Magic vs Mundane (what is mundane?)

[Morty]

I don't notice any strain on D&D's part to avoid asking or answering it. D&D has its answers, in most editions, in definitions it uses. 3e explicitly spelled out (Ex) vs (Sp) vs (Su) vs spellcasting, and all but the first are negated by AMFs. Anything that isn't said to be one of the latter is generally the first, too, so the bar for "extraordinary" is pretty low and deliberately blurs with "ordinary," I believe, to the point that anything not a core action in the rules (i.e. basic attacking and maneuvers like grapple, skill use, and movement) is an (Ex) ability.

In 5e, they apparently have a fig leaf somewhere about how everything uses ambient magic to some degree or another.


Since D&D tends to also be a posterboy for the "quadratic wizard/linear fighter" problem, which is a different framing of the usual debate in magic v. mundane, I'd say it's safe to say that the way to frame this debate for D&D is actually in "spellcasters vs. nonspellcasters."

D&D gives us a lot of labels and very little in terms of description. I very rarely agree with Mechalich, but they hit the nail on the head. D&D has never had much of a clue what to do with its high-level characters, and non-casters in particular. What's a high-level non-caster like? Are they Gimli? Aragorn? Conan? Heracles? The descriptions run along the lines of "like, really good with weapons, I guess". If it acknowledges their "extranormal" abilities, it fails to draw any sort of line between the low-level mostly-realistic character and the superheroes they become.

The epic-level fighter in 3.5 is described as "More than a mere sword-swinger". Yeah, that ship sailed a while ago. A high-level non-caster may be pathetic compared to casters or even magical monsters, but to most people in the world they're god-like. And yet, does the game acknowledge that? It gets worse when you use ToB, PoW or something else to actually give non-casters some cool abilities. The steep power curve comes in as well. When people complain about martial characters getting powers, it's partly because it's jarring to have Joe the competent soldier advance to Joe the martial demigod just by whacking increasingly strong enemies.

Meanwhile, the game fiction constantly gushes over how amazing and powerful high-level magic-users are, particularly wizards. While still not accounting for just how strong they are, of course. It's very apparent when you read Forgotten Realms setting materials. It's pretty chock-full of high-level characters in general, naturally. But where high-level casters are movers and shakers, it consistently treats high-level non-casters as essentially "street level" superheroes. Any real power they wield is political or due to their fame/infamy.

As I have said before, D&D's balance problems begin at fiction level. The game has never been particularly interested in depicting powerful non-casting characters. 4E being the notable exception, and we know how that ended up. Besides, for all that 4E introduced gameplay balance, its attempts at creating power tiers were half-hearted at best and suffered from their own problems. Either way, it's no surprise that the mechanics don't follow suit if there's no will to present a consistent world or a balanced one in the fiction.

4e was, indeed, quite balanced, and avoided this problem. However, the trouble is how it accomplished this: fighters and wizards were both what 3e would term "martial adepts." Everything in 4e was. Sure, there's a little variance in how this manifests, and they chose what maneuvers to give each class to give them different battlefield roles, but every class felt the same.

This may not have been a problem in a wholly new system. It might even have been praised as an ingenious way of doing classes. But when it tried to claim to be D&D....

Well, the best description I've heard, in my opinion, puts it roughly this way: "4e is a perfectly fine and well balanced fantasy combat RPG that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike D&D."

In reality, 5e does a pretty good job of striking a balance. The main offender of "quadratic wizard" tends to be that prepared 5e casters still have a lot more versatility and can cherry-pick day-to-day to have the right power for the day, while non-casters are stuck with their build choices every day. And 9th level spells are at least as powerful as other classes' capstone abilities.

I really do not understand why people put so much effort into pretending 4E isn't D&D, instead of being honest and saying it's D&D that does things poorly, wrong or simply not to their liking. It smacks of No True Scotsman.

[Willie the Duck]

D&D gives us a lot of labels and very little in terms of description. I very rarely agree with Mechalich, but they hit the nail on the head. D&D has never had much of a clue what to do with its high-level characters, and non-casters in particular. What's a high-level non-caster like? Are they Gimli? Aragorn? Conan? Heracles? The description run along the lines of "like, really good with weapons, I guess". If it acknowledges their "extranormal" abilities, it fails to draw any sort of line between the low-level mostly-realistic character and the superhero they become.
…
As I have said before, D&D's balance problems begin at fiction level.

Very much, although at the very beginning, particularly if you were using Chainmail as opposed to the alternate combat system, you did end up with level 8+ level fighting men who could just rip their way through armies, were effectively immune to fear, could sense invisible opponents, and otherwise act a little more like Heracles than later edition fighters could.

I think one of the biggest issues that D&D had was the huge lag when most people had decided that a lot of the constraints on casters (ex: AD&D's caster-punishing initiative system that many found positively inscrutable) were untenable, and that certain supposed benefits of high-level fighters (getting to build a keep and start a kingdom) were not to their playstyle, but the powers that be (Gary, and later Lorraine mandating that 2e AD&D be as backwards-compatible as possible) not willing to change the ruleset to match. By the time that someone could do something about high level noncasters, a lot of the player-base's visual conception of what it means to be a non-caster had ossified closer to Gimli than to Heracles.

[Jakinbandw]

Does being able to do some of those things actually balance a character with someone who can do things that are extravagantly extranormal? (As for me, all I can think watching it is "Ow, my knees", because I have bad knees that would hurt A LOT on the harder landings.) I'd consider what's shown in that video at the high end of "normal" because it's being done by a real person in the real world, where there is no "extranormal" -- the real world is missing that part of the scale, because there ain't no "magic" here.

Depends how extravagant extra normal it is. At mortal tier for my system someone can shoot a bolt of fire a good 60 feet and do damage equivalent to a bow. Upside? You don't need a bow and ammo. Downside? The loss of about 140 feet of range on your attacks. I'd say that yes, the ability to parkour is about equal to that level of extranormal power.

That said...

Have you considered that (in settings using real-world-like scales and limits) Batman and similar are extranormal? Despite all protestations to the contrary, I mean.

Oh, of course they do. But here is the thing, batman fills a specific fantasy. The idea that through training, wits, and knowledge you can keep up with people with super powers while not having any of your own. Of course what batman does is beyond normal, even in the setting itself. If everyone was like him, he couldn't beat up hundred of crooks at a time. The Joker is another example as well of someone who is far beyond normal.

While you are right that they are essentially having super powers of their own, that is not the fantasy they present. In the same way, that is what mundane classes try to represent. That yes, you may have powers, and you may be equivalent to someone who can alter the world on a whim, but at the same time you got there through hard work and training, not through being born lucky, or relying on some weird mumbo jumbo.

At least when I talk about mundane, or normal, or whatever, I'm talking about the fantasy of it, not what happens if you put people into a scientific lab and run experiments on them all day. I thought I'd been up front about that. My noble class I posted literally has a tier of abilities that are rated on the scale of divinities. That's not just for consistency, that's because those powers are literally as strong as what a god gets, just for a different fantasy.

[Lord Raziere]

In reality, 5e does a pretty good job of striking a balance. The main offender of "quadratic wizard" tends to be that prepared 5e casters still have a lot more versatility and can cherry-pick day-to-day to have the right power for the day, while non-casters are stuck with their build choices every day. And 9th level spells are at least as powerful as other classes' capstone abilities.

