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Thread: Magical guy at th gym?
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2020-11-26, 09:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2015
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2020-11-27, 12:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2015
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
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2020-11-27, 01:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2015
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2020-11-27, 02:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2015
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
Many games that are not D&D have limitations or outright danger in casting spells (or psionics), such that it's already balanced (for a given style of balance) even if it far outstrips non-magic (including high technology) in power.
(Edit: actually even most editions of D&D magic has balance, in the typical/expected levels of play.)
Plus they're not all "use slot get limited highly specific effect".
I was definitely thinking of all editions of D&D, which is why I used the specific of DM instead of the more generic GM.Last edited by Tanarii; 2020-11-27 at 02:46 PM.
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2020-11-27, 03:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical guy at th gym?
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2020-11-28, 07:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2019
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
I'm glad everyone liked it! ... And I also wasn't the only person to think of naming it The Magician on the Stage Fallacy, nice lol.
Also, I thought of another potential name for what a hypothetical nerfing magic users to the realm of what's humanly possible to it. Basically, "The Guy at the Desk Job Fallacy." Unlike the Guy at the Gym, which at least lets martial characters be peak human, The Guy At The Desk Job Fallacy has magic users that are restricted to what your average, sedentary, white-collar workers are physically capable of... Not sure how useful that would be in a fight, though...
Also, I did some more thinking on OP's term for a DM who nerfs magic because it's too powerful for the type of story they want to tell... That sounds a lot like the people in question aren't properly calibrating their expectations for magic. So you could, for instance, say they're Improperly Calibrated Mages or... Something to that effect.Last edited by AntiAuthority; 2020-11-28 at 07:30 AM.
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2020-11-28, 10:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2020
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
In practice, the "Guy at the gym" thing often boils to "Guy at a desk job" too. It is not always easy to figure out how difficult a physical task would be to a physically fit person if you're not physically fit yourself, and it is very easy to get details wrong for things you've never practiced yourself.
This is how people got the idea that armor is super hard to move in, or that European historical martial arts were either non-existent or somehow completely different from Asian martial arts, etc.. Things have gotten better on that front, at least locally, because we who play these games are no longer 11-year-olds who'd never done anything. A lot of us have served in the military, trained in martial arts, done sports etc.., and it's been a common occurrence for hobby gatherings to have had actual martial arts demonstrations, including Buhurt.
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2020-11-28, 11:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2015
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
Agreed on Guy at the Desk Job being the common implementation of Guy at the Gym. I rock climb, and in one thread where I was describing what's possible someone pointed out that as someone overweight themselves, they'd assume most of what I was discussing was very difficult to do, if they were the DM.
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2020-11-28, 01:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2011
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
So, I gotta say, it might come as a surprise to many, but I'm probably pretty close to an "MMO Magic" GM. I'm simultaneously all about "well, it's something that can be done, so it's gotta be covered under some skill... how about this one", and, "that's not what that spell does - you'd need to invent your own custom spell if you want to do that".
Wizards are supposed to be hard mode, dagnabbit!
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2020-11-28, 01:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2019
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
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2020-11-28, 02:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2011
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
A valid point re “Guy at Desk Job” and “Guy at Gym.” Lived in a few major cities over the years, with a predictably diverse array of physical fitness in the people I knew. What was striking was that when things were defined concretely - lift this much weight, run this far that fast - pretty much everyone on the spectrum had a reasonable idea of what both they and other folks could do, maybe with a 5-10% tolerance.
Where things really fell apart in understanding was when things weren’t defined in concrete numbers. By and large the less physically capable basically assumed everyone was as good at “applied” fitness but consistently underestimated the possible range of human action, while the fitter had a much better appreciation of actual human capability, but also interestingly assumed everyone was more equal than they were.
It became amusing to watch a 115 lb academic assume that they would probably basically have the same physical ability as 205 lb athletes in any “real” situation even though they obviously couldn’t hold that position when under any intellectual review of the thought.
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2020-11-28, 03:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical guy at th gym?
Sort of? I don't think it's about things like the spells getting to do things that they shouldn't, but rather that they can only have exactly the effects described in the text.
