D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[CreamCloud0]

Eldritch Knight
Echo Knight
Arcane Archer
Psi Warrior
Rune Knight
Arcane Trickster
Soulknife

are those all perhaps, subclasses which explicitly rely on secondary supernatural and magical powers to justify the things they do? hmmm i think they are.

 

[Minigiant]

The core issue like I said dozens of pages back.

D&D doesn't support nonmagical non-supernatural training

WOTC and most Third Party Publishers of fantasy default to magic spells and overtly supernatural features to sell flash.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Eldritch Knight
Echo Knight
Arcane Archer
Psi Warrior
Rune Knight
Arcane Trickster
Soulknife

I know, yet when I say "hey, can we have fighters who are as strong as literal war machines and vampires break a stone wall with their fist" I get in response "But that isn't possible, no human is that strong! You need an explanation for why this completely ordinary human should be considered that strong and their strength score doesn't count!"

Or, "Hey, can we have these fighters able to leap far distances, because that could help with their mobility" I get "But that isn't possible, no human can do that! You need an explanation for why this completely ordinary human should be able to do that!"

But if I want to be a human who can weaponize psychic powers of their mind... well that's okay as long as it is the subclass, because the subclass says they are a human who can weaponize the psychic powers of their mind. It is always completely impossible... until a subclass says they have supernatural abilities and suddenly it is the most possible thing in the world, barely a problem really. Or a feat, if a feat says that they have the supernatural psychic abilities that is okay too. But give them new abilities as a baseline? INCONCEIVABLE! These are completely ordinary not special at all humans, after all.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The core issue like I said dozens of pages back.

D&D doesn't support nonmagical non-supernatural training

WOTC and most Third Party Publishers of fantasy default to magic spells and overtly supernatural features to sell flash.

I disagree. It does support it on a baseline, conceptual level.

We just aren't allowed to utilize it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Once a human has the class of Fighter (or Rogue), they are capable of doing supernatural things, but that doesn't make them supernatural, they are still simply human.

This is accomplished through class features, subclass selection, and feat (if used).

This is why making a blanket statement "Humans are supernatural" doesn't fly. You might not particularly care about those nameless masses, but they are out there. Now, Human PCs and creatures/NPCs can do supernatural things, but that doesn't make them supernatural in-and-of-themselves.


Of course it's allowed, but those house-sized pumpkins aren't due to Joe Farmer being "supernatural". Some visiting fey helped, or the seeds were magical themselves, or the water was blessed, or whatever. I'm sure Joe Farmer is a very skilled and accomplished farmer, but not supernatural.


A dwarf with magic and a dwarf without magic could be due to the aforementioned reasons. It could be class or likely a feat. Even a dwarven fighter can easily gain magic due to the EK subclass, it doesn't have to be a "wizard class" or something.

You realize you are basically making my point? Sure a human fighter can do amazing things, but it doesn't make them supernatural or magical because they are human, does it?


Right, but it is the training (class, NPC or creature stats) that can make a human soldier a super soldier, not because they are human.

Sure, but this is all why I said it was a distinction without a purpose.

You are basically saying "these are completely ordinary humans, until for whatever reason we need them to not be completely ordinary humans"

I'm saying "These are not completely ordinary humans, because they are capable of reaching heights that ordinary earth humans are not capable of"

You want it to be that the baseline is "human until I make an exception" I want it to be "not human, because I can make any exception I want and justify it later". Normal humans can't manifest their willpower to chain a newborn star inside their heart and use that to fire laserbeams from their fists. A Sun Soul Human monk can. Normal humans can't hate so hard that they come back as rotting corpses bent on vengeance. A human Revenant did exactly that.

Your concern seems to be that commonfolk will be made special by this, but I don't see how that is the case. Just because someone has potential, doesn't mean they would utilize that potential. Look at Dragonball Z, Videl and Krillin are completely normal humans... capable of flight and energy beams. The humans of Dragonball Z, through hard work, training, and the right conditions are capable of flight. But the vast vast majority of humanity on that planet... don't put in that effort. They don't learn these things. Those humans are not normal humans, because they are capable of things we humans IRL are incapable of, but that hasn't changed what day to day life actually looks like for the majority of them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I know, yet when I say "hey, can we have fighters who are as strong as literal war machines and vampires break a stone wall with their fist" I get in response "But that isn't possible, no human is that strong! You need an explanation for why this completely ordinary human should be considered that strong and their strength score doesn't count!"

Or, "Hey, can we have these fighters able to leap far distances, because that could help with their mobility" I get "But that isn't possible, no human can do that! You need an explanation for why this completely ordinary human should be able to do that!"

But if I want to be a human who can weaponize psychic powers of their mind... well that's okay as long as it is the subclass, because the subclass says they are a human who can weaponize the psychic powers of their mind. It is always completely impossible... until a subclass says they have supernatural abilities and suddenly it is the most possible thing in the world, barely a problem really. Or a feat, if a feat says that they have the supernatural psychic abilities that is okay too. But give them new abilities as a baseline? INCONCEIVABLE! These are completely ordinary not special at all humans, after all.

I honestly see zero problem with any of that. That's actually my argument.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I disagree. It does support it on a baseline, conceptual level.

We just aren't allowed to utilize it.

I'm definitely in support of more training mechanics. Really helps with verisimilitude.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, but this is all why I said it was a distinction without a purpose.

You are basically saying "these are completely ordinary humans, until for whatever reason we need them to not be completely ordinary humans"

I'm saying "These are not completely ordinary humans, because they are capable of reaching heights that ordinary earth humans are not capable of"

You want it to be that the baseline is "human until I make an exception" I want it to be "not human, because I can make any exception I want and justify it later". Normal humans can't manifest their willpower to chain a newborn star inside their heart and use that to fire laserbeams from their fists. A Sun Soul Human monk can. Normal humans can't hate so hard that they come back as rotting corpses bent on vengeance. A human Revenant did exactly that.

Your concern seems to be that commonfolk will be made special by this, but I don't see how that is the case. Just because someone has potential, doesn't mean they would utilize that potential. Look at Dragonball Z, Videl and Krillin are completely normal humans... capable of flight and energy beams. The humans of Dragonball Z, through hard work, training, and the right conditions are capable of flight. But the vast vast majority of humanity on that planet... don't put in that effort. They don't learn these things. Those humans are not normal humans, because they are capable of things we humans IRL are incapable of, but that hasn't changed what day to day life actually looks like for the majority of them.

See, to me the nature of the world makes training to perform supernatural actions possible. It doesn’t actually make the humans themselves supernatural.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

See, to me the nature of the world makes training to perform supernatural actions possible. It doesn’t actually make the humans themselves supernatural.

But that’s just pointless semantics. However you word it the end result is the same.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But that’s just pointless semantics. However you word it the end result is the same.

It is NOT pointless. The fiction of the world is at least as important as the mechanics which, to my mind, exist to represent it. I will die on this hill.