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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9542618" data-attributes="member: 71699">Thinking about extant texts in the D&D canon, then this from 3e Rules Compendium looks relevantSpecial Abilities Many creatures can use special abilities that aren’t magical. These abilities are classified as extraordinary or natural. Some creatures can create magical effects without being spellcasters. Characters using particular class features can also create magical effects. These effects come in two types, spell-like and supernatural. EXTRAORDINARY ABILITIES Extraordinary abilities aren’t magical, though they might break the laws of physics. These abilities can’t be disrupted in combat, as spells can, and they usually don’t provoke attacks of opportunity. Effects or areas that negate or disrupt magic have no effect on extraordinary abilities. They aren’t subject to dispelling, and they function normally in an antimagic field. NATURAL ABILITIES This category includes abilities a creature has because of its physical nature, such as a bird’s ability to fly. Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like. They’re rarely identified as natural—that’s assumed—and they rarely take a distinct action to use. A lion uses its claws as an attack, for instance; it doesn’t activate its claws and then attack. SPELL-LIKE ABILITIES Usually, a spell-like ability works just like the spell of that name. A few spell-like abilities are unique; these are explained in the text where they’re described. No verbal, somatic, or material components are required...That lays out a distinction between natural, magical and supernatural, which would fit with my proposed construct.Focusing on that ongoing play (rather than the text in books), I see players describing many details based on their knowledge of the real world. I find it hard to discount obvious scientific facts such as that birds lay eggs, even if most folk know them: facts aren't scientific just because they're known to a few.However, I kind of agree with you that the "scientific" part of this is a red herring.  Setting aside science for the moment, I observe a mingling of magical elements (not known in our real world) with (a preponderance of) natural elements (known in our real world).This seems only a semantic issue: I use magical to encompass the extraordinary. That said, the 3e Draconomicon curiously has this on dragon flightSome sages speculate that a dragon’s ability to fly is partially magical; however, dragons have been known to take wing and maneuver inside antimagic areas where their spells and breath weapons do not work. A dragon owes its ability to fly, and its flight characteristics, to its peculiar anatomy and metabolism. A dragon weighs much less than a strictly terrestrial creature of the same size does, and its muscles—particularly the ones that enable it to fly—are exceptionally strong, giving the dragon’s wings enough power to lift the dragon into the air.I would have gone with "dragon flight is an extraordinary ability" personally! But the authors seem to have wanted a "natural" explanation for both birds and dragons.3e dragons have "poor" flight ("flies as well as a very large bird"), compared with genies who have "perfect" flight. 3e MM creatures can also have "extraordinary" and "supernatural" flight, with the latter a synonym for "magical" in terms of interactions with antimagic.To elucidate, I did not mean that my posited "dualist" is a Catholic. Magical thinking of the sort that allows for miracles easily allows for continuous miracles; even if Catholicism in particular doesn't go there.</blockquote>

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