D&D 5E Lay On Hands is not necessarily magical (and other tales from the magic/munane divide)

[I'm A Banana]

It seems to me like the divide between magic and mundane in 5e is significantly more open to DM interpretation than it has been in the past.

There are a few magic-suppression abilities in 5e - counterspell, dispel magic, and antimagic field are the most prominent. These seem to be quite specific about what they do and do not suppress.

• Spells are pretty obviously magical. Cast a spell, you're using magic. This would seem to include ritual versions of that spell.
• Summoned Creatures and Objects aren't magical inherently, but are sustained in this world by magic. Without magic, they wink out.
• Magic Items are magical, even if they're created without magic. You can make a potion of healing with herbs, but when you do that, you make it magical, even if you don't know a single spell.
• Teleportation and Planar Travel are magical, so a portal to hell only works as long as magic tears it open.

In addition to those explicit things, antimagic sphere includes a catch-all "magical effect" category. What this applies to seems to be pretty much up to the individual DM.

There's a lot of potentially surprising things that are up for DM interpretation when you might presume otherwise. These abilities might be magical or they might just be awesomeness at work, depending on how a DM rules.

Interesting Things That Are Not Necessarily Magical

• Bardic Inspiration isn't called out as magical. It's simply music and charisma at work.
• Song of Rest is non-magical healing, at least out of combat.
• Channel Divinity and Divine Intervention are non-magical. CD lets you heal hit points, charm animals and plants, create illusory duplicates, all without it explicitly being magical. DI actually lets you back-door some non-magical spells: you simply create "the effect" of a spell. I guess the power of gods isn't subject to magic!
• An EK's Weapon Bond isn't automatically magical. Teleporting the blade is, but not being disarmed is I guess just because you friggin' love your sword...
• Wholess of Body, Tranquility, and Cloak of Shadow are not magical, letting you heal your own hp, "gain the effect" of sanctuary, and go invisible without using magic. MOST monk abilities are magical, though (see below).
• Divine Sense, Lay on Hands, Divine Smite, and most other Paladin abilities are not magical. You're just so friggin' empowered with your cause that it happens. With paladins not being explicitly beholden to deities in 5e, this draws some interesting parallels with the fact that divine intervention (such as CD) isn't automatically magical. Divine Smite is especially interesting, since it lets you use (magical) spell-slots for (nonmagical) extra damage. For those looking for non-magical martial healing, I'd say the Paladin has got your number.
• Perhaps not as shocking as the Paladin, but most Ranger abilities are non-magical, too, including Primeval Awareness.
• Most sorcerer abilities are magical (see below), but Tides of Chaos isn't automatically magical. It does make an avenue for always-magical Wild Surges, though.
• Blade Pact and Tome Pact abilities, as well as most patron abilities are not magical. You can pull out your Pact Blade in an area utterly devoid of magic. You can plunge a creature into an illusory realm, gain hit points from a sacrifice, or use telepathy without one magical bit of pixie-dust. Debatably, even Hurl Through Hell works just fine (it's flavored as planar travel, but it isn't described as such, merely saying it is a "nightmare landscape").
• Many (but not all) Arcane Tradition abilities fall outside of the magical definition as well. Diviners get portents and see in the dark just fine in an anti-magic area, and a transmuter can turn wood to silver without a bit of magic.

Interesting Things That Are Definitely Magical

• Most (but not all) Totem Barbarian Features: 6th and 14th level features are explicitly magical, even if it's something as simple as "you knock them prone." The 3rd level ability, however, is not.
• Wildshape: not a lot that any druid can do in an antimagic sphere, I suppose!
• Ki is explicitly magical, so any effect that relies on using it (deflecting missiles, flurry of blows) is magical. This means most other monk abilities are probably magical, as they reference using ki somehow (proficiency in all saves = magical), though there might be some semantic wiggle-room there. Evasion and Stillness of Mind are not magical, though!
• Sorcerery Points. It seems that by saying sorcery points allow you to "create a variety of magical effects," anything using SP is magical, including casting a spell without Verbal or Material components!
• All Invocations and Mystic Arcanum. Invocations are all "abiding magical abilities." This suggests that your Book of Ancient Secrets rituals disappear in an area of anti-magic, even if the book itself does not (see above). Likewise, the high-level warlock slots you have vanish in such an area (not that you could use them anyway).

It seems that in most cases, things are made explicitly magical if they are. If they're not explicitly magical, they are martial/mundane/nonmagical/OTHER, even if they are remarkable or amazing or extra-natural in some way. A DM has the flexibility to declare something magical if they want to, but I like the range of presumably-nonmagical things in the game, and how curiously "unnatural" they are. As someone who reads a lot of legalistic language, I respect the divide between "gain the effect of (Spell X) a number of times per day" and "can cast (Spell X) a number of times per day."

And it makes me want a spell-less paladin, too, because that class is a few minor class abilities away from being a dang good completely mundane inspirational leader-style class.

 

[Uchawi]

I believe abilities could be source neutral, or source open, so you could write a healing spell, class ability or something similar to state it just heals. And let the DM/table decide whether the source is divine, arcane, psionic, martial, etc. It was mentioned during the playtest, but the developers did not want to approach that can of worms, while still appeal to the nostalgic feel of older editions. So the term magic is weaved into a lot of abilities, which for the most part locks it down to one train of thought, or belief on how things should work.

