D&D 5E How to pronounce Artificer

[doctorbadwolf]

I suppose I could be persuaded to pronounce it \ˈstēm-ˌpəŋk . ˈwi-zərd\

On a more serious note, I think I would prefer Alchemist to be a Background, if only to divorce it from the "magical chemist" trope.

Could go that way too.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

ˈɑː.tɪ.fɪs.ər (UK)
ˈɑːr.t̬ə.fɪs.ɚ (US)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

On a more serious note, I think I would prefer Alchemist to be a Background, if only to divorce it from the "magical chemist" trope.

That's history, not a trope.

 

[CleverNickName]

That's history, not a trope.

I mean, if you have historical evidence of magic, and how it was used in the field of chemistry...please share!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I mean, if you have historical evidence of magic, and how it was used in the field of chemistry...please share!

Historically, people did not know what was science and what was magic until they actually tested it with experiments. The science of chemistry grew out of the study of alchemy.

 

[CleverNickName]

Historically, people did not know what was science and what was magic until they actually tested it with experiments. The science of chemistry grew out of the study of alchemy.

I get what you're saying, but that's the origin story of the scientific method--develop a theory, test it, repeat the test--not the origin of modern chemistry. Even pre-Renaissance alchemists didn't think what they were doing was "magical," they thought it was purely physical. (The church disagreed, and well...let's just say that they owned most of the printing presses.)

The field of thermodynamics was one of the rare sciences that "flipped the script," where experimentation actually drove the theory. It's a pretty cool bit of history...or at least I think it's cool. And now that I think about it, those inventors tinkering around in their workshops are probably closer to the D&D idea of "artificer" than pre-Renaissance alchemists were. So maybe I should have just said "inventor" instead of "alchemist."

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I get what you're saying, but that's the origin story of the scientific method--develop a theory, test it, repeat the test--not the origin of modern chemistry. Even pre-Renaissance alchemists didn't think what they were doing was "magical," they thought it was purely physical. (The church disagreed, and well...let's just say that they owned most of the printing presses.)

The field of thermodynamics was one of the rare sciences that "flipped the script," where experimentation actually drove the theory. It's a pretty cool bit of history...or at least I think it's cool. And now that I think about it, those inventors tinkering around in their workshops are probably closer to the D&D idea of "artificer" than pre-Renaissance alchemists were. So maybe I should have just said "inventor" instead of "alchemist."

The only difference between science and magic is science works and magic doesn't. Something only becomes magic once you have proved it isn't real.

But many modern elements where first extracted by alchemists, even though they didn't understand exactly what they where doing (Aristotle has a lot to answer for!). Chemistry techniques like distillation, and apparatus like condensers, flasks, etc where developed by alchemists. Most renascence scientists, like Newton and Galileo where also alchemists (and astrologers). After all, there is no reason to not believe that stuff is real until it's demonstrated not to be.

 

[CleverNickName]

The only difference between science and magic is science works and magic doesn't. Something only becomes magic once you have proved it isn't real.

This isn't true. Science doesn't explain everything, and yet magic still doesn't exist. To borrow an old cliché, "though science can't explain how they fly, bumblebees still aren't magical creatures."

(Scientists have since figured out how bumblebees fly. But "stable tetraneutrons aren't magical" doesn't have the same impact.)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This isn't true. Science doesn't explain everything, and yet magic still doesn't exist.
To borrow an old cliché, "though science can't explain how they fly, bumblebees still aren't magical creatures."

(Scientists have since figured out how bumblebees fly. But "stable tetraneutrons aren't magical" doesn't have the same impact.)

Magic doesn't exist by definition. But if you don't know for a fact that something doesn't exist you cannot say that it it is magic. Ergo alchemy was not magic until it was shown to not work. You cannot say "you cannot change lead into gold" until you have tried and exhausted every method. A good scientist never assumes what is and is not real.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This isn't true. Science doesn't explain everything, and yet magic still doesn't exist. To borrow an old cliché, "though science can't explain how they fly, bumblebees still aren't magical creatures."

(Scientists have since figured out how bumblebees fly. But "stable tetraneutrons aren't magical" doesn't have the same impact.)

There was another thread where people were trying to say that magic was literally anything that couldn't be explained by current, real-world science.

Implying that there was a period of time where platypi were magic and unicorns were not.