Magical Effects, Spells, & the Mundane

[jaappleton]

So, this is something that I haven't been able to figure out too much. I see it up for debate a lot. If there's a clear cut answer, please, I'm all ears, but I haven't come across it.

Of course, there's a difference between a spell and a magical effect. A spell is... a spell. And there's things which can negate those, like the Arcana Cleric's ability Spell Breaker. It doesn't negate 'magical effects', but spells.

And there's other things which specify 'magic', but not necessarily spells. Gnome Cunning, as an example.

My question is, is there another source, or no? In my eyes, something is strictly mundane or magical. There's no third option. So a Vampire's Charm, which isn't a Charm Person spell but its own effect, is inherently described as a magic. The key word of 'magic' is right in there.

But there's other things monsters have, such as an Elder Brain's ability Psychic Blast. It doesn't have the magical keyword. But its also certainly not a mundane thing like a weapon attack.

A Shadow Horror (GGtR) has an ability called Lashing Shadows that reach out to attack, requiring a Dex save, dealing Necrotic damage. Certainly doesn't seem mundane to me.

So are things mundane or magical? Is there a third source? Not every type of magical effect is necessarily a spell, for sure, but is there something between a magical effect and a mundane effect that I'm unaware of?

[OldTrees1]

Non-magical
Mundane: Realistic
Extraordinary: D&D's baseline reality is more fantastical than our reality. In real life you might call this magic but in D&D reality just allows more.

Magical: There is something that can be identified by spells like Detect Magic. D&D calls that magic.
Not spells
Spells & spell-like: Some magic is in the narrower category called spells.



Dodging part of a Fireball? Mundane
Evading all of a Fireball? Extraordinary
Spells? The Spider Climb spell
Magical but not spell? Slippers of spiderclimbing
Spells? Wand of Spider Climb
Spells? Charm Person
Magical but not spell? Vampire Charm (says magical right in the description)

https://i.imgur.com/AIWshcm.png

[jaappleton]

Non-magical
Mundane: Realistic
Extraordinary: D&D's baseline reality is more fantastical than our reality. In real life you might call this magic but in D&D reality just allows more.

Magical: There is something that can be identified by spells like Detect Magic. D&D calls that magic.
Not spells
Spells & spell-like: Some magic is in the narrower category called spells.



Dodging part of a Fireball? Mundane
Evading all of a Fireball? Extraordinary
Spells? The Spider Climb spell
Magical but not spell? Slippers of spiderclimbing
Spells? Wand of Spider Climb
Spells? Charm Person
Magical but not spell? Vampire Charm (says magical right in the description)

But a Mind Blast from an Illithid? Where does that fall? Magical but not a spell, or Extraordinary?

[Chronos]

The only distinction the rules ever make is "magic" or "not magic". If you want, you can call the "not magic" category "mundane", but this means that a lot of things are considered mundane that don't seem like they ought to be. Or you can split "not magic" up into multiple categories if you want, because the rules won't care about whatever subcategories you come up with.

[OldTrees1]

But a Mind Blast from an Illithid? Where does that fall? Magical but not a spell, or Extraordinary?

Depends on if you consider psionics to be Extraordinary or Magical. Usually Mind Blast is Magical but not a spell (in 5E it says magical in the description). At some tables it would be Extraordinary.

Before Psionics were added to D&D, Psionics were considered Extraordinary in literature. It was merely extra natural abilities unlocked by having highly advanced mental abilities. You can see that in Sci Fi literature. However when added to D&D, D&D usually has Psionics adapt the Magic rules. So usually Psionics are either Magical but not spells.


General rules of thumb:
You will know a spell when you see it.
Magical effects are usually labeled.
You might know better than WotC.

[Sparky McDibben]

I wouldn't get too hung up on this. It's DM discretion, and D&D works on action movie logic.

The magic system is used to model the illithid's psionic effects, but whether they are technically magic is up to you.

Advantage on the save doesn't necessarily have to represent pure willpower, either. What if the mind flayers just aren't used to aiming their blasts low? The advantage represents the gnome only getting "sidelobe" psychic blast. This doesn't work as well with other Small PCs, though.

