go play 4e. It's not clever, it's not interesting, and it's not a good argument. We can have a game that is both balanced and interesting, and you are standing in the way of that game.

Move.

[Psyren]

Let me remind you of what you originally said:



The inequality in this case being that there's a cutoff point where certain characters (mundanes/martials/whatever) stop being able to get level appropriate abilities. You are being an apologist for bad design and papering it over with the Oberoni Fallacy. You are rapidly bankrupting any credibility you had with respect to topics like "game balance" and "game design".

And no, I don't think unbalanced games are bad. I think balanced games are good. I also think interesting games are good. But that's not actually here or there, because this isn't a discussion about what games I enjoy. It's broadly a discussion of acceptable breaks from reality, and it's specifically a discussion of the impossibility of balancing limited power (mundanes) against unlimited power (magic) in a game that promises meaningful advancement.

What do you mean "stop getting level-appropriate abilities?" Are you saying for instance that a Fighter 20 can't take on a Balor or Ancient Dragon? You could even build them for this in core if you wanted, never mind everything else that's been released since.


So please, drop your strawman about how I should just accept that game designers did their best and if I don't like it I should go play 4e. It's not clever, it's not interesting, and it's not a good argument. We can have a game that is both balanced and interesting, and you are standing in the way of that game.

Er... What exactly am I "standing in the way of?" Am I stopping you from using any variants or houserules by stating my opinion? You can definitely still play 3.5 and PF, but to get the game you want something is going to have to give because the game as written clearly enforces the kind of inequality between martials and casters being discussed.


Move.

I'm good, thanks :smalltongue:

[Brova]

I for one have never seen any claim like this. Where is it stated for instance that a level 10 wizard should be equal to a level 10 fighter?

A level 10 Wizard is (in theory) a CR 10 challenge. A level 10 Fighter is (again, in theory) a CR 10 challenge. Incidentally, that right there indicates that they are equal as the Reflexive Property states that a thing (a CR 10 challenge) is equal to itself (a CR 10 challenge), so the level 10 Fighter and the level 10 Wizard are equal.

A challenge of APL + 4 is supposed to be a 50/50 shot of winning. That means that a party of a level 10 Wizard, a level 10 Fighter, a level 10 Cleric, and a level 10 Rogue is supposed to go roughly 50/50 with a CR 14 encounter. Note that this party is a CR 14 encounter on the whole.

Now remember that reducing the number of creatures in an encounter by half drops CR by 2. So a party of a level 10 Wizard and a level 10 Cleric is CR 12 and expected to go 50/50 against a CR 12 encounter. Ditto for a level 10 Fighter and a level 10 Rogue.

Repeat that to get a level 10 Wizard and a level 10 Fighter, both intended to go 50/50 against a CR 10 encounter. They are expected to perform at the same rate. Or, balanced.


What you call deception by the books, I call wishful thinking and misreading by some players.

Yes, the "wishful thinking" that the game should be balanced. How horrible that players might want that.


What do you mean "stop getting level-appropriate abilities?"

When does the Fighter get a noncombat movement option on par with phantom steed? And no, he doesn't buy one, because he needs more gear (stat item, weapon, and shield vs stat item) and has the same wealth. When does he get a noncombat utility power like charm person? When does he get a minionmancy option like animate dead? When does he get combat options that stack up to color spray let alone wail of the banshee?

Never. That's when.


Are you saying for instance that a Fighter 20 can't take on a Balor or Ancient Dragon? You could even build them for this in core if you wanted, never mind everything else that's been released since.

Hahahaha.

No.

Seriously, the Balor knows you are coming and can stunlock you while it's buddy (or the CR Not A Threat minions it has) kill you to death by murdering you until you die.

Every Ancient Dragon except the Ancient White Dragon (which, I should note, is CR 18) can learn teleport. Some of them have Cleric access and can learn plane shift. Oh, and I'm pretty sure they can outfight you, seeing as how the have more attacks, better BAB, higher HP, and more feats.


