Swinging a sword doesn't require mana/reagents/incredibly precise incantations/whatever shit is in place to not let the wizard just fire off shit without limit

>>94418466
With good saves, a good health pool, and high mobility. Some spells just don't break down that easily, but if you get within punching distance of a wizard, they're gonna have a bad time.

>>94418466
Things move slower in anime/fantasy/etc, to the point where you can dodge bullets, even fucking lightning.

The brute lethal effectiveness of physics has no true place in raw tabletop. Just try changing my mind.

>>94418509
Shut up loser

>>94418507
>Things move slower in anime/fantasy/etc, to the point where you can dodge bullets, even fucking lightning.
And this is why I detest typical tabletop.

Just let casters rape people with magic for fuck’s sake. Why do you have to change how light works for the sake of your gay ass knights?
Don’t like how easy the magic is? Make it ritualistic and temperamental, then. Holy shit just fuck off.

Is magic even magic if it’s fair? It likely isn’t fair even to the magic user.

>>94418466
With the army they command, obviously. Removing this aspect from d&d raped martials 100* harder than the mage being able to cast fireball

>>94418526
Considering that most mythical magicians and sorcerers needed spell components and magic circles and specially made tools to do their shit, you should be blaming tabletop for dumbing magic the fuck down as well.

>>94418551
It's 3e and buildautism's fault: Everyone is too obsessed with gay builds to care about the real meat, meaning domains and armies.

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>>94418466
Anti magic armor

>>94418526
>>94418559
It’s not only that, being a wizard or some sorcerer was often also about repute and prestige. “The more effortless the sorcery appears, the more men fear the sorcerer” is such an apt saying. A wizard is free to spin their “magic” however they wish. The magician need not reveal their secrets. It is psychology, that is the birthplace of all magic (and religion) to begin with. This is why charisma and wisdom not being a vital part of the wizard class in dee n’ dee so fucking offensive. The magician might not even realize what they do looks like a form of magic, very much the same way the elves in Tolkien’s middle-earth don’t enchant themselves—their works/doings only enchant men and hobbits.

They compete by being in a game that properly accounts for all its powers and makes all its player options viable against an acceptable amount of the game's challenges.
They don't compete by being in a narrative system masquerading as a game, whose contents were just thrown together and weren't tweaked to account for each other, just because they were pop culture references the creators liked and the subsequent owners kept in.

Next.

>>94418466
Swing their sword HARDER

>>94418634 (cont)
And Gandalf is a wise ass even to elves, and Saruman is so charismatic it’s like mind control. That’s all a wizard is. One of sufficient, sagely knowledge/wisdom to share.

>>94418466
Usually by continuing to be useful and effective even after the casters have burned through all their mana/spell slots

>>94418643
>They compete by being in a game that properly accounts for all its powers and makes all its player options viable against an acceptable amount of the game's challenges.
Such as?

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Cybernetics.

>>94418714
Dunno.
I haven't found one yet, so I just make my own.

>>94418643
But that’s artificial as fuck.

>>94418714
Funnily enough, WFRP.
Though, if I were a wizard, I would fear the guy with the gun or bow the most.

>>94418727
>a world that properly accounts for its dangers and quirks is artificial
Sure thing.

>>94418727
Yes, that's what games are. They are made by people.

>>94418746
Are you actually retarded?
>>94418749
This one is actually correct.

>>94418731
>Though, if I were a wizard, I would fear the guy with the gun or bow the most.
Really? Not another wizard who spies in astral projection form? Not the wizard who causes sudden cardiac arrest using black magic assassination rituals in the safety of their sanctum basement?

Fantasy is so uninspired these days…

>>94418762
>Are you actually retarded?
I'm actually able to use words to express my stance on an issue, so no.

>Just let casters rape people with magic for fuck’s sake. Why do you have to change how light works for the sake of your gay ass knights?

This.
If you let cringe martials dodge light you are basically saying they’re the Flash. Why would you do that? This is also why FromSoft game like Sekiro suck too btw. Hur durr, Samurai bullet deflect, hurr durrr.

inb4 “but it’s kewwwwwwl”

Yeah no fuck you

>>94418782
You think balance of this sort exists anywhere in nature? Do you also think humans are magical unicorns that are all the same? A wizard who casts spontaneous SHOULD kill you. A magic missile to the face SHOULD kill you.

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>>94418771
I know I would, if only because next to nobody ever comes at a wizard solely with a single gun or bow in hand without some kind of far nastier backup you haven't yet figured out.

>>94418771
Nobody wants magic to be too effective anon. They want their wizards to cast a slow moving ball of green energy that only does 1/3 of their stamina in “damage”.

>>94418799
>You think balance of this sort exists anywhere in nature?
We wouldn't be having this conversation, if it didn't.
We'd all be dead.
That, or still hiding in fear from tigers in dung huts.

>>94418811
Fate magic is cringe as fuck. Keyneth is also an idiot. This entire arc was set up by someone who is obsessed with guns or something. Nobody uses magic like a smart person in this setting.

>>94418819
>he thinks the equilibrium of life is game balance
>he thinks causality/evolution is fair
LOL

No, you stupid bitch. Time moves in one (1) dimension. Survival of the fittest.

>>94418819
Humans and tigers aren’t balanced. The use of technology to beat this gap isn’t at all balanced.

>>94418771
I was speaking about that system specifically.
Sorry for trying to make this about an actual game.

>>94418835
>he thinks evolution isn't a creature's legacy accounting for its world's challenges
Check and mate.

If you can’t dodge bullets, you shouldn’t be able to dodge magic missiles.

>>94418846
Technology was created as humans accounted for the existence of tigers.
Oh wait, no, accounting for a challenge is artificial, though. Never mind.

>>94418857
>he thinks life doesn’t bottleneck itself into absolutely fucked positions with no way of escaping
You don’t know what check and mate means.

>>94418824
I think that's kind of the implied point, and it's more or less lampshaded in some cases IIRC. Mages are up their own ass and completely out of touch. Note that Kiritsugu was considered vile for his methods, as it was just a matter of having bad taste or something.

>>94418466
>casually
depends on your setting and system.
Some (e.g. real life (tm)) required rituals and long invocations, and then you can just grab everyone that has books not approved by the church, everyone that looks strange, everyone that may be a witch or wizard, and so on, and burn them all on the stake. Worked for us.

>>94418835
Nature isn't fair, but he still has a point, nature reaches equilibriums which closely resemble a form of game balance. And when nature can't reach equilibrium (such as, say, right now) it usually means that an extinction event of some sort is playing out. If not for the equilibriums then we wouldn't be here.

>>94418867
>some species have bottlenecked themselves, that means the entirety of all evolution doesn't properly adapt ever

>>94418864
Everything humans do is artificial. But the world itself isn’t. It just runs. It doesn’t go on to create perfectly carved statues of a Buddha without first producing intelligent life capable of conceiving of such a thing.

No amount of infinite mathematical odds will just randomly produce a machine gun making factory. Exploding fruits aren’t an example of true grenades, either.

Any sort of fantasy has to be entertained by some intelligence to reinforce this sort of “balance”. Religion wouldn’t work with no intelligent beings to reinforce it—be it on the humans end, or “the gods”, “the powers that be”, etc.

Aliens are more or less required for this sort of magic/fantasy. The variables and parameters are too severe, sophisticated, for humans or uncaring nature to create.

In no way will nature ever make a human and a tiger 50:50 in all areas for the sake of some narrative.

>>94418868
>all mages are stupid
>all gun fags are smart
Yeah, no.
>>94418872
>Nature isn't fair, but he still has a point, nature reaches equilibriums which closely resemble a form of game balance.
That’s not resembling game balance, that’s just life managing to exist in one course of time. How it survives (the whole meaning of life is to continue itself) is not balanced. Ever. The slightest advantage can rapidly change everything.

>>94418872
>out. If not for the equilibriums then we wouldn't be here.
Is that really the only sort of “balance” you can find within nature? My point has been proven. Nature isn’t fair or balanced beyond it managing to work.

Now cope for me.

>>94418647
Gandalf has always and will always be a terrible example for any sort of Traditional Game spellcaster. The only game in which literally playing as Gandalf would be remotely acceptable is some gonzo capeshit nonsense like Mutants & Masterminds, where the literal fucking angel who's almost as old as creation can hang out with Dr. Fate and Superman.

"Uh, GM, can I secretly be an enormously ancient, wise, and powerful angel guiding the entire party on their mission and merely pretending to be a feeble old man because it amuses me and I don't want to shatter their minds with the revelation of my true nature?" is not an acceptable player character for any party-based traditional fantasy system. Gandalf is a max level DMPC who's only not insufferable because Lord of the Rings is a linear book with a beginning, middle, and end, and he has the decency to fuck off for a good while so as to not kill all tension and stakes until he returns.

He is not a player character. Wanting to play Gandalf is like playing WHFRP with a Ratcatcher, Town Guard, Burgher, and then the fourth guy saying "cool, cool, cool...so anyways I'm thinking of playing as ARCHAON THE EVERCHOSEN, you guys are okay with that right?"

