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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5432923" data-attributes="member: 42582">My point was that, in 3E, an ability should be classified either as Ex, Su or Sp, and that this is not arbitrary - it reflects something about how the ability works in the gameworld. Generally, the ability to open a lock by wielding a spoon believed to be a relic, while bumping the door in question, would be classified as Su (or even Sp, if interpreted as a particular variant of knock). It is a bit of a stretch to classify it as Ex. In which case it should be affected by an anti-magic zone.The 3E rules make all these issues salient. 4e, by caring about power source only in the context of PCs' buffs and feats, does not. This is why, in my view, Hussar's spoon trick is more easily handled in 4e than 3E.EDIT: Furthermore, in 3E I think that there is a strong presupposition that skill ranks represent training. Whereas stats represent innate ability. And feats can represent either of these, or divine blessings, or can even serve a purely metagame role. How does one train to open locks with a wooden spoon? (In this respect, 3E strikes me as being very close to games like RM and HARP.)Again, 4e is a bit more loose about the relationship between the mechanical elements of a PC and their ingame meaning. Thus in 3E, a character with no ranks in acrobatics, but a good Dex, couldn't easily be presented as a trained but mediocre acrobat. In 4e, on the other hand, I think that this is quite feasible.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5432923, member: 42582"] My point was that, in 3E, an ability should be classified either as Ex, Su or Sp, and that this is not arbitrary - it reflects something about how the ability works in the gameworld. Generally, the ability to open a lock by wielding a spoon believed to be a relic, while bumping the door in question, would be classified as Su (or even Sp, if interpreted as a particular variant of [I]knock[/I]). It is a bit of a stretch to classify it as Ex. In which case it should be affected by an anti-magic zone. The 3E rules make all these issues salient. 4e, by caring about power source only in the context of PCs' buffs and feats, does not. This is why, in my view, Hussar's spoon trick is more easily handled in 4e than 3E. EDIT: Furthermore, in 3E I think that there is a strong presupposition that skill ranks represent training. Whereas stats represent innate ability. And feats can represent either of these, or divine blessings, or can even serve a purely metagame role. How does one train to open locks with a wooden spoon? (In this respect, 3E strikes me as being very close to games like RM and HARP.) Again, 4e is a bit more loose about the relationship between the mechanical elements of a PC and their ingame meaning. Thus in 3E, a character with no ranks in acrobatics, but a good Dex, couldn't easily be presented as a trained but mediocre acrobat. In 4e, on the other hand, I think that this is quite feasible. [/QUOTE]

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