Er... What exactly am I "standing in the way of?"

A version of D&D that is genuinely well designed. Where people pay attention to testing, balance classes, and create interesting options for every class.


Am I stopping you from using any variants or houserules by stating my opinion?

No, you are shutting down discussion on what the fundamental flaws of the game are. A discussion that is essential to making a better game. This isn't me making the perfect the enemy of the good. This is you making the crummy the enemy of the acceptable.

[Forrestfire]

I for one have never seen any claim like this. Where is it stated for instance that a level 10 wizard should be equal to a level 10 fighter?

What is stated is that a APL 10 party should be able to handle a CR 10 challenge, provided they have level 10 WBL. And as long as the party consists of PC classes, that is true.

What you call deception by the books, I call wishful thinking and misreading by some players.

You just cited half the reason for it.


An NPC with a PC class has a Challenge Rating equal to the NPC’s level. Thus, an 8th-level sorcerer is an 8th-level encounter.

Challenge Rating

This shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty. Assume a party of four fresh characters (full hit points, full spells, and equipment appropriate to their levels). Given reasonable luck, the party should be able to win the encounter with some damage but no casualties. For more information about Challenge Ratings, see pages 36 and 48 of the Dungeon Master's Guide.

In 3.5, an NPC of a PC race and a given level has a CR equal to their level. That's a fact. A creature of a given CR is meant to be equally-challenging to a party of four with normal WBL as any other creature with the same CR. That's what Challenge Rating means. The only difference between NPCs and PCs is the stat array and WBL, so... What exactly is wishful thinking and misreading here? The rules of the game say that a Wizard 10 and a Fighter 10 are equal in challenge in a fight. They are obviously not.

We also have this:


Effective Character Level (ECL): This number represents a creature’s overall power relative to that of a character from the Player’s Handbook. A creature with an ECL of 10 is roughly equivalent to a 10th-level character. A creature’s ECL is the sum of its Hit Dice (including class levels) and level adjustment. For instance, a minotaur has 6 HD and a +2 level adjustment. It is the equivalent of an 8th-level character.

A character's ECL is meant to make them roughly equivalent to a even-level character. Any even-level character, because they don't make a distinction in their books between the power level of a level n wizard and a level n fighter.

There's also this, from the DMG:


D&D works best when all the PCs are within a level or two of each other. The classes are carefully balanced against each other at each level, and the Challenge Rating system gives you great freedom to design appropriate challenges that are fun for everyone at the table.

Emphasis mine. While this is not an explicit statement of equal power level, it is a very clear note, in plain wording, that classes of the same level are meant to be balanced against each other.

I sadly don't have copies of the relevant Pathfinder books, but I do know that they have similar rules for determining NPC challenge rating.

[Psyren]

A level 10 Wizard is (in theory) a CR 10 challenge. A level 10 Fighter is (again, in theory) a CR 10 challenge. Incidentally, that right there indicates that they are equal as the Reflexive Property states that a thing (a CR 10 challenge) is equal to itself (a CR 10 challenge), so the level 10 Fighter and the level 10 Wizard are equal.

But that's the problem with trying to apply CRs to PC classes, it depends entirely on how they're built. For instance, that level 10 Wizard is not going to be a CR 10 challenge if he prepares Read Magic in every slot and spends all his money on Gentle Repose wands.

This is why monster stat blocks are the only yardstick that makes any sense.



Yes, the "wishful thinking" that the game should be balanced. How horrible that players might want that.

Oh, it's not an inherently bad goal, but many other things are more important. WotC learned that lesson the hard way.



When does the Fighter get a noncombat movement option on par with phantom steed? And no, he doesn't buy one, because he needs more gear (stat item, weapon, and shield vs stat item) and has the same wealth. When does he get a noncombat utility power like charm person? When does he get a minionmancy option like animate dead? When does he get combat options that stack up to color spray let alone wail of the banshee?

