D&D 5E The Decrease in Desire for Magic in D&D

[FrozenNorth]

What it's not, though, is a mundane ability.

I would argue that attacking 4 times plus action surge or reliable talent aren't mundane abilities either.

 

[James Gasik]

Yes. That's what magic is, it's the explanation for the things in the fiction that can't be done in our own world.

And if for no other reason than pure game-play purposes, there needs to be a clear and obvious distinction between the two so as to allow dispelling or nulling effects to work as intended.

Thing is, if everyone is a little magical what then happens to these people in a null-magic zone?

And yes, I've already given this a great deal of thought over the years. In my own settings all "fantastic" creatures (i.e. anything that doesn't exist on Earth now or in the past) are to some extent magic-based and reliant on the presence of magic in the setting for their survival, and if stuck in a null-magic area will weaken and die. For very magical creatures such as Elves or Dragons this process starts immediately and kills within a few hours; for less-magical creatures it can take a few weeks or even months, but weakness followed by death is inevitable.

My players even came up with a term for this: "magic-sick".

OK, so if that's a given then go the other way: make magic powerful but add in lots of risks to using it or carrying it, and clamp down on how often it can be used. Magic items can break and maybe go 'boom' when they do. Spells can be easily interrupted and if so, they can surge wild-magic to who knows what effect(s). No more at-wills, no more non-slot rituals. Etc.

It can be done, if anyone has the cojones to do it.

The same thing that happens to people with Supernatural abilities in 3e/PF1e. Nothing.

Though I will go further and ask the question why antimagic zones need to exist anyways. Having your entire character lose all abilities and become a commoner because of some random happenstance doesn't sound all that great an idea to me.

 

[Minigiant]

I would argue that attacking 4 times plus action surge or reliable talent aren't mundane abilities either.

There really isn't a good word of something that is mundane definition 1 (characteristic of the world) but isn't mundane definition 2 (practical, transitory, and ordinary) other than extraordinary.

 

[Maxperson]

I would argue that attacking 4 times plus action surge or reliable talent aren't mundane abilities either.

The Aikido 1000 sword strike technique takes about 20 minutes to finish. That's 1 attack every 1.2 seconds or 4 attacks in 4.8 seconds which is less than a round. Action Surge you could argue taps into the Ki and is supernatural.

 

[Cadence]

The Aikido 1000 sword strike technique takes about 20 minutes to finish. That's 1 attack every 1.2 seconds or 4 attacks in 4.8 seconds which is less than a round. Action Surge you could argue taps into the Ki and is supernatural.

Is that against trained opponents trying to fight back or "just" 1,000 strikes?

(Which is still impressive).

 

[Maxperson]

Is that against trained opponents trying to fight back or "just" 1,000 strikes?

(Which is still impressive).

It was just 1000 strikes that I saw. We have to accept some level of unrealism in D&D, but I don't think the attacks per round goes beyond mundane into supernatural. Action Surge might. You could make an argument for it.

 

[Lanefan]

Maybe Anti-Magic fields should just cease to be a thing, they seem to cause more trouble than they're worth, definitely one of the worst spells in 5e in regards to what it even applies to.

So you want to take out the one thing that can truly stop magic dead in its tracks?

Seriously?

 

[tetrasodium]

So you want to take out the one thing that can truly stop magic dead in its tracks?

Seriously?

I don't know the question others were going for, but at least for me it's wondering what reasons your world itself has sntimagic zones large enough for a pc to spend hours or days in. I get the reason why you as a gm might want them with older editions but how are they fluffed?

 

[Lanefan]

Heh. 40 years of gaming and I’ve never seen or used a null magic zone.

As a player, if I've seen one I don't remember it, other than the area in front of a Beholder.

As a DM I think I've had one or two as intentional elements in adventures, and a few more that have been spontaneously generated by the random effects of wild magic surges. Oh, and I ran the Myth Drannor box set back in the day, and spontaneously appearing wild-magic and null-magic areas are a thing there too. Also, maybe a dozen or fifteen Beholders over the years.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't know the question others were going for, but at least for me it's wondering what reasons your world itself has sntimagic zones large enough for a pc to spend hours or days in. I get the reason why you as a gm might want them with older editions but how are they fluffed?

The fluff is easy: in my universal-setting physics magic can only exist where a certain well-known Earth element does not. If some of that element happens to be in an otherwise magical area, it'll cause a null-magic zone around itself. Also, wild magic or chaos surges can create temporary (as in, a few hours to a few days) null-magic zones.

And if you're an Elf and you wander into one of these zones and collapse, you're either going to drag yourself clear of it or you're going to spend the rest of your now-very-short life in there.

And all of this can be edition-agnostic.