When I play a RPG, the fiction matters. I care whether a character is a wizard or not.
What is apparently irrelevant to you is therefore highly relevant to me. If it is true that the only way to make PF work is for rogues to turn themselves into item-toting quasi-wizards, that is a problem for me. And it is not a problem because I don't like the resolution mechanics. (Though I'm not the biggest fan of the UMD skill.) It is a problem for me because the fiction to which it gives rise has little resemblance to the fantasy fiction I like my RPGs to emulate.
In 4e, on the other hand, it is very straightforward to have a game in which the principle protagonists are not magic-users: not primarily, perhaps not at all (once you build in inherent bonuses and use boons, grandmaster training etc). It is also possible to play such a game in B/X, which shows that the tendency you diagnose in PF is not even an inherent consequence of more traditional D&D mechanics.
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And therefore, perhaps, not magic.
The practical significance, in 3E/PF, of the EX category is to regulate how certain abilities interact with the Anti-Magic Field spell and analogue effects. Earlier editions of the game got by without that category - for example, was a high-level monk's ability to fall any distance if within 8' of a wall magical or not? The game left the question open.
4e doesn't use 3E's Anti-Magic Field rules. Hence it doesn't need a technical definition of abilities as magical or not. What it does want to make room for is epic heroes who are not priests, wizards, psionicists or Iron Fist-style chi-wielders. It calls such characters "martial characters" wielding martial power, the power (to quote from p 54 of the PHB) of "training and dedication".
As others have pointed out, 3E and PF are predicated on the assumption that non-magical abilities can break the laws of physics. Why is 4e being held to a different standard in this respect?
I pointed out upthread that you are misstating this. It might help the conversation if you ceased to do so.
Here is the passage in question, from p 54 of the 4e PHB: "Martial powers are not magic in the traditional sense, although some martial powers stand well beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals." That does not explain martial powers as magic. It does not assert that they are magic. Nor does it deny that they are magic. It leaves that matter open
I think that is a fair comparison.
It means that stripping isn't prostitution in the traditional sense, but leaves open that there is some sort of connection between stripping and prostitution - eg the commercialisation of one's sexuality.
The passage I have just quoted from the 4e PHB makes it clear how martial powers resemble magical ones: they permit characters to perform feats well beyond what ordinary mortals can do. Are they therefore magic, although not in the traditional sense of spells or clerical prayers? The rulebooks do not answer that question. Deliberately so.
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How is Hide in Plain Sight, used on a brightly-lit featureless plain, any different from Improved Evasion used by a rogue in a 5' square room filled with a Flame Strike? Both are corner-cases that put pressure on the characterisation of the ability in question as non-magical. I have never seen it argued that Improved Evasion is therefore mislabelled as EX in the 3E and PF rules.
What story do you tell yourself to explain how Improved Evasion, used in such a situation, is nevertheless non-magical? Whatever it is, tell the same story about the 4e rogue using Hide in Plain Sight on a featureless brightly-lit plain.
A ranger's Hide in Plain Sight is EX in both 3E and PF. Does that mean that some EX abilities are actually magic despite the rules text asserting the contrary?
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Seriously? A 16th level PF or 3E character using Rapid Shot and Quickdraw can draw, aim and attack with precision (eg Sneak Attack) 5 different people with 5 different daggers in 6 seconds. (I don't see why you say "less than 6 seconds". A round is 6 seconds long. Unless you are working with a stop-motion model according to which every character acts from some fraction of a second then stands around watching others take their turns - talk about the ultimate "combat as sport"!) To the best of my knowledge no poster on these boards has ever suggested that must be some form of "non-traditional magic".
But because a 4e rogue can make 6 rather than 5 such attacks it must be magical?
In 3E/PF, a character with Rapid Reload and Rapid Shot can do 5 shots with a light crossbow in a single round. (I wouldn't be surprised if there is a feat to allow the same thing with a sling by making the load action a free action.)
Is this magical too (and does the character lose the ability in an Anti-Magic Field)? Or only in 4e?
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As others have pointed out, "regeneration" in 4e has the same meaning it had in AD&D and B/X (before 3E introduced the contrast between regeneration and fast-healing): it means the recovery of lost hit points at a fixed rate per round.
Now in fact Boundless Endurance does not permit regeneration back to full health: as per the power text you only gain the regeneration when you are bloodied. But there are other martial powers that do permit regeneration back to full health (eg the 15th level power Unyielding Avalanche). All this shows is that the game includes martial healing, and that some of this includes self-healing that is not rationed by way of healing surges and instead by way of daily power usage. Unless you think that hit point recovery is per se magical, I don't see that anything interesting follows from this.
This is a non-sequitur. Hit point loss for a fighter PC means something quite different from hit point loss for a troll, just as, in Gygax's AD&D, hit point loss for a dragon or a giant slug means something quite different from hit point loss for a fighter.
Hit point loss in 4e is not defined in terms of injury at all. It is defined in terms of verve, skill and the capacity to endure and persevere (PHB p 293):
Hit points (hp) measure your ability to stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle. Hit points represent more than physical endurance. They represent your character’s skill, luck, and resolve - all the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation.
A troll perseveres because it regrows its hacked-off flesh. That, therefore, is what its hp recovery maps to in the fiction. Given that a fighter can't regrow hacked-off flesh, it follows that that is not what his/her regeneration is mapping to. As the name suggests, it maps to "boundless endurance", to"unyieldingness". That isn't magic, or at least needn't be interpreted as such. This is what let Boromir keep going, at Amon Hen, even as orcs feathered him with arrows.
Previous versions of D&D modelled Boromir simply by giving him lots of hp. 4e uses powers like Boundless Endurance, and abilities like Second Wind, as part of the modelling. The change in mechanical model is not intended to signal a change to the fiction - rather, and relating to what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] said about the experiential aspect of play, it changes the mechanical dynamics of that modelling. For example, Boundless Endurance changes the mechanical dynamic from one of mere attrition, to an interplay between recovery and damage on a round-by-round basis. For some of us, at least, that creates a more dramatic, engaging and therefore immersive play experience.
"Regeneration" is defined in the rulebooks (PHB p 293), as a "special form of healing that restores a fixed number of hit points every round" and that "doesn’t rely on healing surges". The same page defines "healing" as "[p]owers, abilities, and actions that restore hit points".
And if you are going to complain that this is an outrageous distortion of ordinary English usage, I refer you (just by way of two examples; more could be given) to the D&D tradition of using "hit" to mean "blow struck that has a certain mechanical significance (of beating an armour class)", contrary to the ordinary English meaning of "hit" as "an impact or collision" or "a stroke that reaches an object" or "a blow"; and of using "successful saving throw" to describe even those rolls whose mechanical result does not end up with the character being saved (eg saving for half damage, which doesn't save any character who lacks further special abilities from taking some of the effect, and can easily leave a character dead despite having "saved").
