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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jabborwacky" data-source="post: 7695034" data-attributes="member: 98608">It all comes down to D&D lore and the old-school inspirations for the monk class. In D&D, even perfectly ordinary things are magical, because magic suffuses reality and holds everything together like a law of physics. Even a dead magic zone still has magic in it. Back on topic, the presence of magic effects what kinds of living things can exist (dragons) and what they can naturally do (breath fire). Monks are not so much wielders of magic as they are toddlers learning to walk: They watch a tiger hunting to give them a new perspective on motion, or a monkey interacting with other monkeys. Then they go through the motions of what they think it would be like to move or act that way, resulting in a group of people thinking in four dimensions to everyone else's three when it comes to muscle coordination.I know this is going to shock people, so I'll put it in bold for greater effect. The great esoteric mystery of how monks shoot ki-blasts is: They know how to flex their muscles just right. Yup, if you asked uncle storm fist how to "fus ro dah" like a pro, he'll tell you to do a regiment of exercise complimented with pretending to be a monkey. Then after fifty or so squats (it takes some people longer than others) you, too, will know how to fus ro dah like uncle!However, the elemental fist and sun soul monks are not inspired from the same source. Those abilities are like elemental bending in Avatar or ninjutsu in Naruto. They are techniques that involve building up magic like a spellcaster to create a magical effect. Meanwhile, the ki blast is kind of like a one-inch punch: It may take an extraordinary person to pull it off, but the effect can be easily explained in terms of normal physics (at least in the world of D&D where magic permeates everything).</blockquote>

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