See this is where fluff becomes important, because the fluff of a wizard is incredibly generic for a spellcaster. they just.....wield some vague arcane energy that can apparently do anything as long as you do research that the nature of it isn't really specified. so you get someone incredibly powerful simply because what they are do isn't actually that well defined. sure they cast spells and use incantations and read books and sure this has an effect upon the world, but internally its a black box where you input hand signs and silly words and out pops phenomenal cosmic power.

the mechanics emulating fluff, therefore emulate that and you get your godlike or super-flexible wizards as a result. especially without an additional energy limitation or some way to make a caster more thematic or focused.

its why Spheres of Power is a good system, because I'd argue that while it still has some imbalance, there is a guarantee that your spherecaster won't be godlike. if we instead use that model for magic and mundane well....its a lot more even. now its as generic as any DnD class if not more so, but the fluff is something players decide and with that decision helps limit a character by giving them a fluff focus that soft locks them into picking certain choices for certain reasons, sure they can make other choices if they need to, but depending on the character concept, its not going to devolve into "prepare for everything" mode. which I honestly consider a failure state of roleplaying.

with spheres of power, you can choose to be some pure pyromancer character or something and fluff your magic to only wield fire, softlocking what you can do to things that manipulate flame. now of course you say, there is the problem of not being prepared for every possible monster in the monster manual like things that are immune to fire, but if thats thrown at them, thats the fault of the GM not communicating the viability of a pyromancer in their world effectively and/or not making a world where the character is viable. thats why I don't post interest in any campaign I'm not interested in and when I do, its only for when I have an idea that fits specifically for that campaign so that it works. its just that DnD's super-cross over nature and insisting upon tactical combat combined with the attitude of consistency of many players having towards it (I've never actually read a DnD book that talks about world consistency or anything like that, its always been my impression from reading DnD that DnD is relatively shallow in terms of that kind of stuff and largely does not care about the world aside from being a backdrop for the adventurers. Alignment only works as long as you assume that its centered around the PCs for example.) that create this environment where the only viable option is being flexible as possible.

when I think its perfectly possible to have a system and environment where you can just play whatever you want without worrying about having to worry about being the most flexible caster ever and go for something more thematic, more tied to the world and unique. it just requires buy in on the part of the GM to make sure they don't put in a complete "screw you" monster in there. because DnD is full of "screw you" monsters. the rust monster for one. "fighters? screw you, say goodbye to your armor and weapons". or anti magic fields "wizards casting spells? screw you." players prepare and be paranoid because they know "screw you" mechanics are out there, and I'm sure that if they were less so or nonexistent, there wouldn't be as much need for the flexible prep mindset. because putting in stuff to make sure everything about a character is shut down? is a good way to get some people angry in any game, not just roleplaying games.

its quite honestly, bad game design if you want more people than just dark souls-esque hardcore guys to find it fun. and dark souls can be fun, but not every game is fun because its an unfair slanted trap of options that encourage you to play unfair back and use your brain and skill to the fullest figuring out a world with completely consistent rules and how to exploit them, thats not the full scope of gaming and I don't think that should be the full scope of it, not every game designer wants to make that or can make that, because making something full of unfairness but still fun can be more challenging and difficult than something fair and balanced, because if you make it too unfair, there is just no hope of winning or you get something thats very binary where you either don't get the trick and lose a lot, or you get the trick and it gets very easy, which I guess is great if you want that experience and someone is great at designing those experiences, but there will always be those people who find it too hard and turn on the easy/normal mode so that things can be fair instead.
and I can find that hard experience of an unfair world and getting good at it fun while still remaining super-consistent with that world, fun. I play Sekiro and Dark Souls, but I know thats a specific experience that doesn't cover everything I want from roleplaying games or games in general. and some people prefer the mages and warriors, the supers and the batmans, the saiyans and the humans to be on an even playing field rather than on a hill, or in some cases a treacherous rocky mountain. I'm not saying you can't have fun climbing that rocky mountain, you can, but come on, give some credit to running across a savannah.

[Max_Killjoy]

Oh, of course they do. But here is the thing, batman fills a specific fantasy. The idea that through training, wits, and knowledge you can keep up with people with super powers while not having any of your own. Of course what batman does is beyond normal, even in the setting itself. If everyone was like him, he couldn't beat up hundred of crooks at a time. The Joker is another example as well of someone who is far beyond normal.

While you are right that they are essentially having super powers of their own, that is not the fantasy they present. In the same way, that is what mundane classes try to represent. That yes, you may have powers, and you may be equivalent to someone who can alter the world on a whim, but at the same time you got there through hard work and training, not through being born lucky, or relying on some weird mumbo jumbo.

At least when I talk about mundane, or normal, or whatever, I'm talking about the fantasy of it, not what happens if you put people into a scientific lab and run experiments on them all day. I thought I'd been up front about that. My noble class I posted literally has a tier of abilities that are rated on the scale of divinities. That's not just for consistency, that's because those powers are literally as strong as what a god gets, just for a different fantasy.

Beyond any terminology or mechanics disagreement, the root disconnect is probably this -- I do not think of things in terms of what "fantasy", "archetype", or "role" they fulfill, and I do not care about "the narrative". When I talk about "normal vs extranormal" or "mundane vs magic" or whatever, I'm speaking strictly of the power levels, the metaphysics, the specifics of the setting and where the character fits in the setting's framework.

I do find it interesting that spellcasters and other users of magic or ki or whatever often spend decades training for many hours a day, neglecting other paths and other parts of life, honing mind and/or body, to master their abilities... and then are dismissed as being "born lucky or relying on some weird mumbo jumbo".

[Jakinbandw]

Beyond any terminology or mechanics disagreement, the root disconnect is probably this -- I do not think of things in terms of what "fantasy", "archetype", or "role" they fulfill, and I do not care about "the narrative". When I talk about "normal vs extranormal" or "mundane vs magic" or whatever, I'm speaking strictly of the power levels, the metaphysics, the specifics of the setting and where the character fits in the setting's framework.

Then what do you play RPGs for? With books you don't need to worry about balance between the characters. There is nothing you want to do in rpgs? No character that you want to play?

[Max_Killjoy]

Then what do you play RPGs for? With books you don't need to worry about balance between the characters. There is nothing you want to do in rpgs? No character that you want to play?

That's just more of the disconnect.

I play the characters I want to play, within the limits of the setting and campaign, which has nothing to do with archetypes or tropes, or expys of existing characters.

[Jakinbandw]

That's just more of the disconnect.

I play the characters I want to play, within the limits of the setting and campaign, which has nothing to do with archetypes or tropes, or expys of existing characters.

What characters do you want to play?

[Max_Killjoy]

What characters do you want to play?

I don't have any opportunities or open "time slots" in my life to game right now, so no idea what setting or context, so I couldn't really say.

E: mainly I miss old characters I used to play, at this point

[Morty]

Very much, although at the very beginning, particularly if you were using Chainmail as opposed to the alternate combat system, you did end up with level 8+ level fighting men who could just rip their way through armies, were effectively immune to fear, could sense invisible opponents, and otherwise act a little more like Heracles than later edition fighters could.

Perhaps so; my knowledge of the earliest editions is limited. One way or the other, D&D's track record with acknowledging that there exist warriors who can rout armies on their own is inconsistent at best. It sometimes acknowledges that archmages and casters of similar scope can do that, especially in Forgotten Realms. Non-casters, not so much. To say nothing of how in 3E at least you hardly need to be level 15 or something to blow through a small army all on your own.

I think one of the biggest issues that D&D had was the huge lag when most people had decided that a lot of the constraints on casters (ex: AD&D's caster-punishing initiative system that many found positively inscrutable) were untenable, and that certain supposed benefits of high-level fighters (getting to build a keep and start a kingdom) were not to their playstyle, but the powers that be (Gary, and later Lorraine mandating that 2e AD&D be as backwards-compatible as possible) not willing to change the ruleset to match. By the time that someone could do something about high level noncasters, a lot of the player-base's visual conception of what it means to be a non-caster had ossified closer to Gimli than to Heracles.

This seems to add up, yes. And let's be fair - the limits on casters in old editions were really annoying and giving all fighters a castle and territory was arbitrary. Removing them without suitable replacements didn't work out so hot, though.

[Mechalich]

This seems to add up, yes. And let's be fair - the limits on casters in old editions were really annoying and giving all fighters a castle and territory was arbitrary. Removing them without suitable replacements didn't work out so hot, though.

A lot of the old limits on casters also still worked best inside of a box. For instance, interrupting wizards works when you're standing next to them, not when they're 400 ft. up in the air. It's a useful balance mechanic in Baldur's Gate, but one that can be bypassed once the walls are removed.

