D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[ezo]

Sure, but this is all why I said it was a distinction without a purpose.

You are basically saying "these are completely ordinary humans, until for whatever reason we need them to not be completely ordinary humans"

I'm saying "These are not completely ordinary humans, because they are capable of reaching heights that ordinary earth humans are not capable of"

Not really, although at this point I feel we are probably talking past each other LOL!

I am saying they are always completely ordinary humans. Nothing they learn to do changes that. They can do supernatural things, sure, but they are not supernatural themselves.

You want it to be that the baseline is "human until I make an exception" I want it to be "not human, because I can make any exception I want and justify it later". Normal humans can't manifest their willpower to chain a newborn star inside their heart and use that to fire laserbeams from their fists. A Sun Soul Human monk can. Normal humans can't hate so hard that they come back as rotting corpses bent on vengeance. A human Revenant did exactly that.

There is never an exception, in that sense.

Your concern seems to be that commonfolk will be made special by this, but I don't see how that is the case. Just because someone has potential, doesn't mean they would utilize that potential. Look at Dragonball Z, Videl and Krillin are completely normal humans... capable of flight and energy beams. The humans of Dragonball Z, through hard work, training, and the right conditions are capable of flight. But the vast vast majority of humanity on that planet... don't put in that effort. They don't learn these things. Those humans are not normal humans, because they are capable of things we humans IRL are incapable of, but that hasn't changed what day to day life actually looks like for the majority of them.

No, that isn't my concern at all because whether commonfolk or not, humans are never supernatural. At best, the fact they are PCs, NPCs, or have creature stat blocks, any of which might grant them abilites to do supernatural things, still doesn't make their race "supernatural" for me.

There are people IRL who can do things I could never do. I just don't have the body type, or whatever, so no matter how much I train, etc. I could never match them. I will never be as fast as Usain Bolt, for example.

Anyway, in the fantasy worlds of D&D, they are sitll normal humans, but there is magic and the fantasy world, which allows them (along with the whole class, feats, etc. thing) to do the supernatural things they can do. Which is why I have no issue (especially at tier 3+) with a fighter or rogue leaping 50-60 feet. It is "plausible" to me in a fantasy game and I am happy to see it, but that still wouldn't make that human fighter or rogue supernatural, just able to do "fantastic" (as in fantasy) things.

 

[nevin]

Right, you won't accept anything except the specific things which will satisfy you, no matter what anyone else wants or is willing to accept. You can't leave it vague, you can't accept there was potentially multiple explanations, it must be the specific thing you want, or it isn't "honest" or "good"



Really. Your explanation for why humans from Earth in Mortal Kombat are capable of fantastical acts, is that despite looking human and being from Earth... they are some sort of supernatural humans. Or that, despite being told that they are studying martial arts from earth, their training is somehow special to allow it.

But neither of those explanations will work for DnD because.... reasons. Something something the ongoing story of mortal Kombat doesn't care about lore something something.

um mortal kombat, each of the combat forms is blessed by at least one of the gods. You master the martial art you get more powers. kind've like mages.........

 

[nevin]

really guys Mortal Kombat is all about the gods of our realm protecting it by makeing sure mortals learn the mystic martial arts that the gods invented to grant them power so they can save the earth. If you don't like martials getting god granted or supernatural powers fine. But Mortal Kombat is so freaking close to your average D&D cosmology that trying to use it as an argument for not having supernatural or god granted powers is mind blowingly insane. That's the entire story beginning to end and over and over again.

 

[Minigiant]

That works, provided it's actually true.

I's a more direct version of the truth.

D&D worlds are high magic worlds and martials absorb latent magic in their bodies.
Saying it is from potions is just putting a physical act to it.

D&D was never expected to be played in no-magic settings like Earth.

 

[Chaosmancer]

...uh...all i could find on bunshinjutsu or kawarimi no jutsu was the naruto wiki...

There is a Youtuber called "Gajin Goomba" who did a series called "Which Ninja". He's actually gone to Japan and references copies of original texts from the Koga scrolls and the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum. That's where I am sourcing the information. It is possible that the techniques are named slightly different things, or that the original sources are simply so much less popular than Naruto that googling isn't effective. I didn't attempt to search google beyond getting the names.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I would be fine with those explanations. But one (or both!) In the book. It's this insistence that some things be left vague while others can be concrete, even though either kind generates supernatural abilities, that I have a problem with.

