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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6381437" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I'm going to go ahead and disagree with this within the context of the conversation we're having here.  Yes, Mirkwood Elves (et al) are described as having a supernatural affinity with nature (and the natural magic that pervades it) but that has no bearing on the context of martial excellence that Legolas displays.  Their (basically) immortality can be described as supernatural, but that might only because their physiology isn't scientifically understood.  To the point, the off-the-charts, noncombat martial acumen (in D&D terms - Athletics and Acrobatics) displayed by Legolas is never explained as a magical thing.  Its actually well mimicked by a 4e Elven feat whereby elves can never have a 2-7 on Athletics or Acrobatics.  By proxy of this feat, they almost never fail a medium DC check (which is the vast, vast majority of checks) in noncombat conflict resolution.  This is an extremely powerful boon mechanically and the way it maps to the fiction is that it spits out a character with a mundane derived martial acumen that is borderline perfect in its execution (eg - it protagonises the elven PC toward a Legolas martial archetype).  Further, Legolas's elven sight and light-footedness are also delivered by way of mundane elven features and augmented by feats.  As far as Legolas being able to be delivered by way of the Wood Elven Monk, I'm very skeptical.  I'm not sure how far afield the PHB Monk runs from the playtest one (which I'm familiar with), but the playtest Monk didn't capture much of the Legolas archetype.  About the only thing it captured was the light-armored skirmisher archetype.  I'm fairly certain he doesn't have the proficiency with weapons (the bow and elven longknife) that Legolas possesses.  The other stuff is delivered by mystical capabilities of which Legolas is never shown to D-Door or fuel his martial excellence by latent spiritual reserve.  Legolas would definitely be an archer/dual wielding Fighter.  He definitely wouldn't be a Ranger.  I'm not sure even a gestalt Fighter/Monk would probably capture the noncombat efficacy of Legolas.  He is still in a bounded accuracy task resolution system and still failing (fairly benign in their impact on the fiction) athletics and acrobatics at a clip that completely deprotagonizes the archetype.  I'm aware of that side of Concentration's impact.  However, I wasn't figuring it into this equation as it is typically invoked as the means to curtail the outlandishness of Codzilla and melee buff stacking.  I figured you were invoking it in the "A flying Wizard (etc) can't reliabily pass Concentration checks and thus that shtick is curtailed."I don't see a problem with that portion of Concentration for the Evoker (eg generalist) Wizard here.  He has 16 - 20 spells per day beyond his supercharged cantrips (which can be the primary source of his damage) - 15 + 5 spell levels to use as he sees fit.  He doesn't need to Concentrate on another spell while he is scouting with Arcane Eyes.  He doesn't use Concentration when he is someone else with Disguise Self.  He has spells to burn if he wants to Levitate or Fly somewhere or Passwall and then Invis or whatever.  I'm just finding it hard to imagine how this guy is going to struggle with all of his noncombat flexibility because Concentration.  I mean, gone are the days of the improved invis, flying, stoneskinned, wind-walled Wizard.  But that is just a silly and uncessary combo mainly reserved for NPCs to keep them afloat long enough to cast their 2 encounter changing spells.What is interesting (and this will be very interesting to  [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] I think, as he and I have talked about this in the past), is that, in this edition, Charm explicitly states that the charmee is now aware of the charming effect (however Suggestion, Dominate, et al do not).  That will be very impactful to play.On the first part, I don't think that is true at all.  The 4e buy in to magic was considerably lower.  You can't be a Ritual Caster in this edition if you don't already cast spells.  4e siloed its Ritual Casting away from class spellcasting mechanics.  As such, you can have Fighters as Ritual Casters or anyone else (I'm GMing one currently).On the second part,  [MENTION=54843]ZombieRoboNinja[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] both address this.  Resolution mechanics are merely the construct by which players and GMs resolve action declarations to "find out what happens" in the fiction.  They don't have any fictional manifestation themselves.  Further, spellcasting mechanics are transient things throughout many systems.  A D&D player saying "I cast this second level spell and this happens" is different than "I roll this 'Cast a Spell" resolution check and see what happens" is different than "I roll percentile dice, modify them, consult this table to see what happens" is different than "I allocate this many dice/points and roll to see what happens".  None of them are "magic" in and of themselves.  They're all varying resolution systems that "within the fiction" are magic because the inhabitants of the setting have deemed "what happens" as magic.  The resolution mechanics are just a metagame proxy.</blockquote>

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