D&D 5E Should martial characters be mundane or supernatural?

[Irlo]

Page 84 of the PHB "By 2nd level, you have learned to draw on divine magic through meditation and prayer to cast spells as a cleric does."

Druids and clerics change spells via prayer. Channel divinity to turn undead is prayer. Prayer is everywhere in the divine classes. And yes there are divine and arcane categories.

Page 205 of the PHB "The spells of wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, and bards are commonly called arcane magic. These spells rely on an understanding-learned or intuitive-of the workings of the Weave. The caster plucks directly at the strands of the Weave to create the desired effect. Eldritch knights and arcane tricksters also use arcane magic. The spells of clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers are called divine magic. These spellcasters' access to the Weave is mediated by divine power-gods, the divine forces of nature, or the sacred weight of a paladin's oath."

I really should have expected you to find a citation that would pull the rug out from under me! I yield. I always took that Weave of Magic sidebar to be some setting-specific info and ignored it. But you're right -- it applies to the entire D&D multiverse (shudder).

Despite that, I maintain that although clerics and druids prepare spells through prayer, the spells themselves are spells, not prayers.
If the intent was to limit arcana to lore about arcane spells, it would have been simple to incude that in the skill description, just as it would have been simple to include a bit about divine spells in the religion skill description.

And why does a druid have arcana as a class skill, anyway?

It's almost as if the D&D 5E rules are not internally consistent.

 

[Voadam]

Rulings not rules. Skills are big and broad and vague, lots of ways to delineate them in 5e given the descriptions.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And why does a druid have arcana as a class skill, anyway?

The semi-mythical Druids (of, like 19th century revivals &c) are said to have been their broader culture's priests, judges, seers, and lorekeepers, so it's not too crazy. They also, again, according to legend, trained Bards, who, in D&D, do arcana... bit of a stretch, maybe.

 

[ECMO3]

The same could be said of any aspect of the game though (pace of product releases, type of product releases, settings chosen, settings avoided, OGL fiasco, Vistani and Hadozee racial stuff, racial palette selections, inherently evil races, marketing strategies, etc.) because it is merely a tautology about the game being popular and containing aspects.

It might not be popular to say it, but most of that stuff did not hinder the popularity of the game. It is a bit early to say on the OGL fiasco, but yes all the racist stuff did not slow it down, and it in fact flourished with that stuff in the game.

That doesn't make it good, or right, but it did not slow down the popularity of the game.

 

[ECMO3]

You have the power to prove a negative?

Yes, the game exploded in popularity coincident with the generalization of magic. That shows a correlation which is sufficient to refute the hypothesis that such hinders popularity of the game.

Please alert all of Science.

No need to. It has always been possible regardless of the cliche suggesting othewise.

How does 'dwarves were able to make magic weapons without being wizards' translate to 'somehow dwarves being able to be wizards in 3e and 4e contributed to 5e's success'?

Pertinent part of the quote underlined and bolded for you:

I remember a time when Dwarves could make magic weapons and armor for no other reason than they were Dwarves, no spellcasting required- the same Dwarves who were so resistant to magic they could only be Clerics.

 

[ECMO3]

Page 84 of the PHB "By 2nd level, you have learned to draw on divine magic through meditation and prayer to cast spells as a cleric does."

Druids and clerics change spells via prayer. Channel divinity to turn undead is prayer. Prayer is everywhere in the divine classes. And yes there are divine and arcane categories.

Page 205 of the PHB "The spells of wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, and bards are commonly called arcane magic. These spells rely on an understanding-learned or intuitive-of the workings of the Weave. The caster plucks directly at the strands of the Weave to create the desired effect. Eldritch knights and arcane tricksters also use arcane magic. The spells of clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers are called divine magic. These spellcasters' access to the Weave is mediated by divine power-gods, the divine forces of nature, or the sacred weight of a paladin's oath."

It seems pretty clear to me from this that Arcana as a skill applies to all spells.

Here is the definition of Arcana and Religion skills from the PHB:

Your Intelligence (Arcana) check measures your ability to recall lore about spells, magic items, eldritch symbols, magical traditions, the planes of existence, and the inhabitants of those planes.

Your Intelligence (Religion) check measures your ability to recall lore about deities, rites and prayers, religious hierarchies, holy symbols, and the practices of secret cults.

Also from XGE under identifying a spell:

If the character perceived the casting, the spell’s effect, or both, the character can make an Intelligence (Arcana) check with the reaction or action. The DC equals 15 + the spell’s level. If the spell is cast as a class spell and the character is a member of that class, the check is made with advantage. ..... This Intelligence (Arcana) check represents the fact that identifying a spell requires a quick mind and familiarity with the theory and practice of casting. This is true even for a character whose spellcasting ability is Wisdom or Charisma. Being able to cast spells doesn’t by itself make you adept at deducing exactly what others are doing when they cast their spells.

 

[James Gasik]

same (effective) AC as a red dragon in B/X.

So what are you saying with this? That it wasn't a problem then, so it shouldn't be a problem now?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yes, the game exploded in popularity coincident with the generalization of magic. That shows a correlation which is sufficient to refute the hypothesis that such hinders popularity of the game.



No need to. It has always been possible regardless of the cliche suggesting othewise.

And then you declared correlation implied causation. I feel like Science isn't going to take your calls.

 

[James Gasik]

It occurs to me that if they ever made a version of D&D that left us with nothing to complain about, we'd complain about that.

 

[ECMO3]

And then you declared correlation implied causation. I feel like Science isn't going to take your calls.

No I didn't, I actually said the opposite. I did not say it caused the popularity of the game, I said it did not hinder it.

To illustrate this for you between two things that are obviously not related - 5e coincided with the Apple release of IPhone 6. There is a temporal correlation between Apple releasing the IPhone 6 and the explosion in popularity off 5E. Even though there is a correlation, we can not show causation. We can't show through that correlation that the IPhone 6 caused the increase in popularity. However, through the correlation we can refute a hypothesis that release of IPhone 6 made the game less popular.

This example is similar. We know the explosion in popularity in 5E is correlated in time to the generalization of magic in the rules. We can not show this generalization of magic caused the increase in pupularity in the game, but it does refute the hypothesis that it made the game less popular.