 

[MarkB]

[*] Divine Sense, Lay on Hands, Divine Smite, and most other Paladin abilities are not magical. You're just so friggin' empowered with your cause that it happens. With paladins not being explicitly beholden to deities in 5e, this draws some interesting parallels with the fact that divine intervention (such as CD) isn't automatically magical. Divine Smite is especially interesting, since it lets you use (magical) spell-slots for (nonmagical) extra damage. For those looking for non-magical martial healing, I'd say the Paladin has got your number.

If Lay On Hands only healed hit point damage, I'd be with you. But it can also purge poison and disease with only a touch. I can't stretch to that being simply empowered by awesomeness.

For what it's worth, I've just rolled up an Oath of Vengeance paladin for a new campaign, and he does not follow any particular deity. However, the way I'm picturing his powers is that the sheer zeal with which he has sworn and pursued vengeance is something akin to prayer, and has attracted the attention of one or another deity, which for its own reasons favours his path and is empowering him.

The tricky part is, he really doesn't know where that power is coming from - and doesn't much care, so long as it helps him - but there's no telling whether the being that supports him is good or evil, or ultimately has good or bad intentions for him. That'll be up to the DM.

 

[Li Shenron]

There are a few magic-suppression abilities in 5e - counterspell, dispel magic, and antimagic field are the most prominent. These seem to be quite specific about what they do and do not suppress.

I am not sure if what you're trying to say is that a lot of stuff isn't magical because it's not suppressed by counterspell/dispel/antimagic.

I would just say that these don't define what is magical, they just define what they can suppress. What they can't, is not consequently non-magical, but simply not affected by these 3.

 

[Leatherhead]

It seems to me like the divide between magic and mundane in 5e is significantly more open to DM interpretation than it has been in the past.

I actually prefer it that way. It means you can describe how most powers work on a character by character basis. One character might be really really lucky, while another with the same mechanical powers is "cheating" by indirectly hacking the world in their favor.

But your premise is wrong.

In 5E, the D&D universe, and everything in it, is explicitly "magical" to the core. The problem comes from the fact that most of us have prior edition biases (more than a few of which are battered and bruised from edition wars, HP definitions, and CoDzillas) and the fact that Antimagic Field, Dispel Magic and Counterspell are actually misnomers. If you look on PHB p205, the mostly fluffy sidebar basically cements The Weave as the default assumption of how spells work everywhere in D&D. The Weave, for those new people who may be unfamiliar with it, is actually a sort of user interface that allows the mechanics of magic to happen when people cast spells. (Because direct access to raw magic stuff is bad for you, and may possibly be the reason why force is a damage type.) But the sidebar also describes how these spells work: By temporarily disabling or messing with The Weave and thus disabling spells from working in that area. Note that these spells don't remove the magic of the area, just an interface to access it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I am not sure if what you're trying to say is that a lot of stuff isn't magical because it's not suppressed by counterspell/dispel/antimagic.

I would just say that these don't define what is magical, they just define what they can suppress. What they can't, is not consequently non-magical, but simply not affected by these 3.

Not exactly, though that's part of it. None of those spells mention Ki, for instance, but Ki abilities contain the word "magical" in their description. In comparison, Channel Divinity, forex, doesn't use the word "magical" at all, so it's not inconsistent to imagine this as something ELSE, going by the RAW ("the Will of the Gods doesn't rely on the Weave," in FR terms, perhaps), even when diseases are being erased.

In 5E, the D&D universe, and everything in it, is explicitly "magical" to the core.

You could go that way - effectively erase the magical/mundane divide. Then your Champion enchants her blades so that they are more keen, gaining an improved crit, while a rogue is blessed by the gods of darkness and trickery, gaining expertise in Stealth and Deception. That doesn't leave a lot of room for the non-magical, but maybe that's OK - this is a story about fantasy heroes, after all, and NORMAL turnip farmers need not apply.

 

[Shiroiken]

It seems to me like the divide between magic and mundane in 5e is significantly more open to DM interpretation than it has been in the past.

This is intentional, and is true for many, many other aspects of the game as well. 5E has more leeway for DM interpretation than any other edition except OD&D (and maybe BECMI).

In my game anything a normal human couldn't conceivably do is magical (and thus suppressed by anti-magic fields).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This is intentional, and is true for many, many other aspects of the game as well. 5E has more leeway for DM interpretation than any other edition except OD&D (and maybe BECMI).

In my game anything a normal human couldn't conceivably do is magical (and thus suppressed by anti-magic fields).

does that mean in an anti magic field a fighter with 83hp can't survive a 60ft drop, or a cross bow hit?

 

[Shiroiken]

does that mean in an anti magic field a fighter with 83hp can't survive a 60ft drop, or a cross bow hit?

You can conceivably survive a fall from over a mile. You can also easily survive being hit with a crossbow bolt. If you want to assume a magic happy anime style world with warriors summoning up super-saran powers, feel free. I choose otherwise, and your opinion of such is meaningless to me.

 

[mellored]

Given that D&D is a magical infused world, i don't see how anything can be purely mundane.

According to bards, words are not just vibrations in the air, but carry innate magic. That doesn't apply only to bardic magic, but any words. A fighter saying "hello" is in some small part, magical.

this is a story about fantasy heroes, after all, and NORMAL turnip farmers need not apply.

Farming would still be magical.

It would have to be, considering the amount of people in a typical D&D city, and the amount of people out of it. There's no way to support the population.