>>94418887
>all gun fags are smart
No one said that, we see just two of them, who happen to be professionals, and one of them is a mage as well.
What we also see is that mages behave according to codes of conduct, more or less unspoken agreements that work between themselves, their methods are warped by dealing with others like them, and some of them do all of this due to obsessions regarding higher purposes that may or may not make sense to others. There is no judgement in this, and it all works until factors like a mage that doesn't behave like a mage enters the equation. They went along for generations perfectly fine.

>>94418887
>That’s not resembling game balance,
Yes it is.
>The slightest advantage can rapidly change everything.
That's what good game balance looks like. Bad game balance is when you can be better and still lose because you chose the wrong faction. Good game balance is when any faction could theoretically pull ahead based on the slightest advantage.
Nature constantly produces equilibriums which resemble good game balance. This is a good thing. When nature fails to resemble good game balance (i.e, when nature has one faction that's simply winning because it's the best faction) that means that things are going catastrophically wrong.

>>94418714
>Such as?
Vampire the Masquerade
Exalted
4th edition D&D
Tunnels & Trolls
Dark Heresy

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Is it just me or is the Martial v Caster complaint completely overblown by people who don't actually play games? My experience having mostly DM'd numerous systems over ~15 years is usually the following;

Casters are only really useful around mid-game, like level 6-13, in both Pathfinder and D&D. This is a point where Martials haven't come fully online and Casters start getting lots of wacky features and shit that the DM needs to prepare for, with a list of monsters that usually aren't equipped to handle.
But by the time you get to level 20, Martials BTFO Casters in every single fight. Casters have more utility and often have "one big turn" where they blow a bunch of features and an 8th/9th level spell. Every other turn is like a 50/50 where their spells outright miss, don't really do that much damage, or only maintain effect for a turn or two. Dealing with Casters is just an annoyance.
On the other hand, having a Barbarian with 200+ HP and resistance to fucking everything where your only solution is have enemies he physically cannot hit, or having a Ranger who is doing 50 damage per Arrow, or Fighters who can trip, stun, disengage, taunt, redirect damage, and heal all in one fucking turn are much, much more obnoxious to deal with.

The only Caster that is ever really an issue in a game are Clerics or other healing classes that make killing PCs incredibly hard to do. Otherwise literally just send like two goons after a Caster and they fall over.

>>94418881
And yet this doesn't contradict the idea that it is natural for a world to account for its challenges.
Technology is a human construct, but it was constructed to adapt to challenges the humans faced. Therefore, having a game reflect such adaptability and foresight isn't artificial; it comes from something that has happened.

You lost the main idea of the point when you decided to wax philosophical about nature and artifice, because you have a disdain for all of a game's options being viable.
You have talked in a circle, and require a reminder of what was being argued in the first place, effectively wasting the time of everyone involved in this conversation, whether in this reply chain, or those whose responses were blithely ignored for your own convenience.
The point is that the inhabitants of a world will account for the dangers and challenges of said world, or it will be wiped out. Thus, in the context of a game, an option that would be wiped out by its challenges has no place existing in said game.

Retard.

>>94418920
This. The whole point was that honor and tradition are only as worth as much as the other side is willing to adhere to, and Kayenth was a moron who refused to accept that he wasn't participating in a large scale mage duel but in a full blown war. Frankly, if it wasn't Kiritsugu just using a bunch of c4 or a sniper rifle to deal with him, it would have been Assassin being ordered to stab Kayenth in the back disguised as the man's wife, or Gilgamesh sniping him by railgun firing caladbolg through the guy's window, or fucking Berserker headbutting the building until he gave up then hijacked a bus and rammed it straight through the building. Magicians in almost every media do have an unstated weakness in that they can prepare for ALMOST anything but they can't prepare for EVERYTHING.

>>94418931
>by people who don't actually play games
Absolutely.

>>94418931
in Pathfinder a druid can transform into a better damage dealer than most non-highly optimized martial characters (and with some options like Fey Form, even better than optimized ones) while also having a mega buffed animal companion with Pounce doing the same, and still be a 9th level caster
In 5th edition D&D the problem is not so much about combat performance (especially against enemies with a laundry list of immunities and legendary resistance), it's in the utility gap and how cucked Bounded Accuracy makes martials in anything besides rolling to attack.

A hundred Thugs will kill basically every melee martial in 5e even at level cap due to bounded accuracy, a max level spellcaster can be literally immune to their damage or simply turn into a fucking dragon and eat them, or have an army of summons or undead minions or just cast one spell that covers several square miles to kill them all.

5e also caps attributes so martials never become capable of superhuman performance. You have 20 strength as early as level 6 and it never goes up from then.in 3.5/PF1E you could easily be a Barbarian with like 40 strength and sunder castle walls with your bare hands, throwing dragons around and shit. In 5e you're a bit better than a guy who goes to the gym a lot, but thanks to Bounded Accuracy you can still lose contested checks even against random goblins or those thugs, because the d20 roll is most of your check total. Oops sorry you rolled a 6 and the wolf rolled a 14, you're now tripped and pinned. Very heroic level 20 antics.

In 3.5,/PF1E the utility gap could always be solved with sufficient gold investment, since there was a magic item economy all characters participated in equally. In 5e you can't just craft or buy a laundry list of magic items to have similar or better utility than a caster and cover your weaknesses. You can't pay some fucker to Permanency a bunch of spell effects on you so you're not reliant on begging casters for buffs. There's no UMD.

>>94418939
He was destined to fail when his only strategy boiled down to "turtle here and hope the others are retards that walk into my traps". He had no plan B, wasn't proactive, didn't get much info. If he actually got alexander, and he didn't kill him, he wouldn't have managed much anyway.

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>>94418881
>Everything humans do is artificial.
This is one of the stupidest post on /tg/ right now. There's strong competition today but you're in the running.

>>94418466
Simple, martials have martial magic. Less refined and more instinctive, but still powerful.
Shit like Matrix bullettime reflexes, jumping around like in a wuxia movie, deflecting arrows, empowering their strikes with sheer willpower to break through anything, and so on.

>>94418914
>player character logic
A god can be a wizard. Look at Odin.

>>94418526
>Why do you have to change how light works for the sake of your gay ass knights?
And why not, you massive autist?

>>94418928
>Yes it is.
Nope. Cope. See>>94418900
>That's what good game balance looks like.
So—you agree that a caster should be many times more powerful than a martial because they have the equivalent of a gun, yeah? That’s balanced?

>>94418811
>>94418939
>>94418991
This is beyond cringe

>>94419007
You do know where the word comes from right? Artificial, artifice, artifex, etc, come from ART.

Even a gross ass hideous and blocky 90s computer will have an essential design in its production.

You can’t technically separate art from its counterpart—science. 2ppwrd

>>94419025
Cringe on what?

>>94418466
>complete
assuming you meant compete, they don't as there is no competition. You are a team.

>>94419025
Care to elaborate, or just going to be angry about annie mays on a mongolian basketweaving forum?

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>>94418466

>>94418526
>And this is why I detest typical tabletop.
>Just let casters rape people with magic for fuck’s sake. Why do you have to change how light works for the sake of your gay ass knights?
That's not what's happening. The anon you're talking to is retarded. What actually happens is that martials are superhumanly tough and fast, so of course they can just power through a fireball.

>>94418931
>Casters are only useful in the levels everyone players
>Once you get to the very final level then Martials get to do better (in my head, because every bit of math shows me to be wrong)

>>94419014
>A god can be a wizard. Look at Odin
You're also not going to be playing Odin in any game besides fucking marvel capeshit slop or Mutants & Masterminds

>>94418977
>but thanks to Bounded Accuracy you can still lose contested checks even against random goblins or those thugs
In Pathfinder your epic hero will still lose an arm wrestling contest against the level 30 prison warden/random thug though

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>>94419054
>What actually happens is that martials are superhumanly tough and fast
Okay.
>so of course they can just power through a fireball.
Not lightning. Not bullets to the face. Not spontaneous head explosions.

>>94419007
But, he’s not wrong. You’re the retard.

>>94419022
As my first statement about guns in RPGs, I'd say that there are two basic options, one being to make an interesting asymmetrical game about the end of the age of swords (very hard), and the other being to make an arbitrarily balanced game where nongun weapons have arbitrary advantages (also hard but not quite so hard as making a good asymmetrical game).
As for game balance in nature, yes, cope. Good game balance exists all through nature, nature is just layer after layer after layer of exquisite game design, because the one good thing that you can always say about nature is that it's heavily playtested.

>>94419017
Because then by that point you’re the fucking Flash?

Martialfags literally do not see the issue with balance implications LMAOOOO

>>94418466
By being able to tank said sparkly bullets and being able to cleave mountains with a strike.
https://youtu.be/lUQcS4xhhqo

>>94419140
>Good game balance exists all through nature
Nope. Look up the Laryngeal nerve.

Nature/evolution is an overly sophisticated blind idiot.

The kind of balance they’re taking about is shit like “all races are equal and just as capable as each other :)” which is, quite frankly, a load of BS.

