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

[Remathilis]

And that, is the gremlin.

Right. So then the answer is all or none?

 

[Scribe]

Right. So then the answer is all or none?

Pretty much. If the metric for good enough is clearly fantastical and impossible, then it's gremlins.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Imagine for a minute I am a an extremely powerful mythic hero and I enter a thorp of 50 people. Average farmers, bakers, cobblers, good wives, etc. I institute a policy that I will train every one of them to be an adventurer and eventually reach a level where they can do an impossible task. (Cleave a mountain, divert a river, swim up a waterfall, etc). I have the power and resources to train them all and keep them alive until they reach said level. Additionally, they are slavishly devoted and will do everything in their power to accomplish this goal.

How many of those 50 people will be able to accomplish that impossible task? One? Ten? All fifty? Zero?

The answer you provide is essentially my concern with this system. If everyone is able to do impossible things with sufficient time and devotion, then the world should be full of people doing impossible things. Not everyone, but lots of them. If we say not everyone has the spark needed to reach that level, then we have to say why. Is it genetics, magical aptitude, supernatural blessing? Why are some able and other not?

Hercules is mythical because he's the only person in ancient Greece who can do that kind of epic stuff. There are other great heros, but none of them can divert a river. Jason is favored and Odysseus clever, but neither are matching Hercules in power. He's got some great parentage to thank for that.

Which returns me to my original question: how many people in that thorp have the potential to be Hercules?

How many people in that thorp have the potential to become sorcerers?

Any character can take a level in sorcerer at any time. Does that mean every person is descended from every possible sorcerous bloodline? If so, why does anyone ever bother doing any other form of magic? If not, how come any character can take three levels of the class and then pick any bloodline?

The fundamental answer to these questions is the same as the fundamental answer to your initial question: It cannot be answered in the generic because there is no answer in the generic. We have no way of knowing how many of the people in that thorp might cross that line--or indeed any line--purely through training. Perhaps in some settings or some villages, the answer is all of them. Perhaps in other settings or other villages, the answer is none of them. Perhaps there's some insight or revelation or achievement that does it. Perhaps having to endure unexpectedly brutal trials and tribulations is the only way to find out--which means the entirely artificial "training" you speak of here cannot ever produce such a thing, only the actual rigors of adventure can. Plenty of things work like this in real life, things where no amount of structured, artificial, isolated processes can replicate the real deal. As an example, there are nickel-iron crystal structures you can find which prove that the metal must have come from a meteorite, because those crystals cannot form on Earth (they require the extreme cold, microgravity, and nil-atmosphere conditions in space)--even though said structure is totally mundane, it is impossible to artificially create on Earth, no matter how hard you try. (For reference, they're called "Widmanstätten patterns", and as noted, they require conditions which cannot occur anywhere on Earth. Even the extremely rare rocks that partially resemble these meteoritic crystals will always be clearly distinguishable from the real McCoy.)

Or, for the pithy referential answer, "There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer." The question cannot be answered in the way you have structured it, because it does not have answers of the kind you're asking for. It has other kinds of answers, but not that kind.

Why does lightning strike one tree, and not another? Why does one dead dinosaur fossilize beautifully, and another rots away, never to be seen again? How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?

 

[Scribe]

Then maybe use a different definition of "magic"? This seems like a self-inflicted problem.

Maybe accept that 5e runs on assumptions of "magic" for fantastical things? I'm fine with magic, or gremlins if you prefer, being the power source for pretty much everything in the game.

"I don't want every class to be magical, so if you like non-magical things, tough luck buddy, you're just going to be screwed"

I dont think you grasp the totality of my position here.

I dont want every class to be magical, and therefore I am perfectly fine with a mundane fighter.

If you, as in literally you, want non-magical? You are in the same boat I am, so I dont know what the problem is...unless....

The actual issue here is your hang-up on the term 'Magic'. You want to pretend to do fantastical, otherworldly, supernatural, mag...oops.

Its not my hang-up at all, its yours.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The laws of physics still exist and things are pretty much all the same (more or less as they’re managed to be simulated by game rules) the only difference is that when they train for it people can become stronger, faster, tougher than they can in the real world, I don’t see what’s so hard to grasp about that?

From my perspective, the problem is that it's a logic error at the levels you have been championing. As I said, I'm willing to accommodate action movie physics under the mantle of "mundane", but anything beyond that really falls into the supernatural category by the standards of the people in this world, actually playing the game. Determining where that line falls for me is always going to be based on that perspective.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

From my perspective, the problem is that it's a logic error at the levels you have been championing. As I said, I'm willing to accommodate action movie physics under the mantle of "mundane", but anything beyond that really falls into the supernatural category by the standards of the people in this world, actually playing the game. Determining where that line falls for me is always going to be based on that perspective.

Then magic should be held to the same standard.

Wizards should not be able to achieve anything that a "wizard" in our world cannot achieve.

That's actually fair. That's actually putting the same standard on everyone, instead of giving straight-up BS excuses for why the classes that have always been stupidly overpowered continue to remain stupidly overpowered and the classes that have always been kept under the casters' heels remain under the casters' heels.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Maybe accept that 5e runs on assumptions of "magic" for fantastical things? I'm fine with magic, or gremlins if you prefer, being the power source for pretty much everything in the game.



I dont think you grasp the totality of my position here.

I dont want every class to be magical, and therefore I am perfectly fine with a mundane fighter.

If you, as in literally you, want non-magical? You are in the same boat I am, so I dont know what the problem is...unless....

The actual issue here is your hang-up on the term 'Magic'. You want to pretend to do fantastical, otherworldly, supernatural, mag...oops.

Its not my hang-up at all, its yours.

It isn't my hangup though. You keep insisting--without evidence of any kind--that "magic" is the word for absolutely everything supernatural.

Prove it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Actually the 5e designers have specifically called it "innate" magic. Like a dragon's, or beholder's, ability fly. This is magic that can't be dispelled. I don't think this is ever noted in the books, but I could be wrong.

I still think stuff like that should be subject to antimagic effects.

 

[Scribe]

It isn't my hangup though. You keep insisting--without evidence of any kind--that "magic" is the word for absolutely everything supernatural.

Prove it.

Magic: Anything that is beyond the realm of physics, or biology or reality as we know it.

There, you good?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then magic should be held to the same standard.

Wizards should not be able to achieve anything that a "wizard" in our world cannot achieve.

That's actually fair. That's actually putting the same standard on everyone, instead of giving straight-up BS excuses for why the classes that have always been stupidly overpowered continue to remain stupidly overpowered and the classes that have always been kept under the casters' heels remain under the casters' heels.

As it turns out, supernatural and mundane are different things and possess different properties. Wizards are a class powered by a kind of supernatural, and they can do things that those who aren't supernaturally powered, or even powered by a different supernatural source, can't do. If that weren't the case, then what you're asking for is for everyone to have the same tricks, more or less, with different names. That doesn't sound fun to me.