Many problems of this nature, in both D&D and many other table-top games, is that the game is designed for a situation wherein the inputs and scenarios are tightly controlled: D&D is designed to be played in dungeons, VtM is designed to be played in large cities of 5 million or more with strong civic institutions so you can't have gunfights in the streets at midday, and so on. What designers are seemingly incapable of admitting is that their systems simply weren't designed for play outside of their metaphorical box and that once you remove those implicit controls everything breaks down. This becomes very, very clear when you compare tabletop to video games and look at what the PCs are and are not allowed to do within even the most sandbox-y of scenarios.

A big part of this whole magical vs. mundane discussion comes down to that, while it is entirely possible to redefine base human capabilities, doing so does really weird things to the world building and most people who design a setting, whether for narrative or gaming, want 99% of the population to be more or less ordinary humans with earth-based capabilities, because doing anything else is both alienating to the audience and a massive chore. Consider that, in a game where people are fundamentally different from current Earth standards - like Eclipse Phase with its embedded transhumanism for example - it takes a lot of work just trying to explain what the setting looks like to a potential player and a lot of effort to wrap you head around how all of the new stuff is supposed to work.

It's much easier to build a fictional world where almost everyone is Normals, and some small subset of people are Normals+. However, the consequence of that is either all of the PCs or none of the PCs should be Normals+. Unfortunately, the archetypical structure of classical high fantasy - by far the most popular genre for tabletop - is strongly resistant to this idea (though getting less so).

[Max_Killjoy]

A lot of the old limits on casters also still worked best inside of a box. For instance, interrupting wizards works when you're standing next to them, not when they're 400 ft. up in the air. It's a useful balance mechanic in Baldur's Gate, but one that can be bypassed once the walls are removed.

Many problems of this nature, in both D&D and many other table-top games, is that the game is designed for a situation wherein the inputs and scenarios are tightly controlled: D&D is designed to be played in dungeons, VtM is designed to be played in large cities of 5 million or more with strong civic institutions so you can't have gunfights in the streets at midday, and so on. What designers are seemingly incapable of admitting is that their systems simply weren't designed for play outside of their metaphorical box and that once you remove those implicit controls everything breaks down. This becomes very, very clear when you compare tabletop to video games and look at what the PCs are and are not allowed to do within even the most sandbox-y of scenarios.

A big part of this whole magical vs. mundane discussion comes down to that, while it is entirely possible to redefine base human capabilities, doing so does really weird things to the world building and most people who design a setting, whether for narrative or gaming, want 99% of the population to be more or less ordinary humans with earth-based capabilities, because doing anything else is both alienating to the audience and a massive chore. Consider that, in a game where people are fundamentally different from current Earth standards - like Eclipse Phase with its embedded transhumanism for example - it takes a lot of work just trying to explain what the setting looks like to a potential player and a lot of effort to wrap you head around how all of the new stuff is supposed to work.

It's much easier to build a fictional world where almost everyone is Normals, and some small subset of people are Normals+. However, the consequence of that is either all of the PCs or none of the PCs should be Normals+. Unfortunately, the archetypical structure of classical high fantasy - by far the most popular genre for tabletop - is strongly resistant to this idea (though getting less so).

There's also some granularity there... you can get away with the right setup of Normals and Normals+, but it's much harder to do Normals and Normals++++, or even Normals+ and Normals++++.

As for fantasy RPGs and this question, I've long had a nagging interest in how well it would work to do "fantasy supers" as an RPG. (Not Exalted, for all the reasons already covered in detail...)

[Mechalich]

As for fantasy RPGs and this question, I've long had a nagging interest in how well it would work to do "fantasy supers" as an RPG. (Not Exalted, for all the reasons already covered in detail...)

Fantasy supers, and in fact pretty much all 'supers' scenarios outside of the particularities of comic book logic (and even sometimes there) have a tendency to go grimdark hard, simply because of the nature of some group of people randomly being inherently better than everyone else, and without the restraining power of technology it can be particularly grim. Actual mythology tends to outline this fairly well, actually, since a lot of myths, Greek or otherwise, are full of darkness, and many fantasy settings that trend toward supers actually are pretty dark when you peel back the surface even a bit - Wheel of Time absolutely has moments of it, especially during the parts where Rand is being tempted, and something like Stormlight Archive is a mass of grimdark slowly leaking through a thin heroic veneer (and of course there's always Malazan, which makes Exalted look pleasant). I mean, even the Jedi of Star Wars, who aren't all that powerful most of the time (sources vary) and are ultimately re-skinned Shaolin monks, have gotten massively dumped on in the post-prequels era.

Bridging this divide is actually quite difficult, if you're being at all serious about the worldbuilding. Something like Harry Potter only gets away with 'muggles' because it's not at all serious about the worldbuilding.

In many ways, I think that actually speaks to the inherent paradox of the magic vs. mundane issue. People are ultimately away that they don't actually have superpowers and they never will, so they want their escapist fantasy universe to pretend that people who are ordinary, and don't have any powers still matter, even when this is manifestly untrue. We want Conan to be able to beat the wizard through his indomitable will and the strength of his 'mighty thews,' we don't want the wizard to combo-cast stoneskin and death spell and summarily snuff the hero out. It's a very natural impulse, but unfortunately, once you crank the power curve up far enough it simply doesn't work. And it seems many people would rather accept systems and settings that fundamentally do not work than confront the consequences of this disparity head on. Now, I'm all for playing in settings that fundamentally do not work, this is an escapist hobby, prioritize what you want. I just wish the designers wouldn't keep spouting a line of garbage about what their systems are intended to do versus what they're actually capable of achieving, because when you hit a fundamental mismatch point in the course of a campaign and everything breaks down and everyone around the table starts going 'really?' that just sucks.

[Max_Killjoy]

Fantasy supers, and in fact pretty much all 'supers' scenarios outside of the particularities of comic book logic (and even sometimes there) have a tendency to go grimdark hard, simply because of the nature of some group of people randomly being inherently better than everyone else, and without the restraining power of technology it can be particularly grim. Actual mythology tends to outline this fairly well, actually, since a lot of myths, Greek or otherwise, are full of darkness, and many fantasy settings that trend toward supers actually are pretty dark when you peel back the surface even a bit - Wheel of Time absolutely has moments of it, especially during the parts where Rand is being tempted, and something like Stormlight Archive is a mass of grimdark slowly leaking through a thin heroic veneer (and of course there's always Malazan, which makes Exalted look pleasant). I mean, even the Jedi of Star Wars, who aren't all that powerful most of the time (sources vary) and are ultimately re-skinned Shaolin monks, have gotten massively dumped on in the post-prequels era.

Bridging this divide is actually quite difficult, if you're being at all serious about the worldbuilding. Something like Harry Potter only gets away with 'muggles' because it's not at all serious about the worldbuilding.

In many ways, I think that actually speaks to the inherent paradox of the magic vs. mundane issue. People are ultimately away that they don't actually have superpowers and they never will, so they want their escapist fantasy universe to pretend that people who are ordinary, and don't have any powers still matter, even when this is manifestly untrue. We want Conan to be able to beat the wizard through his indomitable will and the strength of his 'mighty thews,' we don't want the wizard to combo-cast stoneskin and death spell and summarily snuff the hero out. It's a very natural impulse, but unfortunately, once you crank the power curve up far enough it simply doesn't work. And it seems many people would rather accept systems and settings that fundamentally do not work than confront the consequences of this disparity head on. Now, I'm all for playing in settings that fundamentally do not work, this is an escapist hobby, prioritize what you want. I just wish the designers wouldn't keep spouting a line of garbage about what their systems are intended to do versus what they're actually capable of achieving, because when you hit a fundamental mismatch point in the course of a campaign and everything breaks down and everyone around the table starts going 'really?' that just sucks.

Conan's antagonist sorcerers also aren't anything near as powerful as even mid-level D&D magic users of any type, though, and their limitations provide openings for a "ultraheroic normal" like Conan to best them. Likewise many of the other "steel, grit, thews, and wit" protagonists of sword and sworcery. But in part because systems like D&D have tried so hard to mash Howard and Leiber with Lovecraft with Vance and Tolkein, and in part because "wizard is wizard, what do you mean degrees of power?", you end up with the players who expect the "steel, grit, thews, and wit" characters to be on par with wizards who would give Gandalf and Saruman cold sweats, and send the demigods of Greek myth running in terror.