Women will never be as strong or as physically capable as men either. Most scientific and artistic accomplishments were conducted by men.

Life is not a balanced game. Sorry.

>>94419134
>Not lightning.
Plenty of normal people do.
>Not bullets to the face.
Again, plenty of normal people do.
>Not spontaneous head explosions.
When you think about it, isn't that what a bullet to the face effectively is?

>>94419162
>Plenty of normal people do.
Lightning moves 30,000 times faster than a bullet. You can only argue surviving it—not dodging it outright. It’s the same with bullets.
>Again, plenty of normal people do.
Nope. Mythbusters already did this skit. You can only predict the line of fire before the bullet has been fired, and that’s not really dodging.
>When you think about it, isn't that what a bullet to the face effectively is?
No. A bullet implies a trajectory. A head spontaneously exploding could be from higher dimensional sources, or just some psychic wizard blinking a person dead. Wolverine can’t escape Professor X.

>>94419189
You said "power through", not dodge, assface

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>>94418466
A lance through the chest tends to work well.
Wizards are rarer than knights. Wizard training takes longer, and is more expensive than training to be a knight. Just as all men are not fit to be knights, not all men are fit to be wizards. A wizard's lack of armor and strength means they tend to die from blows that would only wound a knight.
Wizards also suffer from higher casualty rates early on in their training and careers. Accidental death from experiments, annoyed masters using them as test subjects, ill advised pacts with demons, etc.
Knights on the other hand tend to survive their mistakes thanks to heavy armor and codes of conduct that perpetuate a ransom system.
At the end of the day a king may have thousands of knights at under his command, but only a dozen or so wizards that are both skilled and trustworthy he can call upon.

>>94419211
Good to know that dragons and other magical monsters don't exist in your game.

I like how my post, which didn't concern "game balance" at all, ended up causing an argument about game balance.
/tg/ sure is an intelligent board.

>>94419252
This is a repeatedly spammed troll thread. Don't judge the board by what's contained in it.

>>94419158
>The kind of balance they’re taking about is shit like “all races are equal and just as capable as each other :)” which is, quite frankly, a load of BS.
No, every species is like that, its advantages are equally matched to its disadvantages. If its advantages were slightly greater, then it would expand and fill more niches and diversify. If its disadvantages were slightly greater then it would shrink and approach extinction while also having the option to specialize and reach a smaller equilibrium within a smaller space. The only disturbances come from changes in the environment or changes elsewhere in the ecosystem, given enough time every species would seek a perfect equilibrium between predators, prey and competitors. Competitive game balance can never be more than a feeble echo of the balances produced by nature.
>Women will never be as strong or as physically capable as men either. Most scientific and artistic accomplishments were conducted by men.
lol, sure, but making babies is actually overpowered. All men were accomplished by women. But it's okay for women to be overpowered because they aren't actually competing with men, they're allied units, they benefit from having different roles.

>>94419200
…..idiot

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>>94419134
>Not lightning. Not bullets to the face. Not spontaneous head explosions.
Why not?

>>94419261
>its advantages are equally matched to its disadvantages

You can’t actually believe this.

This board has a royal misunderstanding of how much of a bitch evolution is.

>>94419091
Both posts were referring to Pathfinder 1e. The 17th level street thugs shit is something unique to PF2E which doesn't even give enemies and monsters class levels anymore unlike 3.5/pf1e, and is as different from 1e/3.5 as 4e is

>>94419261
>lol, sure, but making babies is actually overpowered
You only need a single male to put babies into as many women as you want. Males are quality over quantity.

>>94419261
>a perfect equilibrium between predators, prey and competitors.
That’s not really a good example of game balance outside of life managing to exist at all. Which is to say, it’s just existence as it is. There’s absolutely a type of balance required for physics to run its course, sure, but that’s not really the sort of balance people are speaking of here.

Is life/survival a “game”? Sure, but it’s not balanced or fair. Equivalencies don’t truly exist anywhere in nature. At best, you’ve got cases of convergent evolution. Crabs.

>>94419134
dodging lightning and bullets is fine as long as you're simply dodging the source firing it. Yeah, lightning moves at the speed of light, but the wizard chanting magic words and pointing his fingers, staff, or wand at you doesn't speak at the speed of light or move his hands at the speed of light, so you can just dodge his aim the same way you can dodge out of the way or somebody pointing a gun at you. You don't need to be faster than the bullet, you need to be faster than the guy's hand and finger pulling the trigger. And most people have terrible aim outside of point blank range
>head explode
well, that depends what actual mechanism is making your head explode. how does the spell target somebody? Is it automatic, does he need to aim? Do even normal people have souls and some degree of spiritual power in this world? Is it literally microwaving the blood in your body or some shit?

>>94418526
>Why do you have to change how light works for the sake of your gay ass knights?
Why do you have to change how light works for the sake of your gay ass casters?

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>>94418466
The same way it works in LotR; do literally anything, and they die like bitches.

>>94418466
Just make your saving throw nigga

>>94419290
Anon. You’re just admitting that a wizard wins if they get their spell off successfully. You can only predict, and this won’t be a good method of anticipating a spell done out of their notice.

This is fine. It’s like Game of Thrones. A magic-user either succeeds at a ritual or they don’t. That ritual may not be about killing someone either—the idea that all magic has to be violent is also stupid.

>>94419262
You are, yes.

>>94419292
They don’t. The reason why casters win is because light is just that overpowered. Physics is brutally effective and doesn’t fuck around.

;^)

>>94419290
>well, that depends what actual mechanism is making your head explode. how does the spell target somebody? Is it automatic, does he need to aim?

Lol. You can hypothetically see a fireball coming to dodge it, even straight out of the wizard’s pointy index finger. You can’t see some spontaneous combustion effect that may as will begin inside your body.

Can you dodge a heart attack?

>>94418792
You should go back to /v/ and shitpost about FromSoft games being bad when it's really your own ego getting in the way of accepting you're just bad at them.

>>94419338
Given you haven't explained the precise mechanism for said heart attack, hypothetically yes. Even the Death Note's insta-kill was stoppable by its own retarded ruleset after all.

>>94419292
>Why do you have to change how light works for the sake of your gay ass knights?
>Why do you have to change how light works for the sake of your gay ass casters?
Why wouldn't you change how light works? If my setting has flat earth, flat sun, and gravity powered by a cosmic dragon at the bottom of the world, why would light work the same way it works in our world? Total realismfag death.

>>94419338
You haven't answered the question though. How does the spell initiate and target somebody? If a wizard needs to be able to physically see you and chant ABRA CADABRA to pop your head, there's now countless ways to interfere with the casting and targeting, does he need to also point a finger or staff at you? You've now introduced dozens of points of failure. You can stop or interrupt him from speaking, stop him from pointing at you, obscure his vision, avoid his wand or finger, simply shoot him in the face the moment he opens his mouth, or simply hide and not let him look at you

If this is some capeshit scenario where Evil Charles Xavier uses his psychic powers to automatically detect everyone with a brain within a hundred mile radius and pop their heads effortlessly and instantaneously, sure, there's not much you can do, but now you have firmly moved into the realm of capeshit and the """"martials""" fighting against this threat will be Superman, Batman, Iron Man, or the Hulk, not Conan the Barbarian. Even modern Dungeons and Dragons still requires line of sight, line of effect, material, verbal, and somatic components and allows a saving throw.

>>94419351
You are SOOOO fucking dumb, wow.

>>94419367
Still waiting for a proper answer, redditard

>>94419360
>How does the spell initiate and target somebody?

Ruh roh- are you one of those retards that thinks all magic should be capable of being resisted like it’s all sourced to the same shit or something?

Fuck. Off.

>>94419269
You only think this because you're judging species on some criteria other than survival. Like I said, the one good thing that you can always say about nature is that it's heavily playtested.

>>94419360
>the """"martials""" fighting against this threat will be Superman, Batman, Iron Man, or the Hulk, not Conan the Barbarian
Superman is magic. Batman functions like a wizard. The Hulk defies all sense of conservation of mass, and is frequently touted as one of the more absurd/“magical” superheroes, because of that. So, wizard. Iron Man is also a scientist, so, a wizard in a suit of magic.

inb4 “science isn’t magic noooo”

You suck at this.

>>94419371
Please answer the question.

>>94419371
If it's good enough for myth and legend and children's books, it's good enough for adult make believe scenarios

>>94419381
Confirmed for complete retard, wow

>>94419381
>Inb4 “science isn’t magic noooo”
in that case every non-monk character is a wizard, since wearing armor and using weapons apparently makes you a wizard.
Full plate? Wizard
Crossbow? Wizard
Longsword? Wizard
Caltrops? Wizard

>>94419375
>Like I said, the one good thing that you can always say about nature is that it's heavily playtested.
In a sense. It still doesn’t observe itself, not unless you consider intelligent life to poetically be “the universe creating life to observe itself”, which can suffice, sure.

Like, it “play tests” disastrous results all the time, where it can’t be anything but an overly sophisticated blind idiot “god”—a la Azathoth. It’s asleep.