Also, think what you're missing by nixing this. If the illithids take everyone else prisoner but the gnome makes their saves, you've now set up an intense rescue and escape mission.

[jaappleton]

I wouldn't get too hung up on this. It's DM discretion, and D&D works on action movie logic.

The magic system is used to model the illithid's psionic effects, but whether they are technically magic is up to you.

Advantage on the save doesn't necessarily have to represent pure willpower, either. What if the mind flayers just aren't used to aiming their blasts low? The advantage represents the gnome only getting "sidelobe" psychic blast. This doesn't work as well with other Small PCs, though.

Also, think what you're missing by nixing this. If the illithids take everyone else prisoner but the gnome makes their saves, you've now set up an intense rescue and escape mission.

That's precisely why I want to know. Does my Gnome has a higher chance of making it, so they can try to rescue their allies? Or are they as screwed as everyone else?

[Sparky McDibben]

That's precisely why I want to know. Does my Gnome has a higher chance of making it, so they can try to rescue their allies? Or are they as screwed as everyone else?

I assumed you were DMing. If that's the case, just decide if psionics are magic. There's precedent that applies both ways. For myself, in general, if an effect is not the result of a physical force, I rule it's magical.

If you're a player, ask your DM if Gnome Cunning applies. Sorry, but I don't think anything we can say will affect that conversation.

[Lagtime]

So are things mundane or magical? Is there a third source? Not every type of magical effect is necessarily a spell, for sure, but is there something between a magical effect and a mundane effect that I'm unaware of?

5E is a bit vague here, much more like older editions of D&D.

Effects in 5E are not given the explicit exact tags like they were in 3E for example. Most actions listed in a monster stat block don't say what they are game rule wise. For example most breath weapons do not say they are magical or spell based in 5E. So, officially that makes them "mundane".

The same is true for shadow horrors, illithids and elder brains.

Technically most of the effects should be "supernatural", but 5E does not have that category.

[Unoriginal]

So, this is something that I haven't been able to figure out too much. I see it up for debate a lot. If there's a clear cut answer, please, I'm all ears, but I haven't come across it.

There is a clear cut answer, yes:


Is the breath weapon of a dragon magical? If you cast antimagic field, don armor of invulnerability, or use another feature of the game that protects against magical or nonmagical effects, you might ask yourself, “Will this protect me against a dragon’s breath?” The breath weapon of a typical dragon isn’t considered magical, so antimagic field won’t help you but armor of invulnerability will. You might be thinking, “Dragons seem pretty magical to me.” And yes, they are extraordinary! Their description even says they’re magical. But our game makes a distinction between two types of magic:

• the background magic that is part of the D&D
multiverse’s physics and the physiology of many
D&D creatures
• the concentrated magical energy that is contained in a
magic item or channeled to create a spell or other focused
magical effect

In D&D, the first type of magic is part of nature. It is no more dispellable than the wind. A monster like a dragon exists because of that magic-enhanced nature. The second type of magic is what the rules are concerned about. When a rule refers to something being magical, it’s referring to that second type. Determining whether a game feature is magical is straightforward. Ask yourself these questions about the feature:

• Is it a magic item?
• Is it a spell? Or does it let you create the effects of a spell
that’s mentioned in its description?
• Is it a spell attack?
• Is it fueled by the use of spell slots?
• Does its description say itÂ’s magical?
If your answer to any of those questions is yes, the feature is magical.

Let's look at a white dragon’s Cold Breath and ask ourselves those questions. First, Cold Breath isn'’t a magic item. Second, its description mentions no spell. Third, it's not a spell attack. Fourth, the word “magical” appears nowhere in its description. Our conclusion: Cold Breath is not considered a magical game effect, even though we know that dragons are amazing, supernatural beings.

From the Sage Advice Compendium (https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf).



But there's other things monsters have, such as an Elder Brain's ability Psychic Blast. It doesn't have the magical keyword. But its also certainly not a mundane thing like a weapon attack.



