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[Teneb]

That description of wizards makes them sound like the classic competitive game tryhard.

 "Instantly immolating my enemies isn't a bug! It's tech, and it takes a very precise input sequence and timing. Instead of whining about it in the town square, why don't you get good and learn to counterspell? I bet you're a fighter, ugh."

"Ugh, noob paladin."

[Tawa]

this reminds me violently of melee fanboys and i'm upset

levels don exits

[Neonivek]

Divine magic is channelled from the gods through you. You ask nicely, they allow you some of their power, you fire the spell. It roughly the same relationship as with Warlocks and their masters. Divine Souls differ from Clerics and Paladins through not needing to ask nicely first, they innately have the ability/allowance to use their deity's power.

Arcane magic involves the manipulation of magic energy itself. I'm not entirely sure how it is in generic DnD or other settings, but in Forgotten Realms this is done through manipulating the Weave, which is a metaphysical construct created by Mystra, goddess of magic. This differs from divine magic in that if casting a spell is like travelling to a destination, then divine magic is getting a ride or a taxi there, while arcane magic is like looking at a map and driving there yourself.

Negative and Positive Energy are not inherently divine. There's nothing singularly arcane about matter, space, and time.

Divinity is just the catalyst it still exists outside the gods themselves (essence of why the Arcanist exists... Err... The class that has both arcane and divine but no patron), and even then the gods themselves can use Divine magic. So what IS it?

As well Druids can cast Divine spells without any god being involved (they CAN worship nature gods, but it isn't a requirement for their magic to function... and to my knowledge it isn't because they secretly grant them to all druids)

As for Forgotten Realm... Mystra is a liar! and created the Weave so no one would do real magic.

As for Negative and Positive energy not being inherently divine, if that is true... Then they interact directly with the divine (Hence why the Book of Exalted Deeds is affected by Negative Energy)

What I mean is... Magic is both Arcane and Divine, together they are the true essence of magic and could even be considered the essence of the universe.

What does Divine bring to this duality? It is more than just flavor that Divine magic can do things that Arcane magic cannot (and vise versa... outside reality warping and pseudospells). I mean is Arcane the natural/supernatural and Divine is the Preternatural? (Yes I know those are synonyms)

[Gentlefish]

If we accept "The Gods" and "The Universe" as two wholly different things, having the divide between Divine and Arcane magic makes a whole lot of sense. Especially seeing as divine bonus spells usually give access to some arcane magics; that could be seen as the gods' inherent connections with those aspects of reality, where arcane magic users simply manipulate reality. They can't do some of the really fancy stuff that clerics can, like actually ressurect people, but they're able to warp reality to their will such that they can make their own pocket dimensions.

[Rolan7]

My understanding is that "divine" simply means channeling an external power.  You're absolutely right, no gods need be involved (I'm defaulting to 3.5e as usual):

If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. The restriction on alignment domains still applies.

A Chaotic Good cleric can choose to worship, say, travel and good.  Devotion and insight (WIS) somehow lets them channel the power of these raw concepts into spells.  I imagine it's like an 80's cartoon hero learning the true meaning of friendship, and believing in it so strongly that the evil villain's fireball/hypnosis/whatever just fails.

Many cleric domains have actual planes, so the power probably comes from there. 
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists/clericDomains.htm
The Good domain is all about protection and smiting evil, which makes sense if it's channeled from the good-aligned afterlives.
The Healing domain spells are entirely Conjuration(Healing), even regeneration, conjuring/channeling the Positive Energy Plane.  Reminder that Healing is *not* Good- The Positive Energy Plane is even more lethal than the negative.  It heals you, then keeps going, quickly giving you (to quote Wikipedia) "explosive cancer of the everything".  Also all your equipment explodes due to being unliving?  Remember kids:  Heal responsibly.

Domains like travel and war are weirder since they don't really have planes.  I guess they're just strong enough themes in the fabric of existence to resonate and react to worship.

Druids specifically channel nature, which is why they must be at least partially neutral.  Nature is neutral, even the direst wolf is Always Neutral.  It's not malicious, the pack needs to eat.
Personally I like the idea that druids may be especially antagonistic towards forces from alignment planes.  I think that's just headcanon though.  They're clearly cool with the *elemental* planes, which many of their spells conjure from.  Also they can literally turn into elementals.

The Paladin page of the SRD doesn't even mention "god", "deity", or "worship".  So they're presumably just as free to worship Lawful-Goodness.  I'm not sure if their power comes from Celestia, or perhaps just the (incredibly inaccurate) depiction of chivalry they follow.  The idea of helping the weak and fighting with honor is a resonant one.

Ranger magic sucks and they ought to be purely extraordinary instead of supernatural, but I guess they channel nature too.  And sometimes speceism.

Oh, about deities though.  Clearly you *can* channel divine magic through a deity.  If they get displeased, they can cut you off.  Pure-RAW this is mostly a disadvantage, but there are notable benefits to being part of an established religion.  Some spells involve speaking to your deity to get advice, for example, and you may get support from fellow worshipers.

On the other hand, neutral atheist clerics can cast literally any divine spell.  Having any alignment bars you from the opposite alignment spells.  You also get to choose whether to spontaneously conjure positive energy or negative energy (though the choice is permanent.  And channeling negative energy usually sucks.)
Evil clerics can still prepare healing spells, of course, because again... healing spells lack the Good descriptor, and negative energy spells are no more Evil than a broadsword.


I would have talked about arcane magic but I'm not sure what it is, really.  Charisma-based arcane magic seems to be channeling dragon/fey blood, or simply pure universe-rending smugness.  I suppose Intelligence casting is taking advantage of glitches and obscure (literally arcane) quirks of reality to MacGuyver fireballs out of batshit.

