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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hong" data-source="post: 106971" data-attributes="member: 537">cf Hong's Third Law: "Thinking too hard about fantasy is bad". <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Magic in D&D serves one purpose: to allow the recreation of the deeds of characters from legend, myth, and fantasy. It represents the ability of these characters to transcend human limitations. Thus a priest, shaman or witch can heal people by dint of her connection with the divine, or her enlightened nature, or whatever. A mage can blast foes with fireballs because he's tapped into the power of the elements, or his deal with a demon, or whatever.There's a compromise here: on the one hand, you want to be able to play characters who can do things beyond what ordinary mortals can do; but you also don't want to have a world that's completely divorced from our everyday conception of the ordinary. A priest, shaman, wizard or sorcerer is still human, and the world they live in should reflect that. Thinking too hard about the consequences of breaking the laws of physics just makes it harder to reach a suitable compromise.Perhaps that might be better phrased as "the more you're willing to gloss over the implications of magic, the more authentically fantastical D&D becomes".</blockquote>