[Quertus]

And I see this effort caught between two failure points, with little to no middle ground where it works. Either...

1) You're taking things anyone can do and making them "the muggle stuff", walling them off in a way that makes Send A Strongly Worded Complaint a level X "muggle class power", and telling "non-muggles" that they can't send a strongly worded complaint, because they don't have that "power". And that is certainly how some of the suggestions in this thread have read so far, at least to me. You even just said "this is a class of strictly muggle power"... if it's strictly muggle powers, doesn't that mean non-muggles can't do the things that you've made into muggle powers?

-or-

2) You're giving "the muggle class" a souped-up version of these abilities, to the point where they become "not!superpowers" in order to balance with the "not muggles" superpowers, such that "have a backup plan" threatens to become a retroactive continuity supernatural power, for example, and regardless of what you call the class, they're not really a "muggle" any more. (Thus the old snark, "Magic is as magic does" -- it doesn't matter how doggedly someone insists that their character isn't extranormal, if they do things that are effectively extranormal, then they, the character, are extranormal. Or as Segev said up thread, "To put it a bit cheekily: if your only superpower is "being Batman," you still have a superpower.")

I think most of this has been covered. Absolutely Batman is Magic / superpowered / whatever. That's why I, personally, hate Batman - he pretends to be a muggle, a mere mortal, but he's not.

However, my Muggle write-up was intended to convey how some people are better at mundane capabilities than others, and say, "if you're one of those people, you took this class, same as 'if you can cast spells, you took the Wizard class'". It's abilities that (while I doubt one individual could realistically have them all) I feel are all attainable by purely mundane muggles. Yes, the class only contains mundane abilities, not the way you read it. As I said, some people have "clarity" as a super power - anyone theoretically *could* write clear text, but we don't all do so, as my write-up clearly demonstrates.

As to #2 - the 2e Wizard gets one attack at BAB=1/3 level; the Fighter gets up to 2.5+1 attacks at full BAB. Yes, the muggle Fighter has a souped-up version of the same ability. This is absolutely nothing new. This is how the trained / skilled / talented / whatever mundane power source you believe in Muggle can / should keep up with the Master of Magic for longer than most RPGs admit / pull off without them becoming magical.

Anybody can learn to pick a lock. 3e Rogues have more skill points to invest in it and still do other things. 5e Rogues have Expertise, giving them twice their proficiency bonus to it. This is a "muggle" skill; rogues just spend the time wizards and sorcerers spent mastering mystical mojo to practice puissant purloinment.

Anybody can write a strongely worded letter. A wizard can cast a spell so that only the intended target perceives the strongly worded letter as what it actually is; everybody else sees it as a billet of vacation photos and photos of his grandkids. A member of the Mark Twain class can use his "Biting Wit" class feature to make a publically posted strongly worded letter which causes people who aren't already Friendly to the target it excoriates have a default reaction of "hostile," whether due to utter mocking scorn or extreme outrage.

Anybody can buy a plane ticket. Superman can choose to fly under his own power. Lex Luthor can use his "money is no object" trait to automatically upgrade himself and all his friends to the best class the airline offers and to get the flight at a moment's notice, or just to have a personal corporate jet to transport himself and his allies to the destination at their convenience and in comfort.

Anybody can ask around for information. The Correspondence Mage can try to scry it out. The Mind Mage can try to read minds until he finds it. The Forces Mage who spent less on his Spheres and stuff but spent points on Contacts can reach out to his network and find people who know what he wants more easily.

Just wanted to say, you've been spot on this whole thread. Kudos!

You're reading it as "a class strictly made of muggle powers"... my reading was "a class made of powers that are strictly for muggles".

See also "dragon fighter"... is that a fighter who is a dragon, or a fighter who fights dragons?

Yeah, I clearly never took the "clarity" Muggle class feature.

That's kinda the problem with this debate, hell, this whole thread, isn't it?

If things are different, someone's going to be able to stand above someone else. If things are balanced, things feel the grey and all the same.

Disagree. "Grey and samey" is not an inherent requirement for "balanced". For example, if I had played Quertus, my signature academia mage, for whom this account is named, as sightly less tactically inept, or had he faced foes where his powers had been more needed (and couldn't have been replaced with a bag of flour), then he might have been balanced with the party Fighter and Monk, without the party feeling at all samey.

Does a bloodstained monk in rags, a phasing masked not-chain-tripper, Sleepy the dripping great sword wielder who cuts through walls of force, a duelist / cunning linguist, a shell shocked elven archer, and a potty-mouth AoE SoL caster sound samey? Now, I'll admit, the BDH party actually played somewhat samey (go first, hit for massive damage, profit) - the most samey of any 3e party I've been in - but even they had more diversity than I ever felt out of 4e.

See, the thing about 4e classes is that they didn't really all feel the same when you compared them to each other. They only felt the same when you compared them to other editions of DnD. You don't really hear people complaining in 4e about the fact that a Ardent can punch things to make a black hole as a Long Rest feature, but a Wizard can also create a black hole with slightly different mechanics. Nobody cared, except the people who looked in from the outside.

Care to try to sell me on "4e classes aren't samey"? Or is that a bigger thing, that should be it's own thread?

There is a third option, though: Being balanced by being overpowered. Effectively the Rock-Paper-Scissors solution, kinda like how Rifts has a very delicate balance of bazookas, magic, and indestructible robots.

Wait, what? What wins against what there? Haven't played much Rifts, wouldn't say I've "seen the elephant" for Rifts tactics.

Everything is inherently weak to something else and doesn't stand a chance against that one thing. But the one thing you can do, oh boy, does it tear things up when it's relevant.

This creates "Balance" (That is, everyone is in the same circumstance), yet it's also very colorful with a lot of contracts (a magic-user definitely plays differently than a cyborg, and solves different problems).

So is this just ShadowRun "twiddle your thumbs" time?

Wash out those differences a bit, and you end up with 4e. Try to make it so that the differences are towards specific playstyles, and you end up with 3.5/5e. You gotta sacrifice something.

Can you elaborate on what you feel ends up with 3e/5e? Sounds like it might be important…

[Segev]

When people complain about martial characters getting powers, it's partly because it's jarring to have Joe the competent soldier advance to Joe the martial demigod just by whacking increasingly strong enemies.

This is another of those points that makes little sense, since it's no different for casters than non-casters: casters also get mysteriously better at memorizing magic and commanding mystical forces by beating things in the face with spells and crossbow bolts.

In fact, it makes more sense for the "martial" character to get better this way than it does for the spellcaster: the martial character is learning to do new fighting techniques by fighting increasingly difficult foes.

Meanwhile, the game fiction constantly gushes over how amazing and powerful high-level magic-users are, particularly wizards. While still not accounting for just how strong they are, of course. It's very apparent when you read Forgotten Realms setting materials. It's pretty chock-full of high-level characters in general, naturally. But where high-level casters are movers and shakers, it consistently treats high-level non-casters as essentially "street level" superheroes. Any real power they wield is political or due to their fame/infamy.

This tends to be true of the casters, too: most of their world-impact comes from people fearing or respecting their power and accomplishments enough to give them political sway. In fact, in the Forgotten Realms, one could argue from observation that non-casters tend towards more practical power for anybody who doesn't like extreme isolation and long, long months of metaphysical stress as one faces off thanklessly with eldrich horrors that are (Nick Cage voice) scratching. at. the door!

As I have said before, D&D's balance problems begin at fiction level. The game has never been particularly interested in depicting powerful non-casting characters. 4E being the notable exception, and we know how that ended up. Besides, for all that 4E introduced gameplay balance, its attempts at creating power tiers were half-hearted at best and suffered from their own problems. Either way, it's no surprise that the mechanics don't follow suit if there's no will to present a consistent world or a balanced one in the fiction.