News flash, we do not have the authority to rewrite the Player's Handbook. If your standard is you will only accept a rewritten Player's Handbook, then your demands of us are unreasonable.

Well, let's be serious. Do you want that to be the explanation for all fighters and rogues, requiring them all to have a healing potion addiction? Probably not. So that explanation, while neat, cannot account for everyone.

We left everyone behind a dozen pages ago. Additionally, nothing Minigiant said included an addiction.

Unlike, say, sorcerer powers, which have several explanations in the books that collectively can apply to any sorcerer. Why are fighters and rogues different? More specifically, why do you and others insist that fighters and rogues have to have a power source that both allows for (from the real world perspective) superhuman abilities and has no clear explanation or explanations like all the other supernatural PC stuff has? Why are they different in your view?

Do you stop and read what you write?

Sorcerer Powers have several explanations than can apply to any sorcerer. Why are fighters and rogues different? They aren't. For me, personally, I want to leave it vague so that the abilities can have several different explanations. Myself and others have offered a dozen different explanations. The problem is, none of them are good enough for you. The player's handbook doesn't explicitly state that our explanations for new, unwritten abilities is true, and you refuse to accept anything that isn't spelled out and rigorously tested until "Everyone" is happy with it.

They aren't different. You just refuse my answers because YOU don't like them. Despite the fact that there are precedents to my answers, hints of support in the PHB, and every reason to be vague enough with them to leave the majority happy... YOU aren't satisfied, so we cannot move forward without you hounding us for explanations that you will never accept.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Anyway, in the fantasy worlds of D&D, they are sitll normal humans, but there is magic and the fantasy world, which allows them (along with the whole class, feats, etc. thing) to do the supernatural things they can do. Which is why I have no issue (especially at tier 3+) with a fighter or rogue leaping 50-60 feet. It is "plausible" to me in a fantasy game and I am happy to see it, but that still wouldn't make that human fighter or rogue supernatural, just able to do "fantastic" (as in fantasy) things.

Yeah, and I just don't get what the difference is. Supernatural, to me, is capable of doing things not possible in this real world of Earth. Your hate and anger giving rise to an undead that hunts down your murderer? That's supernatural. I don't see the difference between doing the supernatural and being supernatural, because supernatural is defined (for me) by actions and what is done.

Math is not supernatural.
Fractals are not supernatural.
In the series I just caught up on, fractals are aspects of the occult, patterns that allow for impossible things. So running an electric current through the Fractal of Heat and activating it allows you to generate endless heat from that source.
In that universe... fractals and by definition math (because fractals are just the pattern of a math equation) are supernatural. Because they can act in ways that defy our real-world.

BTW, I'd take martials being able to leap 60 ft, that may be the limit of what is possible to prevent issues in combat, I'm just trying to make my point understood on why I don't see this difference.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I's a more direct version of the truth.

D&D worlds are high magic worlds and martials absorb latent magic in their bodies.
Saying it is from potions is just putting a physical act to it.

D&D was never expected to be played in no-magic settings like Earth.

Boot Hill and Gamma World settings are in the 1e DMG.

 

[Chaosmancer]

really guys Mortal Kombat is all about the gods of our realm protecting it by makeing sure mortals learn the mystic martial arts that the gods invented to grant them power so they can save the earth. If you don't like martials getting god granted or supernatural powers fine. But Mortal Kombat is so freaking close to your average D&D cosmology that trying to use it as an argument for not having supernatural or god granted powers is mind blowingly insane. That's the entire story beginning to end and over and over again.

So since Kalaripayattuwas taught to Parashurama, the sixth avatar of Vishnu, by Lord Shiva and was taught to the mortals to destroy their enemies, the practitioners have supernatural powers in India?

I could find others, but many many martial arts have divine or semi-divine inventors. This is just Mortal Kombat taking inspiration from the common founding myths and making them fit their world.

 

[Minigiant]

Boot Hill and Gamma World settings are in the 1e DMG.

1e's metaphysics no longer matches 5e's.