Never. That's when.

Why does he need any of these? If you want to animate dead, play a necromancer, not a fighter. This kind of enforced parity is silly at best.



Hahahaha.

No.

Seriously, the Balor knows you are coming and can stunlock you while it's buddy (or the CR Not A Threat minions it has) kill you to death by murdering you until you die.

It can't stun you without getting you below 150 first, and by then you've puréed it. Even the Blasphemy is not a threat, a simple potion of silence beats it.



Every Ancient Dragon except the Ancient White Dragon (which, I should note, is CR 18) can learn teleport. Some of them have Cleric access and can learn plane shift. Oh, and I'm pretty sure they can outfight you, seeing as how the have more attacks, better BAB, higher HP, and more feats.

Teleport and Plane Shift (and flight for that matter) merely mean they can run away, which nets you XP anyway.
If they can outfight you, you're building your character wrong.



A version of D&D that is genuinely well designed. Where people pay attention to testing, balance classes, and create interesting options for every class.

Snowbluff Axiom, and also, there are plenty of interesting options in both games as they currently are - this very forum is proof of that.



No, you are shutting down discussion on what the fundamental flaws of the game are. A discussion that is essential to making a better game. This isn't me making the perfect the enemy of the good. This is you making the crummy the enemy of the acceptable.

No offense, but nothing any of us say on a random message board is essential to anything. WotC is clearly done with 3.5 and Paizo doesn't see the same problem you do. If not houserules, variants, or new games entirely, what exactly do you propose?


You just cited half the reason for it.




In 3.5, an NPC of a PC race and a given level has a CR equal to their level. That's a fact. A creature of a given CR is meant to be equally-challenging to a party of four with normal WBL as any other creature with the same CR. That's what Challenge Rating means. The only difference between NPCs and PCs is the stat array and WBL, so... What exactly is wishful thinking and misreading here? The rules of the game say that a Wizard 10 and a Fighter 10 are equal in challenge in a fight. They are obviously not.

We also have this:



A character's ECL is meant to make them roughly equivalent to a even-level character. Any even-level character, because they don't make a distinction in their books between the power level of a level n wizard and a level n fighter.

There's also this, from the DMG:



Emphasis mine. While this is not an explicit statement of equal power level, it is a very clear note, in plain wording, that classes of the same level are meant to be balanced against each other.

I sadly don't have copies of the relevant Pathfinder books, but I do know that they have similar rules for determining NPC challenge rating.


Pathfinder says this:


Challenge Rating (or CR) is a convenient number used to indicate the relative danger presented by a monster, trap, hazard, or other encounter— the higher the CR, the more dangerous the encounter. Refer to Table 12–1 to determine the Challenge Rating your group should face, depending on the difficulty of the challenge you want and the group’s APL.

Nothing about Level A = Level A regardless of class.

The DMG does say something that can be construed that way, so point to you, but then these are the same folks that thought the monk had something to look forward to at every level :smallbiggrin:

[Forrestfire]

Fair enough about Pathfinder. I maintain my point that (even if it's accidental), the fact that D&D 3.5 is deceptive about its imbalance is the real issue. I also think that the balance issues are a massive problem, but not one that makes it an automatically bad game (they help make it an overall worse game for many peoples' campaigns and setting concepts, but I enjoy 3.5 for all its faults).

The fact that it presents itself as balanced is terrible, though. I think that if a game is not meant to be balanced in any way, it needs to say so up front, and make damn sure the players know it. This goes for Pathfinder as well, because common sense dictates that someone on the same level would be on the same power tier, right? That's too easy an assumption to make for a reader of the game; the fact that we had to dig into the Challenge Rating rules to find a lack of wording indicating that balance was a thing at all is a major problem, especially given that the developers on the forums have stated that the game is balanced and functional at times, often when it comes to changes to their rules with errata and FAQs. If balance was not a goal, then the amount of nerfs being tossed around on various character options would not be necessary.