I think this a bit unfair. D&D has always been interested in it; it just has arguably been BAD at it. And even that was more true in 3e than in earlier editions. In 1e and 2e, it was actually quite possible for fighters to be the most powerful members of the party. Yes, it was because they were item-dependent, but they also had exclusive access to magic swords, which tended to be the most powerful items in the game. Wizards just couldn't use them, even if they made them, so that sentient sword that casts high-level spells at will was keeping the fighter more than merely relevant compared to the wizard.

(You can make verisimilitude arguments questioning why this was, but it was what it was.)

4e's problem isn't that they made non-casters more powerful. It's that they made caster mechanics the same as non-caster mechanics.

I really do not understand why people put so much effort into pretending 4E isn't D&D, instead of being honest and saying it's D&D that does things poorly, wrong or simply not to their liking. It smacks of No True Scotsman.

Why do people put so much effort into pretending that J.J. Abrams's Star Trek movies aren't Star Trek? Why do people put so much effort into pretending that The Last Jedi isn't Star Wars?

Why do people put so much effort into pretending that Zelda 2 isn't Zelda, or that there was no second or third Matrix movie?

In my case, 4e just doesn't feel like D&D. You can try to claim I'm engaging in "no true Scottsman," here, but I will reject that because I'm not denying that it bears the official name of "D&D," and if that is your definition, then it qualifies. When I make general agreement with the notion that it is "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike D&D," I am speaking to specific aspects and to its overall feel. It feels no more like D&D to me than does Paladium. It's certainly better-balanced and more tightly designed than Paladium, but if Paladium claimed to be D&D, I would likely have less fun playing it because it wouldn't deliver what I wanted.

There is also just something...lacking...in 4e, or at least in my experiences playing it, that I find enjoyable in 5e or 3e. I can't even put my finger on it, other than perhaps that I was expecting something different than what 4e delivered. I never felt I could build the character I wanted to play in it, because I was always building a martial adept and I didn't want to play a martial adept.

But no, it's not that 4e tried to elevate non-casters. It's that 4e essentially eliminated casters. It called some classes by the names of casting classes, but there was nothing "wizardly" about the use of Encounter Powers that was less "wizardly" when a rogue or ranger did it. Especially since non-casters could also do elemental damage and the like.

It wasn't a bad system, objectively. But it wasn't what I want from D&D. And its unified mechanic is a big part of that problem. I like the myriad subsystems; they're fun and make things feel different.

I approved of 3e's efforts to elevate non-casters with their own subsystems. ToB was a good first effort. It wasn't perfect, but it was a good try. I am very much in the camp of wanting to give non-casters "superpowers" that let them keep up with casters. But without making them spellcasters.

[Max_Killjoy]

I approved of 3e's efforts to elevate non-casters with their own subsystems. ToB was a good first effort. It wasn't perfect, but it was a good try. I am very much in the camp of wanting to give non-casters "superpowers" that let them keep up with casters. But without making them spellcasters.

And part of the problem in these debates has consistently been that some participants will insist, beyond all explanation otherwise, that if you want to make non-casters able to keep up with spellcasters, then you're trying to make them spellcasters too, as if all "extranormal" has to be spellcasting or very much like spellcasting.

[Lord Raziere]

And part of the problem in these debates has consistently been that some participants will insist, beyond all explanation otherwise, that if you want to make non-casters able to keep up with spellcasters, then you're trying to make them spellcasters too, as if all "extranormal" has to be spellcasting or very much like spellcasting.

Yeah, I don't like that. I really don't. I fully agree with you on how those people, its kind of the problem I was trying to work against with my insistence that such "extranormal" stuff ISN'T magic because spellcasting and magic are almost practically interchangeable as terms, these same people have a tendency to call everything a spell and shout "I CAST FIST!!" its really annoying. I blame memes for this.

[Segev]

And part of the problem in these debates has consistently been that some participants will insist, beyond all explanation otherwise, that if you want to make non-casters able to keep up with spellcasters, then you're trying to make them spellcasters too, as if all "extranormal" has to be spellcasting or very much like spellcasting.

Yeah, I don't like that. I really don't. I fully agree with you on how those people, its kind of the problem I was trying to work against with my insistence that such "extranormal" stuff ISN'T magic because spellcasting and magic are almost practically interchangeable as terms, these same people have a tendency to call everything a spell and shout "I CAST FIST!!" its really annoying. I blame memes for this.

Yeah, this is why, in this thread, I codified that I think the real divide is between spellcasters and non-spellcasters, because while most of us don't want Conan, He-Man, Rocket Raccoon, or Goku to be spellcasters, few of us will balk at the notion that they are "extranormal" in their powers and prowess.

I definitely want non-spellcasting 20th level fighter-types, rogue-types, etc., but I also want those 20th level characters to be doing "extranormal" things. They just aren't casting spells to do it. This makes them not wizards, sorcerers, clerics, etc.

[Morty]

This is another of those points that makes little sense, since it's no different for casters than non-casters: casters also get mysteriously better at memorizing magic and commanding mystical forces by beating things in the face with spells and crossbow bolts.

In fact, it makes more sense for the "martial" character to get better this way than it does for the spellcaster: the martial character is learning to do new fighting techniques by fighting increasingly difficult foes.

I absolutely agree that the D&D power curve is pretty absurd in general and the root cause for many of the franchise's problems. But it's arguable at best whether it affects casters more. Yes, becoming an archmage by fighting increasingly difficult foes is pretty silly. But even the 1st level wizard already has magic, and thus became "extranormal" as some here would put it. They know weak spells, then they learn stronger ones.

A low-level non-caster, meanwhile, is more or less normal. Then they might learn abilities that aren't normal, but the game rarely if ever deigns to explain how. Now, it's not a problem to everyone - but it is a problem to enough people that you see complaints about how high-level non-casters shouldn't do this or that.

This tends to be true of the casters, too: most of their world-impact comes from people fearing or respecting their power and accomplishments enough to give them political sway. In fact, in the Forgotten Realms, one could argue from observation that non-casters tend towards more practical power for anybody who doesn't like extreme isolation and long, long months of metaphysical stress as one faces off thanklessly with eldrich horrors that are (Nick Cage voice) scratching. at. the door!

Of course it's true of the casters - again, D&D doesn't take the power of high-level characters into account in general, and FR is a crowning example because of just how many of them it has. But not only are casters arguably more prominent even in political positions, but their power outside them is acknowledged - within limits of what designers at the time thought it was. References to archmages routing armies and all that are made. Non-casters? Again, low-key superheoes on a good day.

I think this a bit unfair. D&D has always been interested in it; it just has arguably been BAD at it. And even that was more true in 3e than in earlier editions. In 1e and 2e, it was actually quite possible for fighters to be the most powerful members of the party. Yes, it was because they were item-dependent, but they also had exclusive access to magic swords, which tended to be the most powerful items in the game. Wizards just couldn't use them, even if they made them, so that sentient sword that casts high-level spells at will was keeping the fighter more than merely relevant compared to the wizard.

(You can make verisimilitude arguments questioning why this was, but it was what it was.)

Right, so the best idea D&D had before ToB rolled around was to give non-casters magic items to make sure they have enough magic. But magic, as the system defined it, was still the only path to power past a certain point, and those characters had no magical or even "extranormal" abilities in their own right. The idea that magic-users/mages/wizards struggle early on but become powerhouses later is pretty old as well.

4e's problem isn't that they made non-casters more powerful. It's that they made caster mechanics the same as non-caster mechanics.

And I've seen people argue the exact opposite - that playing a warlock was fun, but that playing a rogue felt "too much like a caster". Go figure.

Why do people put so much effort into pretending that J.J. Abrams's Star Trek movies aren't Star Trek? Why do people put so much effort into pretending that The Last Jedi isn't Star Wars?

Why do people put so much effort into pretending that Zelda 2 isn't Zelda, or that there was no second or third Matrix movie?

Because they're using needlessly confrontational hyperbole? I don't take those arguments seriously.