Shit like the Laryngeal nerve is often the only form of proof you need, to see that nature is an idiot.

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>>94419360
>Spells require verbal components
It's actually funny how casterfags seethe when you point out how easy it is to stop their bullshit and they immediate start citing angle shooting examples on why it wouldn't work, when their entire premise ITT is that rules feel too "artificial for balance purposes."

>>94418466
>How do martials complete with the people who can casually fire the equivalent of sparkly bullets from their fingertips
One has faster reaction speed and actual defense, the other is a slow but heavy nuke that needs protection while casting, I'd say they complete each other quite well.

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>>94419390
Lol, you don’t see the nuance. Science is literally a true descendent of past occult/“magical” thought The modern day wizard is literally just the mad/“mad” scientist poking at the edges of our understanding.

Plate armor. Crossbows. Swords. Etc. These are already subject to exposure and are no longer magic. Exposure logic is what makes magic.

There WAS a time when metallurgists and smiths were seen as wizards due to their lesser know esoteric tradecrafts. It has a lot of overlap with alchemy.

People who call gunmen and bomb makers “martials” are actually retarded.

>>94418771
>not cutting the spy's astral cord leaving him stranded on the other side
>not reflecting the entirety of the murdercurse on the retard who dared attack you while you're within YOUR system of magical wards
Sounds like a skill issue.

>>94419395
Caw-blade is also an idiot but it worked. Same with turret spam in early WarcraftIII. Or those all-flying lists that crop up in Warhammer sometimes. Fish crawled on land to get away from predation and then started walking and then started running and flapping and then learned to fly and flew south and then they went back into the fucking water. That's retarded, the whole story, completely retarded. But at every stage they were locked in a beautiful competitive equilibrium with every species around them.
Sometimes nature crashes, and it's equivalent to combo winter at your LGS, except that (I hope) your LGS recovers much more quickly.

>>94418811
How did he enter the magical superfortress to place the explosives though? It either takes extended planning (which should be discovered during the process of divining said fortress' safety), or the defenses are nowhere near as good as advertised.

>>94418466
assassins kill magic users when they go to sleep. suffer not the witch.

>>94419399
Are you really arguing that Dungeons & Dragons is a perfectly naturally formed existence rather than a game-ish artificial one? Really? Kek.

“b-but what if we disable their speech and wands and other components and stuff”

Okay. Now what if you can’t? Do you just expect to survive your brain turning into a lump of coal because “Santa is literally a wizard”?

>>94419446
My point still stands. Nature is incapable of producing a kinoplex theatre without it first producing intelligent life to take such advantages of physics. It wouldn’t naturally produce your favorite video game. That level of artistic sophistication is practically required for magic, outside of humans artistically interpreting nature as something it isn’t. ALL examples of magic in fiction are “alive” or “intelligent” in such a way. Hence artificial. Nature would just never.

>>94419457
No, the casterfags ITT are complaining because made up magic shit is gamified. I'm mocking them openly for how actually retarded they are.

>>94419450
The answer is the latter. The mage's defenses were maintained by booking all 24 floors of a particular apartment building, then magicking it the fuck down. He was just negligent enough to forget or not even consider the hotel's basement level, which is where the other guy snuck his explosives in and blew the entire foundation to smithereens. Which is pretty emblematic of how most wizards get their shit pushed in with myth and legend, really, overlooking one crucial detail in their perfect defenses that one jackass manages to exploit by luck or cleverness.

>>94419472
>made up magic shit is gamified
It always is. It’s to the point now where I find it weird how in-setting characters are not questioning their world more.
>I'm mocking them openly for how actually retarded they are.
You’re mocking them for wanting more realism and less game-ish-ness? That they want physics to actually work like physics?

>>94419515
Yes, because magic isn't fucking real, and this is a board/discussion that involves table top role playing games, which are nothing more than an artificially developed set of rules. Holy fucking shit, aquire an ounce of perspective and realize where you even are.

>>94418914
Outside of the Hobbits, most of the Fellowship are special snowflakes.

>Rightful King of 90% of the world.
>Prince of the most powerful human kingdom in the world.
>Prince of the wood elves.
>Member of the Royal family of the Dwarfs.

Even the hobbits are all nobles, or at least from well off families, if I remember correctly.

>>94419560
Sam, Gimli and Gandalf are the only non-princes, and Sam is the only proper commoner in the party. Frodo is just the heir to bag-end but that's still a big deal where he comes from.

>>94418466
usually by casually cutting their head off as they try
>b-but the wizard
and then comes the argument that a level 20 wizard should beat a level 1 fighter every time, which is fair, but is also a retarded point to make since a level 20 fighter could also kill a level 1 wizard every time
why do "some people" think that game balance shouldn't exist when it comes to magic?

>>94418466
Break their fingers.

>>94419559
>because magic isn't fucking real
In what way? Even if magic (of that sort) were real, it would need an intelligent sort of background to justify its functions and other variables and parameters.

There’s too much constructed framework in myth and folklore, in order to justify its working existence. It’s more advanced than anything we have today.

Because again, nature/causality won’t be forming perfectly carved statues of Jesus, let alone the Christian religion and all of its fairly logic. Not without first producing intelligent life to entertain such.

Fantasy is more sophisticated than plain sci-fi, if you really want to justify its highly artistic logic.

>>94418914
>"Uh, GM, can I secretly be an enormously ancient, wise, and powerful angel guiding the entire party on their mission and merely pretending to be a feeble old man because it amuses me and I don't want to shatter their minds with the revelation of my true nature?" is not an acceptable player character for any party-based traditional fantasy system.
To be honest, as long as the player can pull that character off and it's not simply for the sake of starting at higher power than the other PCs, ie actually be a guiding hand, not a powerhouse to steamroll the plot, it's not that bad of a proposal.

>>94419596
>fairly logic
faulty logic*

Autism the thread

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>>94418526
>pre-dorks & dumbasses/vidyatard magic was always portrayed as complicated rituals requiring specific materials and when spells worked they really didn't do much of anything
>even the most powerful wizard or sorcerer is just a glorified competent alchemist that has a few magical trinkets laying around and can cast a few very basic spells that practically kill him to do so and they mostly rely on trickery and illusions to project their power
>tableslop gives your average nobody level 1 wizard a multitude of powers no single magician was ever portrayed as possessing entirely making your average lv1 wizard a demigod compared to how magic was portrayed before the slop era but the designers also slightly toned down some of the damage to give martials a fighting chance
>massive retards on /tg/ who only consoom fantasyslop made after 1981: "WHY IS MAGIC SO TONED DOWN IN TABLESLOP?! THAT'S NOT REALISTIC AT ALL!"

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>>94418526
Nerds deserve to be bullied.

>>94419665
They don't want to play a wizard, they want to play demigods, or even outright gods.
Hurling lightning bolts at will is the power of Zeus, not random human wizard.
Same shit with necromancy. Instead of asking questions to the dead, they want to play God of Death and bring people from dead to serve them.

>>94418466
Anti magic equipment? Magic proof armor, magic nullifying talismans, swords that can cut trough magic. You as playable character are way above standard NPC, have equipment reflecting that, it's your fucking job, just Firefighters have fireproof suits and gas masks you should be prepared to face mage or dragon.

>>94419665
By realistic do you mean effective? For a long time, drug makers were compared to sorcerers, for their ability to make ‘poison’ capable of causing hallucination or death.

You can kill someone using eye droppers. Chemistry is scary potent. It -will- fucking kill you. Nerve gas.

>even the most powerful wizard or sorcerer is just a glorified competent alchemist that has a few magical trinkets laying around and can cast a few very basic spells that practically kill him to do so and they mostly rely on trickery and illusions to project their power
So like Game of Thrones? Wizards are just people, who can maaaaybe perform a scary ritual. Or they’re just learned men who appear to be wizards due to esoteric knowledge bases. Repute is often a huge asset of the sorcerer, magician, etc. Cult leaders.

But I agree. Magic should be a lot more subtle, and a magician’s magic should be a lot more detached from the magician. It is more so materialistic, even the spiritual side (past alchemists thought they could transmute, or change, the soul the same as any other substance).

Inhuman wizards are fun too, though. An alien sage, etc.

>>94418526
Hercules was the greatest Greek hero, followed by the likes of Achilles and Perseus, not Medea or other sorceress.

>>94419696
What? No. See >>94419704

They want magic to be effective, which is a sort of realism.

Someone surviving several gun shots to the face is unrealistic. It’s the same with someone managing to dodge a bullet or a bolt of lightning. It’s not realistically very effective, to the point where you ask if it’s even actual lightning, or if things are just a lot slower in these fictions.

If a wizard does an instant death spell, it shouldn’t be possible to survive, if it hits you. A shotgun blast to the face should be as effective as that one death curse in Harry Potter (which the books even say cannot be blocked, even with magic). But that curse moves slow, so, wizards just teleport around to “dodge” it.

