D&D 5E Truly Understanding the Martials & Casters discussion (+)

So do all non-Earthican animals die if an anti-magic field in your world?

That's not a game rule, it's literally a zone of null magic.
Counterpoint: does a warlock's pact blade disappear in anti-magic? Do zombies created by necromancy wink out of existence? Does a dragon stop being able to fly and breathe fire? Can a cleric use his channel divinity? Are none of those things' "magic"?
 

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Counterpoint: does a warlock's pact blade disappear in anti-magic? Do zombies created by necromancy wink out of existence? Does a dragon stop being able to fly and breathe fire? Can a cleric use his channel divinity? Are none of those things' "magic"?
Are all of them? How important is it one way or another if the crux of your argument isn't that the only way fighters can be better is if they are magical?
 

Isn't just them using spells. To repeat myself I like the Psi Warrior, the Rune Knight, and especially the Echo Knight - and they are all magical. They just aren't spellcasters.
psi warrior is the easiest to use as a martial character... rune knights and echo knights are magic...but a psi knight can just jump and parry
 

Counterpoint: does a warlock's pact blade disappear in anti-magic?
The metal isn't magic. But I would imagine the magic goes offline and it can't talk and stuff in an antimagic field.
Do zombies created by necromancy wink out of existence?
I've lost track: are they summons in 5e or a construct we can't call a construct because the typing rules haven't solidified in 50 years?

If the former, yes. If the later, they should drop. Naturally occurring zombies should be fine.
Does a dragon stop being able to fly and breathe fire?
Dragon flight and fire aren't magic. Their spells go offline thought. Dragonfear is BS that should go away and I'm also not sure if it's supposed to be magic or not.
Can a cleric use his channel divinity?
Isn't channel divinity... channeling a divine being? Like inviting them into you in part? That's not magic.
Are none of those things' "magic"?
Some aren't.
 

Counterpoint: does a warlock's pact blade disappear in anti-magic? Do zombies created by necromancy wink out of existence? Does a dragon stop being able to fly and breathe fire? Can a cleric use his channel divinity? Are none of those things' "magic"?
In order and looking at Antimagic Field:
  • Depends on the Pact Blade and the patron. Most wink out, some are rendered into mundane blades. Some patrons actually are deities.
  • No zombies don't wink out of existence despite the exact text. They do however collapse and stop being animated. Edit: I was assuming Animate Dead zombies, not ones created by e.g. a zombie plague which keep going.
  • IMO they don't stop being able to fly or breathe fire. They did in 3.5
  • No a cleric can't channel divinity. It's explicitly magical
 


Do you mean the normal rules of nature for this setting or the normal rules of nature for the setting they come from? Because these are two very different things.

D&D normally takes place in a setting in which oozes can happen - and are not seen as magical. If I'm playing an inhabitant of that world who hasn't been Isekai'd there then I'm playing someone who exists where oozes are natural (if rare) creatures. And I want characters to fit that setting.

And an ooze in the real world would be supernatural but not necessarily magic. And certainly not a spell.

I think this is a bit pedantic: if you create a fantasy world where every person can walk on air as easily as walking on land, it isn't magical to them, but it's still magical to us. It might not be what the game even defines as magic (susceptible to detect magic, dispel magic, anti-magic, etc.) but I think if you took the idea the on this planet everyone can effectively fly and asked anyone on the street, nobody would say that's "normal", no matter how normal it is to the inhabitants of that world.

We define fantasy (and to a degree, Sci-fi) by how different things are from what we expect, and as humans our base assumptions is something resembling Earth, complete with modern ideas of physics and biology. So, if you say that the people of your world walk on air, the first question is going to be "how?" You could say "they do, shut up" but that's not very engaging to the audience. You're asking them to suspend disbelief and aren't giving them a reason to. Now, you could argue its some weird genetic quirk that makes them buoyant in air, a strange effect of the world's gravity, a gift from the sky god, or everyone is descended from angelic beings and retain a single spark that allows airwalking, but no matter what you're doing, you are effectively saying "its magic" (or its sufficiently advanced technology, yada yada yada).

People who have anger management problems don't become highly resistant to mortal blows. People who study aestheticism and martial arts don't become immune to poison and disease or speak all known languages. Park rangers don't instictively know the type of number of every creature in a 1-mile radius. We explain that stuff by saying it's beyond normal human capabilities. Call it supernatural powers. Call it psionics. Call it mythic blood. Call it "magic and you ain't gotta explain $#!&" but you gotta explain it somehow, no matter how mundane it is to them, it's not to US and its our disbelief that needs suspending.
 

Agreed for many reasons.

My Noncaster Martials would be

Barbarian- Warrior of Athleticism and Emotion
Fighter- Warrior of Armor Mastery and Weapon Mastery
Monk- Warrior of Spirit and Discipline
Paragon- Warrior of Myths and Monsters
Rogue- Expert of Trickery and Skullduggery
Scholar- Expert of Gadgets and Alchemy
Tamer- Expert of Beastmastery and Intuition
Warlord- Warrior of Inspiration and Tactics
 

I think this is a bit pedantic: if you create a fantasy world where every person can walk on air as easily as walking on land, it isn't magical to them, but it's still magical to us. It might not be what the game even defines as magic (susceptible to detect magic, dispel magic, anti-magic, etc.) but I think if you took the idea the on this planet everyone can effectively fly and asked anyone on the street, nobody would say that's "normal", no matter how normal it is to the inhabitants of that world.

We define fantasy (and to a degree, Sci-fi) by how different things are from what we expect, and as humans our base assumptions is something resembling Earth, complete with modern ideas of physics and biology. So, if you say that the people of your world walk on air, the first question is going to be "how?" You could say "they do, shut up" but that's not very engaging to the audience. You're asking them to suspend disbelief and aren't giving them a reason to. Now, you could argue its some weird genetic quirk that makes them buoyant in air, a strange effect of the world's gravity, a gift from the sky god, or everyone is descended from angelic beings and retain a single spark that allows airwalking, but no matter what you're doing, you are effectively saying "its magic" (or its sufficiently advanced technology, yada yada yada).

People who have anger management problems don't become highly resistant to mortal blows. People who study aestheticism and martial arts don't become immune to poison and disease or speak all known languages. Park rangers don't instictively know the type of number of every creature in a 1-mile radius. We explain that stuff by saying it's beyond normal human capabilities. Call it supernatural powers. Call it psionics. Call it mythic blood. Call it "magic and you ain't gotta explain $#!&" but you gotta explain it somehow, no matter how mundane it is to them, it's not to US and its our disbelief that needs suspending.
Do you start by explaining elves and dwarves and gnomes and orcs and gods and spells and monsters..and like all the other things that come with fantasy, or do you maybe just let them suspend their own belief? Are most players joining a fantasy rpg with an expectation to criticize every fantastical element?
 

I think we've finally gotten to the bottom of why non-casters can't have nice things: EVERYTHING in the world they exist in is either Earth standard or 'Magical', so if you're not a magic user, you can't have access to anything the people holding this standard don't think exists on Earth.

Which is a problem because usually we end up with this being limited to the aggressively mundane and not even the physically cool people that exists in our world like Usain Bolt, Jack LaLane, or Jackie Chan.
 

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