In my case, 4e just doesn't feel like D&D. You can try to claim I'm engaging in "no true Scottsman," here, but I will reject that because I'm not denying that it bears the official name of "D&D," and if that is your definition, then it qualifies. When I make general agreement with the notion that it is "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike D&D," I am speaking to specific aspects and to its overall feel. It feels no more like D&D to me than does Paladium. It's certainly better-balanced and more tightly designed than Paladium, but if Paladium claimed to be D&D, I would likely have less fun playing it because it wouldn't deliver what I wanted.

There is also just something...lacking...in 4e, or at least in my experiences playing it, that I find enjoyable in 5e or 3e. I can't even put my finger on it, other than perhaps that I was expecting something different than what 4e delivered. I never felt I could build the character I wanted to play in it, because I was always building a martial adept and I didn't want to play a martial adept.

But no, it's not that 4e tried to elevate non-casters. It's that 4e essentially eliminated casters. It called some classes by the names of casting classes, but there was nothing "wizardly" about the use of Encounter Powers that was less "wizardly" when a rogue or ranger did it. Especially since non-casters could also do elemental damage and the like.

It wasn't a bad system, objectively. But it wasn't what I want from D&D. And its unified mechanic is a big part of that problem. I like the myriad subsystems; they're fun and make things feel different.

Okay, so 4E didn't "feel" like D&D because it didn't have some very specific things that you like. Meanwhile, here's what it does have: classes, races, levels. Fighters, rogues, wizards, clerics. Small teams of heroes having adventures, fighting monsters and finding treasure. Getting XP for individual monsters until you've gathered enough to go up a level. Alignment, demons and devils. All of those are things you don't find often, if ever, outside the D&D franchise. Certainly not all of them.

4E grew out of a particular way of thinking about D&D that came around in 3E's later years. It was different than its predecessors, but the same was true for every edition before that, and people had made "this doesn't feel like D&D anymore" arguments about 3E too. Or other games, for that matter - except hilariously enough, "this feels like D&D!" is a favourite condemnation among some other systems' fans.

So yeah, I'm not seeing it. Now obviously one doesn't have to enjoy it or think it's a worthwhile game - I don't like it that much myself. But to say it's "not D&D" just doesn't seem to serve any purpose except to shut down discussion.

I approved of 3e's efforts to elevate non-casters with their own subsystems. ToB was a good first effort. It wasn't perfect, but it was a good try. I am very much in the camp of wanting to give non-casters "superpowers" that let them keep up with casters. But without making them spellcasters.

Funny you should mention that, because ToB was accused of making martial characters like magic, anime, overpowered and more since Day One. And also denounced as "not true D&D". I've said all that and more myself, before changing my mind and revising my opinions pretty much entirely. How are those arguments less valid than claims that 4E isn't D&D?

[Segev]

I absolutely agree that the D&D power curve is pretty absurd in general and the root cause for many of the franchise's problems. But it's arguable at best whether it affects casters more. Yes, becoming an archmage by fighting increasingly difficult foes is pretty silly. But even the 1st level wizard already has magic, and thus became "extranormal" as some here would put it. They know weak spells, then they learn stronger ones.

A low-level non-caster, meanwhile, is more or less normal. Then they might learn abilities that aren't normal, but the game rarely if ever deigns to explain how. Now, it's not a problem to everyone - but it is a problem to enough people that you see complaints about how high-level non-casters shouldn't do this or that.

You've missed much of my point throughout the thread, I think. The line between "normal" and "extranormal" is fuzzy and broad. One could argue that a first level fighter is already extranormal based on the skill he shows in fighting compared to a first level warrior. Just by having a FEAT he might be "extranormal."

And those "extranormal" powers they develop aren't mysterious in terms of how they learn them: leveling up represents learning new things. These are new techniques they've mastered. They're "Extranormal" because they're just that much more than "normal." And they get moreso as you get deeper into the power curve.

Right, so the best idea D&D had before ToB rolled around was to give non-casters magic items to make sure they have enough magic. But magic, as the system defined it, was still the only path to power past a certain point, and those characters had no magical or even "extranormal" abilities in their own right. The idea that magic-users/mages/wizards struggle early on but become powerhouses later is pretty old as well.

You say that like it's making some sort of point. YEs, magic is how D&D does world-changing magical power. It's practically a tautology.

My whole point is that being extranormal may or may not require having magic. The fighter in 2e was already extranormal for being able to wield magic swords that no other characters could handle.

And I've seen people argue the exact opposite - that playing a warlock was fun, but that playing a rogue felt "too much like a caster". Go figure.

In 4e? Not surprising; they made casters feel like everyone else, and everyone else feel like what they made casters into. Of course it feels like being a caster if you look at what casters are doing and see that the mechanics are similar. When spellcasting is being a martial adept, and everyone's a martial adept, everyone feels like that editions "caster."

Because they're using needlessly confrontational hyperbole? I don't take those arguments seriously.

It depends on your defintions, really. Do you define it as, "The owners of the trademark have applied their title to it?" Then there's no argument; you're right. Do you expect there to be a certain quality and feel to a franchise? Then there's argument to be had over what, to each person, that quality and feel really is.

Dismissing it as "no true Scottsman" is to ignore what they're saying and simply call them "wrong" for not liking what you like, and trying to tell you what they don't like about it.

Okay, so 4E didn't "feel" like D&D because it didn't have some very specific things that you like.

It lacked some very key structures and versatilities that typify D&D's differences in classes.

Meanwhile, here's what it does have: classes,

Debatable.

races, levels. Fighters, rogues, wizards, clerics. Small teams of heroes having adventures, fighting monsters and finding treasure. Getting XP for individual monsters until you've gathered enough to go up a level. Alignment, demons and devils. All of those are things you don't find often, if ever, outside the D&D franchise. Certainly not all of them.

So does Paladium. Does that make Paladium D&D?

4e had some neat innovations and ideas. I liked a lot of the core rules changes. 4e's problem is entirely in its class design. In its choice to make all classes use the same mechanical subsystem for class features.

4E grew out of a particular way of thinking about D&D that came around in 3E's later years. It was different than its predecessors, but the same was true for every edition before that, and people had made "this doesn't feel like D&D anymore" arguments about 3E too. Or other games, for that matter - except hilariously enough, "this feels like D&D!" is a favourite condemnation among some other systems' fans.

When people say this, I question their understanding of the history of D&D editions.

OD&D and D&D Basic were almost, but not quite, two different games. They had as much difference between them as D&D and most fantasy heartbreakers. AD&D (1e) was an evolution of one of those (I forget which), and codified most of what we expect from D&D these days (races and classes being distinct things, for instance). 2e AD&D wasn't actually all that different from 1e; it was practically Pathfinder to 1e AD&D's 3.5, and was highly backwards compatible. But as 2e progressed, a lot of subsystems were introduced and proposed. But, unlike 3e, they were more Unearthed Arcana style replacement subsystems. "Do this instead of spellcasting" or "do that instead of THAC0."

3.0 was the first real effort to completely redesign the system while keeping the core conceits, and overall, it did a pretty good job. It had a lot of people mad, because "they changed it; now it sucks," but most of those were won over because the changes were largely to the core and in INVENTING new subsystems. Vancian magic was still there, but they added sorcery. Feats and skills were evolutions of the highly popular nonweapon proficiencies, providing two avenues for improvement in things that always felt weird to be isolated to particular classes. (This had some negative effect on the Rogue, but at the time was a clever attempt.)

3.5 was a bigger revamp of 3e than 2e was of 1e, but made people mad because it came a bit too early. It still was adopted pretty quickly and painlessly, though, because it was highly recognizable as the same game, just with some different classes and a few "outside" mechanics worked into the core rules (like "swift actions").

The trouble with 4e is that it was as big a revamp to 3.5 as 3.0 was to 2e, but it threw out all the uniqueness between classes in terms of subsystem. It abandoned class-based structure in all but name and made a semi-points-based build system with weird prerequisite trees, without acknowledging that that's what it'd done. It did this in the name of Game Balance, and was practically written with the loudest voices on the charop boards as the primary audience. It was an audience that WotC overestimated the size of.

This is why PF was such a successful split-off.

