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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8761899" data-attributes="member: 4937">[USER=67338]@GMforPowergamers[/USER]:To be honest, I'm having a hard time turning this thing between us into a conversation or even a debate.  There is just this strange disconnect between what I said and how you respond.  This is hardly more clear than when you asserted as a fact the unreality of magic and I responded by saying that was a religious claim that was not appropriate to the board or necessary to the discussion, and you responded to that by saying: "knock it off no religon [sic] talk on here".  Which in context is a lot like saying in response, "I'm rubber and you're glue, what you say bounces off me and sticks to you."  Did you understand my point?  If you didn't understand my point, why did you respond?  And if you didn't understand my point, why did you respond as you did.   It's not really an important point to the conversation, but it is typical of the terse and odd responses you've made that I'm really having trouble making head or tails of your intent. So first of all, we seem to have made something of a breakthrough.  You admit that there is such a thing as a supernatural or magical combat maneuver.  I'm glad to see it.  I was beginning to wonder.First, how do you know that an ability is supernatural and magical?  I'd be really surprised if your reasoning is much different than my reasoning, which you dismissed as "'cause I said so".  Secondly, my argument is that if a power is obviously supernatural or magical, calling it non-supernatural or magical doesn't change that.  In other words, it's the substance of the power that determines if it is magical or non-magical not a label you slap on it.   For example, I suspect you'd agree that a 3rd level martial maneuver whose text read, "1/day you can cast fireball as the spell", would not be non-supernatural just because we called it non-supernatural.   I suspect you'd agree that that would be or at least ought to be one of those supernatural or magical abilities, and I might even get you to agree that in such a hypothetical case the fact that I'd made a pass through wrapper for a spell didn't make it less of a spell.  The facade here doesn't change the underlying thing, no matter how much I disguise it.I have explained my assertion to you multiple times.  I still have no idea why you are making this claim as it literally has nothing to do with what I said.  And even internally, your statement contradicts itself, as I clearly explained that sneak attack is in fact contested within the fiction.   And in the case of action surge and rage, who is the target that ability except yourself?  So why would the roll need to be contested within the fiction since you are just doing something to yourself?  I didn't claim he was.  I don't know why you think this sentence refutes anything I said.  Are you asserting that Robin Hood has abilities that let him choose once a day to not miss?  That is to say, do you think he used a power to split the arrow or was it an exercise in mundane (albeit it extraordinary) skill?  Because I think if you are asserting Robin Hood has daily powers that let him impose his will on reality because he wants to, you are saying he is magic.  But if you are saying that Robin Hood is merely a skillful archer then there is no need to imagine a special "can't miss this shot" power that he can access only a few times a day.That is questionable.  Beyond mundane doesn't necessarily equal a spell, but it probably indicates some sort of magic exactly because this is a fantasy game.   But what is your point, since you seem to be neither agreeing nor disagreeing with anything I said.  What made you say that? Again, not sure what point you are trying to prove?  Can the wrestler do the thing without special FX, hidden ropes, and other props?  If he can't then of course it isn't magic.  But if we hypothesize a martial ability that lets the martial character conjure those props into being whether they have them or not, then we probably would call that magic.  Like for example, if we have a power like, "Spread Bear Traps" that said, "Once per day you can fill a square with bear traps that create difficult terrain and which do 2d8 damage to anyone that enters the square.", that is actually a magical ability in disguise because the power doesn't require you to actually have bear traps to spread around and it is implied you can't do it twice or three times if you carry extra bear traps (on a mule or something).   On the other hand, no one would think it a magical power if you could just buy bear traps and use them.  Do you see the difference, and do you see why one is actually a spell?Again, so?  What are you trying to say by saying this?  The classes are typically seen as abstractions of the actual abilities of the characters.  That is to say, particularly with a martial class, not something that exists in the fiction per se, but rather is an abstraction of the sort of abilities we might think common to people of certain professions and backgrounds within the setting.  Even with something like 'wizard' or 'cleric' which exists both in and outside of the fiction, we are simply saying that a wizard is 'someone who has trained and studied as a wizard'.  We aren't actually saying that in the fiction that the character has the class wizard.  The class is not a thing in the fictional universe.Aren't you agreeing with me here?  Again, what prompted you to say this?  What point are you trying to make by agreeing with me here, if that is what you are doing?  You are referring to my discussion of sneak attack, right?  Aren't you just repeating back to me what I just said?</blockquote>

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