Mind Blast (Recharge 5–6). The elder brain magically emits psychic energy.



A Shadow Horror (GGtR) has an ability called Lashing Shadows that reach out to attack, requiring a Dex save, dealing Necrotic damage. Certainly doesn't seem mundane to me.

It is extraordinary but not magical. Similar to how the Shadow Horror's Incorporeal Movement isn't described as magical, but its Shadow Stride teleportation is.


But a Mind Blast from an Illithid? Where does that fall? Magical but not a spell, or Extraordinary?


Mind Blast (Recharge 5–6). The mind flayer magically emits psychic energy in a 60-foot cone.

Gnome Cunning does indeed help resist the Mind Blast.

Also, Gnome Cunning itself is extraordinary.

[jaappleton]

SNIP

I say this wholeheartedly:

Thank you. THANK YOU.

This pretty much concisely exemplifies how to handle this.

[Sparky McDibben]

SNIP.

Good catch!

[Unoriginal]

I say this wholeheartedly:

Thank you. THANK YOU.

This pretty much concisely exemplifies how to handle this.

You're more than welcome.

[Chronos]

What I find odd is that, at the same time that 5th edition removed abilities being explicitly extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural, and left you to just figure it out on a case-by-case basis, they also made explicit that there are exactly 13 damage types, and everything in the game that does damage explicitly specifies which of those 13 types it does. You'd think that any design philosophy that dictated the one, would also dictate the other.

It's almost as though they didn't actually have a single design philosophy when they were creating 5th edition... nah, can't be.

[jaappleton]

What I find odd is that, at the same time that 5th edition removed abilities being explicitly extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural, and left you to just figure it out on a case-by-case basis, they also made explicit that there are exactly 13 damage types, and everything in the game that does damage explicitly specifies which of those 13 types it does. You'd think that any design philosophy that dictated the one, would also dictate the other.

It's almost as though they didn't actually have a single design philosophy when they were creating 5th edition... nah, can't be.

Emphasis mine.

I believe some of the damage types could go away. Very, very specifically, I mean Poison should not, ever, be a player option in 5E. You want to have poison kits and apply them to weapons? Fine. But something like the Mercy Monk dealing poison? Centering a subclass around it? Focusing player spells around it? Absolutely not. Why?

Way, way, waaaayyyyy too many monster stat blocks have Immunity or Resistance to poison. It is an outright, straight up, 100% garbage option to give players in this edition. Any instance of poison, flavor-depending, should be transferred to Necrotic or Acid damage in my opinion.

[Unoriginal]

What I find odd is that, at the same time that 5th edition removed abilities being explicitly extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural, and left you to just figure it out on a case-by-case basis, they also made explicit that there are exactly 13 damage types, and everything in the game that does damage explicitly specifies which of those 13 types it does. You'd think that any design philosophy that dictated the one, would also dictate the other.

There is absolutely no reason as to why having one would dictate the other.

But as shown above, the game DOES mention what is magical, the rest being extraordinary, so 5e does follow the design philosophy you're describing.



It's almost as though they didn't actually have a single design philosophy when they were creating 5th edition... nah, can't be.

It's almost as if 5e did actually have the design philosophy you were describing.


Emphasis mine.

I believe some of the damage types could go away. Very, very specifically, I mean Poison should not, ever, be a player option in 5E. You want to have poison kits and apply them to weapons? Fine. But something like the Mercy Monk dealing poison? Centering a subclass around it? Focusing player spells around it? Absolutely not. Why?

Way, way, waaaayyyyy too many monster stat blocks have Immunity or Resistance to poison. It is an outright, straight up, 100% garbage option to give players in this edition. Any instance of poison, flavor-depending, should be transferred to Necrotic or Acid damage in my opinion.

This seems to be placing the blame on the wrong part of the problem, IMO.

Poison absolutely deserves to exists as its own damage type, separate from necrotic and acid, given the way 5e handle damage types. And excluding poison options for the PCs is just doubling down on the "suck to be you if you want poison for your character concepts" tendency.