Note that PF, like 3.5, came out over the years with many, many variations on classes and new and different subsystems baked into some classes (and as frameworks for clusters of other classes). This is what makes class-based structure, particularly in D&D, so intriguing to so many. This is what I say gives D&D its unique, D&D feel.

5e recaptured that. Ironically, there's a "sameness" to some degree in that every class has "class + subclass" structure to it, but the actual subsystems used vary from class to class. Spellcasting is its own thing. Most other classes have basically their own set of subsystems that make up their subclasses, or they have subclasses that let you pick subsystems to toy with in your build.

5e is as different from 3e and 4e as 4e was from 3e and 3e was from 2e, and yet 5e and 3e share the same "D&Dness" that was present in 2e. It is something 4e lacked.

This still doesn't make 4e a bad system. It just makes it stand out as the Zelda 2 of D&D editions. Obviously not...quite...fitting in on some level.

So yeah, I'm not seeing it. Now obviously one doesn't have to enjoy it or think it's a worthwhile game - I don't like it that much myself. But to say it's "not D&D" just doesn't seem to serve any purpose except to shut down discussion.

I hardly see it as shutting down discussion; I mean, just look at the discussion we're having right now. It is a useful thing to say because it explains part of WHY so many dislike it. If you can't grasp what it is that is meant by people saying that, then...I fear it's a problem of comprehension on your part, because too many people light up and agree, "Yeah, that's exactly it!" even when they couldn't spell out specifics as to why.

And the massive split of the market share with Pathfinder when 4e came out is the sign that it isn't just grognards saying that it sucks because it's different. There is genuinely something that 4e...lost...from 3e that made fans seek alternatives in numbers that were unprecedented.

Funny you should mention that, because ToB was accused of making martial characters like magic, anime, overpowered and more since Day One. And also denounced as "not true D&D". I've said all that and more myself, before changing my mind and revising my opinions pretty much entirely. How are those arguments less valid than claims that 4E isn't D&D?

I haven't seen anybody accuse it of "not true D&D," and think that the complaints about it being "too anime" or "overpowered" are exactly the topic we're discussing in this thread: the fact that some people think that you MUST be a spellcaster to be extranormal, whereas my position is that you can have extranormal without being a spellcaster, but you have to think of it as "spellcasters" and "non-spellcasters" rather than "magic" and "mundane." Because we want nonspellcasters to have awesome, mighty, extranormal abilities that keep them in the same ballpark as spellcasters, and that means we can't insist that nonspellcasters also can't have anything we can't imagine a normal person IRL doing.

[Willie the Duck]

Okay, so 4E didn't "feel" like D&D because it didn't have some very specific things that you like. Meanwhile, here's what it does have: classes, races, levels. Fighters, rogues, wizards, clerics. Small teams of heroes having adventures, fighting monsters and finding treasure. Getting XP for individual monsters until you've gathered enough to go up a level. Alignment, demons and devils. All of those are things you don't find often, if ever, outside the D&D franchise. Certainly not all of them.

4E grew out of a particular way of thinking about D&D that came around in 3E's later years. It was different than its predecessors, but the same was true for every edition before that, and people had made "this doesn't feel like D&D anymore" arguments about 3E too. Or other games, for that matter - except hilariously enough, "this feels like D&D!" is a favourite condemnation among some other systems' fans.

So yeah, I'm not seeing it. Now obviously one doesn't have to enjoy it or think it's a worthwhile game - I don't like it that much myself. But to say it's "not D&D" just doesn't seem to serve any purpose except to shut down discussion.

Which is exactly what you are doing in the opposite direction. You are declaring someone else's feelings about the game invalid because you're 'not seeing it.' And you're trying to logic away the idea that 4E didn't feel like D&D to Segev, as if that would change how it felt to him.

Look, there's nothing to be had from this. The people that said that 4e wasn't D&D were obviously being hyperbolic and needlessly confrontational. And the defenders of 4e routinely couldn't accept that people genuinely didn't find 4e to be enough like the game they wanted and that that is a legitimate way to feel. There were all sorts of things alongside this (like a piss poor marketing campaign and people not really being done with 3e despite not purchasing much for it anymore), but the long and short is it was a fine product that wasn't what the base wanted and we can keep regrinding those axes as long as we want and it will not change anything.

[Max_Killjoy]

And part of the problem in these debates has consistently been that some participants will insist, beyond all explanation otherwise, that if you want to make non-casters able to keep up with spellcasters, then you're trying to make them spellcasters too, as if all "extranormal" has to be spellcasting or very much like spellcasting.

Yeah, I don't like that. I really don't. I fully agree with you on how those people, its kind of the problem I was trying to work against with my insistence that such "extranormal" stuff ISN'T magic because spellcasting and magic are almost practically interchangeable as terms, these same people have a tendency to call everything a spell and shout "I CAST FIST!!" its really annoying. I blame memes for this.

Yeah, this is why, in this thread, I codified that I think the real divide is between spellcasters and non-spellcasters, because while most of us don't want Conan, He-Man, Rocket Raccoon, or Goku to be spellcasters, few of us will balk at the notion that they are "extranormal" in their powers and prowess.

I definitely want non-spellcasting 20th level fighter-types, rogue-types, etc., but I also want those 20th level characters to be doing "extranormal" things. They just aren't casting spells to do it. This makes them not wizards, sorcerers, clerics, etc.

Then you get the other layer, the gamer who insists that their Fighter or other "martial" character must not be "extranormal" in any way, he's just a "normal guy" who is working hard and working smart and overcoming spellcasters by the sweat of his brow and the edge of his sword.

It's the inverse "guy at the gym" -- instead of "all non-spellcaster characters are limited to what I think a guy in the gym could do" it's "my character can punch out reality-warping city-melting spellcasters but I insist he's just a guy at the gym, nothing extranormal about him".

[Morty]

Which is exactly what you are doing in the opposite direction. You are declaring someone else's feelings about the game invalid because you're 'not seeing it.' And you're trying to logic away the idea that 4E didn't feel like D&D to Segev, as if that would change how it felt to him.

Look, there's nothing to be had from this. The people that said that 4e wasn't D&D were obviously being hyperbolic and needlessly confrontational. And the defenders of 4e routinely couldn't accept that people genuinely didn't find 4e to be enough like the game they wanted and that that is a legitimate way to feel. There were all sorts of things alongside this (like a piss poor marketing campaign and people not really being done with 3e despite not purchasing much for it anymore), but the long and short is it was a fine product that wasn't what the base wanted and we can keep regrinding those axes as long as we want and it will not change anything.

I guess it probably is best to drop it; it's my fault for going off on this tangent to begin with.

You've missed much of my point throughout the thread, I think. The line between "normal" and "extranormal" is fuzzy and broad. One could argue that a first level fighter is already extranormal based on the skill he shows in fighting compared to a first level warrior. Just by having a FEAT he might be "extranormal."

And those "extranormal" powers they develop aren't mysterious in terms of how they learn them: leveling up represents learning new things. These are new techniques they've mastered. They're "Extranormal" because they're just that much more than "normal." And they get moreso as you get deeper into the power curve.

And my point throughout this thread (or the last two pages, anyway), is that D&D has always had a lot of trouble actually treating non-casters as being as magical, as extraordinary and as special as casters, on fiction level in addition to the mechanical level. Or rather, that it starts with the fiction level and the mechanics follow suit. High-level wizards are described as masters of the arcane arts, et cetera; descriptions of high level non-casters struggle beyond describing them as really good at what they could already do on level one. It's not just a failure of mechanics to represent the goals of the game - the goals are skewed to begin with. Or, perhaps, it's working as intended, if the superiority of casters is the goal.

The line between "normal" and "extranormal" being fuzzy is precisely the problem. There's no distinct line of when, exactly, a fighter (or any other class without spells) becomes truly larger than life.

[Segev]

Then you get the other layer, the gamer who insists that their Fighter or other "martial" character must not be "extranormal" in any way, he's just a "normal guy" who is working hard and working smart and overcoming spellcasters by the sweat of his brow and the edge of his sword.

