D&D 5E Should martial characters be mundane or supernatural?

[Raiztt]

Agreed. Magic, in the context of Earth, is the antithesis of science. Magic (specifically arcane style magic), in a magical D&D world, is pretty much the science of that world.

Magic would not be the antithesis of science; it would be the antithesis of physicalism/materialism and/or local-realism.

 

[Scribe]

Magic would not be the antithesis of science; it would be the antithesis of physicalism/materialism and/or local-realism.

I'm in 2 broad camps, for Wizards specifically.

1. The scholar, scientist. A refined and dignified gentleman of studious nature.
2. The mad scientist, licking frogs, downing magical energy drinks to fuel his art. Maybe hes twitching a little.

Both are valid approaches to 'Magic' in my world.

 

[Raiztt]

Thus, D&D perfectly models itself, and is immune from all criticism.

I assume you're being sarcastic here because a thing cannot model itself. Something can be a model of something else, but the model is explicitly not the thing that it is modeling.

 

[Staffan]

Rogues shouldn't be skill monkeys. Rogues should be light combatants/skirmishers, and everyone should get to be good at a reasonable amount of skills. Because being good at skills is fun and not something that should be hogged by any one class.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I assume you're being sarcastic here because a thing cannot model itself. Something can be a model of something else, but the model is explicitly not the thing that it is modeling.

It's a tautology, sure. D&D perfectly models the genre it defines by being D&D. Well, yeah, it does. So does every game. It's like painting a bullseye around a bullet hole. 100% success. OK, it's nonsense, even.

But it's absolutely at the bottom of many arguments. Not as many as appeals to popularity, but a lot.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Rogues shouldn't be skill monkeys. Rogues should be light combatants/skirmishers, and everyone should get to be good at a reasonable amount of skills. Because being good at skills is fun and not something that should be hogged by any one class.

Being good at skills flies in the face of Bounded Accuracy.

So yes, let everyone be good at skills.

 

[Raiztt]

It's a tautology, sure. D&D perfectly models the genre it defines by being D&D. Well, yeah, it does. So does every game. It's like painting a bullseye around a bullet hole. 100% success. OK, it's nonsense, even.

But it's absolutely at the bottom of many arguments. Not as many as appeals to popularity, but a lot.

You're just saying that D&D is D&D. Which is necessarily true.

That is not the same thing as saying "D&D models itself" which is nonsense. Maybe there's a rhetorical reason for you to be trying to say this but I don't know what it is.

Just say that D&D is it's own genre instead of saying "D&D models itself".

 

[Vaalingrade]

Just say that D&D is it's own genre instead of saying "D&D models itself".

They mean the same thing.

 

[Raiztt]

They mean the same thing.

No, he intends them to mean the same thing. They do not actually mean the same thing because something cannot model itself.

If a thing being a model necessarily means that it isn't the thing that it is modeling, how can anything "model itself".

If something can "model itself" what does that mean and what does it mean for things that don't "model themselves" but are also models?

 

[Voadam]

D&D, like in a lot of other topics, has gone back and forth on skills.

In original Oe there were no skills, fighters and magic users and clerics just said they were doing stuff and it was mostly ad hoc adjudicated. "We creep up quietly." and such.

Then came Supplement I with Greyhawk and the unfortunate thief design. Now there was class specific skill abilities. And they were fairly terrible.

Then in 1e there was an optional secondary skills chart which was completely independent of class so anybody could have come from a sailor background and have relevant narrative competencies.

Then Non Weapon proficiencies in 1e. They varied by class in how many you got and when, but not really in what you could get.

Then in 2e there were both optional systems again, but nonweapon stuff really took off and was divided into general and the four broad class based category ones for how many proficiency slots things took up, so there were class specializations again.

Then 3e had hard skill points and int and class skill differences in skills with a strong specialization along class lines focus for efficacy. There were options but class preferences were strong factors.

Then 4e went a bit broader and with non PH backgrounds and alternatively with a single feat (or class based multiclass feat options) allowed a little bit of opening up of skills generally again.

5e added a lot of customizability with 2 non class skills for everybody from the core PH in backgrounds. This combined with bound accuracy made it much easier for everybody to reasonably engage in the skill system in a couple of different ways and to succeed.