The problem with magic in D&D

[Fifth Element]

LOL! I really, REALLY hope you're not trying to be serious.

Hmm...check one of the previous posts that points out that I'm making light of the "elves are doomed" threads that have popped up lately.

 

[Fifth Element]

Posting drunk provokes a attack of opportunity.

Who has combat reflexes?

---Rusty

I'm using a 3rd-party prestige class that gives me immunity to all AoO. Sure, I wrote the class myself, but it still counts, right?

 

[Mark CMG]

In my house I simply raise my hand & say "Wench I have a beer itch!"

Magically a beer appears.

Beer magic what more do you need?

I'll guess, eventually, a divorce lawyer or a pine box?

 

[Arkhandus]

Really, I don't recall ever making a non-threatened combat check, nor a will save (the willpower mechanic in 3.x) to cast magic...

But in saying that, hmmmmm....

Wizards on study for years if they take wizard at 1st level... For everyone else, they can pick it up from a bar napkin

... for some reason the experssion 'how's about them apples' springs to mind

1) Concentration checks to cast spells when hurt or distracted or anything. And the fact that you have to concentrate to maintain some spells, and casting a spell provokes AoOs; it's because you have to focus, not just recite some words from memory. Anybody could do that. But in D&D you have to focus more attention on the spellcasting to make it work, whereas any idiot could talk during a fight and not have any trouble talking as he fought. D&D spellcasting is more than just simple recitation.

2) That's just a problem with how 3E handles multiclassing.

3) I'm deleting my post above, because I had posted it impulsively, not having seen Piratecat's clue-in for uninitiated fools like me.

 

[Mercule]

For the uninitiated, he's making fun of Edena's elf thread.

Ah, so he is.

But, we got "Flung-poo Fighting", so it's all good.

 

[tzor]

According to D&D RAW, arcane casters cast spells by making specific motions with their hands and speaking strange words. But in reality, if someone did this, nothing would happen. Magic in D&D just doesn't work if you think about it logically and apply the realities of the world to the rules.

Ah, I love logic. It's a pitty it gets so badly abused by so many. Understanding that We're talking about astupid game for a moment, I get saddened by the people who limit the universe to what they think is their understanding of the world. The same thing happened in the late 19th century ... before relativity & quantum mechanics. You realize that almost none of the things you use today are "possible" if you applied the realities of the 19th century world to them.

Anyway, I would like to recall an old Tom Baker Doctor Who (in fact the last series he did as the doctor) series where there was a race that created things (both objects and structures) by thinking about them. The entire race acted as a vast computer because the process so warped space around it that only a living mind could adapt to the calculations. Now apply this idea by extension. If they could by logic alone create in the universe portal to another universe in order to vent off excess entrophy, one could logicaly extend it to any number of planes, from those containing energy (positive/negative) to those containing elemental forces. Structure from thought ... all logically derived.

And that's the rub. Anyone who talks about the universe makes a whole lot of assumptions, including the fact that the universe exists at all. These assumptions are vital, otherwise you go down the path of philosophical insanity, but they are not guarenteed to be true.

A Sherlock Homes (who Tom Baker once played ...) once noted, "Once you have eliminated all the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be true." The persuit of science is often thought to be the increase in the things we know. This is wrong. The persuit of science is the increase in things we know we don't know yet. Every answer yields two or more new questions. And the quest continues.

There are indeed stranger things on heaven and earth than are drempt of by your philosophy.

 

[DM-Rocco]

According to D&D RAW, arcane casters cast spells by making specific motions with their hands and speaking strange words. But in reality, if someone did this, nothing would happen. Magic in D&D just doesn't work if you think about it logically and apply the realities of the world to the rules.

Wizards and sorcerers are therefore doomed.

Okay, after reading the absurity of the other post, I know find humor in this one.

I apologize for all of the dump things I thought about you but never said.

 

[Cynic_devine]

I'll guess, eventually, a divorce lawyer or a pine box?

No....but we won't even get into what I had to do to acquire beer magic....

 

[Fifth Element]

Ah, I love logic. It's a pitty it gets so badly abused by so many. Understanding that We're talking about astupid game for a moment, I get saddened by the people who limit the universe to what they think is their understanding of the world.

Hmm...here's hoping you've read the other posts in this thread and realize that it is intended to mock the "logic" of the "elves are doomed threads", and that your comments are directed to the elf doomsayers and not me.

Right?

...Right?

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

According to D&D RAW, arcane casters cast spells by making specific motions with their hands and speaking strange words. But in reality, if someone did this, nothing would happen. Magic in D&D just doesn't work if you think about it logically and apply the realities of the world to the rules.

Wizards and sorcerers are therefore doomed.

A creature of humanlike intelligence has a score of at least 3

So, to be a human you only need an INT of 3. I contend therefore that magic does in fact work, but people don't have the 10 INT to cast even a 0-level spell. Therefore Wizards and Sorcerers can only be non-humans. The favored class of Elves is Wizard, but Elves are doomed. Therefore you are correct that at least until humans obtain the necessary ability scores Wizards and Sorcerers are in fact doomed.