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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 6777804" data-attributes="member: 6799649">How can an observer know the radiant damage was caused by Divine Smite rather than a spell?Wait, wait, wait!!! "His weapon did some radiant damage, therefore I bet he can heal with a touch and has a magic aura that make it harder to magic him"??? Think about that for a moment!!Radiant damage is not only caused by paladins, healing by a touch is done by anyone with cure wounds, and what magic aura? Even if you see a glow from them to represent an aura (which is bogus BTW), there is no way that an observer could know that it makes his friends less likely to suffer from magic. How is that observable? The aura adds +1 to +5 to saving throws, yet whether or not a save is made or failed is not observably attributed to that bonus. Anyone with that bonus could easily fail a save, and anyone without it could easily make a save. And what could be observed? Creatures cannot directly observe die rolls, all they can observe is what actually happens. Let's take fireball; everyone in it gets burned. Some take full damage, some take half damage, some take none because they have Evasion. But how can an observer in game know if a creature took half or full damage? If full damage is 30 and half is 15, but the guy who takes full is still up because he has 40 remaining but the guy who only took half goes down because he only had 14 left before he took half damage, how could an observer possibly know that the guy who fell took less damage than the guy who stayed up? Even the Evasion ability is not directly observable; what is observable is that he seems to be agile/lucky, not that he must have evasion, therefore must be a 'monk' or a 'rogue'!What observable 'fancy thing' would that be? Score a crit on a 19? Definitely not observable. Score a crit? Not observable either, but even if it was the observer could not know that the crit was caused by rolling a 19 instead of a 20.Er, no. 'Increased damage' is not observable because damage rolls are random and a high roll without a bonus can do more damage than a low roll with a bonus, and the effect the damage has on the target (which is observable) depends as much on his hit points as it does on the incoming damage. 'Increased strength' is not observable in combat, because you can't know that he has less strength out of combat; creatures cannot check his character sheet. 'Advantage' is not observable, because in game there was only a single result (either a hit or a miss) which doesn't look any different to a roll made without advantage. If you observe that he hits consistently over time, this cannot result in you knowing that he must be attacking with advantage, just that he's having a good day at the office, or that he's good with an axe! Again, no, because the observable results of the game mechanics could be caused in several ways not even related to a single class. He turned into a bear? He must be a druid! Unless it's a wizard, or sorcerer, or bard...!Some things are observable. Like, fluff things rather than crunch things. "I was raised in a monastery" is observable. "He was raised in a monastery, therefore he must have levels in the 'monk' class" is not.</blockquote>

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