It's the inverse "guy at the gym" -- instead of "all non-spellcaster characters are limited to what I think a guy in the gym could do" it's "my character can punch out reality-warping city-melting spellcasters but I insist he's just a guy at the gym, nothing extranormal about him".

Oddly, I think the way to cater to them is to give them extranormal characters and carefully point out that their extranormality doesn't use "magic." But that they're obviously superspecialawesome mortals who are smarter and cleverer and harder-working than other, lesser mortals.

Because the truth is, "I want to punch out Cthulhu without being a cheaty mage or superhero," is just another kind of wanting to be somebody special. "My character is so smart/clever/awesome at life that he beat the bad guy with both arms tied behind his back!"

Look to Dark Souls and playing as...I think it's the "Deprived?"...and never picking up an item or leveling up.

And my point throughout this thread (or the last two pages, anyway), is that D&D has always had a lot of trouble actually treating non-casters as being as magical, as extraordinary and as special as casters, on fiction level in addition to the mechanical level. Or rather, that it starts with the fiction level and the mechanics follow suit. High-level wizards are described as masters of the arcane arts, et cetera; descriptions of high level non-casters struggle beyond describing them as really good at what they could already do on level one. It's not just a failure of mechanics to represent the goals of the game - the goals are skewed to begin with. Or, perhaps, it's working as intended, if the superiority of casters is the goal.

The line between "normal" and "extranormal" being fuzzy is precisely the problem. There's no distinct line of when, exactly, a fighter (or any other class without spells) becomes truly larger than life.

The "fiction level" of D&D has always been secondary. The game is a game first, and fiction is written around the mechanics, except where the DM decides to just fiat things to suit his narrative.

Settings are established to provide backdrops for adventuring; their sensibility to us is going to vary and be limited. That said, most writers have gone out of their way to at least explain the most obvious ones. The world is as it is because the powerful characters like it that way, or they're distracted by "more important" things that mean the PCs have to solve "more trivial" problems.

[Kraynic]

I've been lurking on these forums for some months, but this is one of the threads that caused me to go ahead and be able to post.

If the only thing you have ever played is D&D and very closely tied spin-offs, then all this debate about where the line between normal and "extranormal" falls makes sense. You have to have your normal melee, ranged, or sneaky types be demi-gods to compete with magic. You have to have the rest of the inhabitants of the world be dust beneath your feet (aside from specific allies/enemies), because that is what makes things "heroic". That is the way things are in D&D. But that isn't the way things have to be. Which is why I will play, but just refuse to run games in that system anymore.

For fantasy, I still run games in the old Palladium Fantasy system. I've no argument with the hate some people have for the layout of the books or the legal aggressiveness of the publisher, but the game does give you competent "normal" characters that are just as useful withing the game world as any of the magic classes. Magic can be powerful, but is still limited in such a way that it has the chance of being countered. And that system has been out of print for 25 years, so it isn't like the magic/mundane divide was just out of control in every game system ever.

But then, I prefer a game that isn't bordering on superheros in a fantasy setting. I much prefer reading fantasy novels of normal people that manage to navigate "interesting times" and live to tell the tale while gaining in skill and wisdom along the way. I prefer my characters being grounded in and among the common folk of the land. This is actually pretty difficult to make truly believable in some rpg systems. It seems that this type of thought and style of play is not appreciated among some people that have been posting here, and that is fine. Just don't assume that those of us that appreciate that style of story and play are thrilled about giving it up no matter how pretty the packaging of game system that does away with it.

[Max_Killjoy]

Oddly, I think the way to cater to them is to give them extranormal characters and carefully point out that their extranormality doesn't use "magic." But that they're obviously superspecialawesome mortals who are smarter and cleverer and harder-working than other, lesser mortals.

Because the truth is, "I want to punch out Cthulhu without being a cheaty mage or superhero," is just another kind of wanting to be somebody special. "My character is so smart/clever/awesome at life that he beat the bad guy with both arms tied behind his back!"

Look to Dark Souls and playing as...I think it's the "Deprived?"...and never picking up an item or leveling up.

That's where I came to "magic is as magic does". Which is not an assertion that all extranormal powers are magic -- it is my snarky way of saying that "but I'm not a spellcaster", the whole "spellcaster not spellcaster divide", is pretty much meaningless when it comes to discussing whether a character is "extranormal" or not.

In the context of your post, it would be "special is as special does". I don't care if the character is a spellcaster, a gunslinger, or an action-movie fist-master... if they can "punch out Cthulhu", then they're extranormal, and no amount of protestation to the contrary "because fantasy" will change that they are extranormal (settings in which normal people can punch out Cthulhu, and the typical lack of worldbuilding follow-through from that monumental tidbit, aside).

[Segev]

That's where I came to "magic is as magic does". Which is not an assertion that all extranormal powers are magic -- it is my snarky way of saying that "but I'm not a spellcaster", the whole "spellcaster not spellcaster divide", is pretty much meaningless when it comes to discussing whether a character is "extranormal" or not.

In the context of your post, it would be "special is as special does". I don't care if the character is a spellcaster, a gunslinger, or an action-movie fist-master... if they can "punch out Cthulhu", then they're extranormal, and no amount of protestation to the contrary "because fantasy" will change that they are extranormal (settings in which normal people can punch out Cthulhu, and the typical lack of worldbuilding follow-through from that monumental tidbit, aside).

Right. Batman IS exceptional. Memetic Batman especially so. No, he doesn't have defined, take-away-with-a-genoshan-collar "superpowers," but anybody who claims Batman is not extraordinary is lying to themselves. If he weren't, then he wouldn't be the singular expression of awesomeness that stands out above the other wackos who put on masks, cowls, and capes.

Spoiler: On the topic of settings in which normal people can punch out Cthulhu

Show

I have in the distant past of one of my settings a time when humans were put on the world to scourge the other races, and were expressly given the ability to cast wish as a standard action and limited wish as a swift action at will. The world was rocked by this, for obvious reasons, until the same gods that caused this revoked the powers, because humanity had achieved their goal of forcing an end to the wars between the other races. This led to a crippled, helpless humanity with no concept of how to do things without free supermagic being beaten into the stone age and to near extinction, taking so long to "come back" that other races' forgot about them then rediscovered them as primitive, stone-age savages with nothing special to elevate them much above other beasts.

This actually came up only as "interesting history" except for the tombs of a few ancient human leaders where the spirits of the world still clung to the old permissions...which meant the human PCs in the party could use the above-mentioned powers at will while in said tomb. It was interesting to see just how scared this made the players, and they very carefully didn't make too many wishes. Even the powergamer only wished for his best stat to go up by 1, not by 5.

[Morty]

The "fiction level" of D&D has always been secondary. The game is a game first, and fiction is written around the mechanics, except where the DM decides to just fiat things to suit his narrative.

Settings are established to provide backdrops for adventuring; their sensibility to us is going to vary and be limited. That said, most writers have gone out of their way to at least explain the most obvious ones. The world is as it is because the powerful characters like it that way, or they're distracted by "more important" things that mean the PCs have to solve "more trivial" problems.

Fiction isn't just the setting. It's all the flavor text surrounding the mechanics. Such as class descriptions - it's the first thing many players will see, when they set out to make a character. D&D has always certainly had an odd relationship to its fiction. It's not a truly universal system, like FATE or GURPS, but it's not tied to a particular setting.

Considering the regularity with which the question from this thread comes up, and the way people keep talking past each other every time, I'm inclined to think this approach isn't working too well. Consider also the strong resistance against the very notion of "martial superpowers" and the people for whom the superiority of casters is a feature, not a bug.

[Segev]

Considering the regularity with which the question from this thread comes up, and the way people keep talking past each other every time, I'm inclined to think this approach isn't working too well. Consider also the strong resistance against the very notion of "martial superpowers" and the people for whom the superiority of casters is a feature, not a bug.

I've seen the strong resistance to giving extranormal powers to noncasters, but I haven't seen anybody claiming that the disparity is a feature. Usually, the debate comes down to whether you want to nerf casters or buff noncasters, and the former side gets upset at the idea of doing the latter on the basis that "martial superpowers" are "not realistic" or somesuch.