D&D 5E Spell Slot Powered Abilities. Are they spells?

Oofta said:

. . . radiant damage which is inherently magical . . .

Click to expand...

Satyrn said:

Nitpick Alert!

This would mean my laser rifle would fail to work in an anti-magic field.

Click to expand...

Radiant. Radiant damage, dealt by a cleric's flame strike spell or an angel's smiting weapon, sears the flesh like fire and overloads the spirit with power.

Click to expand...

Oofta said:

Funny you should ask that, because I was just wondering what type of damage a laser would do. OK, it was squirrels with laser eyes (little kid with nightmares becoming reality time), but same thing.

I decided it would be fire (heat) damage since radiant sears like fire but also damages the spirit.

From DndBeyond

Click to expand...

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 it’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.

Click to expand...

Herosmith14 said:

So, I've just been thinking about multiclassing stuff, and found something hat might be interesting to discuss.

There are a handful of abilities (smite(both divine and eldritch), primeval awareness, combat wild shape...) that require you to spend a spell slot to use them. However, they are not technically spells. This calls into question, can they bypass the "no spell" abilities?

Click to expand...

jaelis said:

The sage advice compendium specifies that any ability powered by spell slots is magical.



Nothing about radiant damage being inherently magical.

Click to expand...