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>>94419665
>>pre-dorks & dumbasses/vidyatard magic was always portrayed as complicated rituals requiring specific materials and when spells worked they really didn't do much of anything
well, no, that's simply not true. Elric predates D&D by over a decade and along with Conan was a much greater influence on D&D than Lord of the Rings. It's where Alignment as a concept even comes from. And Elric does lots of flashy magic, Melnibone is a decadent high fantasy society in a fairly high magic world, especially when the Lords of Order and Chaos get involved.

>>94419726
>instant death spell with no save as easy to use as a shotgun
That's fair!
>*move behind you* heh nothing personnel kid
THAT'S UNFAIR!!!!

>>94419726
Dude, magic is inherently unrealistic. Even in media focused specifically around magic users like Dresden Files or Earth Sea, there's always some kind of drawback to it whether it's limited by design or held back by the user's inherent physical limitations like the very concept of a somatic component. You can't have it fucking both ways where you demand "realisim" in how nothing can circumvent or inhibit magic yet magic circumvents anything and everything. That's like the kind of specific "only my views are correct" that you get in Superman vs Goku power level debates.

D&D (modern) is being made with Marvel in mind. You’re playing as medieval-adjacent captain America.
Play a low magic system or something like that if you don’t like it

>>94418466
They don't run out of spell slots, they usually do even more damage with the right feats, and they don't go down in one punch.

>>94419781
>Dude, magic is inherently unrealistic
It’s actually very realistic.

“What did you just do? How did you do that??” = magic

Stage magic logic. All religion is started in such a way.

“Those glowy white dots in the night sky, what are they? Must be the gods…” = religion

The psychology that leads up to magic is very realistic. What leads up to “Wow! It’s like magic!” is definitely real.

That’s all magic is. “Magic”. It can’t even exist in fiction, not really. It’s just a way of looking at something. Same way religion is just a way of looking at something.

Neither require truth or honesty either. As that defeats the point of faith. ;) You don’t ask a magician for their secrets, do you?

>>94419689
>most vocal uber-magic supporter uses reddit spacing
it's very telling.

>>94419844
>The psychology that leads up to magic is very realistic. What leads up to “Wow! It’s like magic!” is definitely real.
The brain isnt real shut up

>>94419844
I know that this is just an image board, but I beg of you please write something of substance next time you attempt it

>>94419879
Why? Is the basest, most simplistic of logic, really just too much for you? You do know that I’m not wrong, right? That the elves in Tolkien’s middle earth don’t even believe in (elven) magic?

Magic IS a psychologically substantiated angle. Magic IS a bar. Magic ISN’T the same for all.

>>94419888
You're doing dumb semantic wordplay that not even Tolkien engaged with, who openly admitted some things were supernatural powers/magic as a result of being higher beings. Aragon's magic healing hands are explicitly labeled as magic in Tolkien's own words.

>>94419753
Yes, we know casterfags like pointing at martials and cry whenever martials do anything remotely supernatural but then go quiet when they do shit like teleporting across planes.
>inb4 i-i-it doesn't count!!!!! different rules!!!! only we can rape physics!!!!!

>>94419926
>You're doing dumb semantic wordplay
That’s magic.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosm004.pub2

>>94419931
It's the basest, msot simplistic logic that magic is inherently unrealistic, so it doesn't need to be balanced. It should reflect the most practical, useful depiction of it in fiction but with none of the drawbacks.

>>94419953
okay bro, but it's irrelevant to the actual topic, so just pretend every instance of "Magic" in this thread is substituted for "supernatural powers" or "psionics" or something so you can stop being retarded and missing the point

>>94419965
So why can't martials be magical? Why must they be mundane?

>>94419926
>Aragon's magic healing hands are explicitly labeled as magic in Tolkien's own words.
Sort of, but not really.
— “Aragorn's 'healing' might be regarded as 'magical', or at least a blend of magic with pharmacy and 'hypnotic' processes.”

Listen, the elves don’t believe in magic, and they look to Gandalf the same way the same way humans and hobbits look to the elves.

>muh Supernature
Supernature is still nature. Cope. Do you really think Eru/God would view Himself as a god? Is a human a god or a wizard to an ant, for that matter?

Gandalf. Isn’t. A. Wizard. Back. In. Valinor.

So yes. I’m right. Magic is a bar. It’s very much a relative matter, and what is magic to one is not necessarily going to be magic to another. Simple as.

>>94419970
They can. It’s just funny.

Swing a magic sword, go ahead.

>>94418466
Honestly this >>94418526 is exactly correct and it's where the thread should have ended.

If you want to be able to have a tabletop game with knights who are ordinary humans with no supernatural talents and abilities as a PC option, and you also want to have mages with magical abilities alongside them, you need to place limits on mages and magic so that they don't start as a sparkly gunslinger for the same investment as a knight.

Design the game so it fits your purposes. This shouldn't be a hard concept.

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>>94419984
>Do you really think Eru/God would view Himself as a god?
Uh, yeah.
>Supernature is still nature
the supernatural is by definition separate from the natural, which is useful when making distinction between TTRPG characters whose abilities are natural versus supernatural which is the entire point of this thread.

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>>94420004

>>94420002
Why is the sword the only thing that can be magical? Why can't my own body be magical and perform unrealistic feats?

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>>94420031
Ignore casterfag
Embrace martialchad

>>94420012
>Uh, yeah.
Nope. God knows Himself. He just styles himself a god, the same way a human is able to style themselves a god to an ant.

The idea that God cannot fathom his own Godly logic is asinine—and it’s as though Christians want their Christian God to be just as dumb and limited as they are. This is the issue I have with them. They truly impose their own faulty understanding on to their own deity.

Same with wizards. Often the magic isn’t magic to the magician—not unless they consider it to be magic.

“If you don’t treat nature as magic, or just divine, then you don’t really appreciate it, or science, do you?” was a serious argument starter back then.

Worship a tree, and it’s a god. Be godlike enough, and you’re a god.

>>94418477
I think Black Library (of all people, right?) did this correctly with their depiction of fighters in Warhammer Fantasy novels. Indefatigable monsters that could, over the course of a siege or some such prolonged conflict, effectively turn into meat grinders that even warlords or powerful necromancers just couldn't throw enough bodies into. It's a very meta take if you think about it but I find it compelling because it is relatable from a mechanical standpoint.

>>94420040
Funny thing, I was a casterfag when I was younger, but I ended up becoming a martialfag. Give me a swordsman so strong they can split mountains or so fast they can slice the wind and make a vacuum.

>>94420012
>the supernatural is by definition separate from the natural
And if you’re not an idiot, you will notice the sheer irony surrounding the natural. If something exists, it is nature/natural, and hair like “that ain’t natural” is an opinion.

Like that time scientists were arguing over the weird cigar shaped object in the depths of space. Someone thought it was an alien spacecraft. “No, it’s natural”, is what the skeptics said, to which the nerds responded with “…so aliens would be a supernatural occurrence to you?”.

You definition fags don’t do well in the critical thinking area of the brain. You just listen to what you’re told. Like sheep.

>>94420077
We're talking about power source distinctions in tabletop roleplaying games. If "magic" or "supernatural" as descriptors triggers your autism, replace the word with "divine miracle" instead. Or are we at the point where Moses parting the Red Sea is actually completely natural and indistinguishable from a guy with a crossbow and longsword?

>>94420077
>If something exists, it is nature/natural
Glad we finally got that sorted. Martials being strong enough to contend with casters is natural then.

>>94420090
>Or are we at the point where Moses parting the Red Sea is actually completely natural and indistinguishable from a guy with a crossbow and longsword?
That’s only divine/supernatural/magical/etc to Moses and the Jews and the Egyptians.
To God, who is capable of doing a lot more than parting seas, this won’t be magical or divine or supernatural to Him. It’s just what He does.
I think that’s what they’re trying to tell you anon. What is Miraculous to men is not at all miraculous to God.

>>94420060
I'm more partial to stuff like "shooting a bow and hitting the eye of a gold fish by looking at its reflection alone" and "defending yourself against nine warriors of worth while being buried in a hole to the belt".

>>94420113
He’s an idiot anon. He wants humans to impose their own failures on to their God. They want their ignorance to be shared by their God. This is why Christians actually hate their God. They don’t treat their God like an individual, or allow any sort of agency to God. He may as well be a giant superpowered human.

>>94420113
Except this faggots has already whined about Christianity not counting because the Abrahamic God DOES consider himself a God and above mankind
>>94420052
>The idea that God cannot fathom his own Godly logic is asinine—and it’s as though Christians want their Christian God to be just as dumb and limited as they are. This is the issue I have with them. They truly impose their own faulty understanding on to their own deity.

>>94420134
ok bro, if everything that exists is by definition natural, the answer to how martials defeat wizards shooting lightning and exploding heads and throwing fireballs is by dodging lightning, punching fireballs out of the air, and headbutting the spells back at the caster. It's all natural because they can do it. It's not magic, you just saw the Barbarian flex his way out of a Forcecage, therefore it's not supernatural or above nature at all. Goku is natural.

>>94420152
nooo that's not realistic!!!

>>94420136
>the Abrahamic God DOES consider himself a God
Irrelevant. It’s like a human considering themselves a god to a colony of mice.