Like a spell that says "this spell creates fire at that spot, it does X amound of damage, save negates" and because it doesn't mention heat, starting fires, or producing light the DM nopes using it to boil water, ignite oil, or provide light. Or say your character wanted to tie a bunch of knots really fast so you cast Haste. It's noped because the spell mechanically just gives you extra movement speed, an extra attack, and some minor numerical bonuses. Since it doesn't have written mechanics for completing tasks faster you can't do that even if the fluff/description indicates that it should.
There was a thread in the 5e part about Counterspell. IIRC it came out with an MMO Mage style result. If you could see any part of a caster (tip of a quarterstaff, heel of a boot) when they cast a spell (components didn't matter because the spell didn't say) then you knew that they were casting and could counter it.
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2020-11-28, 03:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2019
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
That seems more like a failure of the stealth rules than of Counterspell. D&D has never had a really good system for figuring out how aware characters are of each other, and 5e's is particularly bad. The ruling itself doesn't seem that contrived. Magical effects are supposed to have auras, so it's not unreasonable to suggest that you could tell if someone was casting a spell without seeing the physical movements.
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2020-11-28, 03:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2019
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
Planar Binding is utility? I have never seen a summon described is utility (and it is in effect a long-term summon).
I do agree that direct attacks are less worrisome than other kinds of spells, and artillery in particular is not tier-1 optimization, but what kind of scheme you are using to call Planar Binding a utlilty?
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2020-11-28, 04:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2019
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
Who says a summon isn't utility? Just as casting Create Food and Water is a utility effect, so is binding a Djinn and having it cast Create Food and Water for you. Certainly, the combat applications of Planar Binding are impressively powerful (what with it binding things that are stronger than your whole party and stacking with itself as often as you want), but you definitely can use it as a utility effect.
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2020-11-28, 05:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2011
Re: Magical guy at th gym?
This sound exactly like the kind of things that I... hmmm... strongly desire to rule exactly one way on. That is, Fire spells consistently either make light, or they don't (so forget Fire spells on stealth night operations if they do make light); Fire spells either have rules to ignite things, or they don't (so forget Fire spells in a barn or paper mill if they do), etc. And I would much prefer if the system specified all this, and I could therefore GM as a RAW "MMO Magic" GM (otherwise, it all goes in the house rules / setting rules document, and no, you cannot do other unspecified things with spells).
That's the way I want to play the game. I will admit, I leave a little wiggle room, a little bit of "budget" for players to annoy me with "but I really want my fire spells to warm things up in the area". I don't like changing the rules to match players' visions of how things should work, but I give players a small budget of defining any such effects that I have not explicitly defined already (ie, if it doesn't contradict anything that has ever happened in the setting as known by me - consistency is trump).
But I want to be an "MMO Magic" GM. And I hew as close to that as I believe my players will enjoy (which, for some groups, is to actually get to be an MMO Magic GM).
At least, as I understand the phrase.
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2020-11-28, 06:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical guy at th gym?
It would be nice if we could just read a spell and run it from that. But what we tend to get is most spells just being slightly better defined than the illusions and charm/suggestion spells.
Fire sometimes with heat and sometimes without. Thunderbolts without light, sound, heat, or electricity (nothing in the spell but targets, range, damage, and save). Effects that work on plants but not plant monsters (or vice versa), and then everyone has no idea what to do when they publish something that animates plants into plant monsters during an encounter.
Spells with clauses that can't work because the general spell rules, or just other parts of the same spell, don't allow it. Spells for extra movement that don't actually interact with the movement rules to allow you to use the effect.
It's not just D&D that has the issues, it's just that D&D is the lowest common denominator and has all the issues.
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2020-11-28, 07:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magical guy at th gym?
I once summoned an fey with a solid Survival check to help orient the party in a wilderness situation, since it turned out none of the PCs had the skill.
Summon (Celestial/Fiendish) Monkey, as a 1st level spell in PF1e, was a reliable way to "find and disarm traps," so to speak.
Calling in extra bodies for aid, especially ones with skills or spells the party lacks, is definitely within my definition of "utility."Last edited by RifleAvenger; 2020-11-28 at 07:16 PM.
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2020-11-28, 09:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2019
Re: Magical guy at th gym?