MuhVerisimilitude
Hero
Absurd. This is pure bullcrap. The bolded part in particular.Realism doesn't come in to it for me and "realism itself is a silly argument when you are throwing around fireballs and talking to Elves. Fantastic, spectacular "things" should come from spells or magic powers. For me this is thematics and it is the main reason why I don't like all the weapon abilities in the ONE playtest. If you gave those to casters as spells or even cantrips I would be fine with them.
Thematically, martial abilities should be limited and weak compared to magic, and a PC who purposely decides to forgo magic should be limited and weak to a PC that doesn't IMO.
Choices have consequences, and that is true in any game. Comparing this to chess - In Chess the Amar opening (Kh3) is factually weaker than moving a pawn to set up the Queens Gambit. It just is. We don't give extra abilities to Chess players who choose to do that just to make it equal.
And the chess analogy is ridiculous.