Again. Would God consider His miracles truly Miraculous? The answer is No. It’s just what He does, casually. Reasonable humans would not consider themselves a god to mice, outside of “well, yes, I am a superior being, technically”. Do you truly want to subscribe arrogance to God? The same way a human would be arrogant to consider themselves a god to ants?

By that point it’s just a self-style. Oh well.

Also, do you really think God wouldn’t call you an idiot for taking everything in the Bible at face value? Do you think God is an idiot? That he doesn’t know what fable or metaphor or literary unreliability is?

Just say you hate your God.

>>94420192
I guess I'm not human because I consider myself human. Oh Well.

>>94420125
At this point, it does sound a lot cooler than "wave your hands and you win" that most people obsessed with casters seem to portray magic as.

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>>94420192
>Would God consider His miracles truly Miraculous?
He knows they're miracles to us and calls them miracles, yes. I know autistic people have trouble with empathy and understanding perspectives other than their own exist but this is silly.

>>94418477
you sure?

>>94420261
What’s silly? Your inability to give God his own agency? You speak sympathy, but it appears you have no sympathy for God.
>He knows they're miracles to us and calls them miracles
I know dropping a pack of jelly beans on an anthill is a miracle to and ants, and so I call it a miracle, to the ants.

>>94420306
Anon. These people can’t put themselves in God’s shoes, however futile. They can’t think interchangeably. They only see one side of the same coin. They insist God is as stupid as they are. They really think God doesn’t do metaphor, and that He literally made the universe in seven days.

>>94420306
inb4 “n-no, those jelly beans are totally d-different!”

How is it any different from Jesus making more fish and bread for people?

>>94418466
>"Chain lightning is equivalent to actual lightning, which means you shouldn't get a saving throw!"
>Evasion implies Rogues have hypersonic, if not relativistic, speed as a result of this
Just admit that you're either
>A) a troll
or
>B) a degenerate powerscaler looking to jerk off your fantasy self-insert OC, who is not willing to be intellectually honest about what the game is meant to do or mechanics are meant to represent.

>>94420306
Okay, so why can you understand there's a difference between what ants are naturally capable of, versus an ant who's good at begging for jellybeans to rain down from heaven, and that the natural biological capabilities of a soldier ant are separate from "run in circles to make jelly beans fall from a human"?

if we're playing A Bug's Life TTRPG, a soldier ant is a "martial" and the "cleric" and who's got a class feature letting him beg for jellybeans from the neighbor kids, why can you not distinguish between John Fighterman who battles with a longsword and shield versus Elf Moses, who instead of jellybeans, uses his Cleric powers to call down lightning and fireballs?

Remember that this entire discussion is about character power sources in TTRPGs. You have admitted that "and begging for jelly beans" is miraculous to the ant; it's the same as a cleric begging for Flame Strike.

>>94420416
Anon, if those ants were sapient and capable of forming religion, anon’s point would still follow.

“These little creatures worship me, for I may as well be a giant wizard, or god, or something, to them. Better play the part.”

Like, to the physicist, God is just an alien of sufficient, godlike capability, of likely a higher dimensional nature.

>>94420416
>You have admitted that "and begging for jelly beans" is miraculous to the ant; it's the same as a cleric begging for Flame Strike.
Yes, but whatever/whoever delivered the jelly beans—or whoever allowed your use of Flame Strike—isn’t going to see it as a miraculous thing. That’s the point. God is not truly a God to Himself, and if God is calling Himself a God, it’s just a self-style the way a human can style themselves a god to a colony of sapient ants.

You can’t even call the Bible true about anything. It’s just a narrative to follow. It’s why I’m convinced God would Facepalm if someone had told Him they believed all of the Bible—everything in the Bible. He’d be concerned for their intelligence.

>>94420429
And if you had a scifi RPG where one class was a guy with a bunch of guns and a rocket launcher,and the other was Professional Scientologist who called out for the Dark Lord Xenu to strike down his enemies and throw them into volcanoes, there is still a meaningful differentiation between the source of their abilities.

>>94420470
>a guy with a bunch of guns and a rocket launcher,and the other was Professional Scientologist who called out for the Dark Lord Xenu to strike down his enemies and throw them into volcanoes, there is still a meaningful differentiation between the source of their abilities.
Not really. It’s just a gap in accessibility. The former is going about their own intellectual, scientific ingenuity. The latter is petitioning a more advanced alien to do a thing for them. The alien IS the former, to itself, utilizing alien technology (“magic”) on behalf of the human. Again, gods are aliens, if they aren’t of the terrestrial sphere at all. Simple as. Magic is just an angle, as another said. An alien is free to land on a less primitive planet and style themselves a wizard or some god-king. They may as well be. They’re of wondrous capability, relative to the planet.

>>94420492
alright now we're back to Goku is natural

>>94418466
Casters only seem better in games like D&D because most GM’s baby their casters rather than try to exhaust their spellslots.

>>94420466
>isn’t going to see it as a miraculous thing
So fucking what? The act for a god is still going to be called a miracle, because thats what the activity is called. A divinely given gift, whether mundane ala jelly beans or something that subverts or opposes physics ala a rain of fire from a sun god, is called a miracle. That it wouldn't be miraculous to the person giving it doesn't matter. The same is true of magic, spellcasting, and wizards. To a wizard a spell isnt an awe and wonder creating subversion of reality, its just their specialization and way of doing shit.

Your weird little semantic arguments are stupid. Please refer to this definition magic: 1a: the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces, b: magic rites or incantations. See how it refers to spells and magical effects? Thats what everyone means when referring to magic. Your remarkably stupid argument is trying to refute magical spells as not existing in fantastical worlds where magical spells actually exist and work.

Where the supernatural, a super nature outside the Universe ala Heavens and Hells and other places, as not existing or as having the same physics as our Universe. Even when the settings explicitly denote the many ways they differ from our physics and that the material plane is often a place where the physics are quite different from the greater super nature. Thus creating a nature, one of many, that differs from the supernatural, a wider bigger nature outside the universes nature, and that the supernatural can reimpose its nature back upon the nature of the universe, creating special magical effects.

Please stop being a fucking retard upon the Dunning Kruger mount stupid where you have just enough information to make really asinine and stupid arguments.

>>94418466
They sell their soul to the machine god so their dreams are filled with schematics of firearms, traps, bombs and what have you and then they make comically elaborate plans to lure the magic users into a jigsaw tier hideout where they fail and fall one by one MXC style.

>>94418466
360 no scope headshot gg

>>94420692
This is a lot of ablooobloooblooo

>>94420858
And youre just a retarded troll unable to refute it.

>>94420552
What's a good game that makes magic feel appropriately powerful but needs the proper setup to do it with then?

>>94418466
>How do martials complete with the people who can casually fire the equivalent of sparkly bullets from their fingertips

A:
>equivalent of sparkly bullets from their fingertips
The same way they deal with archers

B:
>equivalent of sparkly bullets from their fingertips
>... And this have the equivalent force of a semi-truck or something else silly.
The fighter can perform super human feats as well, such as punching through solid metal, or slicing the very air.

>>94420928
You forgot
C.
>equivalent of sparkly bullets from their fingertips
>......And it took them hours if not day to set up
By finding a way to avoid it, enduring the magic bullets, or setting up a way to counteract the magic bullets like a enchanted shield.

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Parry.
>https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxus6KWANcLsc-Xef0CSTJFXqOW3F3YaBl?si=hAqsxe-Ol4a5bjuh

>>94421127
Elder Scrolls is actually a great example of a high fantasy setting where this retarded "D&D-specific martial caster divide" is completely irrelevant, and is probably one of the best examples to give to a D&D-drone who's never played any other games that it doesn't have to be that way.

>>94418466
>Non-sparkly lead bullets from a gun
>Sparkly armor that resists/nullifies magic
>Just tanking it
>Sneaking up on gay magic nerds and getting too close for them to cast AoE shit
>Scrolls

I'm not sure why any player of tabletop games (or hell, even secondary vidya player or novel reader for fucks sake) would struggle with the fact that martials just use magically-empowered equipment or supernaturally high strength/resilience to survive and compete with casters

This is like asking how wizards should deal with the fact that magic doesn't exist in real life. Obviously if you frame the situation as a level 0 equivalent "realistic" martial fighting an ostensibly much higher level caster the latter is going to win.

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>>94418466

>>94421127
>narrator: at that moment the high elf thought "WAIT, THAT'S LEGAL?!"

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spellcasters are crybabies.

>b-but this magic system is not realistic.

Of course it's not realistic, idiot, it's fantasy, if it were really realistic you would get a guy with a sword stabbing a Harry Potter fan who thinks he can do real magic.

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>>94418466
sneak attack is always an option, they can't cast a spell on you if they can't see you.

>>94420893
There’s no real point in refuting your post if you keep continuing to think that the supernatural *isn’t* an oxymoron based around relative unfamiliarity, and how it all extends to equivalent concepts like magic, miracles, the divine, etc.