In my opinion, what the game should do would be to make poison a viable option, either by creating more abilities allowing poison to bypass Immunity (as they already made a Feat to bypass Resistance, they should realize the problem is too many monsters have Immunity), or by removing most of the Immunity to poison from the monsters and replacing it by an ability that says "X monster is immune to the poison damage and effects of X monster". Or if they find it too complex a change just change Immunity to Resistance for most of those monsters.

[Chronos]

Just putting the word "magical" in an ability isn't the same thing as making the categories explicit. When only one of the categories is marked, you know that the things that say that they're magical are magical, but for things that don't say, you're not sure if it was intended to be nonmagical or if they just neglected to say that it was.

For comparison, it was recently pointed out that the Hunter's Mark spell doesn't specify a type for its damage. But because of the way damage types are handled in this edition, we know that that was just an oversight, and that it should be assigned a type, and it's not just some weird untyped damage. By contrast, look at something like the cleric's (at least, some clerics') divine strike: It says that you use the energy of your god to add damage to your attack. Did they intend for "energy of your god" to imply "magical"? Did they mean to use the word "magical", but just forgot? Did they intend for it to be completely nonmagical? We don't know. And this leads to situations like a Mind Flayer's blast (maybe?) working differently from an Elder Brain's blast.

[Unoriginal]

Just putting the word "magical" in an ability isn't the same thing as making the categories explicit. When only one of the categories is marked, you know that the things that say that they're magical are magical, but for things that don't say, you're not sure if it was intended to be nonmagical or if they just neglected to say that it was.

If something is not said to be magical, it is not. That makes what is magical explicit.

"It is harder to spot if they made a mistake" is a different debate.

Their only mistake regarding this was to not print the "how do you know X is magical?" guideline in the DMG.



By contrast, look at something like the cleric's (at least, some clerics') divine strike: It says that you use the energy of your god to add damage to your attack. Did they intend for "energy of your god" to imply "magical"? Did they mean to use the word "magical", but just forgot? Did they intend for it to be completely nonmagical? We don't know.

Yes, we do:


Channel Divinity
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to channel divine energy directly from your deity, using that energy to fuel magical effects.

There is no implication, it is explicitly said to be magical.



And this leads to situations like a Mind Flayer's blast (maybe?) working differently from an Elder Brain's blast.

1) both the Mind Flayer's and the Elder Brain's Mind Blast are explicitly described as magical.

2)The two Mind Blasts nevertheless work differently as they are not described the same, even if they are both explicitly said to be magical.

[JackPhoenix]

For comparison, it was recently pointed out that the Hunter's Mark spell doesn't specify a type for its damage. But because of the way damage types are handled in this edition, we know that that was just an oversight, and that it should be assigned a type, and it's not just some weird untyped damage. By contrast, look at something like the cleric's (at least, some clerics') divine strike: It says that you use the energy of your god to add damage to your attack. Did they intend for "energy of your god" to imply "magical"? Did they mean to use the word "magical", but just forgot? Did they intend for it to be completely nonmagical? We don't know. And this leads to situations like a Mind Flayer's blast (maybe?) working differently from an Elder Brain's blast.

Hunter's Mark doesn't specify damage type because, just like Sneak Attack, it does not have set damage type. It does extra damage of the same type as the weapon used does. Sometimes it's slashing, sometimes it's bludgeoning, sometime it's piercing, and if you have magical weapon or a spell like Shadow Blade, it can do damage of pretty much any type.

Divine Strike do have set damage, because it fits the thematic that the damage type depends on the domain instead of whatever weapon you're using.


There is no implication, it is explicitly said to be magical.

He's talking about Divine Strike, not Channel Divinity. Which is not explicitly magical.

[Unoriginal]

He's talking about Divine Strike, not Channel Divinity. Which is not explicitly magical.

Ah I see now. I apologize.

In that case, as Divine Strike isn't explicitly magical, it is not magical. Nothing ambiguous about it, although I wouldn't fault a DM for ruling it differently at their table.