D&D 5E 2024 D&D is 2014 D&D with 4E sprinkled on top

[MuhVerisimilitude]

That's not relevant really.

How is it not relevant?

What the player characters can do has nothing to do with what non player characters can do.

It's like arguing that if martial characters can lift things too heavy for a normal human to be able to lift, any random farmer should be able to reach that potential. (yes I've seen someone actually argue this, and it's weird)

 

[Minigiant]

I stand by the point that there are plenty of unexplored aspects of real life and epic skill, knowledge, and prowess not employed or used by D&D that could be a martial because the average human doesn't know how to fight nor has knowledge outside their occupation and hobby.

The idea
Idea
IDEA
that a level 20 wizard would last 1 ROUND with 30 feet of a 10 HD fighter or warrior equal monster without be a smear on the ground without being immune to damage is more ridiculous that anything in the Monster Manual.

I mean think of your current real world job.
And then think if you could be replaced with some random with a +4 boost in the most relevant ability score.

 

[Scribe]

It's like arguing that if martial characters can lift things too heavy for a normal human to be able to lift, any random farmer should be able to reach that potential.

Any random farmer should be able to reach the same potential.

Farmer literally is a 5.5 background.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Any random farmer should be able to reach the same potential.

Farmer literally is a 5.5 background.

Why? They're not player characters. What's the point?

 

[MichaelSomething]

Therein lies the heart of the problem. People want to pretend that their "mundane" fighters don't achieve anything impossible, when that's easily disproven.

My "completely mundane" fighter cuts through dozens of enemies all armed with swords and emerges with barely a scratch? That's not magic. Just real skill. Despite the fact that it's pretty much impossible in the real world. Completely mundane fighter kills a dinosaur with a sword? Yup, just an example of mundane skill. No magic at all. Despite the fact that it's 100% impossible to be achieved without using some extra-normal abilities.

But, jump an extra 20 feet? Oh HELL NO. You can only do that with MAAAAAAAGIC.

Is fighting a T Rex mundane???

 

[Scribe]

"Magic" is far, FAR more specific than "things that aren't physically possible with completely mundane skills." Magic means curses, or alchemy/potions/elixirs, or spells (which, in D&D, have mostly absorbed curses), or enchanted items, or explicitly divine "boons" or the like. None of those things describe Atalanta, or Odysseus, or Beowulf. They just, flat, don't.

The only conclusion one can draw, which doesn't contradict the explicit text of the stories involved here, is that you can have things that are not "magic"--they aren't any of the things that fall under the meaning of that term--but which are beyond-the-natural. That it is possible for someone's prowess or skill or speed to become so great, it manages to break the rules, even though none of the practice that went into developing that power ever broke the rules itself.

"Magic" is not the only thing that can break the rules of nature. Other things can too. Transmundane abilities are among them. Such explicitly non-magical breaking-of-nature's-rules is rife in fiction the world over, going back thousands of years to the very foundations of storytelling.

Magic, is anything outside of what is possible within our world.

I dont care if you are talking.

1. Arcane knowledge, testing the fabric of reality.
2. Primal energy, being tapped into, the power of the natural world.
3. Divine blessing, genetics (the divine right of kings...)
4. Suckling from a Wolf.
5. Drinking the blood of a Fey.
6. You are just.that damn special and nobody can be as special as you are.

If it's giving one, the ability to break the laws which bind the rest of the world?

Call it whatever you wish, it's Magic.

Why? They're not player characters. What's the point?

Because if the world is one of Magic, where a Farmer (a PC) can become a Plane spanning Hero, then so can any other Farmer.

Unless one just believes in PC exceptionalism, but I dont care for that, I think people have enough issues thinking they are the center of the world, we dont need our games to reinforce that.

 

[Remathilis]

How is it not relevant?

What the player characters can do has nothing to do with what non player characters can do.

It's like arguing that if martial characters can lift things too heavy for a normal human to be able to lift, any random farmer should be able to reach that potential. (yes I've seen someone actually argue this, and it's weird)

There are two different issues in play:
1. High level characters are like gods
2. PC are not any more special than NPCs.

Which creates an interesting conundrum: Anyone can effectively become a god. Every man, woman and child could divert a river if they kill enough goblins. Which theoretically means that the world at any given time is full of dozens if not hundreds of them. You think high level magic warps society, imagine what raw mythic ability on top adds.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

but magic is definitionally anything that is impossible being achieved by using some extra-normal ability

No, it isn't. Magic is much more specific than that. "Anything that is impossible being achieved by using some extra-normal ability" is supernatural, not magic.

The supernatural contains a GREAT deal more than "magic" does. Magic is too confining for that.

 

[Scribe]

The supernatural contains a GREAT deal more than "magic" does. Magic is too confining for that.

Magic can be as broad, or narrow, as you like.

 

[mamba]

Why? They're not player characters. What's the point?

the point is that a player character is not special, they are just a person in the world no different from the others, whether PC or NPC