Your post is coming dangerously close to agreeing with me, however—that magic (the supernatural, the divine, etc) is just an angle reliant on relative exposures, or exposure logic. It’s a way of looking at a thing. No different from looking at stars in the night sky and considering them gods.

Come back to me when you start using actual logic. Getting mad that magic is a matter of pure semantics implies you don’t know what magic even is. It’s pure psychology. It has never not been about semantics or subjective perceptions.

>>94420692
>To a wizard a spell isnt an awe and wonder creating subversion of reality, its just their specialization and way of doing shit.
Of course. To the wizard it’s just science that’s magic to observers. Modern science is already meeting the criteria to be considered magic, all the time, it’s just not considered magic.
>Thus creating a nature, one of many, that differs from the supernatural, a wider bigger nature outside the universes nature, and that the supernatural can reimpose its nature back upon the nature of the universe, creating special magical effects.
That’s just exotic physics, aka metaphysics or physics sourced to a different universe or dimension. It’s still physics however. Physicists already speculate on higher dimensions, but they don’t refer to it as magic (even though it totally is).

>>94421412
>that the supernatural *isn’t* an oxymoron based around relative unfamiliarity
The supernatural isnt unfamiliarity, its something above or outside the universe. 1: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe
For example, in Pathfinder the material plane is literally the universe we live in. Outside it is the various elemental planes, the various heavens and hells, and then outside of all of this is the unending chaos of unreality. Magic and the various supernatural effects that can happen and exist because of this order of existence outside the Universe.

You keep trying to argue this as though the games dont assume the writing is based on the viewpoint of creatures which inhabit the Universe, and trying to categorize these things which are outside of it.

>you don’t know what magic even is
Do you?
1a: the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces
b: magic rites or incantations
Because you dont seem to understand that the anthropological, psychological, and other scientific definitions don't apply outside those specific disciplines to explaining a world that doesnt have actual magical effects but which various societies act like they do. When trying to talk about settings which do have these effects and realms you cannot use these definitions, and you keep doing it because you think youre smart for having read up on the psychology of magical thinking.

>>94421431
>but they don’t refer to it as magic
And the games which we are playing in are set in times when science hasn't monopolized the language of explaining reality. To the people of the world it is still magic, even if many parts of it have been studied or turned into a "science". It's a foreign metaphysics studied and categorized by people who do not have our modern language of science.

Both arguments are semantic bullshit that forgets the games are set in premodern times lacking modern scientific language.

>>94421431
>Physicists already speculate on higher dimensions, but they don’t refer to it as magic (even though it totally is).
You confuse speculation with theory.

>>94421431
>but they don’t refer to it as magic
>>94421412
>Getting mad that magic is a matter of pure semantics
Then what the fuck do I refer to magical spells as? When my mage casts fireball, what is the proper language to refer to this "magic" in a scientific manner?
Or what do I use to refer to the supernatural undeath of a skeleton? How about the elemental breath of dragons, which uses supernatural portals in a magical organ to flood its blood with elemental energy? Whats the proper language I should be using?

If you don't respond to this then your arguments are a complete waste of time and stupid bullshit.

>>94421579
>You confuse speculation with theory.
If you're a retarded string theorist you absolutely do speculate.

>>94421572
>The supernatural isnt unfamiliarity, its something above or outside the universe.
That's an oxymoron. You can't supersede nature/existence. If something exists, it's just nature/existence. This is what they(me) mean.
>of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe
Metaphysics is still physics, to the physicist. It's just more exotic, alien, transcendent physics. That's it.

>>94418466
Why is it assumed the magic user is also a capable fighter who won't fold against someone who is actually trained and aggressive?

Where do you have the unlimited spells to keep throwing at the endless waves of mooks who do nothing but just run in a straight line on flat plane and with enough distance to let you do whatever?

Why wouldn't the warriors be aware of how magic works and how to fight and kill magic users their enemies use and they come across all the time?

Why wouldn't there be other magic users who are trained to keep other magic users in check? Why wouldn't the very warriors and soldiers also know how to use magic?

>>94418488
but then there's shit like misty step, haste and other bullshit

By playing a better game than D&D.

>>94418488
Enjoy your force cage.

>>94419134
Yes to all three, in fact.

>>94418551
What is an army of martials going to do to the guy that has infinity angels, and doesn't even need to be on the material plane to use them against you?

>>94418561
A caster's domain is the entire universe, coping retard

>>94418621
Force effects and most conjurations ignore anti magic, as do the prismatic series of spells.

>>94418714
Prowlers and Paragons.

>>94418676
You mean by dying when you run out of hit points?

>>94418799
We aren't talking about nature. We're talking about games. Are you okay?

>>94418792
Then why are martials in the game at all? What reason is there to play a guy who can't do anything, as opposed to a guy who can do anything?

>>94418811
There is no tactic that will allow you to overcome an opponent who is just better than you in every way.

https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Wish_and_the_Word_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build)

>>94418857
Yeah, that isn't what evolution is, at all. Please pick up a textbook.

>>94418792
No, you're saying that the spell is so telegraphed that a fast enough reaction will avoid it. Get some perspective.

>>94418466
>Magic Resistant gear
>"The enemy can't push the nuke button if you disable his hand!"
>Magic may have less range than bows
>Magic could require large sacrificial rituals that makes it ineffective in direct combat
It depends on the setting really.

>>94418872
An equilibrium isn't balance.
Balance, as it is being used in the context of this discussion, has a very specific definition.
When a game system is balanced, it means there is no single strategy that dominates the alternative strategies.
What constitutes a "strategy" varies greatly and does not refer to a specific game element.
A strategy may be very general, and may not have a well-defined metric available for evaluation : Which class is the best to pick in this game?
A strategy may be highly specific, and easy to evaluate : Assuming I'm a single-classed fighter, what is the best way to allocate my finite feats in order to deal the highest possible amount of damage per action to single targets?
A strategy may lie somewhere between these two extremes : As a single-classed specialist wizard, which schools of magic are the least effective, and thus are easy choices to ban? Which spells should I take at each level up in order to be prepared for as many different possibilities as possible? Which ones should I pick to ensure I can target a wide variety of saving throws? Which magic items should I craft to raise my caster level and spell save DCs as high as possible?

In general, we say a strategy is dominant when there is no reason to pick any of the competing alternatives over it - we say it is strictly better than the others. This is a design failure, and is to be avoided. For example, in some versions of street fighter, akuma is banned, because if he wasn't, no one would ever pick any other character. Picking akuma was a dominant strategy.

In D&D, writing "wizard" or "cleric" or "druid" on your character street is a dominant strategy. Picking Transmutation and Conjuration is a dominant strategy. Banning evocation is a dominant strategy. Using divine metamagic is a dominant strategy. Crafting Int-boosting and save-boosting items is a dominant strategy.

As you can see, D&D is full of dominant strategies. Because it's a terrible game.

>>94420905
D&D. This is almost entirely a GM problem.

>>94418881
The world did create those statues. It created humans, which created statues.
If beehives are natural, then so is everything humans have ever built.

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>>94422615
>The world did create those statues. It created humans, which created statues.
He's saying the world can't create those statues without first creating those humans to create those statues.

>>94422627
Right, and I'm saying that it in no way follows that those things are artificial. Why do you think I mentioned beehives?

>>94418466
by raising an army

>>94419411
>Science is literally a true descendent of past occult/“magical” thought The modern day wizard is literally just the mad/“mad” scientist poking at the edges of our understanding.
>People who call gunmen and bomb makers “martials” are actually retarded.
you are trying way too hard

>>94419411
Nope. If you don't get spell slots as a class feature, you're a martial.

>>94422648
> that it in no way follows that those things are artificial.
The artificial is perfectly natural. A computer is as natural as an anthill.

>>94422703
Yeah, that's what I said.

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>>94422682
>he thinks you need to be good at martial combat to use guns or make bombs.

>>94422711
If you don't have spell slots as a class feature, you're a martial.

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>>94422705
Sure.

>>94422717
Yes.

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>>94419984
>elves don't believe in magic
>elves use magic
>there are still living elves that literally saw sauron using magic

So are elves like the flat earthtards of middle earth where they just deny the truth of their own eyes because they want to be seen as big brained?

>>94422723
No you're just retarded anon. The point is elves don't believe in ELVEN magic.

>>94422730
Yet they cast elvish magic retard.

>>94418727
Have fun playing shitty games then.

>>94422711
>he thinks bombs are magic

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>>94422735
Retard!

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>>94422748
>he thinks physics isn’t magic

>>94422723
Anon but middle earth is flat. It just get more rounder as time goes on.

>>94422554
>3.5
Well there's your problem right there

>>94422528
Because 99.99999% of wizards never reach that point and at that level of conflict the martial probably has a few hundred casters in his own retinue and a whole vault of legendary magic items anyway.

>>94418799
>A magic missile to the face SHOULD kill you.
Anon, a magic missile is just a long-distance sucker punch. Basically no edition and no D&D-inspired fantasy store had it be any more effective than that without ridiculous gimmicky over-investment.

>>94423768
Magic missile has been shit to situational in every single version of D&D since its creation.

