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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 351256" data-attributes="member: 2020">I must respectfully disagree with something said a very long time ago by Gary Gygax in the 1st Edition version of the Dungeon Master's Guide for the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Game:  (to paraphrase Gary Gygax)    A spellcaster does not draw power from within himself.  If he did, even a 1st level spell would leave him exhausted, while a 3rd level spell would surely drain him of life!  - - -  What I am disagreeing about is not whether a spellcaster draws power from within - MOST spellcasters are depicted as drawing power from WITHOUT, be it in RPGs or in books of fantasy.  What I AM disputing is that a spellcaster could not draw power from within to create truly superpowerful magical effects.  I believe a spellcaster could draw power from within, to perform any of the magic in the D&D game, and a greater part of that magic portrayed in fantasy books.  My premise for this is based upon the amount of energy an average person has in his or her body.  That amount, is staggering.  And if you accept - just for a moment - that perhaps the people of fantasy can have as much energy stored in their bodies as people in Real Life have stored in their bodies, then why not stored/innate/potential magic as well?  Thus, I am supposing that fantasy characters could have incredible amounts of energy stored in them, as people in Real Life do.  And if these fantasy characters have incredible amounts of energy stored in them, then why not incredible amounts of magic?  I see no problem with that supposition at all, and therefore I must disagree with the statement (paraphrased) of Gary Gygax above.  - - -  The question is:  just how much energy is stored in a given Real Life human being?  Let us suppose that:  This Real Life human is a male, 6 feet tall, 185 pounds, and has eaten a hearty meal within the last hour.  This Real Life human has a body composition of a typical, healthy person - average in all respects for this purpose.  If this Real Life person's mass is converted into energy, and this is expressed as an explosion, how big is the explosion?  Can anyone answer that, or express the energy in Joules or other measurements?  I know there is a lot of energy - the answer is some truly enormous figure.  The question is, how enormous?  Just exactly how big?  Any mathematicians out there who can answer this one?</blockquote>

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