[Neonivek]

The stat you use to roll is determined HOW you cast something. Not its source (Well directly)

Favored Souls and Sorcerers use Charisma because the power is their own. It is an extension of their will and personality... It is an expression.
Wizards and Bards use Intelligence because their power is achieved through academic formula.
Clerics and Druids use Wisdom because their power is granted through communion, channeling, and understanding of forces outside of themselves.

Constitution is sometimes used, but for those abilities the magic is very physical.

In theory if a Divine Caster had to write down thick formulas based on various combinations of prayers, that would use Intelligence. (I know there is one, MAYBE two)

And there are Arcane casters who use Wisdom as well.

[Criptfeind]

All these questions about the nature of magic and the universe in D&D are ultimately going to boil down to "it depends on the setting." There's not actually an answer to them for D&D in general since literally every game of D&D takes place in a different universe where the answer might be different.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Wizards and Bards use Intelligence because their power is achieved through academic formula.

what

Edit:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[highmax28]

All these questions about the nature of magic and the universe in D&D are ultimately going to boil down to "it depends on the setting." There's not actually an answer to them for D&D in general since literally every game of D&D takes place in a different universe where the answer might be different.

Pretty much.

Like my setting, arcane magic comes from a power beyond the planes of existence. Wizards learn to project that manifests in their desired effect. Sorcerers have their bloodline of course, but that bloodline, but most Wild Magic sorcerers had theirs manifest (in my setting at least) by having some of that arcane power leak into them by either their mother or father doing something that would bring them close to one of the places in the world where that magic is strongest (kind of like a leyline but I'm not gonna go more into that because I have people in here who play in my settings) or their parents or they themselves experienced some sort of natural magical phenomenon that can be as minute as a slight gust of strange smelling wind to the earth rupturing in a burst of pink fire (sort of like an internal spell-scar).

Divine magic comes from the gods in my setting, obviously. I also split divine and nature magic, so Druids, Rangers and Paladins of the Ancients (and in previous editions, anything that uses nature as a power source) pull their magic from the world itself and its magical nature by communing with it and the world responds with the desired magical effect. Note that if the world is dying, this magic tends to go to the shitter.

I also included demonic and shadow magic in my setting that players don't have access to. Demonic is obvious as it functions like divine magic but with demons, and it mostly works exactly how Warlocks use their magic (I say players don't have access to it, but I've yet to have a demonic worshipping warlock).

Shadow magic is something that Sirus is somewhat familiar with in my 4e game. It was essentially a deeper school of necromancy that ended up manifesting into a very strange magic source when it was discovered. It relies on taking from other sources of magic. And I don't mean it ignores spells by eating them. How it functioned was it grew stronger by feeding off of the world's magic and tended to effect the world around it when it was used (the sun would tend to be blotted out by darkness and light sources burned one level dimmer than usual, and it even manifests sometimes into weather effects if it corrupts an area for long enough) and it gets even stronger by absorbing the souls of living beings. When this happens, it also tends to leave an imprint of itself in those affected (Sirus saw this happen with a caster of this magic pulling the magic out of them and creating clones of them). Its parasitic in nature, and it is the only source of magic powerful enough, if channeled properly, to corrupt or destroy places of the world where magic flows from. Again, can't say much more because players of my settings are in this thread

[Jimmy]

On the topic of how gods get to use divine power since they're the actual power themselves, I've always thought of it as a positive feedback loop. Worshipping a god gives them power, souls of mortal faithful give them even more power.

[Neonivek]

On the topic of how gods get to use divine power since they're the actual power themselves, I've always thought of it as a positive feedback loop. Worshipping a god gives them power, souls of mortal faithful give them even more power.

The actual relationship between a worshipper and a god is interestingly debatable, it could even be argued how much a god REALLY bestows upon their follows and how much is just how much power they let the follower channel.

[BlackFlyme]

DM hates us confirmed.

What was supposed to be a bunch of Rogues became Horselord Cavaliers that could crit on a 12.

We also ran into a dozen CR 8s with mythic tiers. They are not in the book.

[Teneb]

DM hates us confirmed.

What was supposed to be a bunch of Rogues became Horselord Cavaliers that could crit on a 12.

We also ran into a dozen CR 8s with mythic tiers. They are not in the book.

Why not call your DM on it?

Also, finished my sort-of-mini campaign of Eclipse Phase. It was mostly intended as a learning experience, but it worked out well enough. Players said they want to play more, but we all agreed on going with a theme and them rolling new characters (that they decided was going to be basically a pirate crew). One player in particular declared that after playing EP, he'd rather not play D&D ever again.

[BlackFlyme]

Don't want to cause a scene.

Others aren't enjoying this either. I don't know if they know the DM is messing with the books. He says everything is by the book when asked.

[Kadzar]

So I've been DMing 5e for the past month or so. Last Wednesday, I needed an encounter on the quick, so I took one of my pregenerated encounters, which was originally rated Easy for 7 6th level PCs, and added some more enemies to make it more challenging. I somewhat overdid it, though, since we were down to 5 players that night, so my adjustment turned it into a Deadly encounter.

They were fine though (only the Wizard got dropped to zero, and he survived), since they had only had a single Easy encounter so far that day, and they have a generous amount of magic items. Also, the Spies (the statblock I was using), rolled a lot of ones especially when trying to jump down from or climb up the boxes (this took place in a warehouse), so they didn't perform as well as they could. Also, a Stealth roll failure meant they didn't get to apply Sneak Attack damage to the one ballista shot they got off. (Protip: if a sketchy dude is offering to sell you a ballista and he has it under a cloth, it's probably not the best idea to stand in front of its firing arc.)

Moral of the story: At 6th level, an increase from 8 to 12 CR 1 enemies is still significant.