>>94418792
This whole argument can be moved in the exact opposite direction. There's no reason magic has to be inherently overpowered just because some hyper-autists throw a shitfit about balance being artificial.

It makes just as much sense for magic to be gimmicky or even utterly worthless as it does for it to be the instrument of ascending to arcane godhood. But that would be fucking boring, so the most fun answer is to compromise when designing a game that's meant to be played both by people that want to use magic and those who don't but still wanna be in a world of magic.

>>94423768
>>94423785
Meant to reply to >>94418799

>>94418862
Magic missiles are unavoidable because they track their targets. The gun comparison was always asinine.

>>94418466
You ever watched Mashle or Wistoria?
Like that

>>94419696
>>94419726
Then why do you lot get so pissy when the villain is a superior wizard to you?

Oh, is instant death not fun when I use it on you? Get counter counterspelled nerd.

>>94423799
>Magic missiles are unavoidable because they track their targets
Flex them away stupid

>>94423788
>There's no reason magic has to be inherently overpowered
Replace overpowered with effective. See >>94419726

>>94423788
Also see >>94419315

The idea that all magic has to be about combat is stupid.

>>94422908
Applies to every edition without exception.

>>94423749
>B-but I'll just never use 80% of the product I paid for! Ch-checkmate!

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>>94418643
>Next.

>>94424344
d&d is combat, retard.

>>94424478
Yeah, next.

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>>94420192
>It’s like a human considering themselves a god to a colony of mice.
No it isn't, because mankind did not create the colony of ants.

>Would God consider His miracles truly Miraculous? The answer is No. It’s just what He does, casually.
Nobody would know.

You legit come off as one of those atheist+ tards that like to wax poetic about how much they know about religion while missing the fundamentals that are the philisophical foundations to understanding them.

>>94420192
Did you mean "ascribe"? Retard.

>>94422528
I ask God to revoke your powers. What now?

>>94424496
>because mankind did not create the colony of ants
So we’re gods to AI? Yeah no.

>>94424496
Calling that one an atheist like it’s some sort of buzzword just shows how stupid you are, anon. I don’t care for theists or atheists, as they’re both stuck on two sides of the same bloody coin.

If I told you that all religion is just a game of playing pretend that humans take way too far, would you accuse me of wearing (tipping) a fedora?

>>94424570
I'd accuse you of being willingly ignorant, which is worse than being it accidentally. There was a point I thought the same way. Then I grew up and started asking real questions about how the very nature of existence is possible.

So while I find it unbelievable that any one religion holds the answers, to flat out disregarding the potential of divine intervention is one of the most blatant examples of hubris mankind can fool itself into.

>>94424585
So you’re just mad that I view divinity as a point of view? Wow. You’re definitely of the theist sort, even if you don’t believe it, which is hilarious when even religious people would call the “inferior” gods of other religions “gay ass demons”. A point of view, that.

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>>94424585
Anon. At its most basic, you’re just going about an attempt at attributing the world you live in to some grand designer mind or intellect. Physicists do that too, and the search for alien life is definitely religious.

You don’t need to be religious to believe in the existence of higher beings. It’s just believing in aliens. God is an alien.

God to the physicist is just a sufficiently advanced/powerful/“Godly” alien entity, likely sourced to higher dimensions.

God to the Christian, is simply ‘He’, ‘God’, ‘Yahweh’, ‘Jehovah’, ‘The Father’, etc. He is a Name. A divinely reverential figure.

To the Christian who is also a physicist—it is both. All the pro-physics Christians in the world look at god through a scientific lens. Even “the man with the highest IQ in America”. Pic related.

Evolution would just be one of the tools of a hypothetical “God” alien.

Christians who don’t keep up to date with nature aren’t actually true Christians. The fact is that they’re behind.

>>94424601
No, I'm irritated that you have a decent grasp on how divine intervention is based on the human condition (which is true), but then turn and claim people who study religion somehow hate their God because of some personal strawman you're pushing onto them. I actually see eye to eye with your attempt to explain how divine magic is only thus because of how we perceive it, and how an ant being granted a jelly bean is magical to them when it comes off as mundane to us. My issue is that you are bringing that perspective and shoving it in a philisophical practice where it doesn't apply (Christianity) and implying it's followers are stupid or hate their God when you personally don't seem to understand anything that involves the study/teaching of Christianity.

>>94424648
You hate your God because you think he is as stupid and ignorant as you are; the people who worship Him.

You assume God would look at himself the same way you look at him. Not only does this remove God’s own agency, it’s just fucking weird how you can’t manage to put yourself in another’s shoes—even God. It may sound like hubris, but it’s the basis of sympathy.

Have sympathy for God.

>>94424636
>I believe that there is a level on which science and religious metaphor are mutually compatible
This can only happen if religious people aren’t stupid, and most of them are.

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you probably have more life and better defense than the spellcaster, plus you can probably break the state easily.

>>94424659
Refer back to >>94424496

>>94424533
Now I kill you with my angels, since none of the gods have any incentive to listen to you.

>>94424585
we don't understand it, so it m-must be god!! if he isn't real, I'd be lonely!

child.

>>94424636
what makes you think aliens would be higher beings? what does "higher" mean? how are you measuring this?

>>94424964
Do you know what alien even means? Or entails? Implies?

>>94418466
cut their fingers off.

>>94425199
Christians are actually retarded anon.

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OP is right. Pic related just wins.

>>94425199
It doesn't mean "higher", certainly. Why don't you answer any of my questions?

>>94426863
If something is “higher”, then that implies it isn’t sourced to the terrestrial sphere.

That’s extraterrestrial. Extra. Terrestrial.

Of course God wouldn’t be sourced to the thing he Himself made.

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>this thread again
>nearly 300 replies
you people are just desperate for something to talk about aren't you

>>94418507
>The brute lethal effectiveness of physics has no true place in raw tabletop. Just try changing my mind.
Look up the 21 foot rule.
>>94418466
>How do martials complete with the people who can casually fire the equivalent of sparkly bullets from their fingertips
Larger health pool, constant and devastating damage at will, and in most non shit systems the additional ability to use special abilities at will. Wizards are resource driven and require more technical/intellectual play so not as to blow their wad and become useless between reloads. Rogues are hybrids of these two play styles. If you're asking me how you deal with this in a shit show like D&D where the resource mechanic gets raped after about five levels in, the fighters get dick for special abilities, and there are magical options like the Warlock that simply don't ever have to stop casting. The answer is that's a fault of the system not the general theory. There's also some systems where Wizards are too hamstrung and martials become the far more appealing option.

>>94427053
No, higher doesn't mean extra-terrestrial. Extra-terrestrial means extra-terrestrial. Try again.

>>94427159
So they can't compete, then. Glad you agree.

>>94418466
Shoot the wizard

>>94422534
"A caster's domain is the entire univer-"
*ass and soul get raped by a god he pissed off*
"-ACK!"

>>94427709
Nope.

>>94418714
PF2e.

Depends on what kind of sparkly bullet? But it shouldn't be hard. actually any warrior wearing gambson should be able handle a wizard one to one. As long as wizard doesn't hit anything uncovered. Fire? We have gambson ment for fire. Cold? It's a big jacket jt can keep heat in. Lightning? Electricity doesn't like organic material. But if magic bullet man his the weapon the electricity would be able to kill. Also most warriors know how to use crossbows.

>>94418466
by having a good DM that doesn't let the party long rest 4 times a session

>>94427626
You are actually retarded lmao

>>94428148
Did that make you feel better about not knowing what "extra-terrestrial" means?

>>94428221
Keep thinking higher dimensional beings are Earthian.

>>94428236
No one said that. Answer my questions.

>>94418466
can't casually cast spells if you can't stop coughing. You'd be surprised how effective a crossbow bolt that can produce a cloud of irritant dust.

>>94428380
lmfao. How are you going to find the wizard to use it?

>>94419926
I have no idea and I don't care about 'lore' but in general magic in Tolkien comes down ultimately to will. The whole book is really about temptation and will in the end I suppose because of his Catholicism. Good magic pushes things along their natural path according to their nature, bad magic corrupts it. Elven magic runs out of road because it risk moving from one category to the other, the world itself is changing and holding that back would be wrong. From a "pick from a list and roll D6" perspective this magic makes less sense, the Gandalf running from orcs should not be the Gandalf five minutes later wrestling a Balrog. But while I know he is an immortal angel or something, the point is really "You cannot pass" as the object of his will. Immolating orcs with fireballs isn't really the same order of thing. Just like Sauron isn't casting snow spells when the mountain road becomes impassable, its just an expression of his will "being bent on it".

Context works well in fiction, games are never good at context for all their claims. It would always risk seeming capricious even though in Middle Earth magic never seems capricious because its so embedded.

they don't

>>94419411
The single biggest group of people practicing anicent mediterranean demon summoning are the waifu gatcha players, actually.

>>94418466
>equivalent of getting zapped by a light circuit short or opening the oven too quickly while you're standing too close up to 3 times per day
You faggots have never actually played tabletop games and it shows.