[Psyren]

I never said that balance wasn't a goal at all - just that it's not their primary concern (at the very least, not to the degree where clerics end up on par with barbarians), and that I agree with the approach that it shouldn't be their primary concern.

But personally, I think a game taking the time/space to state "hey, just FYI: in this heroic RPG, magic spells become stronger than swinging a pointy stick around!"is a waste. Nor do I think that, even if the game did take the time to spell out something that to me should be blindingly obvious, it would do anything to assuage the grievances of the folks here.

[Brova]

But that's the problem with trying to apply CRs to PC classes, it depends entirely on how they're built. For instance, that level 10 Wizard is not going to be a CR 10 challenge if he prepares Read Magic in every slot and spends all his money on Gentle Repose wands.

This is why monster stat blocks are the only yardstick that makes any sense.

Unfortunately, the rules say (as Forrestfire pointed out) that PC classes can be evaluated according to those rubrics. It's also worth pointing out that by saying "a level X Wizard will not be a CR X challenge if..." you are implicitly acknowledging that the CR system is effective enough at evaluating power generally that you have an idea of what a CR 10 challenge looks like and how the Wizard deviates from that.

Also, your point is a red herring. Obviously it's possible for outcomes to diverge. What if you spend your CR 10 encounter is a pair of Mind Flayers who spend all their actions walking in circles?


Oh, it's not an inherently bad goal, but many other things are more important. WotC learned that lesson the hard way.

The biggest complaint about 3.5 is that Wizards are better than Fighters. That is, fundamentally, a balance complaint. FFS, PF managed to become the biggest RPG in the business by claiming to have solved that problem. Imagine what you could do by actually solving it!


Why does he need any of these? If you want to animate dead, play a necromancer, not a fighter. This kind of enforced parity is silly at best.

Imagine that your 12th level party is about to storm the fiery citadel of an Efreet Duke. It's defended by various fire element humanoid conscripts, Salamander mercenaries, and Efreet elites. The party is marshalling their resources to invade. Let's see what the various members bring to the table.

The Artificer has an army of cogwork automatons that he sends in to cover the party's advance. He's built flying machines, devices to suppress the local planar traits, and a suit of powered armor that makes him immune to fire.

The Paladin has a legion of angels at his command. His divine might protects him from fire, inspires his allies to fight after death, and makes his weaker enemies flee.

The Druid has hordes of animals. He can call on the power of elemental water to devastate the armies of fire, forests to trap his enemies, and turn into a great tiger.

The Fighter can sword things pretty well.

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things is demanding to be allowed to play in a high level story with low level abilities. One of these things is a Fighter.


It can't stun you without getting you below 150 first, and by then you've puréed it. Even the Blasphemy is not a threat, a simple potion of silence beats it.

Oh no, I have to use my at-will teleport to retreat for three minutes. How will I ever win?


Teleport and Plane Shift (and flight for that matter) merely mean they can run away, which nets you XP anyway.

Until they come back at night and kill you in your sleep. Or the challenge was to actually kill them.


If they can outfight you, you're building your character wrong.

How? It is better at every part of fighting than you are. It has bigger hit dice and more of them. It has more attacks at a higher bonus. It has more feats and can take better ones. It is better than you at everything you do. At it's numbers are level appropriate without needing items. Meaning it can spend its hoard on some nasty surprises.


Snowbluff Axiom,

Apparently, Snowbluff didn't understand that in a level system, you can have higher levels get more power.


and also, there are plenty of interesting options in both games as they currently are - this very forum is proof of that.

It's not that 3.5 doesn't have good options. Just with the books that exist, you can play all kinds of effective casters. It's that the game presents as viable options which are not, plays at too many different and unexplained power levels, and is too complex to get new people into easily (at a high power level).